Toy story 3 came out on Blu-ray/DVD Tuesday with several versions available: DVD, 2 disc Blu-ray and 4 disc combo pack containing both of the former plus a digital copy. Disney's making it so that you can watch it in any home video format available period.
However, beware the 'Ultimate Toybox' giftset! Back in 2000, the original Ultimate Toybox came out and was one of the best DVD releases
ever. This new Blu-ray edition not only fails to live up to that name, but also has some of the most unsafe packaging I've ever seen.
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| What horrors are contained within? |
Earlier in the year when those Blu-rays of the first Toy Story movies were released, I sat out in the hopes that there would be a boxset akin to the 2000's Ultimate Toybox. I was extremely pleased to see one announced when the press release for Toy Story 3's home video release came out. Little did I know that this UTB would just be a straight repack of the individual releases inside of a matte cardboard box made to look like Andy's toy chest
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| Sorry for the quality of the pics; I took them pretty quickly because I wanted to get this back to the store ASAP. |
I was disappointed that there was no exclusive content from the solicits on the internet. That, I could live with. But upon removing the toy chest shaped box from it's flimsy cardboard shell, I was shocked to find that the discs rest inside of a foam block. No blu-ray cases, no disc tray, nothing. They sit there, hanging above oblivion inside of a cardboard rectangle. Neither the rectangle or the foam
has a bottom.
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| They're just hanging there. Seriously Disney, WTF? |
There's nothing to catch them if the foam deteriorates in the future and the rectangle is only kept solid by the stiffness of the foam. That's not the only problem though: the foam holds the discs tightly to the point where it's stressful to remove them. In order to get most of the discs in the center, you've got no choice but to remove all the ones around them. There's simply not enough leverage to squeeze the discs out by holding the sides. You need the spoke in order to pry/slide them out, otherwise you could potentially scratch the discs.
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| The foam has to hold them tight since this is how they sit when placed back in the slipcase |
Once I'd opened this thing I spent about an hour warning everyone else to avoid it; then with some help from the friendly employees of where I'd purchased it, I exchanged it for the individual releases of the three movies. Bullet mercifully dodged, though in the future I'm going to be very reluctant to buy any boxsets from Disney. That's definitely one thing I miss about DVD: boxsets were more than gimmicky packaging. Avoid this thing, get Toy Story 3 by itself and wait for a good sale on the first two.
