Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Well they messed this one up about as much one can. No one really knows what went wrong with the restoration, but the film is now blurry and ugly to look at for most of its runtime and is outdone by its 'older' iTunes HD counterpart and that is frankly pathetic. And even that release is being replaced with the newer 'restored' one. The sketchy artwork is clearly sourced from a dated master and has had all of its sharper qualities reduced to blobs in a decent portion of the picture because of EXCESSIVE DNR. Sword in the Stone has been 'cleaned' within an inch of its life.... Easily the worst Disney transfer out there. We had some problems with Cinderella losing details to the DNR machine and we also had problems with a couple other discs. Fox and the Hound basically got very little restoration in parts and Aristocats + Rescuers had some softness but nothing to this scale. Those releases actually look quite good imho. This is just ridiculous. After much debate, I consider the 60s films including Sword in the Stone and The Jungle Book to have some minor framing problems in the given aspect ratio here. Whether official or not I would still like to see a reframed 1.75:1 or better yet a 1.66:1 ratio more faithful to the elements of the film that have been chopped off. Sword in the Stone at 1.75:1, just like The Jungle Book, seems too congested for this aspect ratio. I'd say this one fares okay but it can still look awkward. A 1.66:1 'middle ground' ratio like that of Aristocats or Fox and the Hound, which look great in that ratio, would have helped immensely to keep the original elements in play as much as possible while staying faithful to the theatrical presentation. Refer to recent comments for more in-depth discussion. Many people are still unsure of things related to how these films should look. The OAR for the Xerography process (1961-1981) in Disney films is variable. They were animated at 1.33:1 so that when they were seen on TV they wouldn't be pan and scan, but they were also intended to be matted to a widescreen aspect ratio for theatrical runs. 1.75:1 is the booklet ratio suggested for theaters in America for the time by some accounts. 1.66:1 may have been popular in Europe. This doesn't obviously make what we have here truth, but we will never know what would be done today as the director and Walt Disney are dead. I want to make it clear that this film is made unwatchable because of the DNR. I implore the reader to go to Bluray.com and read the review and then the forums to make up their own mind. The releases of 2013 including Robin Hood and Oliver & Company came out pretty well concerning their lower budgets. THIS ONE did not. The screencaps tell the story. It looks HORRID. Some scenes look okay but I'd say over 70% of it just looks like some upconverted garbage with way too much DNR applied. Disney applies DNR typically to make the cells appear as they originally were in their purest form; to get rid of the grain in other words so the animation looks as it did on the original cells. This goes way beyond that. The film hasn't been preserved as it should have been. People need to at least start sending a message to Disney even if they do choose to purchase this. Sword in the Stone is a great animation film and a personal favorite of mine so I cannot let this go without a fight.