Found an interesting bit comparing Peter Pan releases up through the Platinum Edition on TheDigitalFix.com (I’m not sure I knew the PE had an original mono track though):
This 2-disc Platinum Edition marks the third time that Peter Pan has been released on DVD. The first, released in 1999 as part of the Limited Issue series, used the same master as the already available LaserDisc and was generally considered to be something of a disappointment. In 2002, it was re-released as a Special Edition, featuring an improved but rather harsh-looking transfer and a reasonable array of extras. As such, hopes were understandably high for this latest release.
Unfortunately, the new edition really is a bit of a mixed bag. While the rampant edge enhancement of the previous release is nowhere to be found, it seems that DTS Digital Images (formerly Lowry Digital), Disney’s regular partner in these ventures, have once again thrown artistic intent out of the window in an attempt to deliver an impossibly clean, “flawless” digital experience for the 21st century. By far the biggest problem is that the overall colour, brightness and contrast values of the image have been tweaked into oblivion. Tinker Bell was originally supposed to have an overexposed glow, which, on this release, has been dulled down severely, making the glow look more like a muddy shadow. Actually, “muddy” is the word of the day here: the colours are generally dull and sickly. The decidedly red Indians are now a gloomy shade of brown, more suited to something like Pocahontas than this altogether more colourful cartoon world, while Captain Hook now looks like he has liver damage. Everything is so murky that the hand-inked, cel-animated characters, who should be vibrant, threaten to disappear into the backgrounds. I’ve inspected the DVD on both a monitor and a calibrated TV: it just doesn’t look right.
Respected cel restoration expert Stephen Worth, and animation directors Oscar Grillo and Milton Gray, have all criticised this new restoration, while Chuck Pennington has provided visual evidence that each subsequent home video release of Peter Pan has taken its visuals further and further away from Walt Disney and co’s original intentions. I’ve never personally seen the film on an actual print, but I feel more inclined to trust the informed opinions of experts like Stephen Worth than the staff of DTS Digital Images, who have shown a cavalier attitude towards artistic intent several times in the past, perhaps most significantly with Bambi, which was so heavily noise reduced in an attempt to remove any semblance of the movie ever having come from film that the image smeared and warped during camera movements.
Luckily, the audio is of a much higher standard, and constitutes a definite improvement on that of the previous releases via the inclusion of the original mono audio track, which sounds as clear as can be expected, accounting for age. A souped-up 5.1 “Disney Enhanced Home Theater Mix” is also provided, and while it certainly sounds considerably more expansive than its mono counterpart, purists will obviously want to give it a miss. French and Spanish 5.1 dubs are also provided, in addition to English subtitles for the film itself (but, unfortunately, not the extras).