Oh Deer – Bambi Meets Godzilla: The Restoration (2013)

While perhaps not the most obvious choice when one thinks about films in need of restoration, Marv Newland‘s delightfully short animated masterpiece Bambi Meets Godzilla definitely qualifies. Most often seen in versions that appear to be taken from seriously low-resolution multiple-generation vhs copies, it has nonetheless been ranked as number 38 in Jerry Beck’s book The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals. Therefore one has to praise the effort put into updating and preserving it for the digital age by YouTuber  and blogger Coda Shetterly.

Here’s Shetterly’s blog post on the process used to make the restoration: http://kindredcoda.blogspot.com/2013/02/bambi-meets-godzilla-making-of.html

Of course, I could use this as the jumping on point for any number of comments about digital restorations, but I think in this case I’ll just let the results speak for themselves, so, for comparison purposes, here’s the original:

and here’s Shetterly’s restoration:

So what do you think? Do you prefer the admitted nostalgia factor of the original, or the new restoration? Let me know in the comments below.

Related articles

• Fan Restoration of “Bambi Meets Godzilla” (boingboing.net)