Review of Treasure Planet: DVD Read Along

Introduction

This Read along DVD is the ninth title from Disney. They have already released classics such as `The Lion King` and `The Little Mermaid`. Previously these titles were only available on cassette and often provided in-car entertainment for the kids on long journeys.

With the increasing popularity of the portable games consoles and the suitability of the medium for the back seat of the car DVDs are the next step.

The story offered is a simplified version of the `Treasure Planet` film, itself based on the original `Treasure Island` by George Louis Stephenson. `Treasure Planet` offers a high tech twist to the tale with the addition of space travel and interesting robots.

Jim is a bored and lonely teenager with no future. He frequently gets into trouble with the robot-cops. One day a mysterious alien crash-lands and warns Jim about a `cyborg`. He leaves Jim a map of Treasure Planet and his adventure begins…

Video

This is a good quality disc with high production values. The story is made up of continuous static images pushed together to move the story along.

There is one music video that does not give an artist credit but has some images from the film.

Audio

The sound is excellent with good reproduction this is important for the story part where some cast voices are used.

There are two sing-a-longs and one music video. The songs are good quality but not really the sort of song that young children would automatically sing along with.

Features

As this is a different kind of DVD this section really covers most of the content. It is sold on the basis that has added value over and above the same story offered on cassette. It does come in as a much heftier purchase.

Story -this is the shortened version of the film. I`d be very reluctant to show a 3 year old this, as it was quite scary in places.

There is a music video of the theme tune by John Rzeznik. It s a good catchy tune but not Disney as we know it.

The game is a one play really-too easy for the over 4`s.

The vocabulary-this consist of 20 words available in 5 different languages. You may wish to know the word for treasure in French and German but I`m not sure these words are the first 3 year-old will learn.

Songs-There are two songs with the words to sing along to. I liked the songs so I presume I will like the soundtrack. The second song is recorded by British trio BBMak They are modern pop/rock which will appeal to older viewers but not necessarily the age group this disc is aimed at.

Previews-Many, many extended adverts for films, DVDs, cds I`m surprised that there wasn`t one for the Magic Kingdom. Poor indeed.

Conclusion

This disc is a blatant attempt to milk the Disney franchise by issuing another version of the film. Hey, I`ve got an idea why not read the book to your children and if they like it buy/rent the film. The story content is not suitable for a small child learning to read.

It is poor value for money, it does the film no favours and if anything will make me less likely to buy the DVD of the film itself. I enjoyed the musical additions but I was very annoyed by the rather large amount of the disc that was given over to advertising-that`s an innovation from Disney we could do without.