Buyers Guide to the Disney Vault

[CentralFloridian99]

You have to hate the Disney Vault. For those of you who don't know what the vault is, it's a vault that preserves select Disney animated classics. When a film is out of the vault, it is out for a limited time, usually 6 months to a year. When the film goes back into the vault, it won't be seen again for seven years. Here's a list of films that belong to the vault:

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Pinocchio
Fantasia and Fantasia 2000
Dumbo ( NA only )
Bambi and Bambi 2
Cinderella and it's sequels
Alice in Wonderland ( North America, Australia and Germany only )
Peter Pan
Lady and the Tramp, plus it's sequel
Sleeping Beauty
101 Dalmations
The Jungle Book and it's sequel
The Little Mermaid
Pocohantas and it's sequel
Mulan
Tarzan and its sequel
Beauty and the Beast, plus it's sequels
The Lion King plus it's sequels
Aladdin ( NA only )

Mulan and Tarzan aren't officially part of the vault, but they do it anyways. Also, while Hercules and The Hunchback of Notre Dame aren't in the vault, they are very hard to find. Here are something you need to know about the vault:
When a Blu-Ray or DVD stops production, it won't be produced anymore. That doesn't mean it will still be available. A movie is available at any store until it gets sold out. I've seen several copies of movies in the vault in pharmacies.

Here are movies currently out of the vault:

The Lion King and it's sequels
Lady and the Tramp ( sequel coming soon )
Dumbo
Alice in Wonderland

Coming out of the vault soon:

Cinderella, October 2
Pocohantas and its sequel, Fall 2012
Lady and the Tramp 2, Fall 2012
Aladdin, Spring 2013

Here's a release guide of when the films in the vault should be available:

Snow White, 2018
Pinocchio, 2018
Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, 2018
Bambi, 2019
Peter Pan, 2016
Sleeping Beauty, 2017
101 Dalmations, 2017
The Jungle Book, 2017
The Little Mermaid, 2016
Beauty and the Beast, 2021

The reason I have BATB so late is because it would be released 2 years before the 30th anniversary if it was 2019. If you can't get hold of any of these for your kids, here are some options:

1. Look at pharmacies. My local CVS's still have Peter Pan, and that went back in in 2009!
2. eBay and Amazon are always a good option. Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty are the cheapest out there.
3. If all else fails, garage sells are you're best bets. You just have to be careful in case they don't work.

Thanks for reading, and I'll update constantly!

 

[SnowMaryBelle]

It's definitely time Disney rethought this marketing strategy. All the kids who grew up in the 90's will want their own copies and where will they be able to get them? This could translate into money lost by the company. It's not as if Disney has to go through the expense of releasing DVDs either, having the movies available for downloading is perfectly fine.

If Disney keeps this up they will look as out of it as the recording industry did before it realized CDs were dying and decided to use the new technology instead of sticking their collective heads in the sand.

 

[LisaTN]

Searching for vault info... I'm SOOOOOO sad Aladdin is still in the vault. DD4 really wants to see it - we just saw a local middle school put on the musical and she LOVED all the music.

I'm kind of not a fan of the vault... I'd really like to get her Sleeping Beauty and Aladdin... I'm off to check out ebay!

 

[JakeJenna]

Searching for vault info... I'm SOOOOOO sad Aladdin is still in the vault. DD4 really wants to see it - we just saw a local middle school put on the musical and she LOVED all the music.

I'm kind of not a fan of the vault... I'd really like to get her Sleeping Beauty and Aladdin... I'm off to check out ebay!

I just got sleeping beauty blu ray on eBay for $15 last week


Edit I prefer the disney model, the classics are new to every generation. My kids did kind of fall perfect though with the blu ray release schedule so it kind of worked out for us.

 

[waltdavinci]

You can sometimes get deals on Ebay for a vaulted film. Most of the time not.


I like the Vault business model. It gives the films once again more advertising and attention when they are re-released for the home.

 

[BelleBriarRose]

Actually, Aladdin was supposed to come out of the vault this spring, but they replaced it with Peter Pan. This fall, The Little Mermaid will be coming out of the vault (probably October) but there's no word yet on when Aladdin will be coming out! I think Disney should at least release more movies from the Disney vault each year, so that the rotations go by more quickly. As it is, it could be a solid decade between DVD releases of a certain movie, and that's too long.

 

[Micca]

The "vault" concept is obsolete. The concept pre-dates home video and made some sense back in those days. Disney movies were thought of primarily as children's entertainment, and every 7 years the movies would get re-released for the benefit of the kiddies who were too young (or weren't around at all) on the previous go-round. New Disney movies were years in the making, so the company could fill-in between feature releases with the classics. Good idea for its time.

But then came home video--on tape, then dvds, blu-ray, and streaming. How can anything really be "in the vault" when millions of copies of the previous iteration of it have already been sold? I look forward to the re-issue of The Little Mermaid on blu-ray for the quality upgrade, but I still have the original DVD and the VHS tape. It's far from "the vault" I just saw it last week. It may be out of print, but as the OP stated, vaulted content can be found in many places.