Well, you have to hand it to Disney for trying with their audio material (even if their insistence on releasing several widescreen films as full frame flies in the face of true film preservation): in this one they do a cut-and-paste of various interviews with Walt, interspersed with introductions and annotations. The quality and volume of these snippets varies wildly and you may have to concentrate to make out some of the comments (but how refreshing to hear Walt laughing "to hell with the critics"!). FANTASIA is a long haul at over two hours but at least its segmented nature makes it amenable to listening to the commentary in sections, rather than in one sitting, and there is a lot of stuff here to interest any fans of the film.

Canemaker talks about the development of this special movie for Disney, the concept, the selection of the music, the animators, the career of the animators, the animation, the orchester, the conductor and the legacy of the movie.

The movie was shown to Strawinsky.

Canemaker is well prepared. This track is fantastic. 10 out of 10.

It would be pretty tough to make anything 'new' out of a second FANTASIA commentary but this quartet of in-the-know experts managed to unearth personal observations and experiences regarding the film that I hadn't heard about before. Inevitably, there is going to be some repetition of facts found in the accompanying DVD documentary and all other published material regarding FANTASIA (There is a whole book devoted to the film), but if you don't listen to the two commentaries back-to-back it shouldn't seem so redundant. Not unexpectedly, everyone is quite reverential towards the film, but I would have liked to hear some opposing criticism voiced as well (particularly in the case of the 'Pastoral Symphony', which is pretty much agreed on as being the worst section of the movie).