[OLD] LadyC's Disney Controversy Meme

I practically grew up with Disney; it's been in my life for as long as I can remember – like, since before POKÉMON “for as long as I can remember”, and Pokémon came into my life in 1998!  If looking back at Pokémon makes me feel old, looking back at Disney makes me feel even older.  As such, I've seen a very good chunk of Disney's repertoire of family films and, as such, I've decided to share my Disney “controversy”.

As the meme implies, there IS potentially controversial opinions in this meme, so BACK AWAY NICE AND EASY if you're easily offended by opinions.

Without further adieu, allow me to break up the controversy and explain why each piece is what it is.



Favourite character:  Baymax from Big Hero 6.

Though relatively new, I consider Baymax to be one of the best things that Disney has ever given us; his design is incredibly adorable, his behaviour is charming, his devotion to Hiro is admirable and he is capable of being an cute badass, which is a stark contradiction in itself!  I don't think I need to mention how utterly hilarious Baymax is, what with his “low battery” mode and his attempt at fist-bumping giving us the infamous “ba-la-la-la-la” quote Baymax is best associated with outside of “hairy baby”.  All in all, Baymax has made me squee, laugh to the point I almost cried and shed a tear all in one viewing of Big Hero 6 and has left a large impression on me, which has warranted his place as my favourite Disney character of all time.


Despised character:  None.

Oops.


Most overrated movie:  The Lion King/Frozen.

I...couldn't decide between the two.  To compromise, though, I listed the both of them, except they're under different categories; The Lion King is the “overrated, but good” film, whilst Frozen is the “overrated, but bad” film, hence why they're green and red respectively.

The Lion King is a very good film, don't get me wrong; it's well-paced, its songs are memorable (even my hated TLK song, Hakuna Matata), it gave us one of Disney's most classic villains in the form of Scar and has wonderful animation.  However, it does get far too much praise when there are other classic Disney films that could use some of that praise, like The Hunchback of Notre Dame (which I will touch upon later), Robin Hood, Pinocchio and even The Lion King 2 Simba's Pride (in my opinion)!  While I don't know how “rabid” the fanbase can be, they need to chill out and understand that The Lion King isn't the only good Disney movie out there – case in point, Mulan, Beauty & The Beast, Big Hero 6 etc.

Frozen, on the other hand...I'm (not) sorry, but I found it to be a terrible film.  Like, “I don't even know how I survived its entire running time” terrible.  But what exactly IS my beef with this...thing?  I've got to be honest, it IS quite a lot, but I'll try to be as blunt as I can to spare your eyes from a wall of text that's longer than it needs to be; in a nutshell, I didn't care for its humour, animation (as pretty as the snow was), characters (Hans and Elsa in particular), plot or its soundtrack.  One of my biggest beefs with Frozen was the pacing; everything either dragged out for too long or was quickly glanced over like we're supposed to automatically accept that X-thing was happening with no regard for the lack of why it was happening, such as Hans suddenly turning out to be the villain when he had NO transition whatsoever beforehand.  And DON'T get me STARTED on its “signature” soundtrack, Let It Go...that's for later.  In any case, I find Frozen to be an abomination, especially when I consider the fact that it was made by the SAME PEOPLE who made Wreck-It Ralph beforehand, which was another Disney film I enjoyed, and Big Hero 6 afterwards!  Compared to Wreck-It Ralph and Big Hero 6, Frozen...is abysmal.

IN MY OPINION, at least; if you like Frozen, that's fine.  And if you hate The Lion King, that's fine, too.


Most underrated movie:  Freaky Friday (2003 Lindsay Lohan version).

I tried to watch the original 1976 version of Freaky Friday, but its poor pacing is actually worse than Frozen's; it got to the “body swap” point TEN MINUTES IN (give or take) and I aborted after about 15/20 minutes; it was THAT intolerable.

The 2003 remake, however, corrected the pacing problem the 1976 version suffered from; it took its time to introduce the characters and actually managed to set the stage for the body swap point to make it more plausible.  When it came to the revelation of this body swap, we get to see how Lindsay and Jamie's characters react to the situation with amusing results (seeing them run into each other in hopes of returning to their own bodies was entertaining, especially with the perfect timing of the little brother character), and seeing them learning to respect what the other one goes through is touching at times, such as when Anna-as-Tess helps Tess-as-Anna in the Battle of the Bands contest with the guitar solo that only Anna (for whatever reason) can perform and when Anna-as-Tess makes her toast at the wedding rehearsal dinner that ends up in both mother and daughter returning to their own bodies (though it was weird seeing Anna concluding the toast when she, as Tess, started it in the first place).  I don't know why Freaky Friday isn't well-acknowledged; it has good pacing, humour and a surprisingly good soundtrack – in fact, one of my favourite songs is from this remake!

...it's Take Me Away, in case you were wondering.


Favourite villain:  Hades from Hercules.

This was a tough one; Disney has quite a collection of villains that could have easily taken this spot.  In the end, though, I decided on Hades (though I have other candidates).  Why Hades, though?  He's hilarious!  He's both cool as a cucumber and blows up into anger like a volcano – sometimes so suddenly it's amusing – he's smart, diabolical (I mean, how many other Disney films had villains wanting to KILL a BABY?  ...seriously, how many?  Let me know if there are any more, please!), manipulative, yet he can be quite charming and, as I said already, he's just down-right hilarious.

Not much else needs to be said, to be honest; Hades kind of speaks for himself.

Honourable mentions: Zira from The Lion King 2, Scar from The Lion King, Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Gaston from Beauty & The Beast and Ursula from The Little Mermaid.


Despised villain:  Edgar from The Aristocats.

Okay, I don't actually HATE the guy; I just don't like him – I consider him Disney's weakest villain outside of Hans from Frozen (Sorry if you're sick of the negative comparisons to Frozen by now).  Basically, he's just a money-hungry bag of skin who tries to drown some cats who are named to inherit Madame Adelaide's fortune and tries to mail them to Timbuktu when the cats return home, only to be en route to Timbuktu himself in the end.  While I'm a HUGE cat lover (seriously, I'm anti-dog in real life), I find The Aristocats itself to be rather forgettable; I actually had to look up the name of the cats' owner for this and the only thing I remember from it was the lawyer first arriving at Madame Adelaide's manor, which made me laugh and replay the entire scene over and over again (seriously, it was HILARIOUS to see).

As for the rest of the film...for a film with cats in the protagonist spotlight for a change, The Aristocats was exactly like Edgar was; bland, uninteresting and weak.


Favourite song:  Lea Salonga – Reflection (Mulan).

...THIS was possibly the hardest choice to make; I have several favourite Disney songs it was hard to choose one, so I'll list the other candidates as “honourable mentions” like I did with Favourite Villain.  This song plays after Mulan's visit to the Matchmaker goes horribly wrong and is about Mulan wanting to show the world who and what she really is, yet, at the same time, is afraid that her real self will disappoint her family – something that I can truly relate to, to be brutally honest.  That alone is why I ADORE this song; because of how relatable it is to me!  But I also find it to be well-orchestrated, sung beautifully (I mean, this IS Jasmine's singing voice from Aladdin here!) and its lyrics are just...wonderful.  Honestly, this is my favourite song from the entire film.

Honourable mentions:  Love Will Find A Way from The Lion King 2 Simba's Pride, Out There from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Take Me Away from Freaky Friday 2003 and You'll Be In My Heart from Tarzan.


Despised song:  Idina Menzel – Let It Go.

Need I say more?


Favourite movie:  Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

...dammit.  This was difficult.  I mean, I could have EASILY said Big Hero 6, but...I have so many favourites in anything it's hard to choose just ONE!  In the end, I went for Bedknobs and Broomsticks as my representative for the sake of redundancy.  But that by no means suggests that B&B isn't a strong candidate, oh no!  Bedknobs and Broomsticks is possibly another underrated hit that stars Angela Lansbury as the witch Eglantine Price who is convinced to take in three Londoner children, Carrie, Charles and Paul, into her home during WW2.  As one would expect, living under the same roof as a witch means hijinks ensue; Eglantine gets a letter notifying her that she'll never get the spell she really wants from the College of Witchcraft, run by David Tomlinson as Professor Emelius Brown, due to the war, so she and the kids head to London to see Mr Brown, only to have him tag along as they search for this spell.  After finding a torn spell book in a house Brown's “living” in, they head to Portobello Road, where they end up meeting a man simply called The Bookman, but all they get out of the exchange is “The Star of Astoroth” as their only clue for where this sought-after spell is.  Their search even takes them into the unusual mixture of animation and live-action that is the Island of Naboombu and, EVENTUALLY, the Substitutiary Locomotion spell Eglantine was after the whole time (Substitutiary Locomotion = giving inanimate objects a life force of their own).  It is later revealed that, when Nazis invade the coast outside her home, Eglantine wanted the spell to help win the war.

I won't spoil any more than I already have, but the film itself is entertaining and very charming, if a bit odd to see the man who played George Banks in Mary Poppins acting as a completely different personality in Emelius Brown, and I'd recommend it to anyone who loves Disney and/or Angela/David's performance/s.

Honourable mentions:  Big Hero 6 (derp), Mulan, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Lion King 2 Simba's Pride and Mary Poppins.


Despised movie:  Frozen.

Already explained.


Overrated character(s):  Timon & Pumbaa from The Lion King.

I've already had these two in my Top Ten list of overrated characters, but that doesn't mean I can't have them as such here.  I'll leave a link to this list so I don't end up repeating myself any more than I already have (THANK YOU VERY MUCH, Frozen!  Thanks a lot!  Remind me to punch you in the face ten times more than usual!)


Underrated character:  Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Why does nobody take him into consideration?  I mean...he's supposed to look ugly, but, surprisingly, I don't think he's that ugly.  Anyway, he's a classic case of the “don't judge a book by its cover” moral; he looks horrid, but, on the inside, he has a heart of gold.  Even though he's sheltered as he is due to being locked in a bell tower because of his appearance (man, Paris must've been shallower than a puddle back in the day! *coughitsajokeshutupcough*), Quasi's generally a very sweet individual, if a bit reclusive around his father figure (I'm like that with my mother, dude) and the villain of the film, Judge Frollo.  All Quasi wanted was to be a part of what's outside the bell tower and, in the end, he achieves this after saving his first real friend, the gypsy Esmeralda, from being burned to death at the stake after she and the other gypsies are captured by Judge Frollo.  I can only guess that Quasi's underrated because he's one of the few – if not the only – Disney protagonists who “doesn't get the girl” at the end.

I know he gets one in the sequel, but I'm not counting that little cash calf.


...well...long wall of text was long...quite frankly, I'd be amazed if you're reading this very sentence!  WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW...

Anyway, that's my little bit of Disney controversy for ya~!  Putting the pieces together is one thing; explaining each piece, however...writing all of this nearly took me a whole hour!

Anyhow, enjoy~!

Every illustrated character belongs to Disney.
Meme by SonicFazbear15.  Click me to try it yourself!