Toon Zone Talkback - "Gulliver's Travels" Blu-ray, or How Not to Do Animation Squash and Stretch

[Speedy Boris]

This is the talkback thread for "Gulliver's Travels" Blu-ray, or How Not to Do Animation Squash and Stretch.


I've never actually seen this movie. But I would guess that Blu-ray is not the place to first see it?

[Ed Liu]

Not if you want a version that doesn't suck, unfortunately. Really, I'm pretty sure they meant well, but this is about as textbook as you get of how NOT to do a DVD release of an older movie.

There are several other public domain DVD releases of the movie, and while I probably wouldn't trust the super-cheapo versions of it, I'm sure you can find others that are decent. But, really, it's not an amazingly great movie and definitely not the best film to see the Fleischers at the top of their game. I think you're better off buying one of the Popeye boxed sets and saving your pennies in the hope that we'll get a Betty Boop set. Also heard Mr. Bug Goes to Town is a much better representation of vintage Fleischer, so here's hoping we get that in a not-mauled home video release.

[Martianinvader]

Is THIS where Gabby came from? There are several PD Fleischer cartoons starring this character and I never knew he originated in this movie.

Where did Hunky and Spunky come from?

This review is full of crap. This is a $10 DVD of a 70 year old movie for which no perfect masters exist since it is in the public domain and the Paramount fire destroyed the last usable copy. One reviewer you mentioned has been trying to destroy this for everyone since it was announced was writing reviews of the Blu Ray back in December and January when it was still being produced and was not even mastered or released for viewing wrote us himself asking for a copy in March after he had already tried to destroy this with false reviews out of jealousy and because of a feud with the marketing director at our Distributor. In his letter he noted that he didn't even own a Blu Ray player and requested a standard DVD copy from us.

From: jerry@cartoonbrew.com
Date: Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:13:04 AM America/Vancouver
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxx.ca
Subject: Re: Gullivers Travels


I do not have a Blu-Ray player, but if you wish to send me a DVD copy of Gulliver, I'll watch it.

My address is:

(REMOVED FOR PRIVACY REASONS)

Also, if you are ever interested in reaching the over 400,000+ plus monthly readers of Cartoon Brew, we accept advertising.

Disney had mint masters for both Snow White and Pinnichio and out spent us by $1,000,000 on each and we did much of the original restoration work at Disney and at their facilities. The color is brilliant, sharp and bright and accurate to the original color pallets which we matched at Technicolor, the sound tracks, both original and enhanced are vibrant and clear and ambient. Les than 2% of the image was lost when we reformatted it and in fact we actually added and created new image on the sides so the proportions and scale of the characters and elements would not be stretched or distorted.

There is a conspiracy of people originating from two blog sites, one run by someone who used to be a competitor until his contract was canceled for poor sales, and the other resulting from a feud that has nothing to do with us to ruin this production. None of these people have bought or seen this wonderful version of Gullivers Travels, most wrote their comments before the release date or after reading blog comments without having even seen the film.

It clearly says on the packaging that is has been reformatted for widescreen and if you don't like or want to view this in wide screen then you can simply purchase another version like the 60th Anniversary edition which we also produced and which was hailed and applauded by the same critics and reviewers as the best ever done.

This is a $10 Blu Ray of a 70 year old movie and it looks and sounds wonderful and to slam this wonderful product the way you have is a lie and shame on you!

[Super Leviathan]

Originally Posted by Martianinvader

Where did Hunky and Spunky come from?

They're just recurring characters within the Fleischers' Color Classics series. They didn't originate from one of the features.

Originally Posted by Ed Liu

so here's hoping we get that in a not-mauled home video release.

Too late. It was reissued as year by Legend Films (retitled Bugville) with about the same level of TLC as Gulliver.

[Ed Liu]

Originally Posted by cartooncrazys

Disney had mint masters for both Snow White and Pinnichio and out spent us by $1,000,000 on each and we did much of the original restoration work at Disney and at their facilities.

Before I spend a whole lot of time responding to your allegations, who is "we," exactly? If you worked on Disney's restorations, are they going to know your name or the name of your firm when I ask the people I know over there who you are?

I do not dispute that there were far fewer resources available to restore this movie, as I state in paragraph 5, "E1 Entertainment clearly did not have the resources to restore the movie the way Disney could restore Pinocchio..." Or did you actually read the review we printed before making potentially libelous statements in a public forum?

There is a conspiracy of people originating from two blog sites, one run by someone who used to be a competitor until his contract was canceled for poor sales, and the other resulting from a feud that has nothing to do with us to ruin this production. None of these people have bought or seen this wonderful version of Gullivers Travels, most wrote their comments before the release date or after reading blog comments without having even seen the film.

Who are these people? If what you say is true, please name names so we can know who not to trust in the future. We received a screener copy of the Blu-ray from the PR firm representing E1 Entertainment after the disc was released, I did watch the entire movie in my home, and the image in the review (which shows an image that has clearly cropped enough off the top and the bottom of the image to cut readable letters in half) to was taken from the released disc. If you wish to try and convince me that we are actually part of this massive conspiracy to slam the re-release of this movie, you may produce whatever evidence you have to support this claim.

This is a $10 Blu Ray of a 70 year old movie and it looks and sounds wonderful and to slam this wonderful product the way you have is a lie and shame on you!

Please point out the statements in my review which are factually untrue. I stand by every word of the review, and take great offense at being called a liar by someone hiding behind an artificial screen name.

[Wonderwall]

There are 2 things I really know about this film. I saw it English class on VHS I believe. Anyway I just remember "There's a giant on the beach!" and at the end an episode of the Fleisher's Superman was shown.