[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Its probably because I've been looking forward to seeing Princess and the Frog and playing lots of Kingdom Hearts games lately, but I've been renting a lot of Disney classics of late to watch. Another reason would be is hand-drawn seems to look really good on my PSP.

Watched Hercules and Lilo and Stitch most recently, now I'm about to watch Mulan and man, I miss this sort of stuff coming to theaters. I like some of the Pixar movies, but I guess I expect music to have a really special place in these kinds of movies and it just never happens with Pixar. Lilo and Stitch wasn't a musical by any stretch, but it sure did celebrate some of the Hawaiian culture and the music of Elvis (never a bad thing).

I guess if I had to have a top three, it would be

(3) Lilo and Stitch.

YouTube- Lilo & Stitch: Beauty & the Beast Trailer 3 of 4 Funny!

YouTube- Lilo & Stitch: Beauty & the Beast Trailer 3 of 4 Funny!

Mostly because it was just funny from start to finish and wholly iconoclastic to most things Disney. I loved the promotion campaign where Stitch crashed other classic movies and his attempts to overcome his destructive instincts. Plus, Lilo is probably one of the most authentic "crazy kid" I have seen in any movie, ever. I knew kids like here.

(2) Aladdin.


It couldn't be #1 because its going to be hard to be as classic as other movies years down the road, but I'll always get the jokes. The movie was fully of excellent scene-stealing characters - The Genie, Iago, Carpet, Apu, Raja and even Jafar to an extent. I mean, in any flick with Robin Williams, someone is going to get outshined by him, but Iago has remained a pretty popular character in the face of that.

You rooted for Aladdin and Jasmine and they had all the best muscial moments of the film, but otherwise you wante to see what the side characters were going to do next. That and the encounter with the Cave of Wonders was amazing.

(1) Beauty and the Beast.






I was a theater brat in high school and this one was one of the best musicals ever, animated or on stage. Plus it was the first time I saw a female protagonist I could relate to as much as the male protagonist. Belle was someone that could keep themselves occupied and really didn't give a damn about what people wanted for her or what they thought about her.

Beast I think everyone can relate to on some level. Sure, we might not smash things or yell or drive everyone away because we can - but sometimes we'd like to. Plus he just looked awesome.

Then there's the villian. Gaston is a bastard among bastards with the best musical theme a bastard could ever hope to celebrate bastardlyness with. He wasn't evil so much as he was someone you'd like to see get dropped off the side of the castle. Even more than you want to see Captain Hook get eaten by an alligator. Truth is, we all hate the manipulators more than anyone else.

That and every musical piece was just awesome. Even the stuff with Celine Dion, though Angela Lansbury did it better. Sometimes the simple sound is the better one.

And who can forget "Be Our Guest." They put this one on Broadway for a reason.

I don't know it Princess and the Frog will be as good as these, but I'm half-seeing it just to let Disney know I want more of it. That and I dig the New Orleans theme.

[Armando]

Lilo & Stitch is definitely #1 for me. It was very funny and original and didn't take itself too seriously.

I can't remember anything about it but I think Rescuers Down Under is my second favorite because of

This thing

I remember watching that movie and thinking "HOLY SHIT I NEED TO GO TO AUSTRALIA AND FIND A 50 FOOT EAGLE TO RIDE."

My all-time favorite animated films are an American Tail and Fievel Goes West though but those aren't Disney.

[Durahansolo]

Gonna have to go with Aladdin. My niece used to watch it all the time when she was little, and I still remember all the songs and pretty much the whole movie word for word.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Been many years since I watched the American tale movies, but they were good. Secret of N.I.M.H, too.

[Armando]

I never got to watch Secret of N.I.M.H. Was made by the same guy too, apparently. And I've heard good things about it.

[Aksannyi]

Cinderella is, hands-down, my favorite fairy tale of all time, and Disney did a great job with it, so it's definitely a favorite of mine.

I also pretty much wore out the VHS tapes of Beauty and the Beast and the Lion King.

I am very excited that they're going back to hand-drawn. Those were the good days! Back when Disney was putting out a really great animated film every year or so.

Oh, and let me just say, Beast was much more attractive as a beast than as a man, and that's not furry love or anything creepy, just they didn't do an exceptional job of making that guy attractive.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by Armando

I never got to watch Secret of N.I.M.H. Was made by the same guy too, apparently. And I've heard good things about it.

Don Bleuth has a lot of great stuff in general, he's even brought us two video games - Space Ace and Dragon's Lair. Well they were Laser Disc "games," really (and the first QTE style games), but now you can play them on iPhone and any damn thing now if you can find it. DSi Ware is supposed to get them later.

As for what Aks said. I think Disney has mostly gotten over the whole CG animation thing and decided to let it be Pixar's thing. Not that Disney's own were bad, its just the last ten years they had Eisner around there was hardly an handdrawn feature to be seen.

And for so many years now, American animation's torch has been carried by sitcoms and Cartoon Network alone, leaving most people to think that animated movies were now just something the Japanese and Koreans do (doesn't help that a lot of American studios outsource to Korean studios, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman - its pretty sad, the new WB animated movies are great, but they couldn't employ Americans to make them).

Princess and the Frog started to finally be realized once they replaced Eisner with Iger. Pixar wanted to do it, but the higher ups at Disney looked at their own old concepts they had for the film and Pixar's concepts and decided Pixar's weren't so hot.

I haven't seen Emperor's New Groove yet, might check that out after I finish Mulan this weekend. I'd love to see Princess and the Frog today, but its probably best I avoid the crowds on this one.

[Armando]

(doesn't help that a lot of American studios outsource to Korean studios, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman - its pretty sad, the new WB animated movies are great, but they couldn't employ Americans to make them).

The higher quality Tiny Toon episodes were done by an anime studio, too.

Although in their defense they insisted on having twice the number of cells as a traditional Saturday Morning Cartoon and they did employ american studios too.

[Ketaru]

Beauty and the Beast is still my favorite, though I did like how Hercules went for a more cartoony approach and didn't take itself or its source material too seriously.

Strangely, unlike a lot of people, I did not like Aladdin all that much. Also unlike a lot of people, I actually did happen to like Treasure Planet, though its status as a "hand-drawn" animated feature is questionable.

[Malacite]

For me it's a tie between Aladdin & The Lion King.

Disney just hasn't put out anything that's matched the quality of those two movies ever since. There have been good ones (Tarzan was surprisingly well done & it had Phil Collins!) but there's jut no beating Robin Williams as Genie... or Rafiki <3

[fairyoracle75]

I'm a huge animation buff and wanted to explain a couple of things I saw in other posts here:

The guy you were talking about is Don Bluth ( Secret of NIMH, An American Tale etc) and was originally a Disney animator that broke off on his own and became a director/producer and started his own studio. At the time Disny was going through a transition period and he was disenchanted with the lack of direction when the old guard left. The original "9 Old Men" animators that did all of the classic disney from Snow White- Rescuers did the animation for Secret of Nimh right after they retired from Disney as their last Hurrah for animation. The new crew that Bluth picked up sort of petered out after he made Thumbelina. Now he's not doing much of anything for himself. I think I heard Dreamworks might be picking him up.

As for why Disney wasn't doing hand drawn stuff I happen to know a lot of inside information since a good friend of mine works at Disney in the animation department. He started working there when they were making the Lion King (as a lowly in betweener) and has been there ever since. The reason they stopped hand drawn was because of Iger. He went in and saw that it took less time and man-power to produce CGI movies and saw how popular movies like Toy Story and Sherk were so he figured that it didn't make business sense to do handdrawn movies. He had a lot of people fired but kept some animators moving them to story, like my friend, and every one was up in arms. Iger put a business man as head of animation, who knew nothing about animation, and he nearly destroyed the animation department period closing it down since all his decisions were based on numbers and efficency principals.

Finally Iger listened to people and went to the head of Pixar and asked him to head Disney's animation department. He said he would on the condition that he reopen the hand drawn animation department and take the advice of the head animators and directors not business people. Iger agreed and soon after they started work on Princess and the Frog and Rapunzel (which my friend is working on).

That is the inside story on Disney animation from an animator there ( he was head animator on Kerchek among other things).

As far as movies I think of my favorites:

1) Beauty and the Beast- It was such a tribute to old time musicals. Amazing job on music and story.

2) Hunchback of Notredame- Amazing animation and music plus a deep story made it stand out as different. Unfortuantely a lot of people didn't like the difference.

3) Jungle Book- Got to love the Jazz soundtrack and the wonderful characters. Lots of pop culture of the era mixed in there slyly too.

4) Cinderella- The best of the classic/original princesses movies to me. Very romantic and funny at the same time.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Iger's really only been in the head position for almost four years and that was after Eisner willingly stepped down due toe pressure from the board and Roy Disney. So I don't think this was entirely Iger's doing.

Eisner was not exactly expanding the business in the right directions himself. The theme parks grew very little under his direction and the hand-drawn animation division began to fizzle well before Iger took job.

Its always a problem when business people are appointed to head something more entertainment or sports themed. This is why I'm glad Iwata was the successor at Nintendo. He's actually a lot less of a businessman than his predecessor was, though he retains some of his principles.

[TheGrandMom]

When I was a child my parents didn't have the time to even read classic fairy tales to me much less take me to the theatre to see them. That cut into their bar time!! Its one of the reasons I'm such a "child" still and I was thrilled to death when my kids were old enough to go see Disney movies. It just happened that Disney decided to touch up the oldies but goodies and put them back in the theatre too!! I bawled my eyes out at Bambi!! lol It's too hare for me to pick any favorites though. I tend to lean towards the older ones, with Sleeping Beauty possibly being one of my faves (there was a dragon in there and I'm a dragon freak!).

I'm glad to see that there are young people that appreciate the animation of Disney! My daughter and son love Aladdin! In fact, I just watched it again, for the umpteenth time, tonight with both of them and my grandson. The HD versions are just gorgeous!

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Yeah, I think my parents are baffled over why I never really "grew up" myself. Could be, oh, custody battles and stuff like that which robbed me of the normal childhood. That and I don't really give a shit what other so-called "adults" think about me, as they often prove to be more childish than I am. There's a difference between childish and child-like, after all.

I read comic books, play video games and watch cartoons more often than live action television. Hell, I don't really even watch TV anymore. After so many years of MMORPGs, I stopped caring about TV. Technology eventually caught up to what I wanted, now I can just watch feature length films that I don't have to really have make time for like so much of whats on TV. If there's a TV series, it comes out digitally or on DVD/Blu Ray not too long after the season is over. No need to even bother with DVRing stuff.

I do need to step up to HD and Blu-Ray now that some of my favorite animated stuff is getting there. I just looked up to see Ghost in the Shell on Blu Ray. I can't seem to find Innocence, though, so might as well start my Blu Ray Collection with those two and work my way up.

Ghost in the Shell actually hit Blu-Ray this week. Updates, new sequences, new dub (dunno why, old english one was perfect, but I guess getting the SAC cast in there isn't out of the realm of reason, just means Motoko changes) and also the original presentations and various commentaries are included. Gonna grab that one, I kinda smell a Blu Ray player in my near future anyway.

Thankfully, it seems Beauty and the Beast is about a year off from Blu-Ray release, so I won't be missing that one.

[Malacite]

Originally Posted by TheGrandMom

I'm glad to see that there are young people that appreciate the animation of Disney! My daughter and son love Aladdin! In fact, I just watched it again, for the umpteenth time, tonight with both of them and my grandson. The HD versions are just gorgeous!

Are they really? I've been quite skeptical about the Blu Ray remakes.