Product Details

• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000XZXR1Q
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #296,685 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

The final release of this original masterpiece! Deluxe CAV Laserdisc. Full color 16 page commemorative booklet. Exclusive lithograph. Certificate of authenticity.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars "...the designs and pictures and stories that music inspired in the minds and imaginations of a group of artists.", January 18, 2011

By 

Annie Van Auken (Planet Earth) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Walt Disney's Masterpiece Fantasia (Laserdisc) (DVD)

FOREWARNED IS FOREARMED DEPT.

This is NOT a DVD. It's a 12" Laserdisc. These record album-sized predecessors of today's DVDs were visually superior. Until the advent of BluRay technology, Laserdiscs were the best digital format available.

Seven decades later, Walt Disney's FANTASIA (1940) remains the ultimate hand-animated motion picture, an astounding blend of cartoon and classical music. Highlight is a segment that illustrates the first few billion years of Earth's evolution, right up until dinosaurs are killed off by global warming.

Leopold Stokowski is shown in the dimmest of light while the Philadelphia Orchestra is primarily in silhouette against a rich blue screen. Halfway through the program, musicians improv some jazz, then they and narrator Deems Taylor demonstrate (with the help of an animated vertical line) what film audiotrack looks like and how its squiggling form constantly varies.

The only limitation of this classic movie is a primitive two-channel soundtrack (it's NOT true stereo) that either plays separate but simultaneously with a phantom hole in dead center, or bounces ping pong fashion between extreme right and left. Regardless, this one's a monumental achievement of pure art. Highest recommendation!

PROGRAM--

"Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BMV 565" - J.S. Bach

"The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a" - P.I. Tchaikovsky

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" - Paul Dukas

"Rite of Spring" - Igor Stravinsky

"Symphony No. 6 ('Pastoral') Op. 68" - L. van Beethoven

"Dance of the Hours" (from the opera "La Gioconda") - Amilcare Ponchielli

"A Night on Bald Mountain" - Modest Mussorgsky

"Ave Maria, Op. 52 No. 6" - Franz Schubert (special lyrics by Rachel Field)

3 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars my dumb mistake, November 16, 2009

By 

T. Thompson - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Walt Disney's Masterpiece Fantasia (Laserdisc) (DVD)

Some laserdisc descriptions emphasized the format such as "SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS laserdisc-NOT A DVD OR VHS-must have a laserdisc player to use". I mistakenly ordered the wrong media thinking it is a dvd because it is labeled "Walt Disney's Masterpiece Fantasia (Laserdisc) Format: DVD". My search was for Fantasia dvd and I did not notice the mistake since I depended on the warning to be like the other laserdisc descriptions.