Heh, no one’s mentioned my two favorites … The Absent-Minded Professor, starring Fred MacMurray, and Darby O’Gill and the Little People, starring a very young Sean Connery. For their day, the special effects were fantastic. Funny stories too!
I love Hunchback. But I think the gargoyles are a pretty big flaw. Everything else is gold as far as I’m concerned.
I agree.
I tend to think it’s overrated. I’m a big fan of the books, but I don’t think the movie quite captures the feel. I do love the ride at Disneyland though.
I notice that most movies here that have been mentioned as most favorite have also been mentioned as least favorite. That’s interesting.
We aren’t talking about the book, jus a very dull film.
According to the director (or it might have been one of the writers), the gargoyles aren’t actually alive. That’s just Quasimodo talking to himself, to alleviate his loneliness and isolation. If you watch it again with that in mind, I think it becomes a much more powerful movie.
I just wanted to give some love to the first Goofy movie as well.
I thought it was adorable. And way more mellow than the other Disney animateds. At least there were no jive talking side kicks and no over the top music numbers.
Ooh, Goofy Movie! Yes, that one was awesome.
The Lion King is my most favorite. Not sure about my least favorite, but I remember being horrified by the commercials for Home on the Range, so I’m going to pick that.
I liked Mulan too, and find it doesn’t get mentioned enough…
Lion King was my least favorite. The little cub was a bratty punk. Why should he become king, because his daddy earned it? Like George W.? Bah. An undeserving “hero” makes a weak story.
Dumbo was great, where a deserving kid beat the bullies.
Well. That generally is how it goes with kings, yes.
He deserves it because he learned to be a man and stopped being selfish. We are rewarded when we change for the better, etc. That part of the plot is just a retelling of Shakespeare’s King Henry IV part II, my favorite of Shakespeare’s histories. Simba is Prince Hal, Timon and Pumba are Falstaff.
Though I’m not a big fan of Lion King either to tell the truth. For me it is more the underlying themes supporting ruling aristocracies and slavery. Your place is to be food for lions, and if you try not be dinner then you are breaking the sacred “Circle of Life”. Now get in my belly! Kings, tyrants, dictators, and other varieties of ruling elites have always appealed to similar hierarchical structuring to keep themselves in power and keep their subjects in bondage. Maybe it wasn’t intended by the writers, but that is a potential problem when you anthropomorphize an animal society.
I thought it had something to do with a watery tart hurling swords at people.
My tops would be Hunchback at #1 and Mulan at #2, probably with Aladdin at #3. Always had a soft spot for Emperor’s New Groove as well, highly underrated.
Worst… impossible to say. There are a lot of clunkers, and a lot of ones that I think have to be seen as products of their times and just don’t cut it today. But out of the most recent ones, I’d say that Beauty and the Beast and the Lion King are both overrated (in that they’re good, just not THAT good).
Nonsense. They took a classic story with sadly one-dimensional characters and improved on the source material.
For animated movies:
Walt Disney Animation Studios - Official list of animated films
From the official list, I would have Pinocchio at the top (best artwork) and The Fox and The Hound near the bottom. The one that makes me laugh the most is The Emperor’s New Groove. I have seen most of them on the list (having a Netflix subscription and two young children, 6 and 3). I still haven’t seen the World War II package films (except for Ichabod and Mr. Toad) but I imagine that those would be near the bottom of the list also. Also I haven’t seen any of them after Treasure Planet: namely the recent ones, Brother Bear, Home on the Range , Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, Bolt. Word of mouth from my friends is that Bolt is actually in the top third as far as quality.
I haven’t seen Snow White since I was a kid, it’s not on Netflix, so I can’t really comment on the quality of the artwork for Snow White vs. Pinocchio.
P.S. I didn’t understand all the negative criticism I read for Treasure Planet. I thought it was average, not the bottom of the barrel.
How about, “Disney was punished for it by losing money?”
There are so many Disney films I’ve seen that the task of singling out a best and worst is very daunting. I’ll break down some categories and go with “deserving of [dis]honorable mention”:
Golden Age Animated:
Honorable: Fantasia (I lo-o-o-ves me some classical music)
Dishonorable: The Fox and the Hound (Sandy Duncan’s fault, primarily, and Paul Winchell didn’t do us any favors, either)
Live-action/Animated mash-up:
Honorable: Bed-Knobs and Broomsticks (Superior to Mary Poppins)
Dishonorable: Pete’s Dragon (more because of Mickey Rooney’s and Jim Backus’s hamminess than Helen Reddy’s not being an actual actress. Basically, it’s a very small field, and someone has to come in last)
Katzenberg-era Animated:
Honorable: The Emperor’s New Groove (David Spade and John Goodman made a great buddy team, and anything with Eartha Kitt and Patrick Warburton is guaranteed to be awesome)
Dishonorable: Pocahontas (I saw this at a discount theatre on a double bill with The Indian in the Cupboard. It had to suffer by comparison, and combined with the cavalier attitude toward history, it was doomed)
Pixar:
Honorable: The Incredibles (Because Holly Hunter was soooo hot in that role :D)
Dishonorable: Cars ('Cos I just don’t care that much about racing)
Live Action (not musical):
Honorable: Make that FAVORITE: Sky High (There just wasn’t a dang thing about that movie I didn’t love)
Dishonorable: The Cat From Outer Space (the worst of the Dean Jones outings)
Arnold Winklereid:
Bolt is very good, and Meet the Robinsons is fantastically zany. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s certainly up there for me. Chicken Little gets a “meh” from me, and I haven’t seen Home on the Range or Brother Bear.
More singing, ridiculous accents, and merman nipples do not make for improvements!
Sorry. They took a tragic masterpiece of mythic depth and scale and turned it into a cliche romance. Blech.