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Aladdin

Once upon a time Disney (yeah you know, the company that keeps making bad and worse decisions lately) made a movie called Aladdin. That was 1992. It was AWESOME. The songs were great, catchy, and the voice cast brilliant. I think I watched Aladdin in '95 or something, because US releases were on time X and German theater releases were between X+3 and X+6 months. German VHS releases were yet another +6 months after the movie left the cinema. It was a mess.

Of course Germany did a dub. Not a bad dub. The Lion King dub was waaaaay better though. And now that I think about it, I think I had sunk maybe 100 hours into the Sega Genesis (the Germans named that one Megadrive, imho the better name) game of Aladdin. I didn't like it as much as the Super Nintendo game, but it was great anyhow.

The movie vanished from my head until like '10, when we had a rerun of all the classic Disney movies. Rescue Rangers (were they called that? those two mice and the albatross birdie?), Lion King, Aladdin, Jungle Book, Emperor's new groove (not a classic, still great) and a few more. This time I watched them in English, the ORIGINAL, with the original songs. My god, Aladdin was such an awesome movie. And I loved the soundtrack. Still love it. I sometimes listen to it while working. Nothing is better than grooving to Robin Williams' Friend like me while you break things in production.

In '19 Disney did a revamp of the classic. Just like they did Jungle Book, Lion King, Mulan... the critics swapped over the grand lake, I remember they hated it. It was too "woke" and too "forced". We waited for the bluray, and watched it. Will Smith did a good job. And so did the rest. Nothing much stuck from the new movie, Jago wasn't funny at all, and I loved Jago in the original. The story was changed in various places, they added cringe, and the ending was... uh... yeah.

So WHY IS THIS A TOPIC!!!

That's easy. Due to my daughter liking catchy songs, we put on Disney soundtrack playlists. Aladdin was on there, from the original. However the original English version wasn't on Spotify at the time (I believe since a few weeks it is). To listen to the English version I had to listen to the new Aladdin soundtrack. With almost 2 years between the movie and me, and loads of good memories and nostalgia for the original, I got to experience the new soundtrack for what it really was. An amazing piece of music. The mood is awesome, the singers do a great job (mind you, I also think death metal singers do a great job) and Will Smith does an amazing job. You have to look at Aladdin from '19 as a comic book adaption, it wouldn't have worked to just copy the original.

And here I am now, I rewatched the movie from '19 today. After listening to the soundtrack for the 100th time. Without the direct memory of the critics, and generally I didn't even care what an opinion I should have on the wokeness of it. I was surprised at how good the movie is.

Agrabah may be a little small for a capital, but it's a fantasy land, so what do I know about city building and local culture. A later map, with all the water bodies around may suggest it's Turkey, but whatever, it doesn't matter. The layout and detail looks like it was stolen from Prince of Persia. And I love Prince of Persia. They just nailed the mood. The market pulled back memories from the Genesis game. Abu and Aladdin are likable, and flawed at the same time.

The whole palace setting is a little unbelievable, but again, what do I know about fantasy land rules. You can complain about a LOT of things if you start to look at historical accuracy. That's why we shouldn't do that and just assume that people look like that and behave like that. And then it's rather fine, the palace life wasn't exactly the focus of the movie either. It's not a royalty simulator.

All the songs felt a bit awkward, the cast suddenly starting to sing and running around and all that, because I'm not used to such movies you know? I don't watch Bolliwood. Sometimes the song was more powerful than the impression of the singer within the movie. Sure. Again, it's live action of a comic book adaption.

Fast forward to the 3 iconic moments of Aladdin:

the cave. Great mood, great buildup, awesome execution.

Will Smith! Was so over the top that I enjoyed it immensily. Both the Friend like me and Prince Ali

the carpet ride. A little bit short, but they made it work. It was about as successful as the original

Fast forward to the 3 weird moments of Aladdin:

palace introduction of Prince Ali. The cringe is real. But the acting was incredible. I mean a street thief trying to do palace ettiquette must have been ... well, exactly as cringy as this.

the distraction. Yeah sure, with a handmaiden instead of making the tiger do the job, you need a backup plan. But adding another love story was probably too much. Ultimately it did sort of work when they tied the beginning, the love story and the end together. I found it a lovely idea. One that may be underappreciated for the effort put it, even if the execution was a little cheap.

the woke part. At least the part where people think it was the woke influence. Jasmin trying to become sultan. When you forget for a moment that there is a problem with Disney and the woke island, the problematic of a sultan having just a daughter is real. And there are women in history who showed a great interest in politics and expressed a wish to rule despite being stuck in a set of rules made by the forefathers. And they did want to rule anyhow. How Guy Richie decided to present that however was quite clumsy. He presented Jasmin as the princess, the damsel to be rescued near the beginning, but also expressing her wish to rule, without knowing much of the laws within her own city. That may have been a bad choice, yet I have no better idea, since Jasmin does take a vocal role against Jafar later in the movie, even if she's unable to deal with him herself. I dunno it's the part I am most torn about, but it doesn't take away my enjoyment of the movie.

I'll watch the original soon, again, just to compare and see how the original feels now. I am not sure whether Aladdin from '19 will rise to the top, but the original will be my all-time-favorite Disney movie. And I don't think that'll ever change. Just because the soundtrack is, what can I say, amazing! It's a musical and a movie combined. Guy Richie did great (even more so compared to all the other revamps, Jungle Book, Lion King and Mulan). Now my mood is brilliant, it'll be brilliant for days to come. I love Aladdin.