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MovieMeditation presents...
HIS FILM DIARY 2015
total movie count ........... viewing day count
264 .......................... 308

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November 5th

—— 1992 ——
Aladdin
—— animation ——
DISNEY CLASSIC no.31

REWATCH
I have come a long way since my viewing of the very first
Disney Classic, from 1937, ‘Snow White’, earlier this year, 2015...


Finally, we arrive, all nicely dressed up in towel turbans and sultan shoes and with the (red) magical carpet rolled out and ready to take us away on an Arabic adventure into the world of spellbinding and surely seminal animation! More than fifty years of animated evolution and technical changes later, right in the middle of the "Disney Renaissance", we arrive in the sanded surroundings of Arabia… This period of animation really lives up to its name, as I saw some of the biggest changes with the first Renaissance film, ‘The Little Mermaid’ – especially cinematically and considering the conversion into a proper consistent piece of animation...

With the setting of Arabia, ‘Aladdin’ has a whole new world to introduce the audience to, but most of all the film just feels like home to be honest. Admittedly, Disney definitely drew a lot of inspiration from a few of their previous films, most notably an ending echoing ‘The Little Mermaid’ and obviously the overall theme of having two people who fit together, but still can't be together, might be the most used storyline of all time at the Disney Studios. And a humorous side note; the film even calls for future films by Disney, like with the character design of Jafar being used again later to create the basic look for Scar, in ‘The Lion King’ – and the two even rhyme too! Anyways, past, present or future ‘Aladdin’ is a timeless tale in animation by Disney, which does feel fresh, fancy, free and funky in the midst of majestic material based on fairytales and Shakespearean novelties. ‘Aladdin’ is not a drastically different Disney, but it is a more modern Disney, which had the (sand) dust blown away from it, making it look and feel all nice and shiny.

The film is beautiful to look at throughout, with clean crisp animation and swift gliding across characters and scenery; particularly the action scenes seem well handled and hand crafted to perfection. The overall story is interesting enough, though not overly original, but nevertheless it still manages to feel rather fresh and fast paced throughout to keep things entertaining. Obviously, Robin Williams as Genie is a joy to behold and I would love to be handed the complete and uncut audio tape of the entirety of Williams’ recording sessions – but of course, what got in the movie is still great and it is fun to see the animators imitate Robin’s impressive improvised intellect and turn them into colossally imaginative and visually clever images. The songs are great too, especially the Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe-winning song ‘A Whole New World’. Overall, I liked this one much better this time around, but the first half is the best and everything gets a little convoluted and chaotic towards the end of the movie. Nonetheless, a cool classic from Disney!




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