Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment has announced that it will release Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Kaze no tani no Naushika; Hayao Miyazaki, 1984) on Blu-ray on March 8, 2011, on a BD/DVD combo pack. This would be the first Blu-ray release of a catalog title from the famous Studio Ghibli in the US (the 2008 production Ponyo was released earlier this year).
Special features include:
The World of Ghibli: Visit Nausicaa's world in this enchanted interactive experience
Behind the Studio: Discover the film's origins in this documentary, including an interview with Hayao Miyazaki
Enter the Lands: Explore the many worlds of Studio Ghibli
Studio Ghibli Trivia Challenge
Original Japanese Storyboards
Behind the Microphone: with A-list voice talent (on the DVD)
Wow! I was going to see this soon, but I just might have to wait for the Blu-Ray than. I've seen and loved a few of Miyazaki's other films, so this is a blind buy.
I imported the blu-ray from Japan. It has a standard Dolby 2.0 track that is English and a LPCM 2.0 track that is Japanese. I hope the US release will have a lossless 5.1 track in either language (both preferably).
One of my favourites, Beautiful movie. We had Madman Entertainment release the Ghibli Movies down here with out the excessive advertising that purportedly accompanied the Disney Releases, so it would be interesting to see what happens down in this market.
Is Disney doing their own restoring/remaster? Or is it just direct transfer from Japanese blu-ray? And how was Japanese blu-ray? Ponyo looked great but this movie is from the 80's, and I don't know how good of restoration that Japan has done or if Disney will give this old Japanese movie the same attention that they have done with their own animated film. I really hope hope hope that all the Miyazaki's film will get the restoration that it deserves.
nausicaa the Japanese BD release is amazing, w/miyazaki approving the transfer. UK ed. is awful thouggh cause it applies DNR/EE. i hope US uses the Japanese transfer and not mess with it. both have lossless audio though and that's pretty good.
JediFonger - I've seen the comparisons and the UK version does have film noise. The Japanese version it looks excessive, like they overilluminated it scanning it, or did some funny overcontrasting on the grain to make it pop out. It looks wrong, like the grain is artificially exaggerated. Who knows what the truth as to what Miyazaki approved, or even looked at, or how good the eyesight is of a 69 year old.
Great news! Can't wait for the rest of the catalog Studio Ghibli films. If Disney can release twice a year, I'd be happy (of course they can always release more per year).
