RATING: 5/5
By far, so far, Fantasia is my favorite Disney movie. Yes, I know, there is not any acting. But, if you think make to when this was made, the technology that was available at the time and to think that each drawing had to be timed perfectly in sync with the music, it is truly a masterpiece. Animation is not as easy as lights, camera, action. The music was already written, so it still was not as easy as creating music for a soundtrack. Fantasia is probably one of the hardest movies to review, it is worth it based on the technically aspect and if that is not a reason to see it... well, go it high and watch it. I hear that was the rage in the 60's and 70's.

UPDATE FOR BLU-RAY

As much as I have read the reviews, both good and bad, I can see both sides of the coin over the censorship debate. I am a die hard Fantasia fan and was little disheartened to find out that they are not taking this unique opportunity to have Leonard Maltin come in and give us the a history lesson in why they added the censored scenes back in. The movie, in it's entirety has not been seen since the first year of release, but obviously is available somewhere for it to even have a bad copy on YouTube. This would have been the perfect time to step aside and show possibly both versions for those film lovers, who are not easily offended by what was common in the 40s.
As for those people who have commented about the narration track being different, you must not have read anything on this movie as you would know that it is impossible due to the audio track being unusable. Achieving and preserving was something that was not as important as it is now. There was too much lost quality on the actual tracks to be able to use and/or recreate. Yes, purists may say it ruins the integrity to add a different voice, but truly it is something that must be understood in order for us to have a movie to enjoy on technology was never even thought about in the 40s.

But when the press release came out that Fantasia was getting Blu-Ray status, I was thrilled and am looking forward to seeing how they enhanced it, the extras, and just to own this piece of art. No matter how they change it, Fantasia was and still is the stepping stone for movies today, both animation and film. Remember, this is the movie that CREATED surround sound.

As for the transfer of this movie over to Blu-Ray, after watching it last night... I was very impressed with the audio and visuals here. The seemed to keep the water colored backgrounds while cleaning the foreground and enhancing the characters and designs (that became characters on their own). I was impressed with the details of little things like snowflakes and flames that turned into demons, which did not seem to stand out in DVD, laserdiscs and VHS releases. In this version, you WILL see things you never did before, not because they were not there before but because they were not as pronounced and vivid before. Just for the merits of the movie alone, it was worth the price for the blu-ray edition.