This autumn, Universal Home Entertainment will give Don Bluth’s 1988 animated classic The Land Before Time the Blu-ray treatment. The release, a Blu-ray and Digital Copy combo pack, is now up for pre-order on Amazon and it’s listed on Blu-ray.com.
The film is not only notable for its success back in 1988, it’s also notable for being a collaboration between the ex-Disney animator-turned-competitor, Steven Spielberg (who also produced Bluth’s previous film, An American Tail), and George Lucas. Universal released the film on the same day as Disney Feature Animation’s Oliver & Company, both went head-to-head in a historic box office race. At the domestic box office Disney’s film narrowly won and The Land Before Time put up quite the fight. Years later, it received numerous direct-to-video sequels and a TV series…
The title will be released on October 13th, the same day as the Diamond Edition of Aladdin, and a certain other Universal film about dinosaurs that also happens to be Spielberg-related (and also currently happens to be this year’s biggest film at the box office and the third biggest of all-time). Let’s also not forget that Pixar has an animated dinosaur film of their own opening a month later.
The last time this film hit home media was back in late 2003. Will the Blu-ray be a high quality release? The Blu-ray for An American Tail, the only other Bluth film released by Universal, had two bonus features, and review sites like Blu-ray.com criticized the picture quality. It’s possible that Universal might give this film similar treatment, or maybe they might surprise us. One question that animation fans might ask is this: Will the set include deleted scenes or the full, legendary uncut version? Most likely not, though it would be great to see that cut of the film and a lot of bonus features, should this Blu-ray release not have any or just a few.
Are you looking forward to the first Blu-ray release of ‘The Land Before Time’? Do you think it will contain bonus features? Do you think it will boast good video and sound quality? Sound off below!
Edited by: Hannah Wilkes
