#I feel strongly about some stuff maaan lol

[shinygoku]

CutCat’s Favourite Disney Animated Canon

I’m pretty sure everyone and their grandma has already written something along the lines of “Disney was a big part of my childhood” before divulging into some bigass essay. This won’t be much different lmao

But still, I’m not making an objective list, it’s coloured by my own experiences watching the films. Some old Classics won’t even make the Top Ten because I personally didn’t get particularly into them. My favourite may or may not be the best across the board.

Also yeah, I’m not touching on all Fiftysomething films, I’m actually just gonna start with the Top Ten and whittle them down to the last one standing. I haven’t seen all of them so ones I may really dig, like Moana, hafta wait until I can judge for myself. I’ll try to cover all the things I’ve listed, even if it’s as they’ve been eliminated.

This may even be fun for other people to do, maybe!

We’ll return to our scheduled programming after the Cut! 😺✂

Ok I lied, I’ll list the Top 10 and then mention things that didn’t get quite that far, but it won’t take long.

TOP 10

(In order of release, not preference)

Pinocchio

Alice in Wonderland

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

The Little Mermaid

Beauty and the Beast

Aladdin

The Lion King

Mulan

Frozen

Zootopia

Honourable Mentions: Spider-Man: Homecoming (isn’t Disney Animated Canon even though it’s Marvel and therefore Disney lol), Epic Mickey as the story and gameplay and atmosphere is really great, but it’s a game instead of an animated film, and Sleeping Beauty. SB misses out because while the Animation is gorgeous and the Fairies and Maleficent are fantastic characters, the human leads drag it down.

Anyway, time to half that list! Same ordering rules as before:

TOP 5

Pinocchio

Alice in Wonderland

The Little Mermaid

Beauty and the Beast

Aladdin

Yeah, that’s right! The Lion King is already out! I know, I’m a fraud!!

Ok so like, I’m very much a cat person and I do love the film. Top 10 is still respectable! But hoo boy, I love the first act and the Celestial Mufasa scenes, but the middle and in some ways the climax kinda let it down for me. And I’m not fond of Timon and Pumbaa. Timon most of all. tsk tsk

But anyway, before I crossed off TLK, the CGI films were shed and I’m never going to fully get over the death of traditional animation. Frozen and Zootopia are both hella rad but their success also feel like even more nails in Hand-drawn animation’s coffin. Imagine what those films would be like, drawn...! Woaaah

WtP and Mulan are also not to be sneezed at, accomplishing very different narrative but doing both so well. I just feel that Pooh’s 3-shorts format kinda disqualifies it from being my favourite Disney Story and while Mulan is so great, it just lacks something that keeps the others firmly placed. I dunno, it’s more of a gut feeling than a well reasoned argument, lol

Time for 2 more eliminations! Now we’re left with:

TOP 3

Pinocchio

Beauty and the Beast

Aladdin

Alice in Wonderland may not be the most faithful adaptation, but I don’t care. I’ve read both the original books and the main thing Disney does is to discard Through the Looking Glass while taking a couple of small parts of that and putting it into Wonderland. It’s very pretty, very funny and Alice is a likable protagonist, even as Wonderland’s wackiness tries to wear her down.

The Little Mermaid was always something I liked, but never quite as much as, say, Beauty and the Beast. Even with the gorgeous Underwater Aesthetics, which I’m very fond of, didn’t quite make it. Though actually I like it more now than I did before, knowing Eric is voiced by Christopher Daniel Barnes, who did the 90s Spider-Man!! :D

Ok, things are heating the heck up in the list, only two seperate cuts left to make~

The surviving films, for now, are:

TOP 2

Pinocchio

Beauty and the Beast

Yep! Bye-bye, Aladdin, Bye-Bye~

Ok this actually annoys me a bit though lmao

Aladdin would have a really damn good shot as my favourite. It’s colourful, it’s hilarious, it’s compelling! It! It... kinda traumatised me a bit as a young girl and I still feel distinctly uncomfortable about the scene in question even today. It poisons the whole damn film for me as I hafta deal with dread as I watch it. That sucks!!

Objectively, it’s amazing, but as I said, this is my Personal List, so it loses heavy points based on that.

Ok, now the hardest part. Picking between the last two.

I didn’t start this list because I already had a choice picked, I did it because I was curious which I do dig the most.

...

For a long time, if I was asked I’d usually go ‘Uhhhhh Beauty and the Beast, I think!’.

But while B and the B is brilliant and breathtaking and ...uhhh.... bombastic, part of it winning was by default (The two sweetest words in the English Language!)

Y’see, I feel, as a whole, for some curious reason, we forget about Pinocchio.

Ok that’s enough commas for now. But it’s weird! Pinocchio was hot on the heels of Snow White, the big show starter! It’s better than Snow White!! It’s actually rated the highest of all the D.A.C. on Rotten Tomatoes! Critics and normal audience alike love it!

So how come no one talks about it? I can see why it got overlooked in 1940, what with a large and notable war happening, but I literally never come across any Meta or Discussion about it or the themes or the look--

I’m gonna properly talk about it in a sec though, hahaa

So! Beauty and The Beast! An old favourite and nearly top dog in my esteem. It has it all, catchy songs, interesting characters, stunning designs, a whole load of Youtubepoops using footage from it. But it does not have Stockholm Syndrome, you foolish buffoons. Belle only starts to develop feeling for Beast after he becomes less Beastly. THAT’S THE POINT OF THE STORY. BEAST HAS! TO! CHANGE!!

And overall it does a damn good job at this~

Ok, so we already know the winner but it deserves a bit of fanfare for actually doing so well!

NUMBER 1!

TOP DISNEY ANIMATED CANON FILM

(ACCORDING TO CUTCAT) :

PINOCCHIO

I love Pinocchio so, so much!

And not just the film as a whole, the character too! Which is a very important factor here. I’m not saying the rejected films didn’t have strong characters, not at all! But this ties in with the Forgotten sort of vibe I get from the lack of buzz with this film.

Quick! Think of a scene from Pinocchio! Just one, if you can manage it.

Now, I may be way off with my presumption here, but was it the thing about his nose growing when he lies? Or was it maybe his desire to become a Real Boy™?

If you thought of any other moment, my kudos to you. It’s just, I feel that pop culture as a whole likes to harp on those points, which are either one short [but yeah, memorable] scene and the ultimate goal. And not to point fingers, but heck, why not. I blame Shrek a good deal for this, as those are the only memorable traits from their version of him. This may sound unfair, Dreamworks are doing a different take on the same character that Disney didn’t create but instead adapted from a book, but that’s mostly reflected in the vastly different designs (as in Shrek!Pinocchio looks closer to the original book version), but on the other hand Shrek started off by riffing on what Disney did and then kind of mutated into what they were mocking after the second film. Oops.

While mentioning the book, I do not give a rat’s ass that Disney’s version deviates as much as it does, they improved every point adapted. I also really can’t imagine the film doing nearly so well if it had the creepyass vibe for the main character. Marionettes are freaky, dude.

Anyway, that’s another of Pinocchio’s strengths! He looks and sincerely is Adorable! I’m gonna paste in a quote by Milt Kahl about this:

I was quite critical of ... I have a knack for alienating people by being a little bit outspoken, and they were rather obsessed with the idea of this boy being a wooden puppet. My God, they even had this midget who did the voice for "call for Phillip Morris" as the voice for a while, and it was terrible. I was rather outspoken about it. Why didn't they forget that he was a puppet and get a cute little boy, you can always draw the wooden joints and make him a wooden puppet afterwards. And Ham Luske said, "Well, why don't you do something about it, do a scene," and I did one. What I don't remember is whether they had a new voice by then or not. Probably they did have; I don't know. I did a scene of Pinocchio underwater with the jackass ears, knocking on a shell of an oyster, saying, "Pardon me, can you tell me where I can find Monstro the whale?" The shell closed up and caused a swell in the current, which affected Pinocchio. I made kind of a cute little boy out of him, and Walt loved it; this was actually my big chance. It was my move into being one of the top animators.

Pretty cool, huh? Before this, Walt has stopped production as he didn’t like what was being made. They were putting an awful lot into making the lead so loveable! I’m paraphrasing better accounts of this, but if you’re interested I do suggest looking into such!

But maybe I oughta get back on track, lord knows this rambling mess is long enough already ;v;;; I just get interested by some of the behind the scenes workings, y’know~

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Like I touched on earlier, I think a problem is that people forget there’s more to Pinoke than his extendo nose and urge to Become Real. He’s very sweet and well meaning, but with the snag of being too trusting and gullible. He’s easy to misread as being Too Dumb To Live, but he’s very curious and does visibly learn and develop as the story goes on.

The other lead, Jiminy Cricket, is really great! He adds charm in the darkest moments and helps prevent the sweet scenes from being too sugary. He’s a great mediator and pretty good Conscience, too, he just happens to be in the wrong place a couple of times, which is the nature of the story’s structure lol

The supporting characters are really good, too! You really feel for Gepetto and damn that dude puts a lotta work into his wares! Figaro and Cleo are really cute and play off each other well.

Special shout out to Figaro for managing to get into shorts as Minnie Mouse’s pet lmao. I’m pretty sure that kitten has influenced the way I draw cats too, pff

And the villains? Holy shit, this film is teeming with bad guys, and the cut we see has none of them getting punishment onscreen.... yikes

Ok, so not to sound like Youtube Clickbait vids made by a talentless hack, but BOY! This film is dark! hahahaa

So like, my favourite Bad Guys from here, Honest John and Gideon are the tamest and most funny, but they sell Pinocchio into slavery twice. Hhhaaaaa...

The way Stromboli alternates from humorous and jovial to screaming and stomping about abruptly is frightening. Dude slams Pinoccino in a bird cage and says how he’s gonna work our boy Pinoke pretty much until our puppet pal perishes

The Coachman....... there’s a theory going around that he’s like an evil counterpart of The Blue Fairy, how he punishes bad boys by having them turn into Donkies he can then sell to mines and circuses. They never come back... AS BOYS!! [shuddering]

And Monstro is the most force-of-nature-y type of Bad Dude in the assortment but still lives up to his name! Sure, I’d be mad if someone lit a fire inside me, but are whales really known for being vengeful to the point of body slamming a cliff? Even before that, do they try to eat literally anything they see?

But yeah, it’s not just how many bad guys there are, nor how karma doesn’t strike them in a satisfying way. The stuff they’re doing and the atmosphere, it’s all legit scary

But wait! You cry!

Jeeze CutCat, why are you talking about how scary Pinocchio is when you docked points off Aladdin for frightening you?

Because, Devil’s Advocate question, the latter film is an abrupt mood whiplash moment that took me by surprise as a young, impressionable thing. I dunno how young I was when watching either film, but not only is Pinocchio consistent with plunging into the depths, but the real horror is easy enough to miss if you’re a young child. It didn’t occur to me that the boys turned into Donkies were gonna be worked to death in back breaking labour!

Anyway, Pinocchio earns the right to be spooky and has enough charm and humour in the right moments.

But ok, yeah, the Donkies. The scene where Lampwick slowly, agonisingly transforms is a damn work of creepy art. We already know the terrible secret of Pleasure Island before it starts, but actually seeing the gradual build up, the way Pinocchio can only watch in horror and then sprout ears himself and Lampwick’s screams turning into braying... it’s sure something.

The Monstro chase scene at the end is also so damn intense I subconsciously hold my breath while watching it. It’s relentless, our heroes are up against a furious gigantic whale and the merciless sea and the fucking end of that always feels like a kick in the guts. The lingering shot and musical sting hits hard.

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But still! The movie ain’t all Nightmare Inducing!

I’ve already said I love the characters, and helping that is the impeccable voice work for everyone. The voices and little character tics make them feel so real for such a fantastical setting. I dig how the Blue Fairy is rotoscoped and realistic, which sticks her out from the rest of the cast and enhances the Other Worldliness that fairies deserve.

The animation.... boy, the animation really is something else! It was the late 30′s but they were already creating new and highly expensive techniques to make this beautiful and not only does it work, but I struggle to think of anything that can top it. Multi-plane camera establishing shots than barely last for seconds, the underwater effects with the sways and distortion, each splash and movement done by hand. Honestly this may be the most perfectly drawn movie, I’m not exaggerating. They already came so far since Snow White, it’s almost unbelievable!

Lastly, I’ll mention the music. Fucking Fantastic, is what it is! Is it any surprise that they used the tune for the Disney Vanity Plates, to this day? There’s a few songs with different memorability levels, I know Ultron is fond of the ironic I’ve Got No Strings number. I, for one, love the atmospheric use of Little Wooden Head as a recurring motif.

I really didn’t plan on my Pinocchio talk on being this long, so if you read through it all you have my gratitude. Are you surprised that it’s my favourite? I’m enchanted by it, I certainly have a weakness for sweet hearted protagonists but the film has so many good angles!

I still think it’s dang unfair that the film seems to get overlooked so much, but hopefully my daft musing might remind a couple of people that it’s certainly worth a rewatch!

#Firefly's rambling #CutCat writes essays on Disney films #I feel strongly about some stuff maaan lol #FIXED THE CUT word formatted it out