Worst Disney Film Title? (Animated or Live)

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KennethE
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Worst Disney Film Title? (Animated or Live)

Post by KennethE »

A friend of mine told me the other day that the worst title for a Disney film would be "The Great Mouse Detective." In her opinion, that title sounds completely unimaginative.

I beg to differ. I like "The Great Mouse Detective," (even better is "Basil: The Great Mouse Detective" as it's packaged in some countries.) I thought this would make a funny topic.

For me, here are the lamest Disney film titles:

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (Just DROP the last 3 words and I'd like it!)

The Emperor's New Groove ("Mom? What's a new Groove?" all the six year olds ask while watching.)

The Misadventures of Merlin Jones (Lose the "Misadventures" part and I'd like it).

Toy Story (what is this, a storybook?)

Make Mine Melody (no comment).

Rapunzel Unbraided (I'm so glad they fixed that one!)

Herbie: Fully Loaded (no comment).

And lamest of them all.......
101 Dalmations II
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Post by toonaspie »

Try not to hate me so much for this but for a company that is as great and talented as Pixar, they've tend to be incredibly lousy (or should I say "lazy") with their titles. I think titles are the company's 'weak spot' if you get what I mean.

Examples:

A Bug's Life
Cars
Up
(This really bugged me. Maybe I was tired of Pixar's one-word titles but I was thinking "come on" they could've come up with something a little more clever.)

Then again, they arent any different in titles than other CGI studios.

Example: Robots

Any Disney sequel that says "let's add a numeral to the title instead of giving it a second title". The worst is when they do this to midquels.

Bambi 2 (WHY?!!!! Bambi and the Great Prince of the Forest was a far superior title)
Tarzan 2
The Fox and the Hound 2


The only exception to this rule of course was "The Lion King 1 1/2" because it was meant to a clever pun.

Therefore "The Lion King 3" the title use for the above film outside of the US would be considered a lousy title because it takes the cleverness out the picture.
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Post by Wonderlicious »

Some of the many, many lame live-action titles:

Westward Ho the Wagons
On seeing that title, I think that I'd go eastward. :roll:

The Misadventures of Merlin Jones
It has "misadventures" in the title. Bad start.

The Gnome Mobile
Oh dear.

The Biscuit Eater
Another particularly stupid title. How many people would want to see a movie with a title about someone's eating habits?

The Barefoot Exclusive
I'd like to say something very awful. But you'd probably go blind, the words to describe my opinions of dissatisfaction are too negative.

The Littlest Horse Thieves
No.

The Apple-Dumpling Gang
WTF?

The Pacifier
Pacify me now. Please.

As for animated films:

Up
I have to agree that it's a pretty dull and lazy title for such a charming film.

The Great Mouse Detective
Either the originally intended title of "Basil of Baker Street" or the British/Australian title of "Basil the Great Mouse Detective" make for better titles.

The Emperor's New Groove
Just a bit daft.

Brother Bear
I prefer the work-in-progress title of "Bears". This one evokes images of the cheap 60s/70s live-action films.

[insert any animated film's title] 2
This is a far greater problem and doesn't just concern Disney animation. Nearly all of the sequels in cinematic history have titles that are a bit unimaginative like this. It also leads people to irritatingly dub the original films with "1" in the title (e.g. "Toy Story 1", "Grease 1") Plus, the types of subtitles as far as the DTV films are concerned are awful (Cinderella II: Dreams Come True, Lilo and Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch etc ).
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Post by KennethE »

That's Right! How could I forget "Stitch has a glitch!"?

Somebody mentioned that Pixar films always have lame titles. I never thought about it until now. The only Pixar titles I'm actually happy with are: Ratatouille, Monsters, Inc. and The Incredibles. Does anybody remember when Cars used to be Route 66? Now THAT was a much better title! Cars was such a dry, obvious title. To put it into perspective, it's like renaming "Mulan" "Chinese Warriors."
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Post by Goliath »

There's no such film as 'Make Mine Melody'.
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Post by carolinakid »

It's Make Mine Music (1946) and Melody Time (1948).

I voted for One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing....lousy title...even lousier film...
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Post by pap64 »

Let's be fair here...

It's true that Pixar tends to use very simple titles for their movies, to the point of laziness. BUT, people tend to remember movies quicker if their titles are short and easy to learn. Also, people have the tendency of shortening names during conversation.

For example, one of Cartoon Network's shows is called The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. Very long title so kids and fans will just shorten it to "Flapjack".

So the simpler the title, the easier for people to remember it.
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Post by IagoZazu »

Fun and Fancy Free- Makes no sense, does it mean being free of fun and fancy?

The Emperor's New Groove- Too corny. It didn't have to do with getting some new dance moves.

Make Mine Music- This is strange English here.

I actually like simple titles like Up. Just because it's short doesn't mean it's lazy.
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Post by blackcauldron85 »

IagoZazu wrote: Make Mine Music- This is strange English here.
I've read before that this is a reference to an old saying, like when you'd order at a restaurant, you'd say, "Make mine turkey" or "Make mine tuna" or something along those lines...not saying it's the best title, but that's what I read!
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Post by rs_milo_whatever »

I actually really like the title for "Up". Random one-worded titles are a trend, especially in "indy" films, which of course, no Pixar film will ever be indy, but "Up" does find an audience in indy fans. Not that it's my excuse for liking the title, I really do like it. The annoying thing about Pixar titles is that they're really hard to translate and make them sound decent (at least into Spanish). "Los Increibles", "Buscando a Nemo", and "Bichos" (which translates to "Bugs" which was the original title) are the only ones that had a translated title, and the only ones that would have sounded well if strictly translated. There's something wrong with naming a movie "Arriba" and "Carros". So what do they do about these titles in Spanish? Leave them as they are...that's even more lazy.


As for sequels, adding a 2 or a 3 is a lot better than having sequels stand in shelves with the original looking out of place. Subtitles in a sequel only look cool if the original had a subtitle. For example, if "Atlantis: The Lost Empire (which is a good title by the way) had an actual sequel called "Atlantis: And The Deathly Hallows" would look both good and in continuity.
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Post by zackiellovedisney »

Make Mine Music- That doesn't even make any sense

Fun and Fancy Free- If you ever heard that title without hearing about what it is about would you ever think that it was two Disney segments.

Up- Even though I love the movie so much you wouldn't think the title had anything with the movie and sounds more like a plane drama.

Jonas Brothers The 3D Concert Experience- If you took out 3D, Jonas Brothers and Concert Experience then you would have a much better title for this movie which would be a good cliff-hanger.
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Post by PatrickvD »

Cars.... easily. It's so unimaginative. But then again, so was the film.
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Re: Worst Disney Film Title? (Animated or Live)

Post by Elladorine »

KennethE wrote:Toy Story (what is this, a storybook?)
Wasn't "You are a Toy" one of the early titles? :lol:
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Post by Flanger-Hanger »

I thought Make Mine Music was a reference to Make Mine Mink?
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Post by pap64 »

rs_milo_whatever wrote:I actually really like the title for "Up". Random one-worded titles are a trend, especially in "indy" films, which of course, no Pixar film will ever be indy, but "Up" does find an audience in indy fans. Not that it's my excuse for liking the title, I really do like it. The annoying thing about Pixar titles is that they're really hard to translate and make them sound decent (at least into Spanish). "Los Increibles", "Buscando a Nemo", and "Bichos" (which translates to "Bugs" which was the original title) are the only ones that had a translated title, and the only ones that would have sounded well if strictly translated. There's something wrong with naming a movie "Arriba" and "Carros". So what do they do about these titles in Spanish? Leave them as they are...that's even more lazy.


As for sequels, adding a 2 or a 3 is a lot better than having sequels stand in shelves with the original looking out of place. Subtitles in a sequel only look cool if the original had a subtitle. For example, if "Atlantis: The Lost Empire (which is a good title by the way) had an actual sequel called "Atlantis: And The Deathly Hallows" would look both good and in continuity.
Not to mention that in Puertorican slang bichos means "penis", so having a film called "La Vida de un Bicho" would be fine in Mexico, but in Puerto Rico people would be laughing their butts off XD .
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Post by Elladorine »

Goliath wrote:There's no such film as 'Make Mine Melody'.
Ok, this is driving me nuts now, but I swear someone told me a couple years back about a little-known Disney release that repackaged certain segments from Make Mine Music and Melody Time, and was called either something like "Music Time" or "Make Mine Melody." I've been scouring the internet and can't find a trace though. Somebody tell me I'm not crazy? :lol:
Flanger-Hanger wrote:I thought Make Mine Music was a reference to Make Mine Mink?
If you're referring to the film, didn't that come out many years after Make Mine Music? :scratch:
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Post by Scamander »

I'm fine with the Pixar titles, other than for the first teasers of their movies. These are awful!

The annoying thing about Pixar titles is that they're really hard to translate and make them sound decent
Translations into German work well. The only title they changed completely was "A Bug's Life", which is here "Das große Krabbeln" (The Big Crawling). I like it actually. Also Wall-e got the subhead "Der Letzte räumt die Erde auf" here (The Last One Clean Up The Earth), which sounds in German finde, too.

There are other titles of the Disney classics which are really dull in compare to the originals, like:

Die Hexe und der Zauberer (The Which And the Wizard) for "The Sword in the Stone" -> I mean, seriously WTF???

Die Kühe sind los (The Cows Are UP) for "Home on the Range"

Himmel und Huhn (Heaven and Chicken) for "Little Chicken"
And Yes, it sounds completely awful in german too

Onkel Remus Wunderland (Uncle Remus Wonderland) for "Song of the South"

Bernard & Bianca for "The Rescuers"

and worst of all, the translation of the PotC-trilogy

I. Fluch der Karibik (Curse of the Caribbean)
II. Pirates of the Caribbean - Fluch der Karibik 2 (PotC - Curse of the Caribbean 2) :roll:
III. Pirates of the Caribbean - Am Ende der Welt (1:1 translation, so this one is ok but together with the others it's so blindfold)
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Post by Cordy_Biddle »

For sheer weirdness, you can't get better than The Boatniks 8)
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Post by pap64 »

Speaking of weird translated titles, wanna know what is the Japanese name for Up?

Grandpa Carl’s Flying House.

For real... :lol:
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Post by Elladorine »

pap64 wrote:Speaking of weird translated titles, wanna know what is the Japanese name for Up?

Grandpa Carl’s Flying House.

For real... :lol:
That sounds like a Goodtimes-type rip-off. :lol:
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