Peter Pan has all the elements of the Classic animated features: Gorgeous artwork, great characterizations, Wonderful music and a never-ending devotion to top quality. One area where this film comes up a bit short however, is in heart – or as Walt himself put it, they never found the warmth. I have to agree with him and put that down as the main reason I keep the film at arms length. The story feels episodic in nature and there is little in the way of character growth. This is a similar problem that caused audience ambivalence to ALICE IN WONDERLAND, the studios feature just prior to Peter Pan.

Now, the folks at Disney have given us yet another release of the film. This third time around we are treated to a 2-Disc platinum edition – and it is also the best one yet. The disc includes plenty of new activities and extra materials in addition to a fascinating audio commentary hosted by Roy Disney and including many of the original animators, performers and content experts. This is the same audio commentary that was on the “Special Edition” released back in 2002.

What really separates this release from the others is the amazing restoration. Frame by frame looks like it was done today, the colors crisp and vibrant… the darks are dark and the lights are light. It is truly a joy to see this (and others in the Platinum series) looking better than they probably ever did. The sound ain’t too shabby either, working to utilize your home theatre system, although they stray from some of the original sound designs…

The low-point of this (and other recent Disney DVDs) is the inclusion of “Disney’s FastPlay”. This is a feature that means the opposite of what most people would hope. We’d want fast play to be a way to quickly start the movie, avoiding all the extra stuff that is thrown on movies nowadays. Actually, fast Play takes you into all that stuff, only faster. So, the marketing of other projects trumps quality a bit here. Not so bad since it can still be bypassed by going to the main menu.

The film of Peter Pan is a super ambitious effort. Detail and character business are absolute first-rate. If the film had a little more heart, it would fly even higher.