 March 19 March 19 March 16 March 16 March 16 March 16 March 15 March 15 March 15 March 15 March 15 March 15 March 15  The Nightmare Before Christmas Blu-ray Review (with D-BOX)September 04, 2008
Take the very concept of the Halloween King becoming bored with his monotonous routine and seeking a fresh purpose in life by taking over Christmas. Young trick-or-treaters kidnap Santa Claus and a jubilant but deadly Boogeyman is ready to dispose of the mighty red-suited one in a most gruesome manner. It takes a special person to not only dream up such an anomalous concoction, but to execute it in an imaginative, fresh way both tasteful and controversial at the same time.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is a magical blend of animation, music and creativity. Visually it was revolutionary for its time and still works today despite some animation quirks ironed out years later in The Corpse Bride. The music, in particular, is catchy like a Broadway play. To throw more kudos composer Danny Elfman's direction, he does a bang-up job voicing Jack Skellington as a conflicted leader in dire need of a reality check. One viewing to take everything in is simply not enough.
Buena Vista re-mastering The Nightmare Before Christmas on Blu-ray Disc is a perfect gift to longtime fans of the film and younger Playstation 3 adopters never exposed to Burton's earlier works. The video is presented in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio in 1080p resolution. Burton's more recent stop-motion film, The Corpse Bride, has been readily available on Blu-ray for nearly three years and set a high video standard for Burton fans looking for a repeat performance with Nightmare. Though Nightmare can't quite top Bride's eye-popping transfer, it is without a doubt the best the film has ever looked and an above average Blu-ray visual experience.
Nightmare's squeaky clean image has obviously been touched up since DVD to remove artifacts, dirt and other unwanted blemishes Blu-ray owners have grown to hate. The result is a sharp image that doesn't suffer from dreaded digital noise reduction some Blu-ray owners have grown to hate even more. An obvious edge halo only appears once when Jack steps in front of the moon during his opening song. Otherwise, the transfer is more than pleasing from beginning to end.
Disney spared no expense on the audio front with an impressive 7.1 Dolby TrueHD 48 kHz/24-bit treatment. This mix has to be one of the cleanest and enveloping audio experiences on Blu-ray in the last several months. Voices are always spot-on accurate and easily heard, even when they're required to travel to the rear soundstage. One such scene involving the mayor speaking as he moves around the camera is translated perfectly through the mix to where it really sounds like the mayor is standing behind you. Other "surround moments" are so convincingly real that it is hard not to turn around.
D-BOX Motion Code
Aside from a thump here or a scare there, the rest of the film is relatively calm in terms of movement and action on-screen. This left D-BOX engineers a challenge to insert as much appropriate Motion Code as possible without mudding up the presentation with force movement.
What they did is something I want to see more of in the future: designing the Motion Code to play along with the score. The bass in Elfman's score is reverberated through D-BOX with precise pitch based on the tune and key. This more subtle use of D-BOX scattered between the more obvious flying sequences balances the experience by cutting down what would have been overly long stints of no D-BOX motion into more acceptable outages.
Several all-new supplemental features including a standard definition digital copy offered on a separate disc have been mixed with others previously available to create the most robust offering of Nightmare extras available in a single package.
New Audio Commentary with Tim Burton, Director Henry Selick and Music Composer Danny Elfman Burton opens up about how Nightmare came to be, the influences and putting the daunting film together. It takes awhile for Henry and Danny to get going but they eventually do and offer their own unique take on their contributions to the film. Nightmare's short runtime cements this commentary as one worth visiting.
Tim Burton Movie Introduction (0:18, HD) Tim manages to eek out a single sentence to preface Nightmare Before Christmas on Blu-ray. He can't even come up with 30 seconds of words to offer about the format, which is a shame.
What's This? Jack's Haunted Mansion Holiday Tour (7:14, HD) Offered with an optional pop-up trivia track that is a must, this narrated tour of Disney's Haunted Mansion an eye opener for anyone who hasn't been to the park during the holiday months. There are enough renovations made to consider a trip just to check it out in person, amongst everything else Disney has to offer.
Frankenweenie (Uncut) With New Introduction by Burton (30:05) Burton's 33-second intro states the feature film version is in the early stages of production. The actual Frankenweenie is crude but gives a glimpse into what to expect from the new film.
Tim Burton's Original Poem Narrated by Christopher Lee (11:37, HD) Burton intros this haunting reading accompanied by art based on Burton's original concepts. Lees legendary voice negates the needs for any visuals at all. The poem is just as effective with eyes closed or open.
Vincent (5:55) Tim Burton and Henry Heinrich's early short film at Disney presented in full. Some of the stop motion techniques used in Vincent would find their way into Nightmare Before Christmas.
Deleted Storyboard (2:56) Three are offered with a play all option. The Boogeyman dancing bugs song would have been a nice in the final film if completed. The final storyboard reveals a "twist" that would have changed the outcome of two characters fates.
Deleted Animated Sequences (5:06) These four sequences are fully animated but due to time constraints were given the axe. I am surprised any of these sequences were cut given the relatively short runtime.
The Making of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas (24:44) Six chapters viewable individually or via play all touch upon the standard areas of film production. A narrator moves various segments along including interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. What's great about this short documentary is most of what is discussed varies from what Tim, Danny and Henry offer in their commentary.
Halloween Town, Christmas Town, The Real World - Within these three featurettes are nuggets of never-before-seen pre-production artwork that plays like a slideshow. Some of Jack's original designs had him looking much more menacing than the final character.
Storyboard to Film Comparison (3:47) These are standard comparisons with the storyboards on top and running film on bottom. The windows are fairly small, each taking up only about 20% of a widescreen display.
Posters and Trailer - A bevy of original posters are viewable in a slideshow including a great one titled "lock, shock and barrel." Also on display are the original teaser and theatrical trailers which have not been remastered like the feature film and are presented in full-screen.
Burton fans have been waiting for The Nightmare Before Christmas to come to Blu-ray after being stunned by the impressive transfer on The Corpse Bride. While this new re-mastered Collector's Edition isn't as crisp a transfer as Bride due to the way it was photographed and some clean up work applied, the film has never looked better than it does on Blu-ray. The surround audio is some of the cleanest and immersive offered so far this year, complimented by a subtle D-BOX Motion Code track that takes full advantage of Elfman's music. Even the special features are worth digging through for a number of "I didn't know that" tidbits scattered throughout.
What's this? It's a Blu-ray Disc you'll want to check out whether a fan of Burton's work or not.
- Dan Bradley
Shop for The Nightmare Before Christmas: Collector's Edition on Blu-ray at Amazon.com. Browse all Amazon.com Blu-ray pre-orders
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Most Christmastime viewing staples are fairly straightforward live-action films like A Christmas Story or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, or classic animated television shows like Rudolph or Frosty. Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, however, falls into its own unique category. It may share the stop-motion animated techniques used to bring Frosty and Rudolph to life, but any comparisons end right there.
