Why I do NOT own the Blu Ray
I love Nightmare before Christmas with all my heart. But I do NOT love how it has been treated these past thirteen or so years.
A few things bug me about the DVDs and Blu Rays of Nightmare before Christmas.
My favorite DVD if Nightmare before Christmas is the special edition DVD released near to the film's tenth anniversary but not quite (a little before it).
After that Disney started to... Shall we say... mess with it.
Many people don't consider it a big deal but as a Tim Burton / Danny Elfman fan certain things bother me that they altered for later releases.
1. Tim Burton and Danny Elfman have a trademark. During the opening logos you hear the first chords of Danny Elfman's score. The only deviation was with Danny's own "Day-o" added to the Giffin logo at the start of Beetlejuice. In Nightmare before Christmas the opening title track first started during the Touchstone Pictures logo.
Disney eventually decided to finally embrace the film as a Disney production (as they should have from the start but they were cowardly and didn't know how well it would do. Touchstone is a branch of Disney that was often used to release things they were not too sure about so Disney could distance itself from the product). When Disney swapped the opening logo for a Disney castle they removed the opening cords and moved it further along. Thus ruining the Tim Burton / Danny Elfman tradition.
Disney was so eager to pat themselves on the back as the source of Nightmare before Christmas that they spat in the face of a tradition that I found to be endearing.
The music was kept in but it started later. This meant they "had to" change the entire opening credits... Which brings me to number 2...
2. The opening credits used to be a nice, faded, autumnual orange for Halloween Town. You will notice on more recent releases these titles are actually kind of red. They run longer to accommodate a few seconds change in where the music starts and frankly I miss the pale orange. That's what Tim Burton wanted. That's what should be there.
3. They digitally removed the wires holding the bats during This is Halloween. This bothers me. It bothers me because it diminishes something that was in the original film, whether considered a flaw or not it was there. I'm a purist. I want to see the film the way I saw it in the theatre. Tim Burton is not George Lucas! They should not digitally remove something that was always there. Also knowing Tim Burton's love of classic horror those bat strings could have been a subtle and deliberate nod to Bela Lugosi's Dracula. Other scenes in which strings were noticeable were tampered with too but this is the first one I noticed.
Imagine if someone took Labyrinth and removed the "Chilly down" fire gang sequence and added a CG version. Yes, those were the worst effects in the movie but that was our childhood, damn it!
4. Also during This is Halloween the audio shifts weirdly now when you get to Oogie's shadow on the moon. "I am the shadow on the moon at night filling your dreams to the brim with fight." Do. Not. Tamper. with the stereo set up in a musical! It was originally like that for a reason. Now certain things aren't as easy to hear and new arguments about lyrics are cropping up that should not be happening.
Today if you want to see Nightmare before Christmas the way it was originally shown in 1993 stick with the early 2000s Special edition DVD (Not the one with the big picture of Jack’s head but rather the one with Jack and Sally on the spiral hill). It's the last one to respect the film's original integrity before Disney briefly got possessed by the not-yet-dead ghost of George Lucas.\
This is also the last DVD release of Nightmare before Christmas with all the nice bonus features that are now only on the Blu Ray and the original Frankenweenie short.