Rated: G (General Audience)
Studio: Disney-Pixar
Release Date: November 13, 2012
Run Time: 75 minutes
Shorts: 4 out of 5 stars
Extras: 3.5 out of 5 stars
When it comes to Disney/Pixar, the Award-winning studio behind Toy Story 3, Up and WALL•E, they are the best when it comes to short films. I get to the theater early for everyone of their films just to catch the shorts. This Blu-ray release includes 12 short films, which are together for the very first time. Obviously, this is the second volume of shorts and is a real step up from volume one. The first volume includes the classics but these include some of my personal favorites. If you are a fan of these shorts, then this a must purchase to get all these shorts in one place.
The following shorts included are “Your Friend the Rat” (2007). “Presto” (2008), “BURN-E” (2008), “Partly Cloudy” (2009), “Dug’s Special Mission” (2009), “George & A.J. (2009), “Day & Night” (2010), “Toy Story Toons: Hawaiian Vacation” (2011), “Cars Toons: Air Mater” (2011), “Toy Story Toons: Small Fry” (2011), “La Luna” (2011) and “Cars Toons: Time Travel Mater” (2012).
“BURN•E” is based on characters from “WALL•E”. “Dug’s Special Mission” and George & AJ” are both inspired from “Up”. “Air Mater” and “Time Travel Mater” are from “Cars Toons” featuring Mater. “Your Friend The Rat” features Remy and Emile from “Ratatouille”. The last two that are related to a franchise are “Toy Story Toons” including “Hawaiian Vacation”, which was shown in front of “Cars 2” and “Small Fry”, which was shown in front of “The Muppets”. Original shorts included are Day & Night was shown before “Toy Story 3”. La Luna is the newest and was just shown in front of “Brave”. “Partly Cloudy” was shown before “Up”. “Presto” was shown before “WALL-E”. These areall previously on the respective Blu-ray/DVD releases. This is the first time that the shorts “George & AJ”, “Small Fry” and “Time Travel Mater” have ever been released on Blu-ray/DVD.
This release comes as a combo pack including both a Blu-ray and DVD included. There are several commentary tracks, as well as introductions for the shorts included. But the real draw for this release besides the shorts themselves are seven rarely seen student films from John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter. These are worth the purchase of the disc alone. The student films that are included are “Nitemare”, “The Lady & The Lamp”, “Somewhere in the Arctic”, “A Story”, “Winter”, “Palm Springs” and “Next Door”. These just show where these creative geniuses have come from and how far they have come since their early days.
