Alice In Wonderland (Animated) (Special Edition) (DVD)

...for a very important date! Alice quickly follows the rabbit who disappears down a large rabbit hole. Curious Alice follows him in and finds herself falling into a strange but wonderful world where everything is a little back-to-front!
Here she encounters talking doors, a Cheshire cat who can disappear, The Queen of Hearts.. and lots of other weird and wonderful characters!
But will Alice ever find her way back home.. or will she be ...
...Here you have to guide Alice through some rooms since she is lost. In the first room you have to solve 5 riddles that the Cheshire cat gives you in order to progress further. This isn't hard and would be really fun for children (though I think really young children would find this quite hard and maybe not undertand). The cat gives you riddles and you simply click on pictures on the screen which correspond with the right answer. You then follow the ... more

I have to say, this is one of my all time favourite Disney films. I used to have it on vhs as a child and completely wore the tape out! When it was released on Special Edition dvd, and I saw it on Amazon, I couldn't resist buying it.

The film is based on the book 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' by Lewis Carol.

This was the 13th Disney Animated film to be made and was released in 1951 (This special edition dvd was released in April of 2005)

I love the animation in the film. It is classic Disney style. There are lots of wonderful colours used and lots of flowers and birds. I think that this really appeals to younger children (but also adults too!) The pictures are really captivating.

The story follows Alice, a pretty blond haired girl in a blue dress who, whilst bored with her history lesson in the park, sees a white rabbit in a waistcoat carrying a large stop watch hurrying along the path. This rabbit is late for a very important date! Alice quickly follows the rabbit who disappears down a large rabbit hole. Curious Alice follows him in and finds herself falling into a strange but wonderful world where everything is a little back-to-front!
Here she encounters talking doors, a Cheshire cat who can disappear, The Queen of Hearts.. and lots of other weird and wonderful characters!
But will Alice ever find her way back home.. or will she be stuck in this world forever?

There are songs throughout the film. It says in one of the bonus features that this film has the most songs in it of all of the Disney films! There are 13 or 14 songs in total. These really compliment the film, and it really wouldn't be the same without them. In this special edition dvd there is a 'newly discovered' Cheshire cat song called 'I'm Odd!' which has been added to the bonus section in this particular dvd. This song is not in the original film.
The songs are really catchy and you will be humming them afterwards!

When the dvd starts up, you have the choice of either clicking on 'English' or 'Espagnol'. This selects the language that the dvd will be played in. There is also the opportunity to choose subtitles in either English or Spanish.

The thing about this dvd is that when you start it up you have to sit through some Disney trailers and promotions (around 8 mins) before you get to the actual dvd menu so that you can choose to either watch the film or go to the extras, which can be a bit tedious if you want to just watch the film straight away!

When you get to the dvd menu, you have the choice of four options:

'Play', 'Bonus Features', 'Scene Selection' or 'Set Up'

When you click on 'Play', the film will start to play.

When you click on 'Bonus Features', another menu appears with the options:

'Mad Hatter's Virtual Wonderland Party' - Here you get presented with a tea party table with lots of different teapots and tea-party things on it. You can click on these different items, which either take you to a mini game or the item on the table does a little 'routine' of playing with the other items on the table. There are about 10 items on the table.

'Adventures in Wonderland - Set Top Game' - This is a game. Here you have to guide Alice through some rooms since she is lost. In the first room you have to solve 5 riddles that the Cheshire cat gives you in order to progress further. This isn't hard and would be really fun for children (though I think really young children would find this quite hard and maybe not undertand). The cat gives you riddles and you simply click on pictures on the screen which correspond with the right answer. You then follow the paw prints to the second room. In the second room, you have to match pairs of cards to each other. You then go to the third room and get presented with three cookies. You have to eat these in the right order so that you can become small in order to fit through the small door in front of you. Then Alice sings a song to you and you have completed the game!

'Thru The Mirror - Mickey Mouse Animated Short' - Mickey has fallen asleep reading the book 'Alice Through The Looking Glass' and in his dream goes through his mirror into a curious world… (lasts around 10 minutes)

'Operation Wonderland - 1951 Behind-The-Scenes Featurette' - This was originally broadcast on 14th June 1951. It is like a short documentary. It shows the studio where Alice in Wonderland was made. It has Walt Disney in it and shows some of the picture boards from the film. You even get to meet the girl who does the voice of Alice at the time of filming! (I quite liked this since I am curious to see what the people who do the voices look like) This featurette lasts for about 10 mins.

Then you click on an arrow which takes you to the next page of bonus features.. (yes, there are lots of them!)

These are the choices on the next page:

'All in the Golden Afternoon' - a sing-a-long song! This has the words at the bottom of the screen so that you can sing with the characters in the film. This shows
the clip from the actual film with the song in it.

'The Unbirthday Song' - another sing-a-long song with words included!

'I'm Odd' - This has the actress who played Alice in the film (but when this special edition dvd was made in 2005, so a little older than she was in the film) talking about how they chose some of the songs for the film, and how they found this song and re-recorded it especially for this special edition dvd.

'Alice Daydreams in the Park' - shows the early sketches of Alice daydreaming in the park. These are beautiful, rough-pencil drawn sketches with colour played in a sequence. I love seeing the raw pictures that they drew at the very start before they put the whole film together, I find it really interesting.

'From Wonderland to Neverland' - Again the Alice actress tells us about how she was the voice of both Alice and Wendy from Peter Pan. One of the songs recorded for Alice in Wonderland was actually used for Peter Pan. Just the original score was used, not the words. The words were re-written and the song became 'The Second Star To The Right' from Peter Pan.
This segment plays the original song as it was recorded for 'Alice in Wonderland' (before it was scrapped) and shows sketches of the film as the song is playing.

'Art Gallery' - lots of pictures to click on to look at! From film posters to pictures taken on set and sketches from the film.

(phew..! That's the end of the bonus features!)

The other options in the main menu:

When you click on 'Scene Selection' you can choose to jump to a certain scene in the film and play it from there, which is really handy if you have to stop and start the film again on another day. There are 27 scenes to choose from in total.

'Set Up' is where you can select the language or subtitles that you want to have on through out the film.

I thought it was nice that this dvd offered fun and interactive bonus features like games. That way it felt like more than just a plain old dvd! The featurettes and bonus clips were also really interesting to see. It really gives you an insight into the making of the film.

The running time of the film is 72 minutes.. and I love every minute!

The film has a 'U' classification and I would completely agree with this rating. There is no violence in this film or bad language! It really is a family orientated film which will appeal to both young and old.

The dvd is available from Amazon right now at the wonderful price of £10.97.

I have watched this dvd lots since I got it. It is one of those timeless classics which I never get bored of. I find the story really unique and also the bonus features included in this dvd make it great value for money. I would highly recommend it to anyone! 

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