Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas Special Edition DVD | Movie and TV Reviews | SCI FI Weekly

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November 06, 2000

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas Special Edition DVD

A jackpot for Jack Skellington fans


			Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Special Edition DVD

			Voices of Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara, Ken Page, Glenn Shadix, Paul Reubens

			Directed by Henry Selick

			Written by Caroline Thompson

			Original story and character designs by Tim Burton

			Buena Vista Home Entertainment

			76 Minutes

			MSRP $29.99 DVD

By Tasha Robinson

Tim Burton's earliest concept sketches for The Nightmare Before Christmas date back to the early 1980s; they took 10 years to reach the production phase, and another three years of intensive work to make it to the screen. By the time Nightmare was actually an approved project at Disney, Burton was about to begin directing Batman Returns, so he handed the reins to gifted stop-motion artist Henry Selick, whose twisted short Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions proved, in his words, that he was "from the same planet, if not the same neighborhood, as Tim."

The result was a beautiful but somewhat schizoid picture, with an occasionally rushed and patchy plot. The documentary included on this Special Edition DVD offers some hints why--from the way composer/lyricist/star vocalist Danny Elfman tells the story, it sounds as if he wrote most of the musical "script" himself because no one else was paying attention to that part of the project. Edward Scissorhands/Addams Family screenwriter Caroline Thompson was called in to fill in the blanks only after Elfman had already written the songs, a process she compared to "designing a house after everybody was living in it."

These are just some of the many factoids to be learned from the plethora of informative extras packed onto this special DVD release. Burton's landmark film is the story of a skeleton king who becomes bored with the macabre task of running Halloween and resolves to hijack Christmas for a change of pace. Plot aside, Nightmare is a phenomenally rich, visually gorgeous film, with characters of unprecedented grace and visual weight playing out their story amid a fantastically detailed and ghoulishly creative setting. The DVD's extras focus far more on the process of creating those visuals than they do on the process of creating the story--which isn't surprising, considering that the same priority system was apparently used in creating the film in the first place.

A DVD it would be a nightmare to miss

The "Making of The Nightmare Before Christmas" documentary on this DVD is a bit of a Disney puff piece, with a great deal of lip service about the film's historical significance, but it's worth the braggadocio to see the artists and directors actually at work among their models and sets, and to hear their thoughts on the work they do and the decisions they made. Selick and director of photography Pete Kozachik go into more detail on the film's commentary track, though their play-by-play too often falls back on unnecessarily describing the action or retelling the story. Still, they also offer some fascinating insights into particular production problems and techniques used.

Even more involving is the "Worlds" extras section, which includes hundreds of early character and set concept drawings, plus early animation tests showing attempts to establish the characters through their movements. One brief but hysterical unused screen test has Jack lamenting his failures to his ghost dog Zero, whom he then uses as a handkerchief just before Santa Claus shows up in a vengeful mood. In another feature, a segment of the film is shown on the lower half of the screen while the original storyboards flash by on top, showing how the two versions compare. A gallery of original posters and the original theatrical and video trailers are also included.

But best and most astonishing of all, there are half a dozen crude versions of scenes deleted from the final film. Some are short snippets of animation with rough soundtracks, while others are storyboards cut together with voice-overs. One of these even offers an alternate ending to Jack's climactic fight with the evil Oogie Boogie. And finally, Tim Burton's early short films Frankenweenie (30 minutes) and Vincent (six minutes)--the latter a charming and sophisticated piece of Selick-like stop-motion about a morbid boy with a Vincent Price fixation--are presented in their entirety.

Fans who weren't bowled over by Nightmare the first time around will find a surprising amount of information and fun here--enough to justify picking up this disk even if it didn't include the actual film itself. For animation addicts and Burton fans, on the other hand, there's no question--this is an absolute must-have.

Buena Vista is packaging this both alone and along with the newly released special-edition DVD of Selick's serviceable film adaptation of Roald Dahl's wonderful book James and the Giant Peach. While that's a fun film to have on DVD, it doesn't have anything like the cornucopia of bonuses here. -- Tasha