Blu-ray Review: Bambi Anniversary Edition

---

Disney's classic animated feature Bambi is once again available on Blu-ray, this time part of The Signature Collection. This version is called the Anniversary Edition... I'm assuming they're referring to its 75th anniversary since the movie was originally released in 1942 and it is now 2017, but they don't explicitly say this. This version looks exactly like the previous blu-ray release, at least so far as I remember. It has been around six years since I watched that one. Disney always does a great job of cleaning up films and making them look great for HD and Bambi was no exception.

Bambi isn't one of my favorite Disney films. It doesn't contain much of a plot, it just follows young Bambi around and shows him learning about the forest. It seems like it was just made to look pretty, and it does that well, but I like more depth in my movies. It's also only 70 minutes long, which is quite a bit shorter than the more typical 90 feature length run time. So the only difference that I could notice between this version and the Diamond Edition version is the extra features, and this release does contain some new extras:

New Extras

• Deleted Scenes
  • Babmi's Ice and Snow
  • The Grasshopper
• Animated Short: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
• Featurette: Studio Stories
• Featurette: The Bambi Effect
• Bambi Fawn Facts

It also includes extras that were included in previous releases:

Previously Included Extras

• Deleted Scenes
  • Two Leaves
  • Bambi Stuck on a Reed
  • Winter Grass
• Deleted Song: Twitterpated
• Animated Short: The Old Mill
• Featurette: The Making of Bambi
• Featurette: Tricks of our Trade
• Featurette: Inside the Disney Archives
• Featurette: The Golden Age
• Original Theatrical Trailer

All of these extras are on the blu-ray and digital HD, the DVD gets left out of the bonus arena and only contains the movie. I'm unsure as to why since the movies is only 70 minutes long there is surely enough space to add at least some of the extras. The digital HD also contains an extra bonus feature that's not on the blu-ray, a featurette called Celebrating Tyrus Wong.

Although I don't much care for the movie, this release is pretty good, packed with a bunch of extra features that includes deleted scenes and animated shorts. If you don't have Bambi on blu-ray and you want to, this would be a good release to pick up. If you already have it on blu-ray then there isn't much reason to get this release.