Disney’s had a pretty quick turnaround time with Pete’s Dragon, that weird hybrid of a live action film featuring an animated green dragon named Elliott. The film only hit DVD a couple of years ago, and now the Mickey Mouse company has cleaned the film up and brought it to high definition for the flick’s 35th Anniversary. Pete’s Dragon hits Blu-ray today, and to celebrate Disney has a clip from the film to share with fans.
The “Apples” clip is a great introduction to the friendship between Pete and Elliott, which is certainly the highlight of a film otherwise marred by really poor musical numbers (I take it back, this film does have “Candle on the Water”) and some silly bad guys. In the clip, the two friends play catch with some apples, and Elliott proves he can, indeed, produce fire. Still, I’ve always found that trick where animated characters are thrown into a realistic setting to be pretty marvelous and the picture looks pretty solid in the clip.
For its 35th Anniversary Blu-ray release, Disney put the film through some sort of digital restoration process, which makes the red apples look brighter and the dirt look a little darker and more prominent on Pete’s face. Otherwise, this is still the movie you probably saw once or twice as kids and probably mostly forgot about. If you do have some sort of nostalgic love for the flick, don’t forget to order it today…you know, after you finish whitewashing the lighthouse.
