Lilo & Stitch: sudden realization.

[egypturnash]

Okay, it's a good movie, everyone loves it, it was made for less money than usual, and so on and so forth.

But it hit me that there's one thing about 'Lilo & Stitch' that nobody ever seems to discuss: it's the first Disney feature that's an original property in ages.

I'm not a Disney fanatic, so someone will surely correct me on this, but the only other Disney animated features I can think of that are original are 'Lady and the Tramp', 'The Aristocats', 'Dumbo', and 'Lion King'. Everything else I can think of comes from fairy tales or books. And I could be wrong about the ones I listed; we will leave aside the 'Simba: short for Pseudo-Kimba?' debate.

I can only hope that L&S's seeming monetary and fan success means less Disney strip-mining of myth and public-domain culture in the future...

Comments

You are thusly corrected.

[maui.livejournal.com]

I know that Aristocats was a book, and I'm nearly positive Dumbo was.

And we can always hope for original ideas, but really I doubt that'll happen. I imagine it's much more expensive to put money into story development than it is to yoink a popular kids' tale and animate it, plot ready-made for the most part. Unless it's too politically incorrect somehow, or doesn't have plenty of room for inane musical numbers.

I am happy to see L&S breaking the nice, comfortable rut Disney's been in. I hope it's wildly successful and "undermerchandised" (for Di$ney) at the same time.

Re: You are thusly corrected.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I wasn't sure about the provenance of Aristocats or Dumbo, and the only reference handy is the Disney chapter of my battered copy of 'Of Mice and Magic'; it explicitly notes 'Lady & the Tramp' as being the first non-adaptation, but doesn't say much about mostly-forgotten movies like 'Aristocats'.

Given how much Disney will abuse source material, I don't know if there's significantly more money involved in developing an original story than an adaptation.

Oh, and how could I forget 'Journey to Atlantis' in the list of original Disney features? Tsk. Flawed, but entertaining, especially if you're a Mike Mignola fangirl like I am.

If'n you really wanna know about all of Disney's films...

[electricgecko.livejournal.com]

Check out "Mouse Behind Glass" by David Koenig. It's basically a behind-the-scenes run-down of all of Disney's feature films (up until 1998 or so): the author covers several topics for each movie, including 'original story,' 'Disneys version,' 'bloopers,' 'ideas that never got used,' 'park attraction offpsring,' and so forth.

Because it's a very non-Disney-endorsed book, it's got all kinds of neat little gems that The Mouse People would never write about in their own official media... for instance, that Disney recognized when Alice in Wonderland was becoming a cult classic amongst college-age druggies, and then strategically re-released the film in the late 60s and again in the 70s, advertising it with conspicuously bright and colorful psychadelic posters. :)

Incidentally, Koenig's first book "Mouse Tales," is all about what goes on at Disneyland. What REALLY goes on at Disneyland... everything from the park's rickety beginnings, to employee pranks, to funny hidden stuff, to bloody deaths on the People Mover! (Seriously... employees started calling it the People ReMover.) Great, great book.

Actually, I find it amusing...

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

...that their first truly original idea occurs when they're possibly going to lose some of their first copyrights if a recent Supreme Court Case specifically against such succeeds, retroactively shortening the duration of Copyright one some of their stuff from X+95 to X+75 years. Which happens to be, roughly, in 2003ish :-)

[silvermink.livejournal.com]

Hey you... how's it going?

I went out and saw L&S last night myself, and really enjoyed it. It wasn't very 'Disneyish', which, I find, is something I'm growing to appreciate more and more. They're far better working on original properties than they are rewriting history.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Oh, it goes. Someday I should do a general 'basic life situation' kind of entry; some people know what I'm up to in terms of work and such, but not everyone who might be curious. Maybe while in a goof-off zone at work tonight...

I wanted to kill someone every time I heard the chorus of Muses in Hercules sing about 'the gospel truth'. That was just so wrong.

[dour.livejournal.com]

...wow. Until this moment I had completely forgotten that Hercules existed. Thanks a lot!

Meanwhile, welcome to LJ!

[immortalpain.livejournal.com]

Stalked your journal through someone elses out of curiosity.. and just thought I'd throw in my two cents... The Lion King is actually based on Hamlet! A very watered down and disneyfied version, but it is there. The jealous brother, murder of the king, unwilling heir. The original ending for the Lion King that was planned was more along the lines of the Hamlet tragedy, basically Scar beat the crap out of Simba and killed him only to find himself engulfed by flames just as he claimed his kingdom. I guess they felt this ending far to unhappy for poor liddle kiddies and they changed it to the happy ending it has now. Shakesperean drama for kids from lions who can sing, who'd a thunk it?

[immortalpain.livejournal.com]

(Apologies for spelling mistakes and all that other fun stuff, I'm literally falling asleep)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Stalkers. Keen.

Yeah, I'd heard the 'Hamlet' suggestion about 'Lion King', too. I really have no opinion on that because I never got around to seeing it. Er, 'Lion King', not 'Hamlet'; I've seen two or three productions of 'Hamlet'.

And I work in animation, too. What kind of freak AM I??!!?!?

[immortalpain.livejournal.com]

The singing happy.. musical thing is really quite enough to keep most people away. You can really heavily see the influence of Hamlet in the movie, but... It is dumbed down and stuff and not really even.. worth mentioning. I adore Hamlet however (the whole story) and I have for longer then I can remember and so it's always been a point of interest for me. I really can't say anything bad about it because I am one of the losers that got into the anthro world because of the Lion King, but hey. (This comment is trailing into really pointless grounds. Better quit before I bury myself deeper.)

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

Eh?
If it is Hamlet, why does Nala commit suicide and why doesn't Simba's mom (sorry, blanking on the name) marry Scar (or at least not hate him)?