Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Disney Parks: The Secrets, Stories and Magic Behind the Scenes Blu-ray Movie Review

The most secretive place on earth.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 1, 2011

Like a lot of people, I have two distinct sets of memories revolving around Disneyland and Disney World. The first have to do with my own childhood experiences visiting the parks, and the second have to do with taking my own sons to the parks when they were little. I can still remember standing in line for what seemed like forever when I was probably 5 or 6, waiting to get on the Matterhorn with my Mother. Years later, I went to Disney World and one of my sisters was living in Florida at the time. Now years later, my own kids have had the fun of standing in endless lines at both parks, though the Matterhorn is now apparently too passé for kids, and cooler attractions like the Indiana Jones ride beckon. The amazing thing about both of these parks is just how timeless they are, and how little the general feeling of both places has remained the same, even as various attractions have come and gone. One thing that fascinated me from the first time I wandered wide-eyed down Disneyland’s Main Street was the “second story” of all the quasi-early 20th century buildings lining that fantasy laden avenue. There were windows up there and I couldn’t help but imagine what might be going on behind the frilly lace curtains. A different sort of curiosity occupied my adult mind when, while visiting Disney World with our kids, my wife and I witnessed a little contretemps with an apparently inebriated “guest” who started becoming combative, and then suddenly, as if out of thin air, there were a number of security personnel escorting this person firmly but gently out of sight of the rest of the park goers. Where had these security people come from? Where did they just as surreptitiously disappear to? I kept hoping that Disney Parks revealed some of these questions of my inquiring mind, but instead this enjoyable enterprise plays much like a glorified infomercial, replete with a pitch to make reservations at the Disney Parks website at the end of the main offering on this Blu-ray.

Disney Parks: The Secrets, Stories and Magic Behind the Scenes is split into three main features, Disneyland Resort: Behind the Scenes, Ultimate Walt Disney World and Undiscovered Disney Parks. The three are frankly interchangeable, at least in terms of how they treat the individual parks, though obviously the first two are focused on the individual Anaheim and Orlando destinations, while the third combines elements of the two. For anyone who has been to either or both parks, there’s probably little here that will surprise or amaze, but there are occasional factoids sprinkled through the quasi-advertising cum travelogue aspect of all three features that are interesting.

Disneyland Resort features some snippets of archival footage of the opening of the park, as well as the early construction efforts, showing Walt proudly beaming as his dream of a destination resort was becoming reality. The special travels around the park and visits all of the “Lands,” offering little tidbits about most of them while describing their salient features and major attractions. “Little” items like the golden spike driven into the floor of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle which designates the geographic center of Disneyland are also mentioned.

There are some nice aspects to this outing in terms of how the park has reinvented itself through the years. At one point Tomorrowland was getting to be more like Retroland, and a major overhaul had to be undertaken. But even long running exhibits have had their rides spruced up, and there is some interesting information given on how venerable rides like the Matterhorn and Pirates of the Caribbean have been revised over the years.

The Walt Disney World outing may be more notable for some of the lesser known, off-park central attractions it features which a lot of park goers may not even realize exist. These include parasailing out over the water surrounding the park, as well as race car driving. But the bulk of this special, much like the Disneyland effort, simply takes us on a whirwind tour through the park and its many rides and attractions. One of the most interesting little segments deals with the Mission Space exhibit, a very lifelike blastoff adventure that I can tell you from personal experience is not to be undertaken by anyone with a weak stomach. Interestingly (and funnily), the Ultimate Walt Disney World special doesn’t really get into the “resting” room where a lot of adults (myself included) collapse for up to several hours after riding Mission Space until their balance and inner ear problems have righted themselves.

While Undiscovered Disney Parks contains some repetitive elements from the other two specials, by far its most interesting aspect is its peek “behind the curtain” at some of the supposedly “secret” sites within the parks, like the famous Club 33, the private VIP lounge hidden behind a nondescript door in the New Orleans section. We get a nice look inside this lounge, including the animatronic vulture which once “talked” with customers but which has sadly fallen into disrepair. (Where’s an Imagineer when you really need one?).

While the perhaps silly secret of what goes on on the second stories of Main Street buildings isn't definitively answered, there are some interesting tidbits dropped by the wayside, specifically about how certain rides were constructed. A nice sequence shows how the computer operated hydraulic systems make those Indiana Jones Jeeps provide such a wild ride. An even nicer sequence shows the guy who designed California Adventure's Soaring Over California ride, and how his childhood erector set helped him visualize the proper way to hoist viewers into the air in a virtual parasailing ride.

This trio of special may well be more enjoyable for families who have not yet visited the parks, as they give newcomers a really nice, relatively thorough overview of the "big" attractions at Disneyland, Walt Disney World and the newer California Adventure which abuts Disneyland in Anaheim. But short segments on some additions, revisions and upcoming attractions which are included in these specials may be enough to lure even former visitors back to these happiest places on earth.

Disney Parks: The Secrets, Stories and Magic Behind the Scenes Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Disney Parks: The Secrets, Stories and Magic Behind the Scenes is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Questar, with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This is an average looking high definition presentation that certainly suffices in terms of being an introduction to the parks, but it never really pops into anything much above an average image quality. While colors are excellent and accurate, the overall image is really pretty soft, especially in midrange and far shots. Several of the shots inside interior rides suffer from fairly noticeable crush. There is also some minor aliasing to report.

Disney Parks: The Secrets, Stories and Magic Behind the Scenes Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Questar hasn't yet really jumped with two feet into lossless audio on their Blu-ray releases, and so Disney Parks: The Secrets, Stories and Magic Behind the Scenes only sports a standard Dolby Digital 2.0 track. As with the image quality, this soundtrack certainly suffices for getting its information across, but with all three specials devoting so much time to the ambience and especially the rides of the parks, how much greater would it have been to have had a lossless surround track. Fidelity here is fine, if not stupendous, but dynamic range is somewhat limited.

Disney Parks: The Secrets, Stories and Magic Behind the Scenes Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Walt Disney's Apartment (1080i; 1:54) takes a quick look at the private apartment above the Fire Department on Main Street where Walt Friday and Saturday nights at the park. A lamp remains illuminated in the window in honor of the park's founder.
• King Arthur's Carousel (1080i; 1:19) details the carousel's 2003 makeover.
• Disney's Resort Hotel (1080i; 3:40) deals with a similar remodeling of the park's hotels.
• Tips for Travelers (1080i; 1:30) is a brief but informative overview of information that will be helpful to first time visitors.
• The Disney Dream (1080i; 2:23) highlights a 2011 Disney Cruise Ship.
• Virtual Ride on the Disney Dream AquaDuck (1080i; 1:02) gives us a virtual ride on the cool "water coaster" on the cruise ship that goes out over the ocean.
• The Haunted Mansion (1080i; 2:25) details the Mansion's upgrades in 2007.
• Goofy's Barnstormer (1080i; 2:22) looks at the kid sized roller coaster.
• Catastrophe Canyon (1080i; 3:29) is the park's SFX live action show.

Disney Parks: The Secrets, Stories and Magic Behind the Scenes Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I personally wished there would have been some more in-depth behind the scenes footage here letting us see the nuts and bolts of how the park operates and what's behind its shiny façade. This set of specials plays too much like an infomercial to ever be taken very seriously as a documentary feature, but in terms of imparting a modicum of information while raising some enthusiasm about an immanent visit to one of the parks, it probably will get the kids' pulses racing quickly. Maybe knowing too much about the magic of the Magic Kingdom would be a bad thing, but revealing a few more secrets would have helped to elevate this release considerably. This is still certainly a worthwhile purchase for families considering going to the parks, and for them I rate this Blu-ray Recommended.