The Little Mermaid 30th Anniversary Edition 4K coming 2019 (1 Viewer)

[Jake Lipson]

I looked for a thread on this topic and didn't find one. If I overlooked one, please feel free to merge them.

Target.com has a 4K edition of The Little Mermaid up for pre-order. It is one of their standard digibook exclusives that they get with most major Disney titles, but I assume a standard version on the way too and hasn't been announced yet. Presumably there will be a standard Blu-ray double dip as well.

https://www.target.com/p/the-little...e-collection-4k-target-exclusive/-/A-54284494

There's no street date yet. However, what surprises me about this happening now is that Disney usually puts this particular title out later in the year (the previous DVDs and Blu-ray editions all arrived in the fourth quarter), so I'm a bit surprised to see this up for pre-order already, as this suggests that it will be released within the next few months.

I suppose it could tie into the home release of Ralph Breaks the Internet, in which Ariel appears. That would probably put it out around February or March. But I'm still surprised that they would put out such a major title not in the fourth quarter.

 

[Rob W]

Hopefully it's "Fully Restored" like the first laserdisc edition trumpeted about a year after the film opened in theatres.

 

[Lord Dalek]

On one hand, unlike The Lion King, this is on film so it probably won't be an upscale. On the other hand, because its a completely artificial medium that's being photographed and processed, there may not actually be 4k worth of information there to begin with.

 

[Kyrsten Brad]

Haven’t heard anything from DMC about this release. I see it listed as a Target Exclusive but wouldn’t Disney want to release on their own marketing site?

 

[Jason_V]

Yeah, I typically won't drop $30 on any single movie...this is likely to be an exception on release week. I won't care a lot if there is a huge bump in PQ for the 4k. Little Mermaid is one of the holy grail Disney titles for me.

 

[David Norman]

DMC will likely release most anything that's legit at retailers, but they aren't always the early birds. TLK 4K was very late going up on the DMC site compared to other retailers. DMC rarely if ever updates listing mid cycle so probably will have to wait until Dec31-Jan2 to see if something new shows up. If the preliminary release dates of late Feb are real then DMC may not even have a listing up until the following cycle jan 29

 

[Jake Lipson]

I see it listed as a Target Exclusive but wouldn’t Disney want to release on their own marketing site?

Not this version. What's exclusive to Target is the digibook packaging. They almost always get this feature on major Disney titles. I think it's just a case of Target putting their version up early for some reason, but I'm sure there will be a standard release put up for order at other places once Disney is ready to announce it.

If my theory that it will come simultaneously with the home release of Ralph Breaks the Internet ends up being correct, I would expect them to be announced simultaneously as well, and Disney won't likely want to announce Ralph until January at some point because right now it's still making money at the box office and should hang around there in some capacity until the end of the year.

 

[Jake Lipson]

In possibly related news, the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, which Disney owns, will be showing The Little Mermaid in January. They have done this before prior to in conjunction with home releases of older films. They're also showing Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Lady and the Tramp and Cinderella.

https://ohmy.disney.com/news/2018/12/18/el-capitan-disney-princess-movies-happily-ever-after/

 

[MatthewA]

Hopefully it's a true restoration and not one of the color-altered smear-jobs we've had to settle for lately, and hopefully they'll include the actual original opening and closing credits this time.

Hopefully it's "Fully Restored" like the first laserdisc edition trumpeted about a year after the film opened in theatres.

Holding the 2-disc CAV set in my hand right now*, it refers to itself as a "deluxe edition" despite not having any extras. I don't see the word "restored", which had yet to fall into that type of serial misuse, but I do see the "digitally mastered in Hi-Fi stereo surround" wording. That must have been the second LD from the late 1990s that claimed so.

*No, the box art is censored, if that's what you're wondering.

 

[Jake Lipson]

That must have been the second LD from the late 1990s that claimed so.

Yeah, the restoration was done in advance of the November 1997 theatrical re-release which Disney did to screw with Fox's concurrent release of Anastasia. The fully restored home edition followed in 1998, after the original editions had been out of print for some time per Disney's usual practices.

The home release from 1990 had a different cover altogether and made no mention of being restored.

 

[Kyrsten Brad]

Yeah, the restoration was done in advance of the November 1997 theatrical re-release which Disney did to screw with Fox's concurrent release of Anastasia. The fully restored home edition followed in 1998, after the original editions had been out of print for some time per Disney's usual practices.

View attachment 53378

The home release from 1990 had a different cover altogether and made no mention of being restored.

Now how many folks here would love to see Disney, for old times sake, include a lithograph of the original VHS art complete with that little extra something drawn in?

 

[Jake Lipson]

I really hope whatever cover artwork they use on the new release is actually good, but the artwork for the Target edition is not encouraging. Both the 1990 and 1997 VHS editions had great artwork. I think the Platinum DVD is fine, but I really don't like the artwork they used in 2013 for the Blu-ray. The artwork on the recent 4K edition of The Lion King is absolutely terrible, and I think it's sad that Disney is doing such a lackluster job with cover art of late. It feels like the farther we go back in terms of releases, the more effort was put into creating attractive artwork.

 

[B-ROLL]

Now how many folks here would love to see Disney, for old times sake, include a lithograph of the original VHS art complete with that little extra something drawn in?

Sometimes a castle is just a castle ... Paging Dr Freud ???
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/phallus-purposely-added-artwork-little-mermaid-vhs-cover/

 

[Jake Lipson]

Hopefully it's a true restoration and not one of the color-altered smear-jobs we've had to settle for lately, and hopefully they'll include the actual original opening and closing credits this time.

Obviously the 4K will have to be a new transfer, but I see no reason to believe that this edition won't use the same restoration work from the original Blu-ray released in 2013. The standard Blu-ray will be exactly the same transfer. All of the Signature Edition re-releases have used the same transfer from their Diamond counterparts, and mostly exist as a second chance for people who missed out on the first Blu-ray to get it.

I don't think there's any reason to expect anything more from this edition, particularly because the transfer as-is looks great and doesn't need to be changed. Restoring the original logo would be nice, but I have no expectation that they'll do that.

Bonus-wise, they'll probably add on a handful of new brief featurettes about something or other just so they can say they put on something new, while simultaneously dropping (or reducing to digital only) some of the features from the previous edition. Again, this has been Disney's usual practice with the Signature releases, and why would they change it now?

 

[David Norman]

As of Jan 16th 2019 you will be able to pre order the little mermaid from the Disney store... it will come with a lithograph set.
the street release date is set for Feb 26th 2019

Ralph Breaks the Internet will be released later in March

Of course that doesn't address whether a 4K edition is actually being released. I'm going to say probably, but far from 100% chance.

I'm completely baffled about the Signup page

 

[Jake Lipson]

Of course that doesn't address whether a 4K edition is actually being released.

Target is taking pre-orders for a 4K edition, so if they end up deciding not to release one, they would have to cancel and refund any pre-orders already placed for it.That's not impossible, but seems unlikely, especially since they already released The Lion King on 4K and clearly want to support animation on the format. So I suspect it will happen.

I want to know what the new bonus features on this edition are.

I'm completely baffled about the Signup page

Agreed.

 

[David Norman]

It certainly wouldn't be the 1st time (esp) Target has jumped the gun on an item. .

I certainly think a 4K release is coming at some point, but the split release of TLK Signature and 4K by several months is still fresh.

I will be a bit more optimistic when a 2nd or 3rd legit site lists the same items either in US or International sites,. With DMC showing listings for BD and DVD, but not 4K that doesn't increase my confidence the releases will be simultaneous, but it's still pretty early for DMC in general

 

[John Sparks]

I'm saving my pennies for the 3D version that's available.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I certainly think a 4K release is coming at some point, but the split release of TLK Signature and 4K by several months is still fresh.

That's different because Disney only began supporting 4K with the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which preceded the Blu-ray re-release by a week. I don't think they were ready to do it on quite as widespread a basis then, as Guardians 2 was testing the waters for them to see how their 4K releases would be responded to. Now, they seem to be fully on board, so I would be surprised if they didn't release future titles day-and-date on Blu and 4K going forward. The Lion King is just something they were playing catch-up on, and I can't fault them for that. Better to put it out later than to wait until the next time the title comes up for re-release, which would be several years from now.

I'm saving my pennies for the 3D version that's available.

Good luck finding one. As with all the other previous editions of The Little Mermaid, the 3D version is out of print now and probably expensive if you can manage to find it. Given Disney's newfound lack of support for 3D, I don't expect that version to be re-released. The 4K will be instead of it.

 

[David Norman]

That's different because Disney only began supporting 4K with the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which preceded the Blu-ray re-release by a week. I don't think they were ready to do it on quite as widespread a basis then, as Guardians 2 was testing the waters for them to see how their 4K releases would be responded to. Now, they seem to be fully on board, so I would be surprised if they didn't release future titles day-and-date on Blu and 4K going forward. The Lion King is just something they were playing catch-up on, and I can't fault them for that. Better to put it out later than to wait until the next time the title comes up for re-release, which would be several years from now.

Good luck finding one. As with all the other previous editions of The Little Mermaid, the 3D version is out of print now and probably expensive if you can manage to find it. Given Disney's newfound lack of support for 3D, I don't expect that version to be re-released. The 4K will be instead of it.

We'll see on the TLK 4K. Disney just continues to do odd things with their releases so you never know.

Don't understand the GotG2 comment -- they both released 8/22/2017

TLM 3D is quite easy to find as long as you don't get hung up on logos. I agree that a US release is beyond unlikely