Criterion is pulling a first this November. The company announced that the Disney and Pixar original, WALL-E, will be released in their collection this November. The announcement tweet, featuring the box art, can be viewed below.
Criterion describes the film on their official website:
A high-water mark of digital animation, this prescient vision of a dystopian future is packaged within a dazzling pop-science-fiction love story, making for an urgent fable for our troubled millennium. It’s the twenty-ninth century, and humans have long since fled Earth for outer space, leaving WALL-E, the last functioning trash-compacting robot, to go about the work of cleaning up a pollution-choked planet, one piece of garbage at a time. When he meets EVE, a fellow automaton sent to detect plant life, the pair are launched on an intergalactic quest to return humanity to Earth. Transporting us simultaneously back to cinema’s silent origins and forward light-years into the future, WALL-E is a soaring ode to the power of love and art to heal a dying world.
For folks that are wondering why this is a big deal, the Criterion Collection is a distribution company that focuses on preserving, restoring, and redistributing films that are considered the cream of the crop. But that isn’t all they offer for collectors! On top of cleaning and restoring the films they distribute, Criterion also puts just as much effort into preserving and creating all new bonus features for their movies. Commentaries, featurettes, trailers, and even essays can be found in a typical Criterion release, and they plan on giving Wall-E the same treatment. The list of special features can be found below, which features both new content and old stuff from previous DVD releases, along with details on the quality of the film itself.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
- 4K digital master, approved by director Andrew Stanton, with Dolby Atmos soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film, presented in both Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10+, and two Blu-rays with the film and special features
- Alternate 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio and stereo soundtracks
- Two audio commentaries: one featuring Stanton and the other, character supervisor Bill Wise, coproducer Lindsey Collins, story artist Derek Thompson, and lead animator Angus MacLane
- New programs on Stanton’s cinematic influences and production designer Ralph Eggleston’s color scripts
- Tour of the Pixar Living Archive with Stanton
- Behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, including segments from early animation reels
- The Pixar Story (2007), a documentary by Leslie Iwerks
- More than a dozen documentaries exploring the film’s production and robots
- Anatomy of a Scene: The Plant, a masterclass with Stanton
- “WALL•E”: A to Z, a new program featuring Stanton and coscreenwriter Jim Reardon
- Deleted scenes featuring commentary by Stanton
- A Story (1987), a student film by Stanton
- BURN•E (2008), a short film by MacLane
- Trailers
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- English descriptive audio
- PLUS: An essay by author Sam Wasson; selections from Stanton’s sketchbooks, script notes, and drawings; and artwork from the WALL•E team
Lots to Love in a Little Package
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
As of now, the Criterion Collection consists of over one thousand titles. The movies in question range from Hollywood staples like Citizen Kane, to the silent era like City Lights, to cinema from all over the world such as The Seven Samurai, and even some cult movies like Pink Flamingos! But what the collection is lacking is animated films. Of their vast list, only a small handful of animated movies can be found. These titles that show up on the official website under the “animation” label are Fantastic Mr. Fox, Watership Down, Fantastic Planet, Journey to the Beginning of Time, Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman, and The Fabulous Baron Munchausen.
With WALL-E’s inclusion in the collection, there is a possibility that Criterion will be open to adding even more animated movies in the future, particularly for the Disney historian crowd. After all, there is still a market for film collecting, and Disney has a solid history of re-packaging their older titles on VHS, DVD, and later Blu-Ray. This could be a great opportunity for the older titles to receive fresh scans and releases for those that wish to see more special features than just what’s on Disney+.
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