The Film
Perform a search on IMDb for "A Christmas Carol" and you'll see that Charles Dickens' immortal tale has been told and retold more times than Conan O'Brien has described his departure from "The Tonight Show." However, as Conan deftly proved in the hilarious opener for his new talk show on TBS last week, there's always room for a fresh, new spin on well-worn material - provided it's a good story. And while none of the spectres who interrupt Ebeneezer Scrooge's Christmas Eve are as frightening as Jay Leno, they do make for compelling cinema. Consequently, it wasn't a big surprise when Robert Zemeckis and his team at ImageMovers Digital announced their intentions to develop a performance capture-based, big screen, animated version of Dickens' cautionary tale. And now, one year after its theatrical debut, Disney's A Christmas Carol has come to Blu-ray in time for the holidays. And not just Blu-ray, but Blu-ray 3D as well.
I won't bore you with the plot; if you don't know the story of A Christmas Carol by now, you should probably put that Blu-ray Disc down and head to your local library first. Stepping into the role of Scrooge is funnyman Jim Carrey. If that sounds like an odd choice for the role, well, that's because it is. Although Carrey remains pleasantly restrained for most of the film, there are definitely moments where the face-stretching comedian shines though, reminding the viewer that you are in fact listening to Ace Ventura himself. In another odd choice, veteran actor Gary Oldman is relegated to the somewhat thankless role of Bob Cratchett; one can't help but wonder if Oldman would have been a better choice for the role of Scrooge. The strange choices don't end at casting either, as the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present are envisioned here as bizarre and obnoxious, respectively.
Next you have the 3D glasses. Some are certainly more comfortable than others, and it stands to reason that some TV/glasses combinations perform better than others. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there's your eyes. Your vision may not be the same as mine. You wear glasses, while I wear contacts. You may have a higher threshold for 3D ghosting and visual crosstalk than I do. You get the idea.
The owner's manuals and on-screen messages pertaining to 3D playback are littered with warning messages. When your TV manual has a whole page featuring words like "headache," "spots," "faint," and "seizure," you realize this is decidedly new territory for home entertainment. But as always, all that I'm saying here can be reduced to our usual caveat: your mileage may vary.
On a final note before getting to this disc's 3D performance, you might be curious to know exactly what sort of hardware I used during my evaluation. I actually used two different 3D rigs for this review. First up was a combination of Toshiba's 55WX800U LED HDTV, their BDX3000 Blu-ray 3D player and Toshiba's active shutter FPT-AGO1U 3D glasses. Next, I tried LG's THX-certified PX950 3D plasma display mated with LG's BX580 Blu-ray 3D player and AG-S100 3D glasses. With both setups, I connected player to display using Accell's High Speed HDMI Swivel Cable. Unfortunately, I'm not yet set up with a 3D-capable A/V receiver, so the surround sound had to be evaluated separately while in 2D mode.
Yeah, yeah, quit your yappin - how does the 3D look? In short, it looks better than much of the Blu-ray 3D content I've seen - but that's still not saying much. At the disc's menu, which features an open book and some floating text at the bottom ("PLAY" for example), it was quickly apparent that there was some ghosting in store for me. And I'm not talking about Jacob Marley. The word "PLAY" was certainly legible, but it appeared to have another "PLAY" superimposed directly above it, only they weren't quite lined up. I liken it to when my kids trace a picture, but shift the paper ever-so-slightly before completing the trace. The result is a top and bottom layer that don't quite match up.
This ghosting and slight blurriness was more pronouncd on my Toshiba LCD than it was on the LG plasma, but it was still noticeable during much of the film. Although A Christmas Carol 3D exhibits moments of impressive depth and clarity, such as young Ebeneezer's extended hand during a long-ago Christmas party, those moments were often chased - to my eyes at least - by another instance of minor ghosting. And while the 2D version of the film features downright startling levels of detail, those details tend to suffer during 3D playback on account of the ghosting I've described. I'll let our own Chris Chiarella discuss the 2D version of the film, but my one-word summary of its quality: outstanding.
I should add that the amount of Blu-ray 3D content readily available is still quite limited. I have a handful of titles here at home and I've looked at most of them with similar results. It could be that corrected vision paired with active shutter technology makes my experience somewhat different than yours will be. But I can only evaluate what my eyes are seeing. Once again, your mileage may vary.
[editor's note: I also evaluated this title on both a Panasonic VT25 and Samsung C8000 3D plasma display, and was far less bothered by any instances of 3D crosstalk so, as Greg said, "Your Mileage May Vary."]
The Sound
As mentioned above, I'm not yet equipped with a 3D-capable A/V receiver, and since my Toshiba BDX3000 lacks dual HDMI outputs, my surround sound evaluation had to be done while watching the film in 2D. Interestingly, the Blu-ray 3D edition of Disney's A Christmas Carol is a 4-disc affair, where Disc One is the standard 2D Blu-ray Disc, Disc Two is the Blu-ray 3D version, Disc Three is a DVD, and Disc Four gives you your Digital Copy. To get a taste of the film's DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, I popped in the 2D-only Blu-ray Disc One.
[editor's note: Actually this is likely to be the norm on Blu-ray 3D releases. Disney separates the standard 2D Blu-ray Disc from the Blu-ray 3D version in order to optimize the quality of each. The standard Blu-ray is created and optimized for 2D playback. The Blu-ray 3D disc is created and optimized for Blu-ray 3D playback and its corresponding lower overall light output. The Blu-ray 3D version of the film is incompatible with standard (non-3D) Blu-ray players.]
Despite my misgivings about the film itself, it's hard to find fault with this 5.1 lossless mix. It is, in a word, exceptional. From the sound of Marley's approaching footsteps, accompanied by the creaking of wood and the dragging of chains, to the sensory assault that is Scrooge's wild chase through the streets of London, this DTS-HD Master Audio mix routinely exhibits wonderful dynamic range while creating a spacious soundstage of tremendous clarity.
I said it was hard to find fault, but not impossible. If I have one complaint in the audio department, it's that some of the dialogue is mixed a bit low and consequently some of Dickens' original language is occasionally hard to make out. Much of the film's dialogue is clear as a bell, but my wife and I did once or twice have to ask each other, "What did he say?"
The Extras
Our own Chris Chiarella has covered the standard 2D extras in his review of A Chrstmas Carol on standard Blu-ray, so I'll not dwell on them here. Suffice to say that fans will have more than enough bonus material to keep them busy, highlighted by a full-length PiP "motion capture experience" entitled "Behind the Carol." That and the rest of the 2D extras appear on Disc One of this 4-disc set.
On Disc Two - the Blu-ray 3D disc - is where you'll find a 3D-exclusive extra entitled "Mr. Scrooge's Wild Ride." And like the disc's menu and main feature, you'll need those 3D glasses to watch this featurette. This 3D-enhanced extra is a sort of mini "Making Of" (less than 3 minutes long) giving viewers a brief but interesting glimpse behind the scenes in 3D.
Final Thoughts
I wish I could tell you I loved the film, but I didn't. I also wish I could tell you that this 3D offering from Disney has made me a Blu-ray 3D believer, but it hasn't. Disney has clearly made a serious effort on this 4-disc set, and that effort does show. Just as they did (and still do) with Blu-ray, including the standard DVD of the film in order to satisfy the most people, so are they including a dedicated 2D Blu-ray Disc and separate Blu-ray 3D Disc (as well as a DVD and digital copy to boot) for maximum flexibility and compatibility.
It's certainly a handsome package with tons of goodies and Disney's decision to put the 2D and 3D versions on two separate Blu-ray Discs makes sense in that it allocates more space for extras and it allows each version to be optimized for the specific format (brightness, contrast, color saturation, etc.). However, with regard to the 3D portion of this story, the experience I had with MY displays and MY players and MY glasses and MY eyes... well, let's just say I'll be sticking to 2D if I ever feel the need to give this film another try. Or as my 7-year-old put it, when I switched to 2D mode and removed his glasses: "Oh. That's much better." Ouch. Unfortunately, he's right. For now at least.
Product Details
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