This thread really doesn’t get much deeper than the title: I really do love Disney movies! Well, I actually like pretty much everything Disney (particularly Disneyland… Oh how I love Disneyland!).
The other day I purchased my Special Edition Cinderella DVD and watched Cinderella for the first time in years. I just could not stop smiliing. The music, the story, the little mice! And the message: never give up on your dreams.*
Or Pocahontas: violence doesn’t solve anything and skin color is meaningless when it comes to love.
Do I even need to break down the Lion King?
And there are so many others: Sleeping Beauty, Hercules, The Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, Snow White, Mulan. . . on and on!
Disney does movies right; I’ll grant you that the themes are a little cheesy, but they are cartoons for kids. And even though these are children’s movies (and I’ve seen them hundreds of times), my heart still skips a beat when I see the villains.
And the little side kicks! Abu, the mice, the magic carpet, the forest animals- I love it all.
I **LOVE ** Disney movies!
*Yes yes, I know that teaching little girls that Prince Charming is going to come save them isn’t the best- but c’mon! Overall, the movie is cute, all be it a lil’ dated. The one thing that stuck out to me is when the mice are singing:
I’m generally with you, especially regarding the Disney movies of the 1940’s through the 60’s and the new “Golden Age” of Disney movies in the 90’s (The Little Mermaid onward).
My all time favorite though, has got to be Lady and the Tramp. I love the story, the humor, the songs (We are Siam-eeese if you plee-ease…), just a great movie. Like you I also love Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and Mulan.
I do have a problem with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs though. I respect it for its historical value of being the first full length animated film, but I don’t like it. It would be a tolerable effort and watchable (in my opinion) were it not for the voice-over work of Snow White, herself. The Disney folk errored very badly when they decided to cast an annoying, trilling falsetto for the voice of their heroine.
The other early Disney film I can not watch is Pinocchio. To be fair, this is no fault of the movie, just my own foible. The first time I saw the film I was too young, and I scared the crap outta me. I was an imperfect little boy (i.e. I got into trouble occasionally, just normal little boy stuff), and I thought for sure that I was going to turn into a donkey and be sent to toil in the salt mines. And don’t even get me started on my fear of being swallowed by a giant whale… :eek:
For some reason, the Disney movies of the 70’s and 80’s (Aristocats, The Black Cauldron, Oliver and Co.) don’t work well for me either.
Slight hijack:
Why, with a few notable exceptions (Mary Poppins springs to mind), were Disney live action movies never as good as the animated one’s?
I like Snow White for the songs (I’m wiiissssshing (wishing) for the one I loooove), the lil’ forest guys (I loved when the turtle climbed up the stairs all slow, but then fell back down), but mostly the Queen and her magic mirror. Man, I always thought my mirrors were broken because they didn’t talk to me :).
But yeah, I too am terribly afraid of Pinocchio; hell, I still can’t go on the little ride at Disneyland! I was so young when I first saw that movie that I didn’t understand what was going on, I just knew it was bad and SCARY. Maybe I should rewatch it now.
I do (well DID) love Oliver and Company- I haven’t seen it in years though, so maybe my opinion has changed. I do remember *O and Co * being my fav movie as a wee one. Whatever the main song is that they sing while dancing on the piano in the street (I think), that was my favorite song as a kid.
And I too have always wondered why live action Disney just isn’t at the level of animated Disney. Perhaps it is just that Disney revolutionized one field and that’s what we identify them as?
I’m with you guys! Disney movies are great! I just ordered Cinderella and eagerly await it’s arrival.
I have one, though, that I will not watch. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Having read the book before it ever came out, I was horrified that they would even try to make such a dark novel into a children’s film.
I know they’ve botched other classic stories with their films…The Little Mermaid and Mary Poppins are but two. Those I can forgive. But when you take a book where everyone, yes, everyone dies in the end and try to make a lighthearted kids film, I just can’t bear to watch.
I love most of the Disney films, unless they are a sequel. I have hated every Disney sequal that I’ve ever seen. I know it is much easier than having an original idea but really, I wish they would just stop putting that crap out. It tarnishes the originals.
[spoiler]The prince marries the girl who found him on the beach (a princess) and the little mermaid’s sisters sell their hair to the sea witch in exchange for a knife so the mermaid can kill him. If she does so and lets his heart’s blood spill on her feet she’ll regain her tail and live out the rest of her life under the sea, turning to sea foam when she dies.
But she doesn’t kill him, instead she throws herself over the side of the ship and becomes a daughter of the air, which is a form of purgatory, so she can earn a soul and get into heaven.[/spoiler]
[sub]According to the Reader’s Digest World’s Greatest Fairytales[/sub]
While I’ll readily concede that the Disney version doesn’t exactly follow the book (to put it mildly), I think you’re missing out. It has some great songs, some lovely imagery, a nice message and an interesting villain.
Last night I watched A Bug’s Life for the first time.Is it me, or is Hopper’s demise the most horrible death in a children’s movie ever? Mama bird pecks after him as he flees in panic, catches him, flies to her young, he screams in anxiety and terror, we see the young birds gaping for him, and then the camera follows him down into the gullet. That’s awful.
Yes, my original spoiler box was meant for The Hunchback of Notre Dame. But Flutterby’s spoiler box about The Little Mermaid is correct as per the story written by Hans Christian Anderson.
As for A Bug’s Life, I loved that film, but then I also love The Magnificient Seven as well as the original, The Seven Samurai.
My favorite animated Disney film, is a recent one…The Emperor’s New Groove.
I’d like Disney’s animated classics even better if only they didn’t have so damn many songs in them (especially the god-awful dreck of the Sherman brothers).
Some, like Snow White, would be vastly improved by removing all or most of the musical numbers. Others, like Mary Poppins, are unsalvageable anyway.
Oliver and Company is a cute movie, but it’s definitely aged worse than most Disney films. Everything about it, from the animation to the soundtrack to Cheech Marin, dates it to the '80s. Billy Joel’s songs are still a highlight, though.
One of my favorite Disney movies is among the last big-budget animated films they ever produced, and also one of the least acclaimed. Treasure Planet. I loved it, I thought the steampunk-meets-outer space concept was great, with the 18th century sailing vessels floating through a sea of aether. And Silver is one of the most complex villains Disney ever produced.
Where’s the love for Beauty and the Beast? By far my favorite Golden Era Disney film. The kids and I nearly burst blood vessels singing along with the CD in the car:
…and every last inch of me’s covered with hair!
But I’m very fond of the Classics as well, and still drop a tear every time Cinderella looks skyward as she stands in her tattered rags at the side of the road amidst the shattered remains of her pumpkin coach holding her glass slipper and says," Thank you." to her Fairy Godmother.
And don’t even get me started on my fear of being swallowed by a giant whale… :eek: