My review of the special edition DVD of the Secret of NIMH

As most of you already know MGM (in conjunction with Fox) has released a new DVD of the Secret of NIMH. I bought a copy of it today at Best Buy, and here's my thoughts on this edition.

Overview
The release is a two-disc set. On the first disc you get the movie itself, in both 1.33:1 Full Screen and (for the first time in the US) 1.85:1 Widescreen, as it was seen in theaters. It has a Dolby 2.1 Surround (or glorified stereo) English track, a stereo Spanish track, and a mono French track, and English and Spanish subtitles. There is also a commentary track from Don Bluth and Gary Goldman.

Disc two contains a 15-minute long featurette titled "Secrets Behind the Secret," again featuring Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, and 5 set-top games.

There is also a small activity sheet included inside the DVD package, geared towards children.

The Movie
First, a little history lesson. NIMH was originally filmed in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, known as an "open matte". This was later transferred to 1.85:1 film for the theatrical release. The fullscreen version more closely matches the original 1.33:1 open matte, so you see more on the top and bottom than you do on the widescreen version, with a small amount of cropping along both sides that the widescreen version doesn't have.

In this version, the picture has been very much improved, with better contrast, color correction and general cleanup, supervised by Don himself. I noticed a good number of things in this version that were either too blurry or too dark in the background in the original DVD version, and all-in-all, it just plain looks better. The widescreen version of the film is in a higher definition than the fullscreen version, meaning that the characters appear slightly larger and more detailed than they do in fullscreen, making the widescreen version a very worthwhile way to view the movie, in spite of my expectations. If you want to get a feel for how the new DVD looks, I've posted some screengrabs here: http://www.thornvalley.com/gallery/fan/v/studio/screen/dvd/

Fullscreen from the old DVD:
http://www.thornvalley.com/gallery/fan/d/42010-2/PDVD_012.jpg[" alt=""/img]

Fullscreen from the new DVD:
[img="]http://www.thornvalley.com/gallery/fan/d/41977-2/PDVD_024.jpg[" alt=""/img]

Widescreen from the new DVD:
[img="]http://www.thornvalley.com/gallery/fan/d/41905-2/vlcsnap_5474519.jpg[" alt=""/img]

The sound also seems somewhat improved from the older NIMH DVD release, though I can't say for certain. In any case, I didn't notice any problems with the sound quality.

[b]Special Features[/b]
The most interesting new feature of this DVD is the director's commentary with Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. They provide a competent and interesting commentary, giving insights into the process of the movie's creation, including animation techniques, experiences with the voice actors, story decisions and so forth. While they keep the dead air to a minimum (I hate commentaries that consist of mostly the word "um", throat-clearing and silence), they do seem to run out of things to say from time to time and resort to stating the obvious. I find it funny, but some may find it a bit irritating. ;)

Second to that is the featurette "Secrets Behind the Secret," in which Don Bluth and Gary Goldman describe some of the background of the directors and how the film came to be. It has very little overlap with the commentary, and contains photos and footage taken by the filmmakers while they were working on the project. I won't say too much about it, since I don't want to spoil things for everyone, but suffice it to say, it's a very interesting and well-produced feature.

There are also five set-top games. These are largely unremarkable, but they at least have the virtue of not being extraordinarily corny, as these games are prone to be. Briefly, here's a rundown of them to complete things:
[list]
[li]Who's Footprint - Match an animal seen in the movie with its footprint.
[li]Fuzzy Focus - Identify an out-of-focus scene or character from the movie.
[li]Untangle Jeremy - Figure out the correct order to remove the string from Jeremy to save him from Dragon.
[li]Origami Mouse - step-by-step instructions on how to make an origami mouse.
[li]Memory Game - After a scene from the movie is shown, answer a question about it.
[/list:u]

Finally, the menus in this version have been reworked, including a semi-animated main menu that is entertaining to watch in and of itself, and they are all in keeping with the flavor of the film.

[b]The Verdict[/b]
I've had high hopes for this release ever since I found out about it, though I couldn't help but wonder if MGM would still find a way to somehow screw it up. I am happy to state, therefore, that the [i]only[/i] things that are bad about this release is the cover art and overall lack of promotion. This is easily the highest quality transfer that they have ever done for a consumer format, and the commentary and special features only add to a wonderful viewing experience. As I mentioned, I was worried about the loss of the top and bottom of the frame when going to widescreen, but the higher definition of the widescreen version makes it worth it. And for those who do want to see the bigger picture at the cost of some resolution, the fullscreen version is available and just as beautifully restored as the widescreen one. These features alone make it better by far than the original DVD release. You've got the best of both worlds, as far as the DVD format allows.

Could it be better? Perhaps. A cast commentary could've been interesting, and it'd be nice to see a 1.33:1 transfer that shows the whole frame without /any/ cropping, but honestly, we're talking about pipe-dream territory at that point. (I seriously doubt that a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD would be a huge improvement, but then I don't have a player for those formats either.)

The price is also a very reasonable $15 at most outlets. I found my copy at Best Buy and I've heard it's available at Walmart for a dollar or so less, in addition to Amazon.com.

Due to the very attractive combination of quality, features and price, I can confidently recommend this release, both to first-time buyers and to NIMH fans who have already purchased the DVD. And, since you'll be giving up nothing (except the trailer for the movie, which isn't included in the new release, but that hardly counts as a feature in my book), you can easily give your old DVD away to someone who hasn't seen NIMH before. ;)

[i]Edit: Replaced the image that was "enhanced" by my DVD software with an unenhanced version, and added a shot from the old DVD to compare with.[/i]

I also bought the new DVD today as well early this morning so I could catch the special discount at Wal-Mart. It sold for 13.31$ (that is after including Georgia's state tax of 7 cents per dollar).

There are a lot of things about the cleaned up film which I never noticed about the old dvd at all, and I too am very happy with the results Bluth managed to pull off. Everything Simon has said above I agree with, and I also gripe about the cover.

Though, there is something that I would like to have seen since the fans of the film are older than they were when it was first released. It would have been nice if a small biography of Elizabeth Hartman could have been added since Nimh was the final film she did. (Though, I don't think MGM would consider her real life story particularly 'Fun' because she was very depressed and her career was in shambles by the time Nimh came around).

Thanks for the review, Simon. I look forward to picking it up. I can't wait to hear the commentary. :)

I'll keep a sharp eye out for it at Wal-Mart (or Sams Club).

Also Thanks for the review on this Simon, I also took a look at your other New DVD screen shots, along with the improvements you talked about, they seem to also have a little more depth to them.

When I get the new DVD I`m swapping the cover before I give my old away.

Hey Simon,

Thanks for your informative review of the new Secret of NIMH DVD. From what you describe, this sounds almost like the deal of the century. As a long time NIMHfan, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will be picking up my copy of this 2-disc set in the very near future. Heck, I may even buy two copies.

Peace :D
NIMHmaniac

Maybe I'll trade in my old version for this. That way it might not cost me as much.

Perhaps I'm psychic. I went to Wal-Mart today...and got the goods.

Even though I plan on buying this DVD in the near future, alas I'm broke... Just for a little information I searched all the torrent sites for this movie (Perhaps I was curious) but found little or no seeds on the movies I did find. I find it strange that no one will upload this file or Seed it, even though there where some leachers. Any ways. This was a really well done review and gave me most of what I needed-to buy this flick. Very well put together, thank you Simon.

Hey Simon,

Just so you know, yesterday I purchased my copies of the new 2-disc version of the SON DVD and while I'll agree with everything that was said as far as this movie being a masterpiece is concerned, I do have some quibbles (if you will) with some of the lines that appear in the brief summary of the film which can be found on the backside of the packaging cover. I'm not blaming you because I know that you had no controll over this process but just the same, here are the points that I would like to make;
1) Mrs. Brisby may have had a great need to move her house and family out of harms way so to speak, but until her fateful meeting with the Rats of NIMH, she had no idea just how this deed was to be accomplished.
2) Auntie Shrew is mistakenly labelled as a "busybody neighbor mouse." I'm sure that anyone in the NIMH community can tell you that she is not a mouse nor any kind of rodent for that matter but instead a shrew. This simple fact is stated quite obviously everytime her name is mentioned.
3) While I'll agree that Nicodemus must have seemed pretty strange and mysterious to her upon their first meeting, I have to take issue with some of the lines that follow this. Unless I missed something (and I don't think I did, given the number of times that I've watched this movie) all the scenes where Mrs. B. and Dragon appear involved her either running from him in abject terror for her life or slinking silently away from him (after a momentary collision with him) while he sleeps off a drug induced stupor. At no point do we see her for example; take up a stick or other weapon to use in fending him off. As far as claiming the amulet is concerned, as anyone who has seen this movie will tell you, the amulet was freely given to her as a gift by Nicodmeus as a present from her recently deceased husband Jonathan.
I guess my point in all of this is that if you are going to undertake the challenge of summarizing a play, book, newspaper article, or as in this case a movie, be sure that you are familiar with the subject matter at hand.
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n261/NIMHmaniac/scan.gif[" alt=""/img]

Peace :)
NIMHmaniac [/color][/size]

Well, I specifically said that the only things bad about it were the cover art and the promotion for it. I consider that to be lumped in with that, as promotional material. I agree, the summary of the movie is rather bad, but if you look at the rear cover summaries of most movies--most of which have a pretty dumb summary--the one for NIMH isn't egregious, either.

In any case, my review was specifically about the DVD itself, not the cover. I hope most people buy or rent DVDs based on something besides the cover summary anyway. And even if you do, that's something you can easily review for yourself without even having to buy it.

One thing that bugs me about the back of the new DVD is that picture of Mrs. Brisby on Jeremy's back. She looks like she's having fun, but that isn't like Mrs. Brisby at all! She would be quite terrified in that situation, being afraid of heights and all. :)

Never judge a book by the cover. Why shouldn't the same principle be applied to movies as well?
If we all judged the new NIMH DVD by the cover, we would only buy it to burn the discs in hell with the dreaded sequel.
But we're smart fans, aren't we? We gave it a chance and it provided.

Never judge a book by the cover. Why shouldn't the same principle be applied to movies as well?
If we all judged the new NIMH DVD by the cover, we would only buy it to burn the discs in hell with the dreaded sequel.
But we're smart fans, aren't we? We gave it a chance and it provided.

Uh..no...we were already intimately familiar with the film and its history. And sometimes, you can judge a movie by its cover.

Never judge a book by the cover. Why shouldn't the same principle be applied to movies as well?
If we all judged the new NIMH DVD by the cover, we would only buy it to burn the discs in hell with the dreaded sequel.
But we're smart fans, aren't we? We gave it a chance and it provided.

We were already intimately familiar with the film and its history, thus we criticize the cover. And sometimes, you can judge a movie by its cover.

Hence why I said we were smart fans. We knew what to expect and could pick out the wrong things. We already knew we were getting a great movie. Perhaps the writing was an attempt to bend the truth somewhat to bring in more customers.

I bought the DVD around two weeks ago, and i must say I am immensely satisfied. It's almost like experiencing the movie all over again. My favorite special feature so far is the the differnt language versions. They voices in the French and Spanish versions are almost as good as the English one.

This is good news, it means there'll be no issue for me grabbing the movie, taking the first disc and putting it in my old NIMH dvd case with the old (read: good) cover art and...I dunno, using the second disc as a clay pidgeon. After I burn a video copy of the featurette to my comp of course...assuming it's worth it.

I'm sorry, but when the second disc of a 2-disc special edition consists entirely of a fifteen minute featurette and games, it's a disappointment no matter how you slice it. This is an entire dvd. That's like four gigs of space to fill up and they just got one fifteen minute interview session?! What 'bout the Banjo short or some other relic from the early days of Bluth? Or even a friggin art gallery. God knows it'd be justified for this movie! And languages is NOT a special feature people, it's an audio option. Being wowed by different languages is like being wowed by the inclusion of the movie trailer.

Listen, I'm grateful for disc one. A commentary was more than I was expecting, let alone proper full/widescreen options. But adding a second disc with next to nothing of substance on it...it's a blatant deception I find insulting.

That's like four gigs of space to fill up and they just got one fifteen minute interview session?!

Actually the typical commercially made, consumer movie DVD contains about eight gigabytes of storage space on a dual layer disc.

Believe it or not, the original NIMH DVD is on a four gigabyte on a single layer disc.

You have to appreciate the effort they put into it. The interview and the commentary were good in my opinion. I kind of wished there were some deleted scenes to complement it, but that's the only gripe I can think of.

I imagine that it's something of a marketing thing; 2 disc special editions seem more appealing than a single-disc special edition, regardless of how much space is used on the first disc. If this version of NIMH were much more expensive than it is, I'd be bothered too, but as it is, it's only about $5-6 more than the regular one (which is usually sold at $10). And the first disc is a dual layer 9 GB one, while the special features disc is a standard 4.5 GB one.

As for the amount of special features, I wish there were more of them as well, but I think a lot of what they're working against is a lack of material to work with. It's been a long time since the movie was put out, and collecting extra material for special features is a rather recent invention, for the most part. I would love to see more, but I don't really know what more they could give us.

Though I do agree with the idea of sticking Banjo on the second disc. That'd be cute. :)

Sue me if you want (or whatever nasty thing you please), but I have never seen Banjo before besides those several-second clips from the special features. Unless you count Banjo from a video game series :wink:
Think the Banjo you're all talking about will make it to DVD?

I don't know if I somehow got a different copy of the movie for some reason (Or maybe a defective one...), but while I'll agree about cover art, the summery on the back and how lame the games overall are, I can't say that I think the picture quality of the film was all that good.

As I watched it I felt like I was at the theater watching it as black spots come up all over the place, the entire picture was spotty and overall didn't seem to had been cleaned up what so ever.

I overall like this one over the bare bone product that came before it, but that one had the same problems in it's picture quality. I especially hated when I heard Don talking about how the picture I'd be seeing would be nicer then the ones he was seeing. I get an idea that someone in MGM was downright dishonest with him.

I'm not too bothered by the 2 disc set up of it though, there needed to be a major difference from the earlier edition, though I have to say that different box art would have gone father (Almost got me to by the last one again when they changed it to the toonifide art.)

The main thing that caught my ear as Don was talking on the comentary was that he mentioned a high def version of the film. Maybe there saving the best stuff for that. You never know.


Lynxan

PS.... Never mind Banjo on the second disk... find that adult scene that was supposablely made way back when, that's making a family fun edition... just kidding :wink:

I don't know if I somehow got a different copy of the movie for some reason (Or maybe a defective one...), but while I'll agree about cover art, the summery on the back and how lame the games overall are, I can't say that I think the picture quality of the film was all that good.

As I watched it I felt like I was at the theater watching it as black spots come up all over the place, the entire picture was spotty and overall didn't seem to had been cleaned up what so ever.

I'll grant you, it's not perfect (though I wouldn't be surprised if some of the problems are MPEG2 artifacts, which tend to be more visible in animation), but I felt that there was a noticeable and significant improvement over what it used to be. And it's possible that there were limitations from the source--NIMH was created with an analog process and filmed with analog technology. There's bound to be imperfections in the film at any point in the process.

However, I have done some more empirical comparisons using a screengrabber and such (these screengrabs are currently unavailable due to the server move, but I'll try to get them back up asap), and I can definitely note an improvement.

The main thing that caught my ear as Don was talking on the comentary was that he mentioned a high def version of the film. Maybe there saving the best stuff for that. You never know.

From my understanding, they're planning on releasing a Blu-Ray version of the film soon. So, if you're one of the few people to have a Blu-Ray player, then that might be better. However, my understanding is that they will be using the same cleaned-up source for the Blu-Ray release as was used for this release. I personally don't care about HD, first because I don't have the equipment, second because I'm definitely not going to spend that kind of money on anything until the format wars settle down, and third because I'm not sure the jump in quality is /really/ anything to scream about. Especially if you don't have a gigantic TV.

PS.... Never mind Banjo on the second disk... find that adult scene that was supposablely made way back when, that's making a family fun edition... just kidding :wink:

lismirksli Since all I've heard is third-hand rumors about that, I'm inclined to believe that it's not much more than a myth, in any case.

Adult scene?

Adult scene?

Probably referring to this: http://www.egoworks.com/shrine/kiss.html

According to that, it was never anything intended for inclusion in the movie.

I don't get it. I do see that the price of stand-alone Blu-Ray players have finally dropped below the price of a PS3 (now it's a complete piece of junk). I'm wanting to get an HDTV at least for my room, if not the living room as well. So far my parents' bedroom is the only HDTV in out house (which is how I got my own TV).
If anything, I'm looking at investing in a decent multi-format player that can play both new formats.