The Nightmare Before Christmas [25th Anniversary Edition] [Includes Digital Copy] [Blu-ray] [1993]

I remember 1993 fairly well, despite only being 5 years old and in kindergarten, with the latest in games, TV shows and movies. I remember seeing trailers for such movies as Jurassic Park, Hocus Pocus and more, but there was one that intrigued me to no end. The Disney marketing machine released trailer after trailer for "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas" over the end of summer/start of fall period, and I knew I wanted to see the film. Despite being only five, I already knew who Tim Burton was, after multiple viewings of Batman and Edward Scissorhands, and wanted to see this movie. Never saw it in theatres. Never got around to renting it or buying it on VHS. Heck, I never even watched this on TV until I caught it on TV a few years ago before work. Well, I caught a few minutes and I was intrigued. I found the 3-disc DVD from around 10 years ago almost for a great deal and decided to watch the movie. 77 minutes later, and.... I'll tell you here in a minute of what I thought. The film starts with Jack Skelington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town singing about his growing weariness of doing the same routine year in and year out. Taking a walk into the woods, he finds 7 trees, each leading to a different holiday town, and ends up in Christmas Town. After being amazed by the new world, he returns with newfound ideas on how to take over Christmas. Of course, he kidnaps Santa and he takes over, causing problems inadvertently with humans and the local Boogeyman, Oogie Boogie. Throughout the course if the film, he discovers his lost passion for Halloween and love in Sally, a ragdoll made by a mad scientist, and all with some great tunes. Surely I had to love the film, right? I mean the songs are great (c/o Danny Elfman, who also provided Jack's singing voice), the animation is strikingly beautiful and the whole look of the world is classic Burton. Sadly, I feel this film is overrated to the nth degree. As stated above, there are plenty of things I like about the film, along with the voice actors and designs being great, but the story is actually kind of boring because of it's short length. The story or the characters are not fleshed out, and the motivations are barebones to say the least. I actually wanted more from the story and all I got was a weak story with a lame villain. Still, the film does have a great sound track and is a looker, and this is a classic movie despite how I feel. So why did I buy this again on Bluray? Well, for starters, the 1080p picture quality is fantastic. It is still the same picture as with the previous Bluray releases (Of which there are several, 2 standard bluray, 2 3D versions) and still looks sharp and detailed. A 4k remaster and/or a 4k Bluray would've been welcome, but this still doesn't disappoint in the slightest. The sound does change from other releases, this time getting a 7.1 DTS-HD track (7.1 Dolby TrueHD before) but still retains it's terrific sound field, but maybe just a tad more crisp than the Dolby tracks. Yet again, a Dolby Atmos or DTS:X track would've sufficed to improve everything. Sadly, this Bluray does drop a few extras from the previous discs ( "The World's of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas featurette, the on-track tour of Jack's Mansion featurette and a deleted scene is gone) but it does have a new sing-along mode that will please the fans, so much so this edition is dubbed the "25th Anniversary Sing-along Version" along with some legacy extras carried over. Starting off is the delectable commentary with producer Tim Burton (Most people still think he directed this film), director Henry Selick and Danny Elfman. Following up is the Jack's Haunted Mansion Tour feature, The Making of The Nightmare Before Christmas featurette, the original poem narrated by Christopher Lee, two short films from Tim Burton, deleted animatics and storyboards, Storyboard to film comparisons and promo materials. It's a fine package, but hold on to those older discs for the complete package. But the real draw was the beautiful steelbook design. The minimalist black and white design, coupled with the embossed and textured art, which glows in the dark, along with the low price of $12.99, you got a must own for any fans of the film who haven't purchased the film, or who collect memorabilia from the film. At any rate, the package is a total recommendation and you will not be disappointed.

From Disney and creative genius Tim Burton comes THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, a fun-filled musical fantasy of Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, who discovers the joy of Christmas Town and decides to fill Santa's boots -- with hilarious results. Featuring a marvelous mix of characters and 11 ghoulishly captivating songs by Danny Elfman -- it's frightful fun for the whole family!|THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS is the first full-length stop-motion animated film ever created.|The movie contains more than 227 animated characters.|Santa Claus' head has more than 50 different working parts, and Jack has more than 400 separate interchangeable heads, each handcrafted with a different facial expression.|The smallest working puppet in the movie is a doll from the "real world" Jack visits that is only one inch long.|Sally is wearing a real miniature dress laid on top of foam latex so that the fabric doesn't move too much on screen.|At the height of production, the animators produced only 70 seconds of finished film per week.|To create Halloweentown's twisted look, the design artists often made their sketches using their nondrawing hand.

Like trick-or-treating itself, The Nightmare Before Christmas is offbeat crazy fun! From the delightfully swirly curlicues of the Halloween Town landscapes to the tacky beauty of the aluminum tree, lit by a 1960's color wheel that many grownups may fondly remember, the entire movie is a sheer silly delight. Halloween is the day set aside for nothing but wild merriment, and if a pumpkin is carved slightly wrong, then maybe that wrong is right after all! The hero Jack Skellington embodies the scariness and the wackiness and the spirit of the October holiday. There is also a charming romance between Jack and savvy Sally the Halloween Town rag doll, who is almost, but just not quite, pretty enough to be a Christmas present herself, but rather than being a Christmas present, she is the recipient of one - Jack's true love, as he proposes to her on Christmas Day! Danny Elfman's catchy songs are easy to sing and are good to have on the iPod and on the brain, should the need to cut loose with some silliness arise, as it often does! And yes, what a great last name - Elfman! The whole movie, like one of your best childhood Halloween memories, is an outrageously sheer delight, as well-written and as well-produced as a hundred well-carved pumpkins!

The kids love this movie and it is something we watch "The night before every Christmas." This is a great movie and the Steel Book collection from Best Buy is one of my favorites. They are great to display in a collection. If you see a steel book at Best Buy you need to get it. They've really done a great job on this movie. It has excellent cinematic affects and you can't stop watching until it is done. Getting the 4k with Blu Ray and Digital copy is definitely the way to go and now with Movies Anywhere it makes it easy to watch wherever you go. Best Buy also has the better price now that Amazon is in VA, they charge tax on everything as well. A great thing about purchasing at Best Buy is getting rewards points which you don't get elsewhere. It quickly adds up.

I have owned this movie on DVD for many years and never really felt the need to upgrade to the bluray version. I was in the movie aisle at Best Buy just looking around and I noticed The Nightmare Before Christmas Steelbook, I liked the new look of this release and decided to pick this up as well... it is an improvement ( visually ) over the DVD version as expected and the audio is in DTS Master-HD which is nice, if you look closely on the spine of the Steelbook it reads sing-along Edition. I guess it's for those of you who are real fans of this movie and like to sing along you now have this option to do so.

The hero of the animated musical fantasy Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (PG) is a friendly corpse named Jack Skellington. Jack’s head is like a waxy, misshapen golf ball with huge black sockets where the eyes should be; his mouth, a stitched slit full of pegged teeth, breaks into a ghastly open wound of a smile. He looks like a jack-o’-lantern after a car accident, and his skeletal body isn’t much more appealing. Clad in a tattered tuxedo, it’s so tall and straight and spindly it isn’t quite there. The latest of Burton’s sad-sack, eternal-adolescent outcasts, Jack lives in Halloweentown, a fabulously gnarled, horror-movie underworld that suggests a Dr. Seuss dreamscape as redesigned by Hieronymus Bosch. A ringmaster among freaks, Jack gets a charge out of frightening people. But then he visits Christmastown and discovers (well, sort of) the spirit of Christmas. He learns that what he really wants is a friend.

I loved this movie ever since i first saw it. And it came out on my birth year which is pretty cool. This personally is one of my favorite tim burton movies (of the animated or non-animated), and it has the best soundtrack and storyline of all. (plus it can be watched for the halloween season or the christmas sesason). Now more specifically about the 20th Blu-ray, it has loads of special features like the how it was made ones, a tour of Disneyland's (or World's?) haunted mansion which is based off Tim Burton's tale, a Vincent short featurette which is pretty cool, and it even has original concept art and poem that the movie was based on, read by Sir Christopher Lee, who has been the voice of Sarumon, to DiZ/Ansem from Kingdom Hearts, to King Haggard in the Last Unicorn. The blu-ray is high quality HD awesome in a convenient carry case to cherish for all time ^^ Definitely a great buy for anyone who loved NB4C, or who likes Tim Burton.

The steelbook casing is really cool and well designed, Jack Skellington's face actually glows in the dark adding more to the spoopiness of it all. While I wish it had a DVD in it too so I could use it in my portable DVD player, it isn't a huge deal especially when they put in Frankenweenie and Vincent. The team that digitally remastered it in HD should be very proud of themselves, it was amazingly well done. The picture quality is superb throughout and the audio is consistent throughout (I have a few older movies that they did not do a good job with the audio when digitally remastering them.) Overall the perfect celebration of this amazing movie.