Electric Shadow

Glittery Wonka Book


The fact there is no listing of the supplemental materials on the case (or in the book) is bothersome to me, but I don't suppose anyone outside ornery DVD reviewers like me will care about them being missing...or will they? I just stuck the insert that came with it inside the front cover. I did the same thing with the North by Northwest disc (review coming Friday).

Warner Bros. is batting a thousand this year on Blu-ray upgrades of catalog titles, and this is another great example. The master appears to be the same as the HD-DVD on this single-layer BD-25, but with some minor additional spot cleaning. There are no new extras on the disc, so the same things from the HD-DVD and Anniversary Edition DVD are on here.


The "book" part of this Blu-ray is more song lyrics than real, meaty content.

These carried-over extras most prominently include a Feature Commentary with the actors who played all five Golden Ticket winners (Peter Ostrum, Julie Dawn Cole, Denise Nickerson, Paris Themmen, and Michael Bollner). It's the big added value since it's the first time they'd been reunited in over three decades. Next most prominent is Pure Imagination: The Story of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory [SD 30:00], which covers the adaptation process and includes interviews with Wilder, the kids, an Oompa Loompa, and various others with behind the scenes footage interspersed throughout. There are some sing-along songs, a short Vintage Featurette from 1971 [SD 4:00], and the original theatrical trailer in standard-def. If you want a testament to the quality of the transfer, watch the trailer and then the feature (it's night and day).


The vintage artwork is nice, as is the bit about Roald Dahl.

If you still have the HD-DVD, you should check to see if this title counts for WB's Red2Blu program to further assimilate your library. It was released last Tuesday, October 20th and Amazon has it for $23.99.