Pete's Dragon (BD + DVD + Digital HD)

Pete's Dragon arrives on Blu-ray with a nicely balanced, not too flashy, tried-and-true 1080p transfer. Much like the movie, really. It can be fairly dark under some of the thicker woodland canopy, where color vibrancy gives way to a bit of darkness. Nevertheless, core greens -- leafy greens and Elliot's green fur -- and smaller accents hold up nicely under the conditions. Brighter, more directly lit scenes thrive, revealing more brilliant greens but also a healthy variety of shades around town and on clothing and vehicles. Details are true and effortlessly complex. The digital source material pushes the movie ever so slightly flat, but never at the expense of clarity and finer point definition on clothes, skin, woodland elements, or other natural and manmade environments. Black levels are deep and honest. Flesh tones appear accurate. A hint of aliasing is evident in a spot or two, ditto banding and source noise, though none of them ever last long enough to raise alarms, let alone an eyebrow. Overall, this is a high quality release from Disney.