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Don Bluth put out
some fantastic
animated features
over the years.
The Land Before Time,
Rock-a-Doodle,
and late in his
career,
Titan A.E.
Before he made any
of those movies, he
started out with
The Secret of NIMH.
The Secret of NIMH
was adapted by Bluth
and Gary Goldman
from
Mrs. Frisby and
the Rats of NIMH
by Robert C.
O’Brien. The movie
tells the story of
Mrs. Brisby (voiced
by Elizabeth
Hartman), a field
mouse and a widow
with four young
children. Every fall
the mice that live
in the field have to
pick up and move
before the farmer
plows the field on a
day they call moving
day. But during this
particular moving
day, Mrs. Brisby
can’t move her
family because her
son Timmy is sick.
To get the help she
needs, she goes on a
quest to find the
rats of NIMH to
enlist their aid to
move not just her
family, but her
house. She discovers
the secrets of the
rats, their ties to
her husband, and
saves her family too
in an adventurous
tale.
Before Bluth did his
own direction for
United Artists and
other companies, he
worked for Disney.
He learned well at
the company. He and
Goldman made a great
movie and really a
solid series of
movies together.
The Secret of NIMH
has a wonderful
story, and the
animation done by
Bluth and his team
here was top notch.
Even the voicing
done here was great
with the voices
perfectly fitting
the characters they
were assigned to.
It's not a flawless
film by any means
but it still stands
out as a quality
production.
The weak part of
this release isn't
the feature; it's
the lack of
restoration done to
the feature. The
video quality here
isn't great. The
colors are distorted
and age and damage
really show up.
There are tons of
grainy distortions
and problems too.
The video is awful
but the audio is
decent here so it
does have that going
for it. The overall
blu-ray though is
lacking for what’s a
classic movie to
tons of people from
the 80’s. There's no
custom menu, the
extras are limited
to a commentary, a
fifteen minute
making of feature,
and the theatrical
trailer. It’s fairly
meager, but given
that the movie was
made in the 80’s you
can’t expect a ton
of that stuff. The
biggest flaw though
is that there’s no
custom menu put into
this. It probably
saves money and
time, but it also
feels like they just
threw this title out
there too.
The Secret of NIMH
is a great animated
feature. If you
don't already have
it on DVD then it's
worth taking a look
at with the blu-ray
release.
If you do
pick this up though,
be warned that
you'll get a movie
that looks like it
was made in the
80's, the picture
isn’t pristine, and
the extras to enjoy
if you are a fan of
the film are
extremely limited.
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