Disney Second Screen: The Lion King Edition

In August I had the once in a lifetime experience when I was invited to California for the premiere of The Lion King 3D. Part of the event included a day of presentations learning about the 3D process, Disney animation and the Disney Second Screen apps. When I wrote about my experience I mentioned that I’d been impressed with the app demo and I was looking forward to trying it out at home when the Blu-Ray edition was released. Well my kids and I were able to do that last night and now that the movie is released (today!) you can too.

When I told my kids that I needed to try out the Second Screen app and it would involve watching a movie there was fighting over who got to be my reviewer. Not entirely unexpected. It was evening and everyone was in various states of getting ready for bed so it happened to be my nine year old who snagged the iPad and Blu-Ray first. She managed to get everything set up all by herself which is no small feat because our Blu-Ray player is a dinosaur. The only time she needed to ask for help was in syncing the app up to the movie. There are three ways to sync – by audio, wirelessly or manually. We don’t have a wireless Blu-Ray so we opted for audio syncing. Miss S had figured out how to begin syncing and she only ran into trouble because people in the room were shouting back and forth and an ice maker was going in the kitchen. The instructions clearly state to make sure there’s not a lot of external noise when you sync. They’re not kidding. When we got the room quieted down it worked great. The movie started up and the iPad up started right with it.

Miss S began the movie and the Second Screen. She was mesmerized. The Second Screen shows you a Timeline that accompanies the movie. It has sketch galleries, flipbooks, video, fun facts, games and more that correspond with the exact spot in the movie that you are watching. She kept looking from screen to screen and every once in awhile she’d tell me something like “the man who drew Scar has a mustache.” Good to know! When my seven and twelve year old joined the party the fighting was forgotten because they were immediately sucked in as well. They actually shared the iPad and took turns with the app. Wonder of wonders! From listening to their conversation back and forth I’d have to say the flipbooks were their favorite part of the Timeline. These come from the movie and you can see them in black and white or color. You control the speed and animation of the book. My kids loved them. The great thing about the sync feature is if you get caught up in an activity like the flipbook you can always sync right back up to your current spot in the movie.

You’ll only have access to the full content of the Timeline when you are synced up with the Blu-Ray disc and playing the movie but you can still explore the app when you are “offline”. Flipbooks and Scene Scramblers are available and can be found in the Index under Activities. You’ll also find the Ink and Paint characters. Here you can draw a character by tracing over an outline or drawing freehand. Drawings can also be painted. The Second Screen app also plays up social features. If you login to Facebook, like certain activities, visit locations in the app, etc. you’ll earn “tickets”. I tried to connect to Facebook but when I did this the app would shut down on me and I couldn’t get it to restart. Deleting and reinstalling, turning the iPad on and off, none of my usual tricks worked. Hopefully this is a bug that will be worked out in an update because the rest of the app appears seamless.

We ran out of time and didn’t get a chance to finish the movie before bed but I’m certain my kids will be starting it up again after school this week and when they do they’ll grab the app. They’re question askers during movies and this app fit in perfectly with their personalities. Here’s hoping that Disney starts making Second Screen apps for all of it’s releases!

On another note – the Lion King looked fabulous in Blu-Ray. We have a DVD copy from 2003, the release that included the “Morning Report” song, and I could tell a marked difference in the sharpness of the picture between the two versions. I’ve always been a Blu-Ray skeptic, mostly from a “Why do I need to replace movies I already own?” point of view. But I am eating my words and when we have a DVD that’s worn out we’ve been replacing them with Blu-Ray. Preferably A Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack if available so we’ve got a DVD for the car.

*Disney Second Screen: The Lion King Edition is an iPad only app but it is also available for your Mac or PC. You can find the information you need about that experience here.

Links for the Lion King Diamond Edition:

The Lion King (Four-Disc Diamond Edition Blu-ray 3D / Blu-ray / DVD / Digital Copy)

The Lion King (Two-Disc Diamond Edition Blu-ray / DVD Combo in Blu-ray Packaging)

Price when Reviewed: FREE

See the app in iTunes

Requirements: Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later.

Seller: Disney

Disclosure: I received a free copy of the Lion King Blu-Ray/DVD for review purposes.