Disney announced the laser release of Tim Burton's 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' in two editions, a full-frame movie-only edition in CLV and a letterboxed collector's edition with tons of extras in CAV. It was later reported that the CLV would be letterboxed but none of the distributors got this info, so a lot of people were unsure what to expect. Well, the CLV disc was released and, yes Virginia, it is letterboxed. Not only that, but this may well be the closest to technical perfection that I have ever seen in a laser disc. The transfer for the laser disc (CLV and CAV used the same master), both video and audio, is virtually flawless. Color, contrast and sharpness have been tweaked to perfection and the nearly total absence of video artifacts gives this transfer a transparency rarely achieved in consumer video. The framing is about 1.66:1, approximately the same as 'Aladdin' and 'Beauty And The Beast'.
The film runs only 76 minutes and contains 21 chapters. Disney has opted not to press one side in CAV, even though the running time could easily accomodate it. Instead, the film is split almost exactly in half with two CLV sides runing roughly 38 minutes each. The side break could have been better but does at least occur at a scene change. With a list price of only $29.95, this disc was at least tied with 'Speed' as the laser bargain of 1994.
The CAV collector's edition was certain to have some very interesting supplemental material, but for those that simply couldn't wait, or those not interested in supplements, this CLV edition of 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' is a definite winner.
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