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List Price: $32.99Price: $24.99You Save: $8 (24%)Walt Disney Legacy Collection - True Life Adventures, Vol. 2
Actor: Winston Hibler
ASIN : B000I2J6O6
Sales Rank : 12432
Director : James Algar
Brand : Disney
Studio : Walt Disney Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0786936710236
UPC : 786936710236
Release Date : December 05, 2006
Publisher : Walt Disney Video
Manufacturer : Walt Disney Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Walt Disney Video
Running Time : 169
DescriptionExperience the wonder of Walt Disney's groundbreaking nature series for the first time on DVD! These acclaimed stories, fully restored to their original beauty, offer previously unssen looks into the magical world of our animal friends. Enjoy a collection of Disney's award-winning TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURES, including "The Living Desert," and the very first film, "Seal Island." It's a classic collection of animal adventures your whole family will treasure. Amazon.comThere was a time when Walt Disney produced mesmerizing nature films for family audiences. Walt Disney Legacy Collection: True Life Adventures, Vol. 2 reaches deep into the studio's vaults to pull together a selection of those remarkable little movies, a television staple for baby boomers who watched Disney's variously-titled series in the late 1950s and '60s. 
Listen to our interview
with director emeritus
Roy E. Disney.
| Basically, teams of roving cinematographers and other technicians were sent into the field, working under the general guidance of a well-researched script, a director, production group, etc. Ingenious editing, creative uses of music, and even touches of animation resulted in marvelous pieces such as the ones in this collection. Among the six titles here are "Living Desert," set in the American southwest; "Vanishing Prairie," an overview of what were once endless grasslands between the mountainous west and the full forests east of the Mississippi; and "Seal Island," shot on a remote Alaskan island. Nature programs are, of course, plentiful on contemporary television. But the Disney shows were unique at the time for applying high cinematic standards (the Technicolor on "Islands of the Sea," set in the Galapagos, is something to see) to the task of filming lizards, road runners, sandstorms, and exotic flowers. These programs are also tailor-made for young audiences. The more harrowing sequences of predators stalking their lunch, say, or seal pups getting separated from their mothers aren't censored, but they are softened in the editor's room and via anthropomorphic narration. True Life Adventures stands up today as good family viewing, though they are also fodder for nostalgia for viewers of a certain age. --Tom Keogh
Reviews for the Walt Disney Legacy Collection - True Life Adventures, Vol. 2
List Price: $32.99Price: $24.99You Save: $8 (24%)Walt Disney Legacy Collection - True Life Adventures, Vol. 3
Actor: Winston Hibler
ASIN : B000I2J6OG
Sales Rank : 13083
Director : James Algar
Brand : Disney
Studio : Walt Disney Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0786936710250
UPC : 786936710250
Release Date : December 05, 2006
Publisher : Walt Disney Video
Manufacturer : Walt Disney Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Walt Disney Video
Running Time : 204
DescriptionExperience the wonder of Walt Disney's groundbreaking nature series for the first time on DVD! These acclaimed stories, fully restored to their original beauty, offer previously unseen looks into the magical world of our animal friends. Enjoy CREATURES OF THE WILD, the third volume of Disney's award-winning TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURES. Journey inside the worlds of some of nature's most magnificent creatures with "The African Lion," "Jungle Cat," "Bear Country" and much more. It's an unforgettable collection of animal stories that the entire family will love. Amazon.comLong before Animal Planet existed, Walt Disney's True-Life Adventures awakened viewers to the wonders of the natural world. Disney began the series in 1946 with Seal Island, and the six features and seven featurettes won eight Academy Awards.
Listen to our interview
with director emeritus
Roy E. Disney.
| One winner was Bear Country (1953), which is included in Creatures of the Wild, along with The African Lion (1955), Jungle Cat (1959) and The Olympic Elk (1952). Each film traces the course of one year in the life of its subject. Lionesses hunt to feed their cubs (and their glorious but idle mates) on Serengeti Plains. A pair of jaguars in the Amazon and a mother bear in Yellowstone Park raise their cubs, teaching them to find food and avoid predators. Magnificent bull elk fight for mates in the high meadows of the Olympic Mountains. Except for the narration occasionally seeming a little forced or obvious, these documentaries wear their age lightly. The prints have been lovingly restored: scratches and dirt have been removed; the color looks pristine. Artists and scientists will find useful reference material here, and children will enjoy the pageant of nature. Sadly, many of the ecological communities that seemed as inexhaustible as they were beautiful in the 1950's have been severely damaged during the intervening decades by human encroachment, poaching, and climate change. The two-disc set is loaded with extras, including two black-and-white Disneyland shows from the 1950's. (Rated G, suitable for ages 6 and older: some hunting sequences may be too intense for very small children) --Charles Solomon
Reviews for the Walt Disney Legacy Collection - True Life Adventures, Vol. 3
New Price: $68.88Walt Disney Legacy Collection - True Life Adventures, Vol. 1: Wonders Of The World
Actor: Winston Hibler
ASIN : B000I2J6MS
Sales Rank : 27472
Director : James Algar, Ben Sharpsteen
Studio : Walt Disney Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0786936710212
UPC : 786936710212
Release Date : December 05, 2006
Publisher : Walt Disney Video
Manufacturer : Walt Disney Video
Label : Walt Disney Video
Running Time : 169
DescriptionExperience the wonder of Walt Disney's groundbreaking nature series for the first time on DVD! These acclaimed stories, fully restored to their orginal beauty, offer previously unseen looks inot the magical world of our animal friends. Enjoy a collection of Disney's award-winning TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURES, including "White Wilderness," "Water Birds," "Mysteries of the Deep," and many more. It's a marvelous compilation of animal-packed adventures that your whole family will adore! Amazon.com"Nature writes the screenplays," Walt Disney says of the pioneering nature documentaries that comprise this series, True Life Adventures.
Listen to our interview
with director emeritus
Roy E. Disney.
| First released in the early '50s to the public's delight, these nature documentaries were unique in their lively, fictional narrative approach to the subjects' lives, which were recreated with anthropomorphic humor and zest. Even today, and maybe more so, hearing that beavers in Beaver Valley are "always stubborn, always persistent," or that the crayfish shovel mud like "miniature bulldozers" is heartening, reminding one that Disney is The Magical Kingdom. Even more heartening is it that these scientific films, made with the latest cameras and technology, were filmic landmarks, and contain footage that David Attenborough's film crews would only dream of getting; in Mysteries of the Deep, a dolphin gives birth and there are views of coral reef that may not even exist anymore. White Wilderness takes one through the Arctic tundra, a "world of frozen chaos," showing majestic animals alongside the lemming, with their strange, suicidal tendency to jump off cliffs. This DVD has an entire second disc of extras, including Volume One's, highlight: The Crisler Story, a behind-the-scenes look at the Crislers, a couple whose arduous trips to Alaska to film migrating caribou included building their own hut, growing veggies, and living amongst wolves and grizzlies. Also in the extras are interviews with other directors, like Beaver Valley's Elma Milotte and Lloyd Beebe of White Wilderness, to shed light upon these long lost classics. For those who love both scientifically enlightening nature films and fairy tales, True Life Adventures are perfectly balanced to please as much one's sense of fun as one's love of information. --Trinie Dalton
Reviews for the Walt Disney Legacy Collection - True Life Adventures, Vol. 1: Wonders Of The World
New Price: $38.97Walt Disney Legacy Collection - True Life Adventures, Vol. 4
Actor: Winston Hibler
ASIN : B000I2J6RS
Sales Rank : 17637
Director : James Algar, Paul Kenworthy, Ralph Wright
Brand : Buena Vista Home Video
Studio : Walt Disney Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0786936716887
UPC : 786936716887
Release Date : December 05, 2006
Publisher : Walt Disney Video
Manufacturer : Walt Disney Video
Label : Walt Disney Video
Running Time : 146
DescriptionExperience the wonder of Walt Disney's groundbreaking nature series for the first time on DVD! These acclaimed stories, fully restored to their original beauty, offer previously unseen looks into the magical world of our animal friends. Enjoy NATURE'S MYSTERIES, the fourth volume of Disney's award-winning TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURES. Explore some of the world's most fascinating natural phenomena in the amazing films "Secrets of Life," "Perri" and many more. It's classic Disney live-action shorts at their finest! Amazon.comIn the 1950s, Disney produced a host of short nature films that were groundbreaking both for their innovative perspective, combining fantasy with real-life nature photography, and their development and reliance on huge technological advances in cameras and filmmaking. Secrets of Life and Perri, digitally restored 16-mm films retrieved from the Disney archives, are two of the first live-action shorts to offer an up-close and in-depth look at the life cycles of animals, insects, and plants.
Listen to our interview
with director emeritus
Roy E. Disney.
| The photography of Secrets of Life is stunning to this day, offering an incredible time-lapse look at flowers opening, close-up shots of honeybees pollinating flowers and reproducing within the hive, and even footage of a volcano erupting. Even more amazing is the scientific understanding gained through that photography: knowledge of the secrets of adaptation and self preservation of plants, the disparate functions of bees within a colony, and the restorative function of an erupting volcano. While Perri is based on a fictional story about a precocious young squirrel, the depiction of the life and death struggle of squirrel, marten, beaver, and a host of other critters that live in Wildwood Heart is absolutely real and faithfully photographed. Academy Award-winning Nature's Half Acre portrays the delicate balance of nature and the timeless cycle of seasons complete with birds building their nests, voracious caterpillars eating everything in sight, and a look at the carnivorous Venus Flytrap. Almost as noteworthy as the photography in all of these shorts is the carefully composed music that mirrors the onscreen actions of everything from the tapping of a woodpecker to the jerky jumps of pond frogs. A huge assortment of bonus tracks feature Roy Disney and others discussing everything from the scientist photographers involved in the sometimes yearslong filming of these nature films, to the major technological advances in photographic equipment that these films necessitated, the incredible logistics involved in filming, and a look back at the life of writer, director, and narrator Winston Hibler. Both important pieces of filmmaking history and a great selection of nature programming, the Disney True Life Adventures series DVDs come in unique collectors tins reminiscent of the stored reels of film in Disney's archives. --Tami Horiuchi
Reviews for the Walt Disney Legacy Collection - True Life Adventures, Vol. 4
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