LOL exactly
enigmawing. Yea the resemblance is only sllliiiight but still.
SpringHeelJack wrote:The whole "Disney look" thing always bugs me. Disney looks different from "Steamboat Willie" to "Snow White" to "Bambi" to "Sleeping Beauty" to "101 Dalmatians" to so many later movies. There's not a "Disney look." There ought not BE a Disney look. All I ask for is that it be animated well.
Well, there are things about Disney movies, in look and other elements, that people notice are similar. I mean, if people have said there is a Disney look, they must see something. So many people noted Tangled was the most Disney looking CGI Disney's ever had. I pointed out how Sleeping Beauty had a different visual style but the characters still looked more like past Disney ones than Lilo & Stitch with it's new muppet style. If I must try to describe it, Disney made characters that looked more realistic and human and, I dunno, not like ugly muppets.
Goliath wrote:I think Ariel has the right mix of assertiveness and 'dependency' (for lack of a better word).
You mean her needing some people's help? Since you were talking about the sympathy factor maybe you mean innocence or helplessness or defenselessness. It's not like she chooses to be dependent. Interesting, she's the two kinds of things you like about girls. Except the deal she made and all she risked to go after this guy she just met...? Depending on how much I knew about the guy I mighta done the same thing, but for you, with what you say girl's role models should be...
Lazario wrote:Can you translate that? I don't speak gibberish.
What I mean is that Aurora was given too much time, story, and attempts at character for her to be just a symbol. But she wasn't given enough as a character, either.
Lazario wrote:If someone throws a ball of thunder / bolt of lightning at you, you need to run. That makes sense. She had great supernatural powers to make up for the fact that she didn't prepare well ahead of time. Which makes sense given that she obviously placed more importance on terrorizing the people with her curse and enjoying the moment of superiority than she was about making sure they didn't take action against her swiftly.
You know, if that had been what Maleficent was doing, just enjoying her time with the kingdom being in terror, then it would make a lot more sense why she didn't know her idiot goons were doing her orders wrong, because she wasn't worrying about it till much closer to Aurora’s birthday. But unfortunately, the film indicates she was worried and furious and her forbidden mountain was thundering for the whole time, and further yet she has the line "For the first time in 16 years, I shall sleep well." That means, or at least indicates to us, that this whole time she was like "Haven't found her yet? Keep looking!" "Why haven't they found her?", and it took her 16 years,
16 years, for her to finally realize the reason they failed was because they weren't looking for her at the right age. It makes her look extremely incompetent and almost like an idiot like you called Snow White. The scene showing her display of powers makes her just look like an idiot who has power. An idiot with power is not the most impressive villain.
And yes I can call her stupid or an idiot, or at least say she
looks like she's stupid or an idiot, because the film made her both a pure force of evil and a character. In fact, let's go back and say that Aurora can be both a symbol of hope and a character. But if she and Maleficent are going to be both, because they most surely are not only symbols, when you try to give things like humor and a raven to talk to with Maleficent, they did not give them enough character, or at least, didn't do their characters well enough.
I did however like that you pointed out how her laughing and gloating at how much better she is than everyone else turned out to be her downfall by giving Phillip the chance to stab her. But Phillip had it all too easy up until that point, and then, him being able to stab her is not by his character but by a convenient window that is super obvious, and he's further helped by the fairies. If he had narrowed his eyes at her stomach while she was laughing then we could get a sense of his character actually making intelligent tries to defeat her, but instead, we just get easiness for him.
Lazario wrote:That only serves to solidify the idea that all artists who work in film make the same movie over and over again and only experiment with different tellings.
This is off-topic but I want to say people that end up making things that are rather unoriginal are not always trying to. In real life a lot of the "same" things do happen over and over again, but to different people and in slightly different ways. Try to look for how things are original, not how they are the same. And I don't think people in Hollywood are purposely trying to make the same thing over again, I think human beings are just human beings and it's hard to think of much that fits other people's ideas of "original".
Lazario wrote:Sleeping Beauty is easily the most...sophisticated example of storytelling in Disney's princess film can(n)on.
How so?
Lazario wrote:If Maleficent didn't impress you, I don't care.
But I am very impressed by her. I love Maleficent. She's my favorite Disney villain followed by Ursula. But I would like her to not have a scene that makes her look bad just like I talked about scenes I think would make my favorite film, Cinderella, look better. Sleeping Beauty's my third favorite Disney film but this whole thread is about discussing what we would change to Disney movies. Of course in reality I would not want to change a single second of my favorite film, or of Sleeping Beauty. I mean when Maleficent finds out how dumb her goons are, it's delightful. But it also doesn't seem to make much sense and makes her look bad in some ways. This thread is just the fun of our minds ambitiously thinking of how the films could be even better even if we believe they are already perfect as the films we know and love. Except certain films. Like Tangled. Those NEED to be changed.
Lazario wrote:The fact is, everything people are bitching about the movie works when you view the film NOT as the emotional journey of any character - and this is what bothers people because it means they have to read the movie differently than the other Disney animated films - but instead as a cosmic game of good and evil where one side has the ball in their court and the other has to choose their next move carefully to best the other. Do you think it would have been a SUBTLE touch for the movie to just have the pack of goons be good at what they do and find her in 2 seconds? That would have been too easy. And you know what? It's not my fault people judge Maleficent by logical standards - which is absolutely ridiculous because they have not done the same with almost any other classic era animated villain - instead of actually sitting back and letting the actress's VERY intimidating physical performance do the work of making her a great villain. Which I told you is what the audience are meant to do because that's the movie anyway. You feel it, you don't think it.
But the film did try to give us characters. It's obvious, as I pointed out they tried to make Maleficent have humor and someone to talk to just like they gave Aurora some animals to talk to and...no humor at all, which goes back to the point of making her more of a character. Walt was going to make the three fairies all the same, but they chose to make them more individual characters. When looking at them not as characters but as just good and evil battling...well what Maleficent does doesn't really seem
that evil to me. It never did. I was like...oh...the princess...sleeps for a long time. K. If they had made Aurora a super great beloved character, with a great life that gets taken away from her by the spell, I could see feeling really bad for her, but as it is I don't feel that bad. Viewing the movie as just good fighting evil and the steps it takes is also not that great because the steps taken aren't that great. Maleficent not telling her goons what exactly to look for is a dumb move. The fairies taking the princess back too early is a dumb move, even though it's kinda interesting to think "the curse is making them do it" but that's the only good excuse I have. The fairies magically doing everything for Phillip is too easy. It’s not good or interesting moves.
Finally, what we're saying is Disney should have done something else in Maleficent's scene with the goons. Why not something like, after a while of all their searching, the goons were just goofing off for themselves because they had given up on the search but still pretended to search, and she finds this out by a slip of the tongue or something and she fries them after that? Or perhaps instead she just electrocutes them for not finding Aurora by then anyway, of she's that evil and unreasonable, and then she thinks, cleverly, that her bird would be better since he could see above the skies, but she didn't want to use him because he was the only one she had she wanted to talk to and she didn't know how long he would take? Any of that would be better, I think. It would even give her more character. We’d miss the joy of her saying “Cradle!” and that great laughing but unfortunately that’s all in a scene that makes her look oblivious for a whole16 years. I’m sure she could laugh at how her goons were goofing off for a while, though. Even though what you say about her presence being so great and helping the movie be great is all true…it is slightly undone by things like this scene in the film.
Lazario wrote:And Maleficent has just about the most presence in any Disney movie- as I've explained countless times, it's implied that she haunts a portion of the kingdom somehow and has a prying sixth sense... or seventh or eighth sense if it means that inanimate objects like walls can physically hear the Fairies plotting. That is seriously creative and terrifying for a Disney film. And it's also interesting that much of the film doesn't have an upbeat tone
"Even walls have ears" is actually an old idiom that just means someone could overhear them. If the film was trying to imply Maleficent had a sixth or seventh sense, unfortunately they failed because then she would know where Aurora was no matter where they went to discuss their plan. The scene of her using goons to search for Aurora shows she has no such extra sense. Unless that sense just isn't working because for some reason it can travel to walls but not silverware gift sets for babies. Or maybe the fairies voices are too tiny to hear/decipher, but that doesn’t work much either because their voices don't change when they become small. It's all just not very good reasoning. There is no doubt they are worried that either Maleficent could hear them or someone could hear them and get word spread and Maleficent could find out that way, but unfortunately we see that Maleficent's power is limited in the scene with the goons.
Also unfortunately I think the tone makes the moments that should be warm and happy feel down and cold or empty. Most especially the time in the cottage, the animals and Phillip cheering Aurora in the forest, or the happy ending.
Lazario wrote:Disney Duster wrote:
I want to know how you think so. If you can't give me the whole explanation because it's hard to say, okay, but I'd like to know. Even if you must get into "metaphysical feeling" stuff.
Isn't that right up your alley, as a believer in a magical big man who lives in the sky?
I don't believe that, I believe that something made everything, including us people, and so that something is probably like people, too, and my evidence is the mere fact that everything and us exist. And if by magic you mean "has the ability to do things such as make everything that we see existing before us", then sure. Let's see your evidence for why the structure is better/has more going on...oh wait, you got none.
Lazario wrote:Disney Duster wrote:How is Aurora singing notes with no lyrics for a really long time not filler?
#1: Fauna gave her the gift of a remarkably beautiful voice. The scene is showing us a return on that investment.
#2: Aurora's singing must be heard by Phillip for the romantic plot to move forward. If she doesn't sing out, how is she going to be heard?
#3: She's not just singing, as you have noted. Maleficent said "the Princess will indeed grow in grace and beauty, beloved by all who know her." The scene is both about her voice and about watching her charm everyone she comes across by virtue of her grace and beauty.
#4: Time the scenes, Dusty. If what you come up with equals "really long time" in your estimation, I think you might just have a problem I can't help you with.
I specifically said Aurora's singing without notes. If Aurora just sang "I Wonder" or even "Once Upon a Dream", it would cover all four of the points you made. It would even be more dramatic in a way, because Aurora would be singing about love, and then the prince hears her, which is part of why she was singing in the first place, so her true love could hear her as she hoped. It would be better. But they gave her a bunch of time just singing notes to
fill time, meaning it's filler. If they gave her song the first few of those wordless notes, with the animals coming toward her, leading into it, it would not seem like filler. Cinderella's opening song called the animals too her and showed how she had their love and that was more concise.
Disney Duster wrote:How is the animals dancing with Aurora not filler?What does it do?
It is connected to the piece of plot involving how Aurora meets Phillip. If you watched the movie, you saw that she didn't realize Phillip was dancing beside her until he spoke out and touched her. But he was dancing with her behind her back and she believed the animals in his clothing were dancing with her. Also, by the time she began dancing with the animals, they had taken his clothing. If they don't dance with her in his clothing, the two characters don't meet and then the "Once Upon a Dream" plot goes nowhere. Which is also the answer to your asinine suggestion above that Aurora's dialogue about being treated like a child has no bearing on the plot.[/quote]
But the prince could have met her just by following her singing. He could have watched her just singing. This scene doesn't do much. This scene kinda sorta shows her playfulness, which would be good for her character if it really was something endearing, but it's not really and it's just not that much of anything. These actions don't make us care for her more when she's asleep. It's just not particularly great or something we care that much about. I think almost everyone cares about it just for how pretty the animation looks, not for the character. As for the thing about her saying she didn't want to be treated like a child not bearing on the plot, that is not what I said, I said it made her not just a symbol. Now who's not reading or thinking or paying attention?
I will say that the animals taking the prince's clothes makes him look less like a prince so she doesn't know he's the prince and it provides some (unecessary, unvalidated) drama about marrying someone else which leads to her crying which leads to the fairies leaving her alone so she touches the spindle, but shouldn't Aurora have wondered about where those princely clothes came from if they looked like a prince's? Which they didn't really, so he still could have come to her in them. I see the scene as filler because it doesn’t really bear much on the film in adding anything except to enable something to happen later. At least with the plot points that seem like filler in Snow White and Cinderella, they are also character building moments or just more entertaining.
Lazario wrote:You are the intellectual equivalent of a dead end on this board, I hope you realize this.
And you're the intellectual equivalent of a bully. I hope you realize this.
Disney Duster wrote:And those characters never come back in the film ever, they don’t do anything else.
Which makes it different than Cinderella and Snow White. Different, not inferior. And that's historically what Walt said he wanted from the film in the first place. And none of this contradicts my point. Whether characters are necessary for one scene or the entire film doesn't invalidate any of my arguments.[/quote]
But if these animal characters were there to show how beloved she is and how she has someone to talk to, but never come back again, it shows that all that belovedness and relationship doesn't matter at all, rendering them and some of her character that you said she had from that almost pointless. But Cinderella and Snow White's friends stuck around and fought very hard for them, after those heroines showed great love and kindness to them, which helped make the heroines and animals all much better characters.
Lazario wrote:Regarding the paige / minstrel / whatever, I never said the film didn't have comedic touches. He was considered by the studio as necessary to add a comedic aspect to that section of the film. This is Disney, remember, and I never said at any point during any of my arguments that Disney didn't manipulate the film in certain ways. Walt wanted to lighten up the movie and this was one of the ways the team did that, in their estimation. I never found him hilarious but his quick turn into desperate drunk could very well lend credibility to my argument that the people of the kingdom were depressed and anxious as a result of Aurora -again in my argument a symbol of any hope they could have that good exists - being placed in a dangerous situation by Maleficent's spell. Making it feasible that any one of them given even incidental access to a really high quality sedative wouldn't be able to resist taking it. He could be seen as a symbol to the Kings of the subjects' need to see Aurora. Who said, though his character came and went, that the Kings never gave him a second thought? Same with Aurora and the animals- who says she forgot about them in the back of her mind?
The humor should come from the main established characters and not be injected in with a random new character. That's lazy. But that's not the real problem since they inserted the Beaver character in Winnie the Pooh for the same reason but he was actually funny and had a lot more character and tried to help with the story by trying to get Pooh out. In this film the minstrel is good for one joke, and that is when he wakes up from being drunk only to fall asleep again from the spell. The big amount of time spent on him is what is filler. As for representing all the things you said, he doesn't. If he was, they would need to really show it, probably by lots more people getting drunk, and showing that they were really sad for a while and are just now perking up in addition to having lots of wine. And why would they care so much anyway? In fact it all brings me back to what I wanted to ask before, which was why would a whole kingdom be
that miserable for 16 years? If Aurora was going to stop the misery Maleficent was always causing them before she was born, sure, but I don’t know how she is, so she’s not, and we never see what Maleficent does that makes them miserable anyway, if it really is anything at all. And in her disappearance these people would normally just be a little sad when they think about her but then carry on with their own lives and their own personal problems. If the king and queen couldn't have children until a fairy gave them the once-only gift of Aurora and Aurora was going to save the kingdom from Maleficent, that would work, but that's not the case at all, at most she'd just be a very nice ruler and they already have two very nice rulers in her absence. If they became crappy rulers because they were sad, that would be something, but there is no indication this happens at all. If Aurora's marriage to Phillip was going to fortify the kingdoms so that together the people could protect themselves from Maleficent, or they're just a kingdom that is poor/not doing well and the unity would change that, then that would be fantastic. But that's not what's happening. Or they're not telling us. Either way, something has to change.
As it is, the scene with not just the minstrel but also the kings does nothing. It makes Hubert look like an ass who just cares about grandchildren and not Aurora or his friend Stephen's feelings. Stephen doesn't seem nearly sad enough and doesn't show us the toll of what Maleficent has done. And the two kings get into a really stupid argument that doesn't end very funny at all so it actually does show them as buffoons and we just don't really care.
And it does not matter if Aurora thinks about the animals later. How in the hell would that tiny bit of information matter or do anything for the film? To show she's kind? Well then the film needs to show us that if that's the case. But as it is, we can only determine it's not the case. The animals were supposed to be her friends and show she's beloved and be entertaining and they didn't do very much in any of those areas, pretty much failing.
Lazario wrote:unless the film was about criticizing him for not believing in true love / pushing for an arranged marriage, or forcing her into giving birth to the children of a man she didn't know or care about.
This is the only thing their scene is good for, and it doesn't deliver. Stefan is concerned about it for one second, and it turns into a really dumb argument where by the end he just laughs it off. If he was seriously talking to Hubert about arranged marriage and true love, and then Phillip came in interrupting him, that would be great. But instead we get much too long filler that tries to be funny or interesting and fails.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:But for Tiana, cooking = work.
Yes. And her enjoying that work is fine. It’s the other stuff that’s not, her serving people and building, like I said. They need to show how working that much is really going to make a person feel. If Disney’s going to tell little girls to go and work, it’s the honest thing to show them that it’s not all fun and that it’s really not good to just sleep for 2 minutes before you work again.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:Like SpringHeelJack perfectly said - Disney, even under Walt's guidance, went through many different styles and techniques for character animation. Besides - it's not the animation alone that's important, it's what you do with it. And Lilo & Stitch does something amazing with it.
They’ve done different styles all throughout and they still all looked more recognizably Disney than Lilo & Stitch. Except for Atlantis, and yet that was still more Disney realistic looking.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:But isn't someone's 'character' the same as their personality?
Is it? What makes a person? I ask that rhetorically. Anyway, I was trying to specify that I liked her personality but not her whole character like her belief in working so much and her attitude about it. And if personality and character were quite the same thing we wouldn’t have two separate words for them.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:Well I 'feel' like you need to watch a film before you can pass opinion on it.
I didn’t pass an opinion. I passed a comment about feeling I got from seeing as much as I did. It wasn’t meant to be final.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:I don't think Maleficent's main objective is to kill Aurora; she just likes spreading horror and misery. Cursing Aurora was probably just one of many cruel things she did; it's obvious that Stefan's kingdom already knew of her and feared/hated her, so she may have tormented them previously. That's why she doesn't spend all her time trying to find Aurora.
I know you may be thinking - "Why does she react so angrily then when she learns her minions haven't found Aurora?" Maybe because she would somewhat embarrassed about how one of her curses didn't work.
I agree that her objective is to spread terror the best way she can, but not about the angry thing, she’s obviously too angry not to have been very concerned about the curse for a long time. Please read my responses above to Lazario regarding this issue.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:I'm 'kinda' like Flynn? I don't want to be like that arrogant douche-bearded thing. Ever.
No, I mean you are kind of hard and cynical, and Flynn also just happens to have those kind of traits too.