Featured Blu-ray Review: Beauty and the Beast: 25th Anniversary

September 26, 2016

Beauty and the Beast: 25th Anniversary - Buy from Amazon: DVD or Blu-ray Combo Pack
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Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast: 25th Anniversary Blu-ray is the third review of the week and the second one for a movie I previously reviewed. The previous one, Highlander was a pleasant surprise, as it had lots of new extras. Will this one be the same? Is it also worth the upgrade?

The Movie

Like I said, I’ve previously reviewed this film and I don’t have a lot more to say about it. It is a true classic and the Blu-ray release from before was fantastic. Pick of the Week material for sure. This time around...

The Extras

Extras begin with an audio commentary track on the extended edition of the movie. In addition to the theatrical and extended edition, there is also a sing-along edition. Featurettes begin with Always Belle, an eleven and a half minute long featurette on Paige O’Hara, a.k.a., Belle. Menken and Friends is a 19-minute featurette on the music, specifically Alan Menken and the influence he’s had. #1074: Walt, Fairy Tales & Beauty and the Beast is a ten-minute look at Disney studio and fairytales. The Recording Sessions are four minutes of video of the recording sessions. 25 Facts about Beauty and the Beast is exactly what it sounds like. There is also a short preview for the upcoming 2017 Beauty and the Beast.

Unfortunately, the rest of the extras that were on the previous Blu-ray release are not ported over. This includes a Picture-in-Picture feature that had the animatics of the film. It is rare for PiP tracks to be worth watching, but animated films had a easy way to do PiP right. There are so many different stages of animation that simply showing one of them in the PiP was enough. However, PiP has been phased out of Blu-rays because few releases used it effectively, so it was easier just to drop it.

The Verdict

If you have the Diamond Edition Blu-ray of Beauty and the Beast and like Picture-in-Picture features, then you are going to want to keep it. If you don’t have it, then the 25th Anniversary Blu-ray costs half as much as getting the now out of print Diamond Edition.

Filed under: Video Review, Paige O'Hara, Alan Menken