Anytime you do an adaptation you make choices. Disney makes some fairly consistent formulaic ones. Happy ending, cute mascot. For years it worked very well for them (Disney’s own studio has been backseat to now Disney owned and former Disney partner Pixar for some time - who makes different formulaic choices - and artistically in the backseat to Disney partner Studio Ghibli - at least if they’ve made some crap, they’ve also spent the past twenty years investing in some diamonds).
However, they haven’t done taken The Cat In the Hat and cast Mike Myers in it or anything completely unforgivable like that.
You know, I kind of wonder how many people who claim to hate Disney movies for reasons like this would actually want to sit with their child through an animated, but truly faithful, adaptation of a book like Notre Dame de Paris.
First of all, the movie would be three and a half hours long.
And then, can you imagine the conversations you’d have to have with your eight-year-old?
“Mommy, why is Captain Phoebus kissing Esmerelda?”
Well, he thinks she’s very special and he wants to be with her.
“But isn’t Captain Phoebus going to marry that other girl?”
Well, yes. But Esmerelda is different, and exotic.
“So Captain Phoebus loves Esmerelda, too?”
No, he pretty much just wants to fuck her.
or
“Daddy, what are they doing to Esmerelda?”
They’re hanging her, sweetie. That’s a good vocabulary word for you. It means they tie a rope around her neck so she can’t breathe.
“Why?”
Well, it’s a way of killing her slowly.
“Oh. Does it hurt?”
Yes, Suzie. Yes it does.
“But Captain Phoebus is right next door. He’ll help her, right?”
No, Suzie. No, he won’t.
“Captain Phoebus is an asshole.”
Yes, Suzie. Yes, he is.
…and that still leaves explaining why Quasimodo murders Frollo, then kills himself. But the last image, a haunting animated picture of two skeletons embracing while a jaunty Alan Menken tune plays, would be one for the ages.
FWIW, Disney is not the only institution that “sanitizes” classic stories and folktales. One fairy tale that they’ve never tackled is the “Frog Prince” story (“The Princess and the Frog” si a completely different tale, IIRC). Of course, most people know this story by the idiom, “you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince”, but in the original version of this tale, the princess “cures” the frog by throwing him against a wall. Not exactly romantic, is it? And the popular change to the ending of the story happened long ago.
Another famous example of this sort of thing is Shakespeare’s King Lear. For many years after its revival in the post-Protectorate period in the late 17th century, theater companies would often change the ending to lighten it up, by excising Cordelia’s death. This changed the entire thrust of the final act of the play, but was considered a more palatable version that the masses would actually pay to see. So this desire to make something that your audience will enjoy and expect is nothing new, although Disney is one of the major perpetrators of this today. Still, there’s nothing wrong with a happy ending now and then - expecting an audience of 5-year-olds to appreciate the commentary on the fallibility of the religious establishment and of mankind in general in a faithful adaptation of Notre Dame de Paris is a bit much, I think. Come to think of it, I’m still wondering why Disney wanted to tackle this novel at all. Oh well.
Here we are agreed. Why waste screen time (and an entire song) on three pointless and not-very-funny characters when your romantic male second lead, who in the current incarnation has no songs at all, is being voiced by Kevin Kline?
I’ve heard that Disney was an anti-Semite, but haven’t ever had this substantiated with any actual evidence. Back in Disney’s day, there was a strong connection in a lot of peoples’ minds between Jews and Communism, and Disney was very strongly anti-Communist.
I could have enjoyed the movie a lot more if they had only left out that gonzo gargoyle. Quasi needed someone to talk to (other than Frollo), and the two more serious gargoyles helped the plot along with careful exposition. But that third gargoyle…GAH. And their song, telling Quasi that he’s quite a catch, is rather cruel.
Heaven’s Light and Hellfire are such very strong songs that I am inclined to almost forgive them, though.
Koreans have a similar tradition and I thought it was amusing. There’s plenty wrong with Mulan from a cultural representation perspective, but I don’t think that was one of them.
Heh. The funniest thing about this example is that the original story Shakespeare based his tragedy on did end the “fixed” way. Cordelia lived, reunited the kingdom, and had a more or less happily-ever-after (until she died later). But that wasn’t good enough for ol’ Will. Every time I see or read King Lear, I think about all the horrified theater-goers, and their faces when Lear emerges carrying his daughter’s dead body (the story was a popular one, and the audience would have known the play’s antecedent). So, in a way, the “fixed” ending was the right ending, though I think Shakespeare’s ending is the superior one.
As for disliking Disney because it’s “sanitized,” I can’t think of a sillier reason to hate Disney films. So what if it is sanitized? They’re not making faithful adaptations, and they never claimed to. Plus, all of the Disney movies have very dark moments, or very dark subtext. I mean The Lion King is basically a re-telling to Hamlet, and the murder of the king by his own brother is no less horrifying just because they’re lions.
The main objection I usually see to Disney movies is that they are heavily focused on princesses who, while spunky, have as their main aim to find a prince to release them from their troubles. Mulan broke with this by offering us a take-charge female character. While I like this movie a lot, I’m dismayed a little by the need to provide her with a love interest, though. Why can’t she just be a soldier?
The only one I really don’t like is Bambi. My daughter was horrified at the death of Bambi’s mother and frankly I find it a little much myself. It’s the only one my older children and I never re-watched countless times, and I’ve never introduced it to my 3-year-old.
I really kind of love Hercules, even though it makes a mess of Greek mythology. I remember when it came out a LOT of people made a lot of noise about that. I also have an unreasonable love for The Emperor’s New Groove. It’s a flat-out funny cartoon.
I also need to defend the Disney store … or at least Disney Online. I’ve gotten a ton of children’s clothes and even one amazing coat for myself, and I find it all top-notch in quality. They also have great sales. I’ve gotten some things as much as 70% off the original price, which isn’t outlandish to begin with.
Hitler really did like Disney, and apparently doodled Disney characters, if you can believe the news stories. Google Hitler Disney and you’ll see tons of results.
Gotta raise my hand…it seems I am indirectly responsible for this thread.
Walt Disney was a jerk, and deserves an insulting biography. The films…they’re so impossibly pretty and dreamy, and still wreck the goodness of the stories they’re drawn from (no pun intended). Like every other perv, I have sexual desires for Ariel (aka The Little Mermaid, who was actually unnamed in the original, for you accuracy freaks), and the movie COMPLETELY ruins the beauty of the original. And yes, I know Disney himself had been dead for decades before that one was made…so throw in Tinkerbell, for something Disney WAS responsible for.
If he’s gotta do (had to do) squeaky clean (as if) cartoons, and get hyper about defending his copyrights, REAL CUTE that he was running off with other peoples’ stories all the time…by Disney standards, Alice Liddell-Hargreaves’ heirs could have sued the shit out of him/the Disney Corporation.
Hope that clears up the mental context of my offending comment. Or muddies the waters further. Either is good with me.
Yes, I know there are many editions of Alice books that don’t use Tenniel – but the odds are that the edition you find in the store will have them (Martin Gardner didn’t use them in the second edition of “The Anmnotated Alice” on pyrpose ptrecisely BECAUSE most editions used them.)
But that['s not what I said or implied – Disney was making a movie, and people are much more likely to expect a nod to the clasic Tenniel illuistrations i that circumstance. Heck, the Paramount version from the 1930s certainly associated itself with the Tenniel pictures.
The Emperor’s New Groove is probably one of my top ten favorite movies of any kind. The kids and I sometimes play a game where we will just take turns throwing out funny lines from the movie (which we’ve all pretty much memorized).
“Don’t you say a word.”
“These are my best shoes!”
“gasp My spinach puffs!”
It was brought up on page 3 by tiny ham and Dangerosa.