Skummy's Disney Adventure

[Sousa]

This would have been much less fun if Skummy had just said "OH WOW GUYS YOU ARE RIGHT, ALADDIN IS SO VERY GOOD!" Seeing a perspective uninformed by nostalgia is much more interesting than seeing a bunch of people with fond memories gush about things they probably haven't seen in a long time.

Also, Skummy moonlights as a referee who confiscates dangerous baguettes from masked Frenchmen, so can we please stop saying Skummy hates fun things? I'd give my eye teeth to trade Sunday nights with Skummy.

[apsham]

Bitch, I saw Aladdin last year.

[Sousa]

Well that shows me!

[Josh]

YOU GOT SERVED.

[apsham]

I CAN SERVE YOU THE WORLD.

[Skummy]

Disney Movie #2: Mulan

Year of release: 1998
Had Skummy seen it before?: No.

I was reluctant about this one. I remember trailers for it at the cinema when I was a kid, and by that point already having decided that Disney movies weren't for me - what with all the singing and all - so a Disney movie about a girl? Yuck! Didn't they, like, literally just do Pocahontas? No thanks.

But when I thought about it...I actually knew fuck all about Mulan. It's Chinese, or Japanese, right? I honestly wasn't sure. I just hadn't paid the slightest bit of attention to it. Oh, there was a little dragon guy? Probably Chinese.

Oh God, it's a 1998 cartoon with an animated comedy sidekick voiced by Eddie Murphy. God help me.


What actually worked in Mulan's favour was that I'd remembered Sousa praising it somewhere on here, or Facebook, or wherever, and I figured I'd at least give it a shot. At worst, I'd get it out of the way early. At best, I'd be pleasantly surprised.


And, you know what? I really, really enjoyed it. It was beautifully animated - seriously, the whole things looks absolutely stunning - and pretty well written. Even the dragon, who I fully expected to absolutely hate, made me laugh a few times, and was never as full-on as I was dreading. His screen time was limited, and he tended to be used pretty well.

There's a lot more of the standard Disney "unlikely hero feels out of place, and just wants to find where they belong" trope that popped up in Aladdin, and which I know isn't going to go away any time soon, but it at least fits in Mulan. It's the entire story.


I don't know an awful lot about Chinese culture, and aside from the Chinese takeaway jokes that Sousa mentioned, nothing jumped out at me as being too outwardly offensive, and I never really found myself cringing. There was some suspect character design and so on, but nothing that I felt genuinely uncomfortable with. So, at this early stage, I'm considering a Disney movie a success on the basis of being less racist than it might have been.

What else? A pre-ubiquitous internet fame George Takei popping up as one of the Ancestors - possibly the weakest point of the movie for me. Like Sousa said, "Ancestors" seemed to be a switch job with the word "God", and so they get ascribed any number of magical plot development powers. I'm not suggesting that Mulan should have featured an extensive study of Chinese spirituality and culture, but the Ancestors in general seemed to be an incredibly lazy way around explaining anything much at all.

A much better minor role was Pat Morita as the Emperor - never really did anything outstanding, but I enjoyed him an awful lot. He became inexplicably sassy towards the end, and I bloody loved that.

Shan Yu, the villain, was pretty much a plot device with no real character. He had a cool look, as did most of his soldiers, but he was a means to an end. In a movie about gender roles and acceptance, society is the real villain, after all.


And the songs? Holy fuck the songs. I read on Wikipedia that negative reviews accused the songs of not being memorable, and negative reviews can go and fuck themselves. Sure, some of it - "Honor To Us All" - are fairly flimsy story songs, and a little lazy on the whole Asian culture side of things, but "Reflection" is nice enough; it's your standard Disney "need to find a place where I belong" story song, but done well enough that it doesn't immediately collapse into cliché.

What I'm really wanting to talk about here is "I'll Make a Man Out of You", which is fucking superb. Great song, great storytelling device, and heavier in irony than pretty much anything I've seen in Disney so far.

The overall story is great. The "girl proves herself while disguised as boy" story has been told a thousand times, and there's nothing all that revolutionary about how it's told here, but it's done very well, with a storyline explanation that goes beyond her wanting to achieve things she "can't" as a girl, and adds a little emotional weight. The "romance" element is sufficiently under the surface to not feel like a major part of the plot, while also not feeling tacked on towards the end when it becomes more central to the narrative - and that, in turn, helps Mulan as a female protagonist feel more powerful in that she's motivated by her own needs the entire way through, not by her attraction to a man, nor by any desire to "prove herself"; she just wants to get the job done, essentially.


So, yeah, this was great. It's flawed, and I think it was overly simplistic in places, even with the eternal excuse of "it's for kids", but never at the expense of solid storytelling. And while there are some suspect moments in its treatment of Chinese culture, I don't think it's ever so harmful that it would lead any lasting impression - I think it's just lazy joke writing, coupled with the desire to write jokes that would go over kids' heads and make the parents laugh, without any real thought as to how they could be taken the wrong way. It's certainly not got any harmful intent, just laziness. The "female empowerment" story, as central as it obviously is the narrative, is handled very well, and feels a lot more genuine and well executed than I've come across it in other children's movies, Disney in particular.

It's lacking a solid villain, and the writing gets lazy in places, or the story tends to either drag or repeat itself from time to time, but I thoroughly enjoyed it all the way through. Far more than I ever imagined I would. As a kid, would I have liked it? I want to say yes, but I know that deep down I'd have probably never really gotten over seeing it as a movie for girls, and just wouldn't have given it a chance. But I was a prick.


Oh, and one more thing - I am very, very easily won over, for whatever reason, by comedy animated chickens. They make me smile. And Mulan scored very highly on that front. Just look at these guys;



They were the highlight.


Current Ranking:
1. Mulan
2. Aladdin


Next up...Hercules.

[Sousa]

Oh you updated this! That's what I get for never checking this particular forum.

Yeah, now you see why I've been banging the gong (lol china) about Mulan for so long. But don't ever watch the sequel. I think it gets neglected because it comes in the middle of a string of what most people consider weaker Disney flicks (Hercules, Hunchback, Tarzan, fucking Pocahontas), but it's so much smarter than a lot of Disney films. If you ever end up watching Pocahontas for this, you'll see what I mean--the "female empowerment" story (which Pocahontas tries to be but totally isn't) is really ham-handed and stupid.

OH. I should mention this. Once when I was subbing in a second grade class, I tried to devise a way to get them all to shut up and pay attention when I wanted them to. So what I would do is shout "LET'S get DOWN to BUSINESS!" and they'd go "to DEFEAT the HUNS!" It was amazing.

I like Hercules despite the fact that it has a bit of Aladdin Syndrome about it. Be warned: one of the very first scenes is Hera and Zeus, arm in arm, looking down on the beloved child that they presumably had. Together.

[Your Mom]

Reading that Aladdin review made me sad. Probably accurate but still depressing

[Sousa]

Aladdin is not nearly as good as you remember when you were a kid. You'll seriously watch it and go "that was an arsenio hall joke, why did i ever enjoy that."

[Hailtothechimp]

If it wasn't for nostalgia, Aladdin wouldn't be as good for me, so I totally got where Skummy was coming from. Aladdin does, however, have some wonderful songs in it still.

I've been dreading Skummy watching Hercules though. I love it so much and I'm quite sure that Hercules isn't going to be Skum's thing.

[METALMAN]

I'd agree with Sousa about Aladdin. I didn't see it when I was a kiddiwink either. When I finally did see it I found it pretty awful.

I did like Mulan though.

Here's Donny Osmond:

[stokeriño]

I like Hercules despite the fact that it has a bit of Aladdin Syndrome about it. Be warned: one of the very first scenes is Hera and Zeus, arm in arm, looking down on the beloved child that they presumably had. Together.

Yeah, the film goes for the angle of Hercules being a full-blown God rather than a Demi-God, as I recall? Not mythically accurate but I guess it just made things more convenient for them.

I presume that was your point, rather than Zeus and Hera being brother and sister...because, man, so many children.

[Sousa]

My point is that 99% of Greek myths (including Herakles) boil down to

1. Zeus gets his rocks off with mortal woman

2. Hera gets pissed

3. Hero slays half-man half-man-but-not-the-same-man

[stokeriño]

We're talking about a god who was so good at seducing mortal women that he felt the need to mix it up with doing it as different species. Hera really should have come to accept it as inevitable at some point.

[METALMAN]

This is why when I did Classics I never really bothered with any of the Greek stuff except Thucydides. They are bad people!

[MalaCloudy Black]

I liked Hercules too, Sousa. Mostly for James Woods. And Keith David. Really, it had a pretty great cast.

[SeanDMan]

This is why when I did Classics I never really bothered with any of the Greek stuff except Thucydides. They are bad people!

Hey, don't judge. Being a little promiscuous is not the wost thing in the world. It could be worse, they could be incestuous murderers like the... uh, well, like some of the Greek gods.

[TKz]

This is why when I did Classics I never really bothered with any of the Greek stuff except Thucydides. They are bad people!

That's why it's so entertaining. It's like the mythical version of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

[Skummy]

Disney Movie #3: Hercules

Year of release: 1997
Had Skummy seen it before?: No.

Ho boy.

Okay. A bit of backstory for this one again.


When I was a kid, I was a huge Greek mythology nerd. From the first time I learned any of that stuff at school, I was obsessed. Heck, myths in general - I loved Hindu mythology, and Norse mythology too, but Greek myth was the absolute pinnacle. It got to the point where I had been the only person taking this book, The Encyclopedia Of Myths And Legends Of All Nations, out of my primary school library so often that they eventually just gave it to me. I still have it today, and a few weeks back I tried to read some of it, and holy shit it is the most dense, full-on version of every myth, not sparing the slightest tiny detail anywhere. It's a struggle to get through any of it now, let alone when I was a kid. I was weird.

So when Hercules came out? Heck yeah, that sounds cool. But it rankled me, even then. Because I was a nerd. And that meant that I didn't like the name "Hercules". It's not Hercules, it's Heracles. And, honestly, I think that's the one reason I'd never seen this before. Because I think that, if it had been called Heracles, I'd have pestered my parents to take me to see it.

As it stands, my only knowledge of the movie prior to watching it came from a demo of the PS1 game - where, if I remember correctly, Hercules had to fight Medusa, an error I allowed on the basis that all video adaptations involved you fighting things which weren't in the source material - and Hercules' appearances in Kingdom Hearts.


So, where do we start? I've grown up (a little), so I was able to accept the naming conventions - but a little part of me cried out at the Roman name "Hercules" being used alongside the Greek "Zeus", but we'll allow it. I understand the reasoning. Moving on.

The art style is weird. I guess some of the characters - Hercules and the Gods, in particular - are drawn to look like a Disney-fied take on Ancient Greek art, particularly the sort of vases depicted in the opening, which is an interesting stylistic choice, and in theory makes this movie stand out...but I find it kind of off-putting, throughout the entire thing I just felt like things looked wrong, or that some of the animation looked less polished than other Disney movies. So that's a downer.


Now the bulk of this, and yes, Sousa's got me figured out - the idea that Hercules was the son of a loving union between Zeus and Hera. Wow. Now, I guess that, this being a Disney movie, they didn't want to have Charlton Heston narrate a scene in which Zeus disguised himself as a woman's husband to get some mortal ass, but I didn't like it. Honestly, they could have glossed over that whole thing with "Hercules was the son of the God Zeus and a mortal woman". It's not like Hera featured all that strongly in this story, and the way she was featured was totally at odds with how her character and temperament are usually portrayed, so I'd have rather she'd not been in this at all.

And now, of course, this set up means that Hercules is a full-blown God, rather than a Demi-God, and you need a tenuous set-up to have him lose his God-hood and become mortal. Now, this leads us to Hades - another one who's depiction I didn't like. The character of Hades in this movie was very much a Christian-ised view of the Devil - the movie's Hades was a God fallen from grace and turned to evil to try and overthrow the "good" God. Hades in Greek myth was actually fairly passive, and certainly not one to actively torment.

But whatever. It gives us a villain, and a villain that isn't Hera. I suppose the hero's jealous mother is a harder sell to a Disney demographic than a cartoon villain.

I have to say, admittedly, that Hades is hilarious. James Wood playing him as some kind of fast-talking used car salesman type is fucking brilliant, and he was a really great villain because of it, often one of the few enjoyable things about this film for me. The way James Woods plays Hades is like how Robin Williams' should have played the Genie. Wacky and irreverent, but just understated enough.

There were other things in there which got on my nerves as far as Greek myth goes, but don't really spoil my enjoyment of the film - stuff like Hercules mentioning Achilles and Jason as heroes he looked up to when he's training with Phil. He's talking about the Argo and Jason, and I'm screaming at the TV that Hercules was on the Argo! But again, nerdery.


The music. Ugh. Oh God the music. I wasn't going to go there yet, but I'll get it out of the way. Remember how I mentioned Disney's tendency to turn any story into "I just don't feel like I belong here"? God, don't they fucking ever. And the music in this is so fucking generic. "Go The Distance" is fucking horrendous, and I never want to hear it again.


The story, though, the story. Back on track. You know what? It's actually not terrible. It's not great, but it's functional. It's just not Hercules. And that did really quite annoy me. Because Hercules is an old, famous story. This isn't about tweaking a few elements to make it more palatable to modern audiences, or toning down this and that for the kids, it's simply not the same story. When I go and watch a movie called Hercules, I expect to see the story of Hercules told in some fashion. This wasn't it.

The story of Hercules - even just the Labours Of Hercules, or the Twelve Trials - is perfect movie material. It's got a quest narrative, it's got monsters to overcome, and it would play well enough with the "prove yourself as a true hero" story that this angle that this movie takes. Not only do the Twelve Trials never happen - the Hydra gets a token appearance, but the capture of Cerberus occurs off-screen - but the film makes no attempt to incorporate anything like that dynamic - instead, we get a "rescue the princess" plot, albeit one with a (predictable) twist.

While we're on the romance angle; Megara annoyed me. I just didn't really get what they were going for. I guess she's supposed to be this kind of sassy femme fatale type, but it felt at odds with the tone of the rest of the movie, and often she just seemed unlikable. I certainly wasn't rooting for her and Hercules to get together. Though them getting a "they get married and all live happily ever after" story is a little bittersweet considering Hercules would go on to go insane and murder their children. In that respect, Megara seemed like an odd choice. Especially considering that, again, she bore no relation to the mythical figure of the same name, so may as well have been an original character.


What bugged me the most about the story though is that's it not terrible. It's painfully generic at times, but it's not a bad story. A bumbling, yet affable and charming, oaf trying to prove himself to be a hero - and dealing with the fame that brings - while pursuing the love of his life and being used as a pawn in a greater plot by the Gods...that's not a bad story. It's just not Hercules' story. Considering part of the narrative is about him trying to live up to the reputation of earlier heroes, it couldn't be less Hercules' story. And while you can argue that you should allow the film to stand on its own merits aside from the source material, that does seriously hamper my enjoyment of it.

I can't help but feel that if this movie hadn't been about Hercules, but about a fictional "Ancient Greek" hero trying to prove himself, the film would have felt less muddled, and would have had more room to breath and explore its themes. The story is only tangentially "Hercules" as it is, so it wouldn't have been a huge jump, but I think it would have improved it tenfold.


As it is, I didn't enjoy it. And while it's a close call between this and Aladdin, I'd probably sooner watch Aladdin again than this, if only because Hercules was really just rather underwhelming and unremarkable.



Current Ranking:
1. Mulan
2. Aladdin
3. Hercules


Next up...The Hunchback Of Notre Dame.

[Sousa]

The Labors were there (well, most of them as I recall), but they were mostly a few short scenes during... that one song in the middle. "Zero to Hero" I think it was called? Right after he kills the Awful 90s CGI MonsterLernaean hydra. There are sort of blink-and-you-miss-them nods to the Nemean lion and the Augean stables and a few other things. It's such a weird way to do it considering that the Labors were the important things that Heracles did.

It's sort of vaguely the Heracles story, but the important elements--the apotheosis, the Labors, the Gigantomachy, etc.--are all changed in weird ways, Hera is replaced by The Devil (the actual Greek Hades is fucking awesome and deserves a better shake than what he got), and the Muses are a fucking Popeye's Chicken commercial.

James Woods was wonderful, though. Somebody (Cloudy? Maxx?) was talking with me a while ago about how James Woods comes back to play Hades every time they put Hades in a thing, whether it's Kingdom Hearts, the TV cartoon version of Hercules, or an episode of House of Mouse where he tries to get his rocks off with Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. It's fantastic, and it's a shame that James Woods is actually a weird regressive Alex Jones type or he'd be my favorite guy ever.