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Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Anthony Michael Hall, Kathy Baker, Alan Arkin, Vincent Price, O-Lane Jones, Robert Oliveri, Conchata Ferrell, Caroline Aaron, Alan Fudge

Tim Burton has always shown a flair for creating fascinating and fun modern day fables with a strong moral underpinning. I would have loved to sit in the pitch session for this movie with its fable-like quality and unusual production design. “Edward Scissorhands” seems like one of his most personal works; all of his films from “Frankendog” deal with outcasts who are misunderstood and are exploited by others. “Edward Scissorhands” is no different. ***

Edward (Johnny Depp) is created by a lonely inventor (the late Vincent Price in a marvelous supporting role) who dies before finishing his creation. So Edward almost looks human except for his long sharp scissor-like hands. When he is discovered by Peg a local Avon lady she brings him back home to her 50’s suburbia like neighborhood. Edward falls in love with Kim’s daughter Peg (Winona Ryder) but has a rival for her affection in the form of her cruel, brutish boyfriend (played to perfection by Anthony Michael Hall). Edward’s new life begins to fall apart when he’s framed for a break-in and suddenly the neighborhood that was so accepting treats him like a pariah. ---

A beautiful transfer for “Edward” the film has rich, bright comic book colors once Edward enters the world of suburbia in contrast to the dark, moody home he lived in before. This isn’t a remaster but a repacked film; this version features the exact same transfer and extras with the exception of the collectible tin edition (see extras for more info on that). The film has great clarity and a good sharp image that becomes a bit diffuse from time to time. The only analog artifacts come in the form of occasional specs of dust or dirt. There are occasional digital artifacts in the form of some minor pixilation and some occasion issues with shimmering but otherwise its an extremely good transfer. The bit rate is very high which helps with the high resolution of the image and soun quality. The Dolby Digital 4.0 mix sounds quite good with most of the action confined to the main speakers. Danny Elfman’s evocative score pounds out of the speakers when action sequences occur and are as light as Christmas snowflakes in the more delicate, sensitive sequences. The dialogue is as crystal clear as the moon after a rainy winter night. ---

We get a short featurette on the production of the film. It plays more like a promo clip produced for HBO or Showtime. We also get “Soundbites” which provide short promotional interview clips that are light on substance with the cast and crew. Burton’s concept art is included. Two theatrical trailers are provided along with an English TV spot and two Spanish TV spots. The chapter breaks are placed pretty logically throughout the movie. The collectible tin version of this film is a limited edition and also includes six movie stills. Other than that the regular edition and collectible edition are the same. ---

A marvelous, child-like fable about acceptance and the corruption of innocence, “Edward Scissorhands” is one of Burton’s best and most personal films. It has a sweet tone is injected with enough menace to keep it from falling into the schmaltzy trap that have undone lesser fables (some of them by Burton himself). While I would have liked to see Fox upgrade the transfer and include a retrospective documentary stronger than the one included here, this is a pretty nice package and was one of the first deluxe editions that Fox attempted (after “The Abyss” and “Independence Day”).