1997 - Hercules

Hunchback was a contentious movie, but while it didn’t reach the heights of their earlier renaissance work, it did get noticeably better reviews than Pocahontas. It made slightly less money, but the critical goodwill was back, and since their next feature was a lighthearted comedy in a historically themed legendary setting, from the directors of Aladdin. So they must have felt a bit more confident going in, despite Greek mythology being about as suitable for a family film as the colonization of America or a Victor Hugo novel. Was their confidence well placed? Or would this be the one that snapped their more tenuous success? Feeling heroic? So am I. So get some nectar and ambrosia, and let’s talk about Hercules.

HONEY, YOU MEAN HUNKULES! Yes, so right from the beginning, the movie sets its tone by having Charlton Heston provide stereotypically heroic opening narration until he is interrupted by The Muses, who appear on a vase in the style of… a small gospel choir. Yes, the musical language of the movie is distinctly modern and American, with Motown sound being the name of the game. The Muses are also individuals, with distinct personalities that match their musely duties. The five featured in the film are Epic Poetry, the lead narrator; Tragedy, who’s a bit overdramatic; Dance, who’s the most physical; History, who sings a lot of the more trivia-based lyrics; and Comedy, who’s the sassiest and cracks the largest quantity of wise.

I have to admit, through the opening number, I was nervous. I mean, starting a movie with Charlton Heston saying “You go, girls” is not something that inspires great confidence in me. But I got into it before too long, and by the time Herc’s origin was told, I'd stopped taking notes and started watching. Right from the beginning, the tone of the movie is set. Lots of jokes, and no respect for history or myth. In most movies based on Greek myth (movies about Titans clashing, for instance), I get annoyed when Hades is played as The Devil. But in this one, I could buy it. Hercules is the son of Zeus and Hera, who are a loving couple? Sure! The Titans are 400-foot tall elemental monsters? Why not! Moirai and Graeae confused and mashed together? Knock yourself out, movie. Every single detail of every myth is thrown out the window? Who cares, this movie’s hilarious.

The movie didn't play well in Greece. But what do they know?

I did not expect the style of the movie to work the way it did. Here’s the thing: I’d never seen the whole thing, only bits and pieces. My sister, on the other hand, is an INSANELY huge fan of the movie. From what little I’d seen of it, and from the fact that her other favorite film is “An American Tail 2: Feivel Goes West” (which I have seen), I didn’t have high hopes. But as I watched it with her, I started to see what she saw in it, despite her constant gasping and informing me every five minutes that “this is the best part”. The jokes came so fast that when they hit a stinker (Thebes is “The Big Olive” because ha ha Greece), a good one (Hades infuriated that his henchmen have bought Hercules merchandise) would be along not far behind.

The plot is… Well, it’s basically Superman. Oh, sure, there’s some Star Wars in there, a soupçon of King Arthur, a big glob of Rocky, but it’s mostly Superman. And not just in the basic Hero With a Thousand Faces way, either. It’s pretty much exactly the 1978 Superman movie. Herc is born on another world, but cast down to live on Earth. He’s found by a kindly couple, farmers, who take him in and raise him as their son. As a teenager, he feels awkward and out of place, and is made to hide his immense strength. At the urging of his father, he goes off to seek answers and finds a remote, many-columned building where he speaks to his birth father, who tells him to become a hero. He gains public acclaim and is tempted by a fast-talking, salesman-like villain. The villain robs him of his powers to enact his evil endgame, but when the hero’s love interest, a bold and confident independent woman, is killed, he gains a rush of power, stops the villain, and saves her life. It’s Superman exactly.

Hades even has a pair of Otises.

Well, if Superman was a musical. And unlike the actual Superman musical, the music in this one is good and character-appropriate. The Muses and love interest Megara stick to that flowy, groovy, modern style, and Young Hercules has an inspirational power ballad which fits in nicely. The only one that doesn’t fit the tone is “One Last Hope”, sung by Herc’s trainer Philoctetes, which is a bouncy 1950s musical-type song. But Danny DeVito, has a winning personality and a surprisingly capable singing voice, so he makes it work. Look, they weren’t going to be bad, they’re by Alan Menken, and while I’ve never heard of lyricist David Zippel, he does quite a good job. And kudos for not pushing in a gooey love song in a movie where none would fit.

The characters are really well-done, in terms of casting and design. Realism is out the window in this one, with big, bold loops and sharp angles forming the characters. Hercules is animated by Andreas Deja, who was originally offered Hades, but wanted to do a hero for once. He maintains the physical language of the scrawny, awkward teenage Hercules even as he grows into a full-sized heroic figure. Megara is designed in total contrast to the big buff marshmallow that is Herc, with sharp angles and slender limbs. Philoctetes is a furry little bowling ball, Hades is a cross between a Doric column and a vulture, everyone’s got their own visual style that complements the others. Oh, and like 80% of the characters have long pointy noses.

See, the one guy has to point with his finger because his nose can't handle it.

They’re well-realized, too. Megara in particular is jaded and sarcastic in a way that feels real while still providing ripe fuel for one-liners. She’s voiced by Susan Egan, who came to Disney’s attention as the original Belle in the Beauty and the Beast musical, but her voice here couldn’t be more different, or better suited. Hercules is voiced by Tate Donavan, who plays it with the perfect combination of surface bravado and unpracticed insecurity. Danny DeVito plays Phil like every trainer from every boxing movie ever (mostly Mickey). The Muses are played by a variety of big-voiced black women from Broadway. The standout in their group is Roz Ryan as Thalia (Comedy), who sadly never instructs Meg to tell Hercules she thinks he’s HAWWT. Hades’ henchmen are kind of little nothings of characters, but they serve important functions in the plot and are voiced by that-guy-you-keep-seeing-in-stuff Matt Frewer and that-guy-whose-voice-sounds-familiar Bobcat Goldthwait, who bring a lot of life to the show.

The biggest standout, though, was Hades. Not only was the design great, with needle-like teeth, bulky arms ending in long, spindly fingers, and blue flames for hair, the personality was completely fantastic. Hades was originally written to speak in a slow, spooky, and methodical manner as a Lord Of The Dead stereotypically would. And they brought in several actors to read him as such. One of them was noted character actor James Woods, who started improvising and joking around with the dialogue between takes. When the directors saw this, they did a complete 180 on the character. Woods was allowed to ad-lib most of his dialogue, which hadn’t been done since Robin Williams in Aladdin. The new Hades was a schmoozing used car salesman type, which fit perfectly with the modern style of the movie. Woods’ gift for maintaining an air of menace at all times was not at all diminished by the comedy, but he crucially kept the film from being that worst of all things, a comedy with a serious villain.

A serious Hades would have been to this movie what the gargoyles were to the last movie. Something inconsistent that showed the filmmakers didn’t trust the tone they’d come up with. There are a few signs of that in here, particularly in the serious moments, where the film tends to waver, but they are few, and at least well-placed. This movie isn’t perfect, but it is very, very good. Sadly, as Hercules is to Amphitryon, so this film is to Disney, i.e. a red-headed stepchild. It doesn’t get too much in the way of promotion these days, there’s comparatively little merch at the Disney stores, and it’s rather forgotten as a Renaissance picture, which is too bad. Girls these days could use a little Megara in their princesses.

I don't have a caption for this one, I just like it.

The reason for its comparative lack of interest was that it wasn’t the monster hit that they wanted. It didn’t do badly, and received even better critical notices than Hunchback, but another 100 million dropped off the box office total, which was a real kick in the pants to Disney. It’s weird, the mindset where a 250 million dollar take is a disappointment, but when you go from 500 mil with Aladdin to 900 mil with The Lion King down to 350 mil with Pocahontas and Hunchback, another drop of 100 can induce screaming insanity. Don’t fret, they won’t have a legit flop for a long time; even Fantasia 2000 made its money back. But next we’ll be looking at their first movie to have the bulk of its production time after Pocahontas premiered. Let’s see what lessons they’ve learned.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

* Great Hera, that's a busy poster. What, did they have an intern put it together?

* Pegasus is a My Little Pony. Just saying.

* A major source of conflict is that Herc can’t live on Olympus until he becomes a god, and he gives up his godhood at the end to be with Meg. Why can’t they just make her a god? Or change the rules for their sake? Is the homeowner’s association of Olympus going to complain?

* Lots of good visual gags and reference jokes. The constantly deteriorating dummy in Herc’s training sessions, a Karate Kid reference of Herc and Pegasus practicing crane kicks while standing on plinths, Hercules posing for a painting while wearing the hide of Scar from The Lion King, lots of stuff like that.

* Probably my favorite, in terms of obscurity was in a scene where Hercules is shown putting his handprints in cement. Above, he’d written “To Sid, love Herc”, a reference to Sid Grauman, the founder of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, home of the famous celebrity handprints. A close second is Hades insultingly referring to Pegasus as a Pinto, which is not only a famously lousy car, but also a kind of horse.

* Phil was animated by Eric Goldberg, who did the Genie. He’s usually a director, and those were the only characters he directly supervised until The Princess and the Frog, which is too bad, because I like his work.

*The inspirational ballad, “Go the Distance” was covered in the end credits by Michael Bolton, who just plain makes it inspirational as hell. In all three Spanish dubs, Hercules was voiced by Ricky Martin, who turned the song into a number one hit.

* Cummings Watch: Jim Cummings pulls out three of his generic voices, “mean guy”, “big guy”, and “old guy” to play Nessus the centaur in Herc’s first battle and two Theban citizens introduced in the following scene. This is nothing on Hunchback, where he managed to play four characters (two Gypsies, a boatman, and a guard) in just the opening scene.

* The muses left out of the film were Astronomy, Song, and Love Poetry, who would have fit right in. Only Hymns doesn’t particularly fit, as reverence is not this movie’s deal. But nine would have been too unwieldy, so I don’t blame them for cutting them down.

* Remarkably, the people that complained about The Little Mermaid cover and the SFX in The Lion King had no problem with Hades’ chin. I guess they’d calmed down by 1997.

I mean, seriously. Look at it.

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1996 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Pocahontas may have made big bank, but it was a critical disaster, and the box office and merchandising receipts, while quite good, were pathetic compared to the Lion King. In the past when Disney’s taken a drubbing, they’ve retreated into their comfort zone and made a few easy successes before getting ambitious again. But that was back in the day when they’d make one movie at a time. These days they start a few years in advance, and before this came out, they must have been sweating bullets. Their sensitive epic romance inexplicably based on a violent and depressing era of history had failed them. How would their dark, mature drama based on a 500,000-word French Gothic novel do? Nervous? So were they. So something something French food and let’s talk about The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The tagline on the poster for Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of the novel Lolita teased the audiences by asking them the same question they were thinking: “How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?” They may well have done the same for this. Of course, films have been made of Victor Hugo’s classic novel before, but this was very different. How did they take a sprawling masterpiece 500,000 words long full of sex and betrayal, murder, abuse, and rape, commentary on the injustices of medieval French culture and the importance of architecture to our society - How did they turn that into an 85-minute family musical? I think the best thing to do would be to return to the format of our Pinocchio review and compare the adaptation character by character. Starting with our main character…

I'm a Disney Princess!

QUASIMODO - Of course, the mere fact that he is the main character is the first deviation from the book. See, the original title of the book was “Our Lady of Paris”, the name of the titular cathedral, as well as a reference to Esmeralda, who is, if not the protagonist, at least the central figure in the plot. But since the name of the cathedral isn’t translated in other countries, the pun fails to work, and the first English translations decided to name the story after its most unique character. Thanks to his being in the title, he tends to be MUCH more prominent in adaptations than he is in the original book.

Not that he isn't important in the book, of course, but he’s definitely on the lower end of the ensemble cast in terms of importance. Book Quasi is not only hunchbacked and deformed, but also deaf, mean, and spiteful. He’s also possibly insane, and while he may or may not be simpleminded, he is certainly ignorant and uneducated. Movie Quasi is kind, gentle, and loving. Still not particularly smart, but in a childlike way rather than a mad hermit way. His deformities have been softened as well, giving him a working mouth and two eyes. And while his legs are still unable to walk properly, the animators designed him with large, powerful arms that let him swing nimbly from the belltower ropes.

All of these changes, I am pleased to say, work wonderfully. Quasi was going to be the main character no matter what, so it’s far better they change him into something that works as a protagonist then try to use only what Hugo gave them. And it does work. He’s sweet, he’s kind of cute while still being visibly extremely deformed, and his voice, performed by noted guy-who-was-almost-really-famous-for-a-while-there Tom Hulce, is great, too. This brings us to the original protagonist…

Hey, Ms. Tambourine Lady, play a song for me.

ESMERALDA - Like in the book, Esmeralda is a Gypsy who is immediately the object of desire for every man who meets her. Book Esmeralda, however, is naïve, flighty, and shallow, whereas the movie’s version is bold, confident, and deep. In both versions, she cares for Quasi after he’s tormented by a crowd, giving him water. Movie Esmeralda does this out of a sense of social justice. Book Esmeralda does it out of a tender heart, though she’s still so disgusted by Quasimodo she can’t stand to be near him. By contrast, in the movie, she’s the only one who can look past his ugliness as soon as she meets him. So what they did here was keep the core of the character the same while changing all the things around it, including whether she dies at the end. Yeah, in the book she dies. Then Quasimodo crawls into her grave and holds her body until he starves to death. But not so much our next subject…

Yeah, I was a bad guy in the book, and now I'm literally a golden knight in shining armor.

PHOEBUS - Phoebus is a handsome, high ranking soldier who lives all the way to the end. Like all who meet her, he is infatuated with Esmeralda from their first meeting. The similarities end there. In the book, Phoebus is vain, petty, and cruel. He’s engaged, but pursues Esmeralda purely for sexual purposes. He’s basically an entitled little roarhead. In the movie, he’s a sassy yet noble hero, who cares deeply about the plight of others. And while Esmeralda’s certainly a boom animated babe who makes him think the wrong things, he’s mostly attracted to her for her spirit and passion. Some have complained that having the handsome guy get the girl betrays the spirit of the movie, but if the message is not to judge by appearances, that goes for pretty people, too, and the movie really goes out of its way to portray them as perfect for each other. He’s drawn well, too. A bit more manly than John Smith, with a period-appropriate haircut and well-placed lines on his face that make him look like someone who’s actually lived a life. He’s voiced by Kevin Kline, which is occasionally weird. Kline has a rather Mephistophelian voice that doesn’t always suit a hero. There’s a reason he made his name playing thieves, murderers, pirates, and jerks. But hey, Phoebus was a bad guy in the book. And since we’ve removed all the negative qualities from one villain, let’s remove all the positive ones from another…

Work that sneer, girl.

FROLLO - HELLFIRE! DARK FIRE! NOW GYPSY, IT’S YOUR TURN! This guy is the best villain yet. In the book, he’s a caring and kind priest with a deeply compassionate side, who adopts Quasimodo out of pity, and raises him as a son, albeit fairly poorly. After becoming Archdeacon, he meets Esmeralda and is (of course) immediately consumed with lust, which leads to bad decision making, including stabbing Phoebus, attempted rape, and burning Esmeralda alive. Quasimodo, who had already beaten him nearly to death earlier, snaps and throws him from the roof of the cathedral.

In the movie, he’s not a priest, but a judge. Many have presumed this is to avoid offending religious folks, but it has a very valid plot reason, too, giving him direct control over the city guard and a personal connection to Phoebus. This makes him the immediate cause of Esmeralda’s trouble, rather than him just turning her in to the authorities. He is still deeply religious, though, and mentions God constantly, with his big Villain Song taking the form of a prayer. His compassion is gone, too. He now adopts Quasimodo because he thinks it will help him get to heaven, and raises him in a cloud of esteem-destroying verbal abuse. And his lust for Esmeralda is blatant and horribly sleazy from the start, though his twisted mind blames her for “bewitching him”. He’s dark, twisted, genocidal, and totally unredeemable, and it works great. And he’s voiced by Tony Jay, who’s so deep and British and evil he makes Christopher Lee sound like Tiny Tim. And speaking of high-pitched entertainers…

"Just look at me! How am I not the worst character! It defies all sense!"

CLOPIN - In both versions of the story, Clopin is a Gypsy and the leader of his organization. The main difference is that in the book, he’s the king of thieves, but in the movie he’s the head of a street performance group that hangs out with thieves. In both movie and book, Clopin tells jokes constantly, which makes him a good fit for comic relief. He’s a lot goofier in the movie, but still maintains a sinister edge -  a bit from early in the book where he attempts to murder someone for walking in ‘his’ streets is kept in the movie, for instance. To make it suitable, rather than just being some poor sap, it’s Phoebus and Quasimodo, whom Clopin has every reason to believe are working for Frollo. But he notably shows no remorse when he finds out they’re legit. He’s also shown in the Feast of Fools number as fairly sociopathic, injuring and mocking people with abandon. So while he’s not the murderous thief he was in the book, he’s not been completely neutered.

He also narrates the story of Quasimodo’s origins in the opening song “The Bells of Notre Dame”, which is probably the best opening a Disney movie has ever had. He’s performed by Broadway actor Paul Kandel, who gives him a generic “European” accent that can’t be placed, which fits the character perfectly. My only regret is that the two times Kandel gets to use his trademark vocal trick, a truly impressive high note, it’s mixed waaaaay down under the music. I don’t know, maybe it’s just the way the sound comes out on my computer. But that’s a very minor complaint in what’s otherwise a great character. It’s really good writing when a crazy clown-man with a silly puppet doesn’t ruin the tone of the movie. We should always be so lucky. But before we get to them…

DJALI - Djali is the traditional “smart animal sidekick”. He’s Esmeralda’s pet goat, and he has all the usual traits we’ve seen with Abu and Pocahontas’s animals and all them. Human-level intelligence, rescuing the heroes from scrapes, etc. Remarkably, not only is he in the book, he’s the only character to make it through completely unchanged. Rather more drastic changes were made to…

Easy Joke.

FLEUR-DE-LYS, GRINGOIRE, SISTER GUDULE, AND JEHANE FROLLO - These four characters were cut from the film for various reasons. Fleur-de-lys was a petty, shallow socialite whose only function was to be Phoebus’s fiancé, so that’s an obvious cut. Pierre Gringoire was a tiresome poet that served as the protagonist in the early part of the story, and a viewpoint character afterwards. He was (of course) in love with Esmeralda, who saved him from hanging by marrying him, though she didn’t return his affection. He’s not a horrible character, but Phoebus works better for the plot, so he got all of Gringoire’s positive traits and Gringoire got the boot. Sister Gudule was an anchorite, a sort of religious hermit who lived in a little cell in the middle of the city with little windows for people to gawk at her. I mostly remember her from the 1923 film, where people would constantly be walking past her cell for her to scream abuse at. Anyway, she’s Esmeralda’s secret mom and also completely pointless, so naturally she got the cut.

The character I would have liked to see is Jehane Frollo, Claude’s little brother and the family screwup. He’s a drunk, a gambler, and a petty thief, and Frollo supports him financially out of a sense of familial obligation. In return for this Jehane agrees to act as his brother’s henchman when he goes a little nuts, which gets him thrown out of the bell tower by Quasimodo. While not an essential character, I think they could have done something fun with him. But since they took four out, they have to put four in…

THE ARCHDEACON AND THE GARGOYLES - The Archdeacon’s a bit of a nothing. He convinces Frollo to spare Quasimodo’s life at the beginning, then more or less disappears. Really, he’s just there because Frollo’s not the archdeacon, and they need someone to explain why Quasi lives in the church. For the rest of the film, all he does is offer vague reassurances and ineffective protests.

What I really want to talk about is the Gargoyles, aka THE WORST THING IN THE MOVIE. See, this movie is serious. It is dark. It is mature. As I hope I’ve made clear, the filmmakers went to every effort to maintain the movie’s unique tone and not dumb it down at all. And then for some reason they decided they needed Wacky Comedy Relief to tell Wacky Anachronistic Jokes and engage in Humorous Slapstick and Banter. So Quasimodo’s best friends are three gargoyles who come to life when no one’s looking and get WAAAAACKYYYY. It’s horrible.

WHY IS THIS IN MY MOVIE?!

And no, they’re not figments of his imagination. That’s a defense often given to this idiotic addition, and I can see why. If it were true, they would be annoying, but at least one could understand their inclusion. But while they don’t speak to anyone but Quasimodo, they interact with the real world in tangible ways, and are occasionally seen when he’s not there. So that’s so excuse. And there’s no basis for it. Unlike Pocahontas, where the magic was annoying, but there was still an overarching tone of magical realism that encompassed all of the movie. Here, the gargoyles are it, no other magic.

It’s difficult to describe in words just how badly these clowns fit the tone of the movie. But every time they speak, they cut down whatever serious tone the movie has built up. Their WAAAAACKY musical number comes right in the middle of an emotional high point. Paris is on fire! Frollo’s gone mad with power and desire! Lives hang in the very balance! Time for a song about how loveable Quasimodo is, complete with costume changes and big sets and “funny” props and it’s all so damn WACKY FUN TIMES AHOY.

And since their presence in the film isn’t limited to one or two scenes, but is pervasive throughout, it really throws off the tone of the entire film. I even noticed this when I was 12 and saw it in the theater, and it‘s only gotten worse since then. As a final note, the two male gargoyles are named Victor and Hugo, which is reasonably clever, but the female is named Laverne - despite the fact that Victor Hugo‘s middle name was Marie. So they can‘t even get that right.

CONCLUSION - This is already rather longer than I meant it to be, so I'll keep it brief. While the gargoyles come close to ruining it, and the movie can't trust its own tone to carry it through, the good is IMMENSELY good. All the changes they made from the book click into place excellently, the music is amazing, the animation beautiful. Definitely and emphatically recommended.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

* I know Gypsy is a slur at worst and misinformed at best, but it’s the only term they use in the film, I don’t know the exact ethnic grouping of the characters, and it’s so pervasive that anything else would be confusing, which is why many Romani groups use the term themselves, to be all-inclusive. So, sorry about that. Least-bad option.

* Clopin’s opening narration claims that Quasimodo is “a cruel name, a name that means ‘half-formed’.” It actually means “almost normal”, which is a lot less cruel. More to the point, he was named that since Frollo found and adopted him on Quasimodo Sunday, a church holiday that gets its name from a Bible verse that starts out “quasi modo geniti infantes”, meaning “like newborn babies”. In context, it’s almost sweet.

* In both versions, Esmeralda gives Quasimodo water as he’s being tormented in public. In the book, it’s because he was sentenced to whipping and public display for trying to kidnap Esmeralda on Frollo’s orders, which makes her pity even more keenly felt. In the movie… They just kind of tie him up and start throwing stuff at him for no reason. It’s kind of weird.

* If the word roarhead confused you, it’s a running gag that I haven’t used in a while. Feel free to browse the archives.

STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT, THOSE PIANOS DO NOT EVEN EXIST IN THE 15TH CENTURY AND YOU ARE NOT GENIES.

* One of the guards is voiced by character actor Bill Faggerbakke, using the same voice he’d later use for Patrick Star on Spongebob. It’s a bit odd.

* The Feast of Fools is held on January 6th, which is probably pretty cold, but no one’s dressed for winter in this movie. I thought maybe the animators didn’t know, but they mention the date in one of the songs, so I don’t know what.

* The animation is beautiful, using CAPS to fully integrate live-action techniques like long crane shots and rack focus in ways they could never before, which adds a level of heightened realism which is fantastic.

* Two bits of comedy that did work were a guy on stilts at the festival who was knocked over by Clopin several times guy, and a guy who is freed from a gibbet, only to fall immediately into the stocks. Later, he is freed from the stocks and falls into a sewer. Phoebus gets some good snark, too.

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1995 - Pocahontas

Man, oh, man. We have seen Disney flying high before, but never this high or this consistently. Did the Lion King make money? Try highest-grossing animated film of all time. And while box office records like that don’t mean much unless adjusted for inflation, it’s still remarkably impressive that it held that record until Toy Story 3 came along to unseat it with the benefit of a higher base ticket price, a 3D price bump, AND being the last entry in a beloved series. In 1994, the merchandise alone for The Lion King netted them a FREAKING BILLION DOLLARS.

And a freaking impossible Genesis game.

So they felt bulletproof at this point, and they were sure their latest work would go even higher. And they went all-out on this one. From the moment they announced the project - a sweeping romantic epic inspired by the real-life story of Pocahontas and John Smith - they were on a non-stop binge of promotion, merchandising, and advertising. Feature articles, fast-food tie-ins, a primetime network making-of special that I remember as oddly defensive about the movie’s historical accuracy, you name it. And it all culminated in the biggest movie premiere of all time, an open-air event in New York’s Central Park with about 100,000 people in attendance. And what did those people see? Did they see something that lived up to the hype and the past expectations? Or did they witness a movie that collapsed under its own ambition and sullied the studio’s goodwill like so much Cars 2? Can you paint with all the colors of the wind? Does that even make sense? No it doesn’t. So dig some ship’s biscuits out of the barrel and let’s talk about Pocahontas.

Okay, let’s deal with the history first, because when this came out, I was annoyed by some executive’s claim on the aforementioned making-of special that anyone who complained about the historical accuracy was not a child at heart. I was a child heart and body, and I thought I had a right to be confused as to why someone would make a film based on historical events and ignore said events entirely. Of course, back then, I had only a surface knowledge of the history, and now I am older and wiser and have read several history books for fun. So how did it stack up? Well, as with our last why-did-they-adapt-this movie, The Jungle Book, let‘s do a quick rundown of the pertinent points to get it out of the way.

* Pocahontas in real life was 12 years old. She was not the chief’s only child but one  of about 200, and he didn’t appear to have any special affection for her mother, though Pocahontas did appear to be his favorite child.

* John Smith was not the captain of the ship they landed on, and was in fact brought ashore in chains, still serving a brig sentence for attempted mutiny. Also, he looked more like Zach Galafanakis than the movie implies.

And perhaps not coincidentally, also prone to hangovers.

* Smith and Pocahontas did not, obviously engage in any romantic relationship. It is also possible that her saving him from execution was part of a ritual, and he was in no real danger.

* More likely, though, he made the whole thing up, since he didn’t think to mention it until like 20 years later, and it was the third story he’d told about some locally prominent woman saving him from certain peril.

* John Ratcliffe was not an evil greedy tyrant, nor was he the first governor of the Jamestown colony. The first governor was rather petty and horrible, and Ratcliffe, who seems to have been fair and measured, replaced him after he was removed from office due to being an asshat. However, not much is known of the historical Ratcliffe, and Ratcliffe is a much better villain name than Edward Maria Wingfield.

* In fact, gold was pretty far down on the list of reasons the Virginia Company was settling the new world, but it’s probably tough to form a musical number around the cultivation of tobacco.

* Rather impressively, the flag used is accurate, as the Union Flag was designed the previous year and used only on boats at this time, and Disney remembered to leave off the St. Patrick’s Saltire, because the flag shan’t be having any scummy little Irishmen on it, thank you so much.

* Note: The author is of Irish descent, and the previous was meant to be not sincere, but bitter and sarcastic toward the English, as required by the Feckin’ Crown Act of 1917.

* The natives and settlers did not come to instant peace and love a few weeks after the settlers’ arrival. Kind of the opposite, actually.

* Virginia does not have nearly so many dramatic cliffs.

This is almost all from the first half of the movie, after which I got bored of screencapping. But it doesn't let up.

* And her name wasn’t Pocahontas, it was Matoaka. Pocahontas was a nickname.

So, as with the Jungle Book, we must ask why they decided to adapt this at all if the facts of history were going to be completely ignored, and we must also necessarily ask if it was worth it. The second answer, I’m afraid, is no. But they wanted it to be, and I’d actually say that yeah, the story they THOUGHT they were telling was worth the changes. Or at least, they needed to make them to tell the story. The far better option would have been to make a fictional settlement, a fictional tribe, and fictional people to tell their story, but they wanted history, and the Pocahontas story at least gives the basic frame. And the actual story of Pocahontas makes for a boring movie. It’s called The New World, it’s directed by Terrence Malick, and it’s dreadful, even if it is historically accurate.

Smith is still extremely handsome, though.

Sadly, it still wouldn’t have been a story worth telling. The writing is incredibly sloppy, with every single plot element telegraphed from a mile away. The people involved are less character than caricature, and while the animation is technically excellent, the character designs are stiff and lifeless. The idea of wacky sidekicks is progressing to full-blown addiction. Pocahontas doesn’t so much have sidekicks as an entourage, with a raccoon, a hummingbird, a sassy friend with fun kicky bangs, and a talking tree (and originally a turkey voiced by John Candy, who had his lines recorded when the character was cut prior to animation). The governor gets a sycophantic underling and a pampered lapdog. Smith gets a teenage apprentice to train and two older soldiers who’ve traveled with him before. Pocahontas’s dad gets the medicine man. And Pocahontas’s fiancée just sort of wanders around hoping some group will take him on.

There are some nice things I will say now. The actors are all quite good. With Irene Bedard and Russell Means as the lead Natives, as well as several supporting cast, Disney gets into a good habit of casting actors of the appropriate ethnicity for their characters. It’s not vital in animation, but it shows some dedication to doing it right. David Ogden Stiers pulls double duty as Governor Radcliffe and his assistant Wiggins. Christian Bale, fresh off Newsies, plays the junior member of Smith’s team, and Billy Connolly the oldest. I didn’t recognize the actor who played the third one, but the character was a burly man with a big bushy red beard, and wouldn’t you think that would be Billy Connolly? I dunno.

Speaking of Smith, Mel Gibson was the biggest surprise of the bunch. While his lightly graveled voice seemed a bit incongruous with the Ken Doll character design, he really took well to voice acting. Everything sounded natural and spontaneous, and he was able to work well with some really stupid lines. I admit I spent much of my first pass through the movie trying to work out what the hell his accent was doing, but on my second time, I just accepted it. Trying to get to the bottom of Mel’s accent in the 90s is a fool’s game. And he even did his own singing. It worked out much better for him when he didn’t have to try and belt or anything, but he was certainly passable.

That's great, guys, let's just dump it all over the deck. It's not like we're going to be on this boat for three months or anything.

Speaking of singing voices, this movie gives the best and the worst. Judy Kuhn sings for Pocahontas, and it’s actually pretty seamless. If I hadn’t read it, I’d assume there was no subbing in at all. On the opposite hand, both Powhatan and his medicine man have their singing dubbed by Who Else But Jim Cummings, and the voice he uses for them is functionally identical, while also sounding not much like either main actor. To make it even weirder, the chief has two spoken lines in his songs, and they’re done by Cummings, not Means.

There’s also a couple of scenes of Smith and Pocahontas talking about their respective cultures that won me over with their earnest simplicity and the strength of the actors. The writing’s as ham-fisted as the rest of the film, but those worked. I don’t know, maybe I’m just so starved for seeing the love interests have an actual conversation I’ll forgive anything.

But those are two bright moments in a sea of dull characters, clichéd moments, and predictable plotting. Get this - the princess wants something more! What is that? Well, she’s vague on the specifics. But her dad wants her to marry someone boring. So it’s Jasmine and the Sultan all over again, except he’s boring as hell. Fortunately, she’s got a talking tree to get advice from.

The fact that the Native Americans have legit magical powers in this movie is troublesome at best. I get the need from their storytelling perspective to have Pocahontas and Smith able to understand each other so they can have actual conversations instead of mumbling at each other in incomprehensible languages (see again The New World), but that could have been done with a light touch of magical realism. Instead, there’s a talking, moving tree that can also give visions. And it’s not just the tree. The medicine man is able to draw accurate and visible omens out of smoke, and there’s also some ghosts and stuff. And of course, it’s all on the Native side.

"Now do a bunny!"

The film has an irritating way of insisting that both sides are equally bad. Now, I’m not saying the Native side was blameless, and for all it’s magic, I do give the film credit for not depicting them as Perfect Paragons of Peace. But still, the scales of blame do tilt rather severely in the direction of “The guys who landed on this inhabited area and immediately started strongarming the inhabitants are the bad guys, okay.” In this film, the settlers have one bad leader, and once Christian Bale puts on his big boy pants and gives him what’s for, the colonists are at total peace with the Natives. Yeah, that’ll last.

So while the deviations from history may have been acceptable from a storytelling perspective, they are horrible from a historical perspective. And when you’re telling a story of this kind of history, that perspective needs to be more important, especially when the story you’re telling is so ungodly dull. Did that sound confusing? Good. Amplify your confusion and annoyance tenfold, and you’ve seen this movie. Join me next time when Disney follows up their inexplicable adaptation of reality with an equally inexplicable adaptation of fiction.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

* In case you forgot such a time existed, this was back when people besides Jodie Foster liked Mel Gibson on a personal and professional level.

* Pocahontas is officially a “Disney Princess”, of course. Calling her a “princess” at all is stamping our Eurocentric views on a culture that doesn’t work in that idiom, but I’m numb to that by now.

* There’s a moose seen at one point in the movie. Moose? Isn’t Virginia a little far south for that?

* Three people get shot in this movie, and in all three cases, we see where they were shot quite clearly. No wounds, though. Not even a spot of blood on the shirt. It’s like everyone was shot in the soul or something.

Ratcliffe is the villain, so he has to make his own dramatic cliffs to stand on.

*There’s a scene where Smith is being held in a tent and Pocahontas asks the guards if she can see him, then she goes in and they sing a duet. I kept really wanting the scene to cut outside where the guards are awkwardly trying to ignore the blatant love song coming from the inside.

* While Disney ignored most of the suggestions made by Native groups, they did change some lyrics in the song “Savages”. Specifically the line “dirty redskin devils” become “dirty shrieking devils” to avoid the actual racial slur, and the probably-a-little-too-far “Their whole disgusting race is like a curse” became the probably-a-little-too-anachronistic “Here’s what you get when races are diverse”. The weirdest one was changing “Let’s go kill a few, men” to “Let’s go get a few, men”, because they don’t shy away from yelling about killing each other for the rest of the movie.

* Toward the end, Pocahontas gives some of Grandmother Willow’s bark to Smith to help with his pain. Willow bark is the root source of aspirin. Nice touch, movie.

* I think the dog and the raccoon got married at the end? I’m not sure what their deal was.

Hello Laverne, Shirley.

* Pocahontas's friend was probably my favorite character in the movie, and she's still too boring to write about. I just like the idea that she follows Pocahontas on all these shenanigans and gets into wacky mix-em-ups involving the wearing of funny hats, or sneaking out of the hut to go to the big dance at Massawomeck Prep.

* To give some perspective to the 100,000 people at the premiere, the Gershwin Theater, the largest theater on Broadway, holds about 2,000 people, the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, where the Oscars are held, holds 3,500, Radio City Music Hall holds 6,000, Madison Square Garden about 20,000, Yankee Stadium holds 50,000, and Giants Stadium 90,000. So… yeah. Holy cow. Not a record likely to be broken.

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1994 - The Lion King

Happy New Year! That’s… not really an accomplishment? Well, I said I’d do one movie a week, and I’ve done greater than one every two weeks. If you know my usual schedule, that’s a hell of an achievement. So what are we up to now?

Oh boy, it’s Beauty and the Beast all over again. Look, you all know this one, right? You’ve all seen it? You know it’s very good. Great. Let’s move on to Pocahontas. I got a lot to complain about there. Ahhhh, I can’t do that. And I can’t do another Q&A so soon after the last one. I guess I’ll actually have to find things to talk about. So yeah, Disney was riding a wave of unprecedented consistent critical and commercial success, and as we’ve seen, they like to flex themselves creatively when they’re doing well. But this time, they’ve just been doing variations on an extremely lucrative formula. How to deviate from such a profitable norm while still keeping all the aspects people loved about it? Well, a cast of animals seems like a good start. Are you a crepuscular large feline predator found primarily in sub-Saharan Africa? So am I. So kill yourself an antelope, and let’s talk about The Lion King

Oh, this was also when the posters got epic.

I never realized how oddly this fit in compared to all the movies around it until I watched them all at once. Like the others, this one involves a royal figure unsatisfied with hir position, but the way it happens is all mixed up. Prince Simba quite explicitly Just Can’t Wait To Be King, unlike Ariel, Belle, Beast, Aladdin, and Jasmine, who were all unsatisfied in their lives. At the beginning, he’s overconfident and in another film, this might be his downfall, in a reversal of the way it’s been, but he learns his humility quickly and brutally, and abandons his princeship. And his return to it isn’t just some “I am supposed to be king because of who my father was” thing, I honestly think he wouldn’t have returned if Scar was a more competent ruler.

"What's hakuna matata?" "It's like 'yolo', but classier."

The designs are excellent, especially in a setting that represents another stretching out of the Disney comfort zone. This is an all-animal cast in a non-human-based setting, which they haven’t done since Bambi. Unless you count Robin Hood, I guess. But that had anthropomorphisation  (probably not a word) helping it out, whereas this one needs the animals to be animals while still being humanized enough for us to relate to. And they do it marvelously without over-exaggerating features or making them look like humans in animal suits. (Except for Pumbaa and Timon, respectively. But they’re comic relief, so it’s not like you’d notice.)

Voices are mostly well-suited. This is where they really start pulling away from the voice actors and Broadway types they’ve been using and start going for star power, but it mostly pays off. James Earl Jones and Jeremy Irons are PERFECT as the noble king and his scheming brother, roles they were born to. As Our Hero Simba, Matthew Broderick is rather less than regal, but given his position, that’s fine. Jonathan Taylor Thomas, as the young Simba, comes off rather better. Simba at both ages suffers from a bad case of Singing Voice, though. Which is particularly odd here, as Matthew Broderick can sing quite well. He’s got Tonys and stuff. Speaking of which, future Broderick BFF Nathan Lane and his other most frequent partner Ernie Sabella do well as the comic relief. Cheech Marin, Whoopi Goldberg, Rowan Atkinson, Robert Guillame, and good old Jim Cummings round out the cast.

Of course, in the real world, Hyenas are competent hunters, and lions are more likely to scavenge. But they didn't have time for biology research. Surely they were studying history for Pocahontas.

With nothing more about the film itself to say that everyone doesn’t already know, I’d like to close out by discussing the film’s influences. Or, as some would say, what it ripped off. See, there was a Japanese series called “Jungle Emperor Leo”, known in the US as “Kimba the White Lion”. And more than a few people have accused Disney of ripping it off wholesale. Now, most of these concerns are fairly groundless in my mind. There’s a lot of “The main character is a prince destined to rule! COINCIDENCE!?” Geez, blame Joseph Campbell for that. One site included in its list of charges the fact that both Kimba and Simba had a girlfriend… WHO WAS ALSO A LION! The name seems like a real smoking gun - except ‘Simba’ is Swahili for ‘lion’, so… yeah.

Some of the charges are a bit more grounded. While the hyenas being henchmen is a pretty easy choice for anyone telling a story in this setting, the wise, eccentric mentor being a mandrill is less obvious. Much is made of a panel from the manga where Kimba sees clouds in the shape of his father, but that’s a far cry from having a conversation with them. And there’s also a famous shot of Kimba’s dad on a dramatic outcropping of rock, which looks pretty damning, but I’ve been watching all of these, and I can tell you Disney REALLY likes dramatic outcroppings of rock. And some of them are, if not made up, at least exaggerated. Many report on Kimba having an evil aunt while Simba has an evil uncle, but as far as I can tell, she was only in one episode, and only pretending to be his aunt. And surprisingly few sites mention the black-maned, one-eyed lion that was the main antagonist, which… Yeah, that’s another big mark against Disney.

Yeah, there is that.

But despite some iffy similarities, I really don’t think there was a ripoff intended. The stories and moods of the respective works really are quite different, and the similarities are mostly quite superficial and can easily be seen as a natural progression from the movie’s setting. If there was a ripoff, it was totally Hamlet. You know, king killed by his usurping brother, prince goes into shame spiral, his two wacky friends try to make him forget his problems, and people die at the end. I’m amazed at how many people I talk to haven’t noticed that.

So yeah, your memory does not fail you, this movie is awesome. Kind of wish I had something more interesting to say on the first day back but… there you have it.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

* Oh, music! Um… It’s all good. Yeah, Elton John and Tim Rice, so obviously. Three songs nominated for the Oscar, the worst of them won again.

* Side note to the Kimba thing, apparently Matthew Broderick was a fan of the show as a kid and went around for a while telling everyone he was in the new Kimba movie. So we’ll add to the conspiracy pile “Matthew Broderick is an idiot.”

* While I complimented the movie on its not showing Simba return because he’s the “rightful ruler”, I should note that the movie seems to disagree with me on the issue of the legitimacy of inherited leadership positions. I get this by the fact that as soon as Simba kills Scar and assumes the throne, the drought that had stricken the pride lands ends instantly. Like he’s the damn fisher king or something. But the important thing is that HE doesn’t feel he has some inherent right to rule.

OW. MY FEELINGS.

* In a rather odd chapter in my running enmity with Singing Voices, Jeremy Irons does his own singing for Scar, and does an excellent job, but apparently, they got it all on the first take, since he blew out his voice on the line “You won’t get a sniff without me!” and Jim Cummings played Scar for the remainder of the song. It’s kind of super-noticeable when you listen for it (at about 2:15). I mean, he does a really good Irons, but there’s a heavy dose of Darkwing Duck in it as well.

* An additional small controversy arose when this came out that was even weirder than the Kimba one. At one point, a depressed Simba plops down on the ground and a swirl of dust is kicked up, that imperceptibly briefly form the letters SFX, a little signature by the special effects animators who made said dust swirl. Seems some people with WAY too much time on their hands went through the movie frame by frame, and freaked out because they thought it said SEX.

* They were probably on guard though, because they already thought they heard Aladdin say something dirty and grammatically awkward, and they thought they saw a priest’s naughty parts in The Little Mermaid. All of these confusions could be cleared up by watching the films while not being an idiot, but no much chance of that with these guys.

* I’m pretty sure it was Don Wildmon that was doing most of this. I somehow got on his son Tim’s mailing list, and I assure you, he’s keeping up the family’s proud crackpot tradition of yelling at clouds and asking for money.

* Though while we’re on the subject, a fun bonus for anyone who knows anything about lions is that Nala is Simba’s sister. Yaaay?

* Speaking of sisters, when I was a wee lad, my whole family went to see this movie together, and my little sister apparently had a urinary tract infection that started making itself known 'round about "Hakuna Matata",  with the effect being that she went in perfectly fine, and came out ready for the hospital. She's fine, don't worry.

* Scar is animated by Andreas Deja, completing his trilogy of imposing and creepy yet flamboyant villains. The next film also has one of those, but he was doing other stuff.

The Andreas Deja villain. Suave, scheming, and ever so slightly gay.

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