[Number 11 on my list of Better Things to Do This Weekend than T4 or Museum 2 is the new Blu-ray of Pixar's A Bug's Life. I'm interspersing paraphrased bits of yesterday's blurb.]
I have to admit that I had never seen Pixar's second feature prior to this past Thursday. Yeah, yeah, I know. The movie is ten years old and I'm only now seeing it. It wasn't on my list as something to do on a friday night in High School, so sue me. I haven't seen Cars either, but that'll probably happen next time we visit my in-laws, since Ashley's dad loves it.
All the extras from the original DVD special edition are ported over, including a Feature Commentary from Lasseter, Stanton, and director of Toy Story 3 Lee Unkrich (editor on Bug's Life). Plenty of other behind the scenes stuff compliments the movie, with a Disney's Silly Symphonies short and Geri's Game to round things out.
The new to Blu-ray features are around a half hour of recently-recorded stuff. Lasseter does an Intro [HD 1:11] to the movie and a motion storyboard version of A Bug's Life: The First Draft [HD 10:49 w/ Intro, 10:16 without]. Dave Foley narrates the very different story, which includes a much more innocuous end for the bad guys. My favorite of the new stuff is a very candid and revealing Filmmaker's Roundtable [HD 21:00] with Lasseter, Stanton, and producers Kevin Reher and Darla K. Anderson. The now-standard BD-Live connection is there as well, offering in-movie chat and trivia and so on.
The most complaining I've seen about this title is its pricing.
I consider Pixar titles like Criterion Collection releases. I'll pay extra for them, but there are limits. The best "week of release" price I found on the Blu-ray was something like $29.99, which is a bit much for me and many others at this point. I would pay around $20 without blinking. When I factor in the Movie Cash ($8.50 max) off seeing Up, it's priced more like $22, which is a lot more reasonable. If you are devoted fan of Pixar, you're going to spend money to see Up at least twice anyway.
The included Digital Copy has become an invaluable extra for parents, who have some sort of digital media player or laptop with them and their kids on any trips they make. For me, I like being able to watch them on-the-go as a convenience. I've watched bits of the chapter-bookmarked WALL-E on my iPod a lot over the last few months.
I really enjoyed A Bug's Life as a former Anthropology student, seeing it as A Kid's Guide to Matrilineal Societies and Defining Kinship. It didn't make me well up like Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., Ratatouille, WALL-E or Up, but I could identify with the well-intentioned, inferiority-complex-ridden protagonist who tries to take on too much. The digital to digital transfer is outstanding, and the sound mix is great. It hasn't jumped into the list of my favorite Pixar movies, but I'm glad I finally got around to it.
Click on the box art to order from Amazon.
At the time of this writing, it's $29.99, with a free ticket to Up and a Digital Copy.
A portion of the purchase goes toward supporting the disc reviews that appear in this column.