Ever since Toy Story burst on the scene with its incredible computer generated images, hand drawn animation began to fade away. After the release of Toy Story, each new CGI feature seemed to outdo the others, advancing the state of art even further, with more realistic and lifelike animation and movement. When it comes to CGI, the sky really seems to be the limit. However, lost in all this technical advancement was the sheer beauty of hand drawn animation, the kind that the folks at Disney Studios made so famous. I guess it was fitting that Disney, under the helm of John Lassiter of Pixar fame, would be the ones to bring hand drawn animation back to the screen with 2009′s The Princess and the Frog, which has finally made its way to Blu-ray.

Film 

The Princess and the Frog takes us to New Orleans and follows a young woman named Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose), the first Disney African-American princess,as she tries to fulfill her late father’s dream of opening a restaurant in New Orleans. However, she is kissed by a frog prince and is turned into a frog. Both escape into the bayou and have to navigate the perils of the Bayou so that they can return to New Orleans, defeat the evil voodoo man who turned them both into frogs in the first place and become human again.

The film is funny, witty and poignant and features plenty of magic and magical figures, incredible looking animation and a wonderful musical score by Randy Newman that is for me, one of the highlights of the film. It is really hard to image Disney returning to the world of hand drawn animated features with a better film that The Princess and the Frog.

Video 

The video quality on The Blu-ray release of The Princess and the Frog is magnificent. The images on screen are simply beautiful, with a warmth that CGI has yet to match. This film features a warm, bright and bold color palette featuring just about every color one can imagine. The colors are well saturated and sumptuous. Black levels are deep and inky and superb as well. Detail and clarity are excellent, creating a wonderful sense of depth, creating the very realistic sense of space between the characters and the backgrounds, almost looking 3D. I really can’t praise the videos on this release enough, it is that good.

Audio 

The video, as good as it is, is matched by the quality of the audio presentation, resulting in the rare double 5 stars rating. The sound here is fantastic any way you cut it, from the rich and smooth sound to the immersive use of the surrounds and the incredible dynamics and rock solid bass. The audio on this release has it all. Transparency, depth and imaging are all phenomenal. The dialogue track is also beautifully recorded and well placed front and center in the mix. However, as good as the overall audio quality is here, my favorite aspect of the sound is the music which features stunning fidelity and is amongst the best sounding musical score that I have yet to experience in the home. The folks at Disney have hit a home run, no a grand slam, with the audio as well as the video quality on this release.

Special Features 

It is really hard to imagine a more generous slate of extras than what are featured on the combo release of The Princess and the Frog. Disc 1 features the Blu-ray version of the film and extras. Disc 2 is a DVD version of the film and disc 3, a digital copy, compatible with all portable media devises. The set is also BD-Live enabled, allowing you access to even more on line content. The extras are all presented in HD and look almost as good as the feature. It is clear that great care went into preparing the extra package, both in terms of content and presentation.

The extras are comprised of several featurettes, with the main one being a making of featurette “Magic In The Bayou: The Making of a Princess” in which co-writers and directors John Musker ad Ron Clements take you behind the scenes of the creation of the film. “The Return to Hand Drawn Animation” explains how the film was made and why the studio decided to return to the hand drawn animation arena.

The other featurettes include “The Disney Legacy”, “Disney’s Newest Princess”, “The Princess and the Animator”, “Conjuring the Villain”, “A Return to the Animated Musical”, and “Bringing Life to Animation”. These featurettes go into more detail about particular aspects of the film than what are included on the longer more encompassing main featurette.

The extras also include a series of deleted scenes with an introduction by John Musker and Ron Clements and art galleries, featuring a collection of the storyboards used to construct the film. Also included is a audio commentary by John Musker, Ron Clements and producer Peter Del Vecho and a “Never Knew I Needed” music video by Ne-Yo.

The final extra is a “What Do You See” Princess Portraits” featuring a quiz of all Disney Princesses and portraits of each of those princesses. There is a ton of material to go through here which should keep fans of the film and Disney animation busy for hours

Final Thoughts 

The folks at Disney have really hit one out of the park with the Blu-ray release of The Princess and the Frog, a great film featuring reference audio and video presentations. What more could you ask for? Highly recommended.