Animation Celebration Saturday - Aladdin (1992)

Disney, 1992
Voices of Robin Williams, Scott Weinger, Linda Larkin, and Johnathan Freeman
Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker
Music by Alan Menken; Lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice

In honor of the release of the live-action version of Aladdin yesterday, I'm going to cover the original. Disney's first venture into Arabian Nights lore was an even bigger hit at the box office than Beauty and the Beast, the top-grossing film of 1992. Does the tale of a young Arabian thief who discovers he's a "diamond in the rough" with the help of a wisecracking genie still hold up today? Let's take a flying carpet to the desert city of Agrabah and find out...

The Story: Aladdin (Weinger) is a cunning young thief with a kind heart who spends his days stealing his daily bread and avoiding the guards on the streets of Agrabah. One day, he encounters a beautiful and intelligent young woman (Larkin) who claims to have run away from home. Turns out she's the Princess Jasmine, who fled the castle when she was being forced to choose a prince to marry. Aladdin is arrested by the guards and by the sultan's second-in-command Jafar (Freeman) and his obnoxious talking parrot Iago (Gilbert Gottfried) and tossed in the dungeon.

Jafar poses as an old prisoner in the dungeon and agrees to help him out, if he finds a certain lamp in the Cave of Wonders. Aladdin and his monkey Abu (Frank Welker) do, Jafar abandons him in the Cave. Turns out the lamp holds a magical, wisecracking genie (Williams), who not only helps them out of the cave, but is able to grant wishes. Aladdin wants nothing more than to be able to court the princess. The Genie makes him into a prince, but Jafar has his suspicions, and the Genie is upset when Aladdin may not free him. It takes nearly losing everything he holds dear to make Aladdin understand that one makes their own magic...and you don't need magic to be a good and brave person.

The Animation: Disney wanted to push themselves even further after the success of Beast, and they certainly did that. The Cave of Wonders was one of their earlier ventures into CGI, and it doesn't look half-bad today. The colors are rich and gorgeous, as per the Arabian Knights setting, and some of the expressions are hilarious. Just the way the animators are able to keep up with Williams' stream of lunacy is awesome.

The Song and Dance: Williams was the biggest reason for this movie's success in 1992, and while he's still funny, there's other things worth mentioning. Jasmine is one of Disney's stronger princesses of the era, determined to have love her way, no matter what. Gottfried, as annoying as he can be, does get some good lines as the ever-sarcastic parrot, and Freeman oozes menace as the oily second-in-command who cares about nothing but power.

Favorite Number: Jasmine and Aladdin's big ballad "A Whole New World" picked up the Oscar and "Friend Like Me" was Williams' big showcase, but my favorite song from this one is Aladdin's introduction, "One Jump Ahead." The rollicking tune perfectly introduces Aladdin, Abu, and their life as thieves in Agrabah and is one of the more fun numbers in the score.

Trivia: Unlike Beast and The Little Mermaid, this one had only been in development since the late 80's. It was Howard Ashman's idea and his baby, but he didn't live to see it's completion. Most of the songs he and Menken wrote didn't make it into the film (other than "Prince Ali"). Executives demanded it be completely re-written, eliminating the character of the mother and building up Jasmine and the romance.

A stage musical opened on Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theater in 2014 and is still running there at press time.

Disney would do two sequels, The Return of Jafar and Aladdin and the King of Thieves, and a TV show.  I may review the sequels somewhere along the line if I ever run into them; I seem to remember that what little I saw of the TV show was actually a lot of fun, even if they didn't use most of the original voices.

What I Don't Like: Many of Williams' pop culture references are recognizable only to people who were around in the early 90's nowadays, making him maybe a bit less funny than he was in 1992. While the Cave of Wonders generally looks decent, the CGI action sequence is more obvious. Aladdin and Jasmine both look and sound kind of generic and not especially Arabic. I have no idea what's with the opening with Williams as a random peddler introducing the lamp and the story. It has nothing in common with the rest of the movie, and other than allowing Williams to sing "Arabian Nights."

While this has more things in common with the original story than some other adaptations, I can't help but wonder what would have happened if this had retained both Aladdin's mother and the original Chinese setting from the Arabian Nights story.

The Big Finale: I don't love this one as much as I do Beauty and the Beast, but I still like it a lot. It's still one of Disney's funnier movies, and one of their best for grade school-age boys who are turned off by more overtly-"princessy" Disney animated films.

Home Media: Technically out of print, but not that hard to find, including on several streaming services.

DVD
Amazon Prime (Buy Only)