What happens when a marketing scheme goes wrong? People get angry.
That’s exactly what happened last week when consumers discovered the lack of special features on rental copies of Up. Although this bonus material cut is quite unfortunate, especially when we’re talking about a Pixar DVD, it makes sense in a marketing perspective.
So when Disney decided to add only the movie and scene selection (no shorts or anything else) to rental versions of Up, they weren’t counting on a big controversy. Instead they figured viewers would love the movie so much that they’d go out and buy the Blu-ray/DVD. I’m sure that would be the case normally, unfortunately for those with hearing impairments it was a different kind of disappointment…
In the frenzy of (somewhat understandable) feature cutting, the Disney folks accidentally left out closed captioning! Those who are hard of hearing and can only enjoy a film properly in their home theatre would not be able to access this expected essential. The cut is quite shocking since most people wouldn’t consider captions as part of the special features repertoire.
Disney insists it was a unintentional mistake and promises to fix the issue as soon as possible. Read their official statement over at /Film.
Who would’ve thought that Carl Fredricksen would go from the cover of Hear the World to a closed captions conundrum like this? Your thoughts?
Oh and, "Gobble, gobble, gobble", that’s Kevin speak for Happy Thanksgiving!
Looks like they made what my teacher calls a “‘opps’ mistake”!
Yikes! What a bummer… yeah, I was a little sad the DVD I got didn’t come with a commentary, but I’m happy enough with just the main movie and two short films.
Also, I love the fitting image you chose to match this update 😉 Happy Thanksgiving, Pixar Planet.
—Leirin
Leirin, did you get the 1-Disc US DVD? Because that one does have commentary as part of its special features. 🙂
Closed-captioning is a standard feature. It was a dumb mistake.