Walt Disney's "Song Of The South" being remastered from the original negatives*

cartoonbrew.com commenter Egbert Souse states that “Disney is remastering Song of the South from the original negatives in 4K resolution. It’s not in the immediate pipeline for a Snow White or Bambi level restoration, but they’ll have complete digital files by the end of next year.”-Sept 29, 2011

"The question of Song of the South comes up periodically, in fact it was raised at last year's annual meeting," Iger said at Disney's shareholders' meeting on March 13th. "And since that time, we've decided to take a look at it again because we've had numerous requests about bringing it out. Our concern was that a film that was made so many decades ago being brought out today perhaps could be either misinterpreted or that it would be somewhat challenging in terms of providing the appropriate context." - Bob Iger (March 2011)


It's too bad Mr. Iger doesn't seem to read any petitions/Disney forums. Here is his email address if any of you are interested in writing: [email protected]

Also here's just ONE petition that has been signed by 33,663 people so far: http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_pe...d.cgi?sots1946

 

Sadly; the movie will forever remain in the vaults. They're preserving elements which is good, but I think that even with all the disclaimers in the world; it would still stir up controversy amongst those who want to play the race card and look for reasons to be offended in this day and age instead of accepting the film as a product of its time and embracing it as the classic that it is.

 

Well they would be stupid to not release it before it become public domain in 2039. It's already happened in other countries i.e. in Japan (where under Japanese copyright law it is in the public domain) they released it on Laserdisc in 1985 & 1990. I also find it that they are so concerned with potentially offending ignorant people yet they've released this film back into theaters in the US uncut 5 times.

 

Zippitty dooo dahhh, I expect to be watching my LD, not some new fangled BD.

 

I'd love to get my hands on one of those Japanese LD one day and restore it but alas I don't have a laserdisc player.

 

So I still need to hold on to my "Jolly Roger" DVD copy,
since the real deal will never see the light of day ?

 

I think the way to present it would be to provide a 1-hour documentary with it, offering critics and social commentators to provide opinions about the movie's impact in context. I'd also put disclaimers on the cover art and as titles before the film, just to warn potential buyers and audiences that there are controversial racial issues to the film.

I think it would be wrong to just put the movie out as if it were a regular cartoon. As long as they acknowledge the controversy, even invite critics to speak out about it (for or against), they've covered their bases. But to pretend it never existed, or that slavery didn't happen, would be even more wrong.

 

I might also add that kids seeing this film aren't going to come out of it thinking it's racist. It's the adults we need to worry about in their obnoxiously levels of what they presume to be political correctness.

 

Bingo! I bet most kids would simply enjoy the movie for the songs and great animaiton (gosh, what a concept!).

 

Restore?

>>>>Restore it, how?

 

I always liked this and remember seeing it in the theaters even into the 1980s. As far as it being racist, there is certainly stuff that goes there, but the "Tom & Jerry" cartoons my kids see (off Boomerang!) have worse stuff in them. If they could just get Leonard Maltin to do one of his trademarked apologies for the racist content on the DVD all would be well!

 

I admire the idea but how much could you really improve it using a laserdisc image that was probably taken from a flawed print to begin with?

 

I have strong doubts we ever see this movie on home video again from Disney. Disney as a corporation has a brand to protect that infinitely outweighs the sales for any potential Song Of The South release. It's simply not worth the PR hassle in today's Twitter culture.

 

Here are some examples of what could be done with the Laserdisc
http://atlas.kennesaw.edu/~dhirschl/song_of_the_south/

 

Meh. That just makes me want to see it properly restored even more now.

 

I agree, Mr. Hoffman. The fact that the film has remained unreleased for so many years is much larger a controversy than I suspect this film would ever garner back in theaters or on home video.

 

Capture the analog video from the Laserdisc to uncompressed AVI and work some magic with Avisynth to restore the colors etc

 

You might be able to improve it some but there's only so much you can do when the source is what it is.

 

Watch the new documentary about Stephin Meritt and see what happened to him just for saying Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah is his favorite song. There are people in our country who will never be able to look at this in a mature and rational way. Disney knows what will happen if they ever release this.

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2006/05/blacklisted.html

 

Well from what I've seen the picture on the Japanese laserdisc is fine but the colors aren't as vibrant as they were on the UK VHS release. ColourLike in Avisynth can use the YUV or RGB histograms from the VHS colors and match them to the laserdisc's better picture quality.

 

I saw this in the theatre in 1986.

I say realease it with a bonus disc with all the stuff people are requesting here and a single or at most two cards telling folks to go look at the other DVD for further details.

 

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah (and the actor's performance of it) is one of my favorite Disney songs and I think one of the reasons it's so memorable is because of how good the actor was.

 

But those people are ignorant...and I'd hate to think that the majority of America is ignorant and should rule the vote??