Have you seen Disney/Pixar’s UP yet? Absolutely incredible story, gorgeous animation, charming characters, hilarious moments, and possibly the most powerful, four-and-a-half minutes in cinematic history (I’m sure this montage will soon be removed once Pixar starts hollering at YouTube). That montage still makes me tear up.
So Disney/Pixar wins one Awesome Award there.
Disney/Pixar also showed incredible compassion by sending an employee with an UP DVD (well before the DVD public release) to the home of a girl dying with cancer who wanted to see UP before she died. She passed away seven hours after the viewing. I still can’t read that story without tearing up.
Disney/Pixar wins another Awesome Award there.
So (ahem, now I need to switch emotional gears) AHEM!!! So after all that, why must Disney/Pixar win themselves a Jerkface Award with their rental DVD release of UP? Last night I rented UP to share this great movie with my mother. My mother is old and her first language is Mandarin, so closed-captioning subtitles on TV shows and movies are a huge help for her.
Except that the DVD DOESN’T HAVE closed captioning nor subtitles. I spent so much time trying to find the main menu and set up the captioning or subtitles and couldn’t understand what was wrong with me or the two DVD players that I tried it on. Well, it turns out that Disney/Pixar issued a special rental DVD to Blockbuster, Netflix, and the like which doesn’t include “Bonus Features.” Apparently, closed captioning for the hearing impaired is in the same category as “Deleted Scenes” and “Commentary By Some Shmo.” Naturally, the full retail version includes the Bonus Features, like uhh, letting deaf people understand what’s going on.
It seems like this sort of move is just begging for an Anti-Discrimination Class Action Lawsuit. Oh, okay, I just checked on the web a little more, and apparently, Disney says that the lack of captioning was a mistake and that they’re trying to make up for it. I called their customer service # at 800-723-4763 (hit 4, hit 4 again). The operator told me that they were trying to replace the rental DVD’s with ones that had captioning but that it would take some time; she also offered me a $5 rental coupon or $5 off the purchase of the UP retail DVD. So I guess I will downgrade their negative award to Minor Jerkface from the Major Award that involved a different part of the body.
Posted by Glenn T on January 5, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Wow, Vic. Great post, and great reminder of a great movie. I hope your mom ultimately got to see and enjoy the movie and hope you’re started on a great 2010!
Posted by LL on January 5, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Great movie. Consider using one of the Chinese sites like youku or tudou – they usually sub western films in Chinese, however haphazardly. Or tracking down the Chinese-language version, 天外奇蹟.