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I'm so glad to hear that DisneyFan09! Don't worry, I could never forget you. I didn't see you very active on this site so I assumed you stopped visiting and I just happened to find an old post of yours with the search button when I checked your profile and found out that you still visit the site regularly. That's when I searched for this old thread and realized that I had never responded to your last post and the fault was mine for not keeping up.
Aaaaw, that's so sweet

Thanks and likewise. Usually I don't count how active I am on this board, but I happen to occassionally post now and then.
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Would you say Hercules has a muted color palette? Maybe I'm thinking of the Mount Olympus scenes but I guess the ones set in Thebes (which is the majority of the film) do have pretty muted colors. Lots of gray for the city buildings and streets.
Yes, I would say. To be frankly,
Hercules has a quite muted color palette, with the exception of it's brighter scenes.
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Mulan definitely has a muted color palette though especially with those watercolor backgrounds.
Finally someone who agrees with me on that! I've always felt it and I'm surprised how few people have felt otherwise.
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Ugh, I despise Tiger Lily as you might remember. Everything about the Red Indians in Peter Pan were just garbage. I've never understood why something like Song of the South, which has problematic elements but is never overtly racist, gets banned for all intents and purposes but Peter Pan with that scene is still allowed to exist.
True, but that doesn't mean that it's accepted. So you despise Tiger Lily? I'm neutral about her, but frankly she's not much of a character. She doesn't do anything or is a contribution to the plot itself, with the exception of being a device for Peter. And even then, there's nothing to her. Even Pocahontas (who's labeled for being so dull and boring) is superior to her in every single way, lol

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Yeah, Shanti is pretty annoying in the sequel but someone needed to rein Mowgli in, especially once Baloo comes back in his life. I found Ranjan more annoying actually.
Oh, I'm glad that you agree with me on Shanti! She was originally going to be a stronger character and that would've made her more compelling. I wasn't too keen on Ranjan either, but to be fair, I thought that he and Mowgli shared a nice brotherly chemistry.
The Jungle Book 2 may not be brilliant, but one of the reasons that it's resonated with me, is that it gives Mowgli's conflict a dilemma and depth, unlike it's predecessor. I don't know if I've said this before.
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I'm not familiar with that Jungle Book game (Rhythm and Groove). Was that released for the sequel or before that? I always assumed Shanti got her name for the sequel so I'm curious if Disney had already named her beforehand.
Yes, it was done prior to it's sequel. I thought that game was at least fun, though it didn't have all the original songs, at least it had a nice song for Shanti.
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Because of my Pakistani roots, I have ties to both India and the Arab world so I've never been bothered by Jasmine being an amalgam of both cultures because my own was similar to that and both India and the Middle East lay claim to Aladdin. The Arabian Nights stories mix together Arabian, Persian, Indian, Turkish, etc. cultures so I think it's appropriate enough. That's also why Naomi Scott's heritage as half-Indian wasn't bothersome to me.
But it's bothersome to other purists, lol

No offence, though.
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Yes, I have seen the live-action Aladdin. I really enjoyed the film despite some initial misgivings. Mena Massoud as Aladdin completely won me over. He's not as cocky or confident as the animated character but I liked this slightly insecure and shyer take on him. His singing voice was almost identical to the original Aladdin. Jasmine was also a different take but I adored Naomi Scott in the role. Will Smith was hilarious as well and really was able to take hold of the role in a way that the audience did not miss Robin Williams. My main complaint was Jafar who was really terrible and the climax should have involved the snake transformation. I liked the chase with the giant Iago but that alone wasn't enough to make for a compelling climax. I loved the dance sequences and the costumes and sets. Certainly better than what we got in BATB. I think a lot of the reason this film shined was because of how disappointing so many elements in BATB were. What did you think of the film?
Yes, I've seen the live-action
Aladdin, but didn't care for it. I thought it was a pale, generic and bland version of it's animated predecessor and rarely enhanced the strengths of it's predecessor. I've always thought that Aladdin in the animated version was a pretty likable character and had a good soul, so I felt that Mena Massoud enhanced his cocky qualities. He was cocky and spunky enough, without truly shining. Naomi Scott was fine in her role, though, despite that she perhaps had not the it-factor, but she was at least more tolerable than the animated Jasmine. Will Smith was as expected, not incredibly grating, yet not as successful as Williams' take. Marwan Kenzari was a complete miscast as Jafar, having zero charisma nor menace. I never cared for
Speechless either. Otherwise,
Aladdin had it's moments, but was overall pretty lackluster. Perhaps I should give it another shot?
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From what I remember, Daisy was always nicer to the triplets than Donald was, even in the shorts. At least in the Mickey Mouseworks shorts and House of Mouse. You mentioned she was more mature in Quack Pack so does that mean she isn't as self-absorbed as she's sometimes made out to be in the shorts?
Nope, she isn't.
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Haha, that "Ask Taylor" moment is pretty iconic. Like Mariah Carey and her "I don't know her" statement when referring to Jennifer Lopez.
Yes, that moment is a prime example of how things get so rapidly spread in our age of social media. I almost felt sorry for the uploader for the video.
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Demi came after Miley and Selena so that may have hurt because she was considered "yet another Miley" or "another Selena" and was probably constantly compared. The other two had hit TV shows whereas Demi's TV show was never that popular. Her claim to fame was the Camp Rock films which don't have the longevity of the TV shows to basic viewers since Miley and Selena can be seen in new episodes every week whereas after one film, viewers have to wait a few years before the sequel.
Well said. I remember having a friend through mail that said exact same thing and felt that Disney was launching Demi in a contrived way, instead of letting the audiences genuinely discover her, if you know what I mean. So yeah, she was perceived as being "yet another Miley or Selena" and was essentially the third wheel, which was inevitable. Oh and I remember all the Miley vs. Selena vs. Demi campaigns on the Internet when they were at Disney.
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The Moana "sequel" is probably more of a spiritual successor since Miranda will be working on the music for that. I doubt it has any sort of connection otherwise.
True, but I wonder why it's been labeled as a succesor to
Moana.
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We've talked about Frozen before but I don't know how in-depth we got about Elsa. I used to love Elsa and she was my favorite part of the film for the same shallow reasons that most kids love her: the dress, the hair, magic powers, the iconic song lol. However, I've lost a lot of interest in her after seeing how problematic certain elements of the character are. I don't mind a flawed heroine since that makes her more interesting, not to mention human, but to see her hailed as this perfect Disney character who is automatically better than all her princess predecessors is what bothers me. Just because she didn't marry a man she's just met doesn't make her superior to Snow White, Ariel, Cinderella, etc. I also wanted to see the darker side of her which we briefly see when she's battling Hans' troops, especially since the trailer made her out to be the villain or at least main antagonist. I think more shades of grey would have helped the character be even more unique and compelling as one of Disney's first reformed villains because making her completely faultless is as boring as making her completely evil. I think her lack of screentime in the first film contributes to this issue that we don't really ever get to know Elsa and the shorts since then haven't really made me like her more.
To be honest, Elsa's lack of screentime is essentially one of the films major flaws, since Elsa is after all the catalyst of the events and actually is the character who has a genuine, internal conflict with high stakes. Yet she's unfortunately hampered by her reduced screentime, which really makes her characterization just as limited (and therefore is the polar opposite of her adorkable, vivacious sister). In fact, Elsa has been labeled as a genuine representation for mental illness, since her conflict has strikingly paralells with mental issues. So it's really no strange how many people have started those conspiration theories. Yet for all it's worth, Elsa is essentially not as complex as she could've been and practically is nothing but a passive victim who spends most of the film being practically a damsel in distress, but also one who does very little but being in despair. Yes, Elsa is not particularly evil and does what she does for genuine reasons and it's easy to sympathize with her. Yet she's not a particularly active and rarely does anything. I know before
Frozen was released, there were many people who were looking forward to Elsa and compared her to the Beast, but for all the faults of the Beast, at least he was genuniely complex and had a more obvious arc.
In fact, I'm not implying that Elsa should've been the main character. I guess the solution is after all fair, due to how the Snow Queen was never a protagonist in the first case. But for a character who possesses more cause to the plot, Elsa should've been given more screentime, regardless of being a main character or not. In fact, there's been such a fanbase to her character that I can hardly remember seeing to a Disney character before or after. And I'm not saying that it's undeserved, but it's baffling to see that her fanbase has been that huge, despite her aforementioned faults. At least Anna (despite her flaws) is a more active character, despite that she shouldn't have been the main one, since her arc just feels mandatory and shoehorned in. As aforementioned, it's easy to sympathize with Elsa, due to how Frozen came at a time at my life where I was deeply depressed due to my trauma, so she's identifable. Yet she's not a character that should've been put on a pedestal.
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I guess you can count a romance between Pacha and Chicha although it's more like character background since they're married and have a family. It's never the plot or even subplot of the film like most other Disney romances tend to be a main crux of the film.
True. It's easy to compare their romance to Esmeralda and Phoebus' romance in
Hunchback. But to be fair, their romance is more integral to the plot. I bet Pacha and Nina's romance would've been more enhanced in
Kingdom of the Sun. Even Nani and David's romance in
Lilo & Stitch has it's own purpose (despite that don't even get to see them kiss).
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We definitely need more variety in the current Disney and Pixar films beyond the buddy trip formula because that's the main staple of the Lasseter era. However, Onwards is promising to be exactly that and Soul will probably be something like that as well.
To be honest, I'm a little intrigued by
Onward, since it has an interesting premise. But I disliked the trailer, since it seemed to meta at the end. But it's interesting to have Chris Pratt in a Pixar film.
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Yeah, I really like the bear designs in Brother Bear, especially Kenai and Koda. The human characters didn't really resonate with me and they're not very memorable. I can't remember much of what they looked like besides Kenai in human form and one of this brothers.
True, but people have a tendency to prefer the human scenes in
Brother Bear after all. I prefer the early designs for Kenai and the other characters, since they looked more compelling. But what's remarkable is that despite that this movie is about Inuits, early concept art in the
Brother Bear: A Transformation Tale book actually had Native American Indians instead, despite how they claim that it was going to be about Inuits. Wonder why they had Native American Indians in the concept art.