You may recall that, back in December 2020, while we were in the grip of that damned virus, we reported that my favourite Christmas movie of all-time, The Muppets Christmas Carol, was getting a bit of a revamp for Disney+.
When Christmas 2021 came and things were a bit brighter than they had been the year previous, we looked for the upgrade but, alas, it was nowhere to be found. However, we now know that it’s coming this festive season!
So, what’s the deal?
Well, here’s what we wrote in 2020:
In the movie young Scrooge’s fiance, Belle, sings When The Love Is Gone to him, indicating that their romance is over as he loves money more than her and it’s one of the events that leads him on a dark path of gluttony and misery and it’s very important to the movie, not least because in the climax of the story it is reprised… when the song was removed from the theatrical release, the movie made a little less sense.
Now, I’m looney enough to have the dual-release DVD from the US that has the home release with the song on the disc as well as the theatrical release, however on the home-release version, it’s a pan-and-scan nightmare…
After the song was removed from the theatrical cut, it was lost forever… or so it seemed.
Director Brian Henson has revealed that he’s delighted that the song has been rediscovered and will find its way onto the new… 4k release! Talk about a double win!
At the time Disney boss Jeffrey Katzenberg cut the song as he thought it would bore kids -silly, silly man – but now, just in time for the movie’s 30th anniversary, the fully restored movie is coming. Sadly it’s to the small screen but we’ll take what we can get!
Director Brian Henson – son of the legendary Jim Henson – revealed that when he was working on the new 4k release for Disney+, the guys cleaning the footage up called him down: “I was so excited. They actually hid it… so I went down and they said: ‘But before we show it to you, we’ve got something else we want to show you’. And they put up reel four of Christmas Carol with When Love Is Gone.
“I was like, ‘No, you did not!’ and they said, ‘Yes we did! We found it!’ I was so happy, I was so happy. They are all set with the full-length version again. I don’t know if they are going to get it up on Disney Plus in time for Christmas because they have all these processes but it is coming back, the full-length version is coming back.”
Honestly, this is really exciting news and just makes Christmas, the first (hopefully) normal-ish one in a while (I had the ‘rona last Christmas), all the sweeter.
An injustice has been righted.
The full-length version of THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL, with “When Love is Gone” reinstated, is coming to Disney+ on December 11th!
(The negative is still lost, but they managed to find a second-generation interpositive to scan in 4K.) pic.twitter.com/cNeRNt9TST
— Nick Tierce (@nickytea) September 10, 2022
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
Nerd Comments