The Movie: Who Framed Roger Rabbit is just such an impressive film, in so many ways. Sure, there have been many instances where live action actors were mixed with animation, but nothing before or after this film have had such a high level if integration and interaction between the two worlds. It's simply amazing, even before you consider that the entire thing was done without the aid of any computers!

But aside from being impressive from a strictly technical standpoint, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is also quite entertaining with a rich story and a well developed concept. I have to admit, this was the first time I have seen this movie since I was young, and I picked up on a lot more little cues that I suppose I wouldn't have noticed, or understood back in those days.

Some were really small and nerdy, like the incorporation of the music from the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" for a few moments while the brooms were doing some work at the studio, but others were just on a more mature level, particularly in the interactions between other characters and Jessica Rabbit. There's definitely some clever writing, and some great comedic timing. It's just overall a great movie!

The DVD: This is the Vista Series Special Edition version of this movie, though it did come with a $5 rebate coupon for people who own the original DVD release.

This is a two disc set, but it is set up in kind of a weird way, in which the pan and scan version and the widescreen versions are on separate discs, with the "kid friendly" special features on the pan and scan disc, and the "enthusiast" special features on the widescreen disc. Each disc also has completely different menus and whatnot.

The widescreen disc contains a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen video transfer that is very clean, and free of most compression artifacts, though there are some moments where I noticed some artifacting due to edge enhancement. The overall look is 80's film grainy, but again, perfectly clean. This disc features your choice of Dolby Digital or DTS 5.1 surround sound, and I do have to say that the DTS version had just an extra hit of liveliness that was missing from the Dolby Digital track. But whichever one you choose, both are excellent.

Special features on the widescreen disc include a deleted scene, a couple of behind the scenes documentaries, before and after split-screen comparisons of effects shots, audio commentary, and a pop-up style trivia subtitle track which displays little factoids on the screen while you watch the movie.

The "kid friendly" disc has a pan and scan transfer, that aside from being modified for standard televisions, is every bit as good as the widescreen transfer. However, there is no DTS audio choice on this disc, only Dolby Digital. I guess kids don't need "black bars" or high quality audio! Special features on this disc include a DVD game, a mini-documentary, and three Roger Rabbit short films that were shown with other movies in the theaters, each with anamorphic widescreen video and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. I guess "enthusiasts" aren't interested in these shorts!

In the end, the presentation of the film itself on these discs is excellent, though I find the "kid friendly" and "enthusiast" segregation somewhat flawed. Perhaps there is another way they could have arranged the content across these two discs? But regardless of that, this is a fine presentation of a wonderfully entertaining movie.