Plus, they freed Genie. and he STILL hung out with them and did magic for them.
I never saw any of the sequels, but yeah, from what I’ve heard about them it seems like freeing him was not only the ethical thing to do but actually no real loss to Aladdin. Which kind of undermines the moral of the original movie, but I guess it would have been hard to do sequels without Genie.
I wonder what would have happened if Aladdin hadn’t been tempted to renege on his promise and had freed Genie immediately after he “wished” for Genie to save him from drowning? This would have prevented Jafar from stealing the lamp and gaining control of Genie, so that would have saved everyone some trouble. Jafar still would have been able to flee justice and cook up some new scheme for villainy, but judging from the title of the sequel (Return of Jafar) this is apparently what he does anyway.
The bit I can’t understand about Aladdin’s wishing is that he was tempted to use his third wish to “make me a prince again”. That was his first wish, and it worked, and it was never undone. He was a prince when he made his grand entrance, so he was still a prince at the end of the movie. Why would he need to spend another wish on it?
Jaffar uses magic to strip Aladdin of his prince’s costume, and I figure that that symbolized the simultaneous revocation of his princely status. Anyway, by the time Jaffar was done, everyone knew Aladdin wasn’t a legitimate prince.
Which raises the question–would wishing to be a prince on the third wish have even meant anything if they knew it came from a genie?
Yeah, it does.
While we’re on the subject of the Little Mermaid though, has anyone noticed this continuity difficulty:
Ursula assumes the form of Vanessa and enchants the Prince while Ariel is asleep; Scuttle wakes Ariel with the news that the whole kingdom is talking about the fact that the Prince will be marrying “this afternoon.” So Scuttle has overheard gossip about the upcoming wedding between Eric and Vanessa and erroneously concluded that it’s Ariel who will be marrying Eric. Ariel immediately runs to see Eric, and overhears Eric (with Vanessa) telling Grimsby that a wedding must be put on that afternoon; Ariel runs back to her room in despair. Meanwhile, Scuttle, apparently without a care in the world, is flying around, and overhears Vanessa revealing herself to be Ursula.
This sequence raises a couple of questions - who was gossiping about the upcoming wedding before Grimsby (the Prince’s most important advisor and the person who woud make all the arrangements for the wedding) was told about it? And did Scuttle fly off immediately without finding out that the wedding wasn’t for Ariel?
P.S. When Vanessa strangles Scuttle, saying “Why you little…,” was that a deliberate Simpsons reference?
Did the Simpsons even exist at the time?
Little Mermaid was released in November of 1989 and The Simpsons TV show debuted in December 1989. I don’t know enough about the early years to know if “why you little…” was a part of the Ullman sketches which began in 1987.
As a child, I always assumed that Ursula had no intention of letting Ariel succeed anyway so whether she got her voice back or not was moot.
It might be within Genie’s powers to make everyone conveniently forget exactly what had happened.
I can’t find the reference, but I know I read somewhere that “Why you little…” was a reference to The Simpsons.
Another continuity issue: One of the laundresses says that she heard Ariel was a princess, although she doesn’t believe it. “Since when has Gertrude (her informant) got anything right?”
How did Gertrude find out?
Another, non-continuity issue: We know that Ariel can write, since she signs her name to Ursula’s contract. Why doesn’t she write a note to Eric explaining the whole situation? She could tell him things she overheard on the ship to prove herself. Surely he’s literate, isn’t he?
Her actions prove it when she makes the deal with Triton near the end.
If Gertrude is known for making up gossip, she presumably just made up a story about the mysterious girl being a lost princess. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
I remember this bothering me as a kid, but Ariel being able to write her name isn’t proof that she can write anything else. She can apparently read the human books she’s scavenged, but historically reading and writing were not always taught together and women in particular might be taught to read but not to write.
IIRC, in the 1975 Japanese version of The Little Mermaid there’s a line from the prince about wanting to teach the mysterious mute girl to write, although she doesn’t learn quickly enough to explain to him who she is.