Aladdin (Live-Action)

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D82
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by D82 »

Aladdin has a score of 61% on Rotten Tomatoes right now, which is fresh but not by much, and of 55 on Metacritic.

Here are also two new promos:
https://twitter.com/disneyaladdin/statu ... 4268155910
https://twitter.com/disneyaladdin/statu ... 6994852864

Interviews from the premiere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mvdyg24Hek

A new interview with Alan Menken: https://www.moviefone.com/2019/05/22/co ... w-aladdin/

And more links to buy or listen to the soundtrack: https://twitter.com/disneyaladdin/statu ... 3050004482
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by JeanGreyForever »

One of the main criticisms that the film is getting is the reworded lyrics as well as how Speechless doesn't sound like it fits in with the rest of the film's songs.
disneyprincess11 wrote:First: Did they, actually to God, just changed “We heard your princess is a sight, lovely to see” to “We heard your princess is hot, where is she?” :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: For trying to be PC, calling a woman something that can be called demeaning is a huge step down.
I agree, I can't stand this change whatsoever. Ironic that they felt the need to amend a lot of the lyrics for other songs because they hadn't "aged well" but then they go ahead and do this.
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by ChrisLyne »

Yeah, I really didn't understand that change either. Thankfully that's the part where Jasmine looks disgusted and walks off (small mercy), but really should have left it.
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by Vlad »

I'm in awe of the soundtrack, especially "A Whole New World". Mena Massoud is a great singer, but Naomi Scott....wheww, boy! She blew me away. And her performance of "Speechless" is out of this world. I'm kinda bummed they didn't include Jafar's reprise of "Prince Ali", though. Or maybe it's just missing from the soundtrack and they will have it in the movie...fingers crossed.
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by Atlantica »

I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't get Speechless at all...?

It doesn't fit in Aladdin at all, as it has zero cohesion with the rest of the score. The lyrics I can appreciate for the character of Jasmine for sure, but I don't see it as the 'empowering and brilliant new song'. It doesn't fill me with emotion as I don't feel the emotion in her, I just hear her yell - singing in the Part 2.
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by DisneyFan09 »

No, you're not the only one, Atlantica. I wasn't particularly into Speechless, either. I found it to be just meh.
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by Farerb »

I don't like Speechless too. Feels out of place and just a boring pop song.
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by D82 »

Disney has released the music video for the full version of "Speechless".

Here are also sneak peeks at the music videos for the Latin American versions of "A Whole New World" (with Zayn y Becky G), and "Speechless" (performed by Isabela Souza).
Last edited by D82 on Thu May 23, 2019 7:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by nomad2010 »

Atlantica wrote:I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't get Speechless at all...?

It doesn't fit in Aladdin at all, as it has zero cohesion with the rest of the score. The lyrics I can appreciate for the character of Jasmine for sure, but I don't see it as the 'empowering and brilliant new song'. It doesn't fill me with emotion as I don't feel the emotion in her, I just hear her yell - singing in the Part 2.
I’m really surprised they didn’t pull a piece of the score as the basis for this song like they did with Evermore. I don’t mind the fundamentals of the song, but I think the lyrics are mind blowingly basic. Every lyric in Aladdin has a purpose. It relates to the story, or references the culture or the moment going on, and these lyrics about waves and holding me under and storms and such... couldn’t they have used some desert metaphors? Or I don’t know... something that actually relates?!
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by Disney's Divinity »

The Howard Ashman lyrics are great, but "Speechless" is on level with "A Whole New World" to me. *shrug* I would have liked if they had re-purposed a piece of score, like you say.
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by nomad2010 »

Just got back from seeing it. I had high hopes, and it pretty much met all of them. I will say, the first 2/3rds of the movie are the strongest. Anything with Jasmine and Aladdin one on one is electric, and so much fun. The added embellishments to the story really worked in my opinion. Really all that was lacking for me was the score which I don’t think utilized the themes strongly enough and could’ve punched up the emotion, the palace sets which looked very small, and really kind of took away from what should’ve been moments of grandeur, and Jafar who was better than I’d expected but should’ve been so much more dreadful. But I think all the other strengths make his lacking not really matter. I don’t rewatch any Disney remake except Pete’s Dragon and Cinderella... I will rewatch this one often. It’s just got a lot of heart, and that’s really all that matters to me.
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by D82 »

New TV spot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLvh7T-ZQcQ

Atlantica wrote:It doesn't fill me with emotion as I don't feel the emotion in her, I just hear her yell - singing in the Part 2.
I don't know if you've seen the movie yet or not, but if you haven't, maybe it will be a different experience when you listen to the song in the context of the story and watch her acting when she performs it.

Regarding the criticisms about the lyrics and the singing, I'm not an expert on any of these things, but personally, though what really stands out about the song to me is the music, I find the lyrics fine, and I like how Naomi performs it. Maybe she's not as trained as musical theater actors, but I like it when they don't sing everything perfectly. It makes the performance more natural in my opinion. And it could've been so much worse if they had cast someone who couldn't sing as we were fearing. I think we were very lucky they cast Naomi Scott.

I don't think "Speechless" feels so out of place among the rest of the songs either. I agree that it has a more pop sound compared to the others, but the original songs have also been modernized for this film, and "Friend Like Me" includes hip hop. At first, I didn't like the song much either precisely because it sounded too pop, but I soon fell in love with it when I heard a longer snippet and now I don't mind that at all.

Personally, I love the three versions of "Speechless". And I'm so glad Disney chose Naomi to do the full version of it. I thought that version would be just a combination of the two parts sung in the movie, but it sounds more pop than them and even has additional lyrics. I think it was intended as an end-credits song that was probably going to be performed by a famous artist, but they clearly saw she was good enough to sing it. I'd love to see her performing the song at the Oscars. I think the feminist message it has, along with its quality, could increase its chances of being nominated for the award. Though I guess the category will be crowded this year, with films like Frozen 2, Toy Story 4 or The Lion King being released.
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by Disney Duster »

I'm glad you like the film so much nomad2010, since it is based on your favorite Disney film! But I am so curious, what piece of Beauty and the Beast's score was Evermore based on?!!!! I never knew it was based on anything from the original film!!!
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by Jäger-Rose »

I already posted this in a different topic but many might have missed it:

I was lucky enough to do a short interview with Alan Menken while he was in Berlin, Germany for the premiere of Aladdin.
I asked him about the Hercules musical coming to NYC and why "Proud of your Boy" is missing from the new Aladdin movie which he answers partly by speaking about "Speechless".

The interview starts at 8:50 (all before and after that part is German).
Speaking of that I am extremely sorry about my English in this video. That was both my accent and all the nervosity of meeting and interview ALAN MENKEN!! :oops:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5234c6KTy4k[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5234c6KTy4k&t=8m50s
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by rodrigo_ca »

I saw the movie yesterday. It's a nice take on Aladdin. I wasn't able to buy Mena Massoud for one second before seeing the movie, but seeing him in costume and acting was just perfect. He just embodies Aladdin in a way that's perfect. Naomi Scott wasn't bad either and I like that Jasmine has a little bit more to do in this movie.

Sometimes the movie acts like it's afraid of being a musical (like stopping a song for some cheap action, especially in One Jump Ahead), but then adds a great musical sequence that movies the story forward like the second reprise of One Jump Ahead.

The editing/direction was the worst part of it for me. While the movie does look great and the actors are very well cast, Guy Ritchie seems to have such an awful fondness for slow motion and speeding the movie up, it's like he just discovered how to do it and it's using it every time he can. Sometimes he even had a slow-motion in one take and then sped up the next. And it shouldn't have been used in any of the times he used. It looked cheap. Also, he seems awfully fond of flashbacks too, sometimes for things that happened two scenes ago and the audience wouldn't be too dumb to realize what happened. aka flashbacking to Jafar stealing the lamp, it should have been Aladdin looks at his empty purse and it cuts to Jafar laughing, no need for a flashback, dudes. The Cave of Wonders was a bit lackluster and the way Al tricks the Genie seems to have been changed just for the sake of including another needless flashback. The first part of Speechless is perfect but the second looked like they just found out all the things they could do with CGI and it basically stops the movie and then resumes when the song is over. Naomi knocks it out of the park, however..

Prince Ali also looked a bit like a theme park parade instead of something really grand but I'll take it. And A Whole New World was kinda cheapened because they talk about seeing the world and then just go around Agrabah.

Props to the CGI teams for Abu and Rajah, they looked so perfect and cute the whole time.

I must add that I saw the movie dubbed (which has and added layer of nostalgia because Will Smith was dubbed by the same guy who dubbed Robin Williams in the original movie), so I can't really tell about the songs in English (haven't decided if I'll just listen the soundtrack or go back to see it once more in English) but I liked the new takes. But the dubbing was perfect.
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by estefan »

I wasn't a fan of "Speechless", either. Felt like it stopped the movie completely in its tracks when Jasmine sang it and the song itself was in one ear and out the other for me.

While I think Alan Menken has still got it (I really enjoyed his musical contributions to Ralph Breaks the Internet, Sausage Party and Captain America and I loved Galavant), I've been underwhelmed by his additions to his classic catalogue. I personally found his new "Beauty and the Beast" songs to be second rate versions of three of the Broadway songs, for example.

I found the orchestrations and stagings in "Aladdin" to be lacking that certain pizzazz required of these amazing songs and I didn't care for the hip-hop approach given to "Friend Like Me." It made me appreciate what Bill Condon brought to "Beauty and the Beast" that much more as I found the orchestrations, staging and choreography to be stronger in that film than how Guy Ritchie handled the songs in "Aladdin." "Beauty and the Beast" felt like a genuine Broadway production, while "Aladdin" (and I hate saying this) felt like a high school play, especially "One Jump Ahead" and "Prince Ali."
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

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It was worse than I thought. Still hated Beauty and the Beast more.
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by disneyprincess11 »

Going to see this tomorrow. Very curious since my friends are loving the heck out of this. One of them actually said it was better than the cartoon - minus Robin Williams, of course.
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

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disneyprincess11 wrote:Going to see this tomorrow. Very curious since my friends are loving the heck out of this. One of them actually said it was better than the cartoon - minus Robin Williams, of course.
I can see why some could see it that way. It really expands and puts some nice twists on things. And the changes and additions actually work to enhance the story unlike Beauty and the Beast which only made it more confusing or introduces new issues.
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Re: Aladdin (Live-Action)

Post by Disney Duster »

What from the original Beauty and the Beast score was "Evermore" based on?
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