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Disney Animated Canon / Tropes A

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Disney Animated Canon Trope Examples
A | B - H | I - P | Q - Z
  • Adaptational Alternate Ending:
    • Bambi: In the book, Bambi spends more and more time with his mentor and parent-figure the Great Old Prince of the Forest. He in turn becomes distant from everyone and loses interest in his mate Faline. Bambi ends up becoming much like the Great Prince, a distant and aloof buck. In the film there is a fire where Bambi's father, the Great Prince of the Forest (a younger Composite Character of the book character and Bambi's sire), helps him and his new doe Faline escape. Both the book and film end with Bambi and Faline having twins, however in the book Bambi is absent in their life just like a real deer. The film also excluded the part where Bambi sees the body of a dead hunter and the part where Faline's Adapted Out brother comes back and gets shot. Curiously the sequel to the novel Bambi's Children retconned the original book's ending anyway, with Bambi turning out to be closer and more sentimental towards Faline and his children after all (though Disney never adapted the second book into film, their Comic-Book Adaptation expectedly follows the same tracks).
    • Peter Pan: Unlike the original novel and play, the Lost Boys don't go back to London with Wendy, John and Michael, Captain Hook and Smee both survive, and there is no Time Skip to when Wendy is an adult with a daughter named Jane. Said time skip is moved to the sequel.
    • Fun and Fancy Free: The original "Little Bear Bongo" short story by Sinclair Lewis does feature a happy ending, but is still more cynical and violent. Notably, Bongo never becomes accepted by the other bears, his beloved rejects him for Lumpjaw, and the happy ending comes from another circus troupe finding him and re-introducing him to civilization. In the movie, the other bears and his beloved accept him.
    • The book The Fox and the Hound ends with a full blown Downer Ending where Tod and both of his mates and his kits all die, and Copper gets shot in the head by the unnamed hunter so he doesn't have to abandon him when he's taken to a nursing home. The Disney adaptation alters it into a Bittersweet Ending where Tod, his mate Vixie, and Copper survive, but are forced to go their separate ways.
    • In The Little Mermaid, the mermaid gets to marry the prince and live Happily Ever After. In the original story by Hans Christian Andersen, she dies after refusing to kill the prince, and becomes an air spirit.
    • If The Lion King (1994), as it commonly is, is taken as an adaptation of Hamlet, then the equivalents of Hamlet himself (Simba), Ophelia (Nala), Gertrude (Sarabi), Polonius (Zazu), and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Timon and Pumbaa) all live, whereas the play has them all die in the end.
    • The Hunchback of Notre Dame heavily changes the ending of the story — in the original Victor Hugo novel, both Esmeralda and Quasimodo die; in the Disney version, they both survive, Esmeralda marries Phoebus and Quasimodo gets accepted by the society. Interestingly, the Screen-to-Stage Adaptation of the Disney movie brings back the Downer Ending.
    • Hercules completely changes the ending. In the original myths, Herakles dies, but after Philoctetes lit his funeral pyre, he ascended to godhood on Mount Olympus and stayed there. The Disney movie changes it to where Hercules earns his godhood by saving Meg from Hades and is allowed to come home to Olympus — but Hercules, who realizes Meg can't join him there, willingly gives up his godhood so that he can stay with Meg.
    • Fantasia 2000: In the original Hans Christian Andersen story The Steadfast Tin Soldier, both the Tin Solider and the Ballerina he loves die in a fireplace. In the adaptation for Fantasia 2000, they both live. The main reason for this change in the Disney adaptation is because the writers of the film actually did not want to cause any Soundtrack Dissonance considering the fact that the musical piece accompanying this scene is an optimistic-sounding one.
  • Adaptational Attractiveness:
    • In the original The Adventures of Pinocchio book, Pinocchio is typically depicted as being a lanky, goofy looking puppet. The Disney adaptation initially planned to use this, but animator Milt Kahl helped redesign the character to look cuter, and it stuck. Jiminy Cricket (unnamed in the original story) also went through this, going from looking like an actual bug to what can be described as a tiny man with an egg shaped head and no ears—like with Pinoc, they had initially tried to stick closer to making him look like an actual bug, but none of them could figure out how to make it appealing.
    • In The Black Cauldron, Gurgi is changed from a hideous gorilla-like monster in the original books to a cute badger-like animal.
    • While not attractive, Quasimodo from Disney's version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame is upgraded from hideous to Ugly Cute. Presumably, if they added the little details of how ugly he is, it would be a pain on the animators, and would have scared the children in a movie that's already pretty dark to begin with.
    • In the original Big Hero 6 comics, Baymax was a monstrous-looking robot. In the movie, he is a Cute Machine. And while Hiro Takachiho wasn't ugly in the comics, Hiro Hamada is designed to look more adorable.
  • Adaptational Comic Relief:
    • The Jungle Book was intended to be Lighter and Softer than the book it was based on. Baloo became a fun-loving character who has a scatting duel with an orangutan, rather than a serious law teacher. Most of the other characters underwent a similar evolution (with the possible exception of Shere Khan).
    • The Genie in Aladdin becomes a Fun Personified, cartoony character in contrast to the original story, where he was basically just a magical prop character for Aladdin to use.
    • Big Hero 6 has three examples: Baymax in the comics was built by Hiro to act as his bodyguard. Movie!Baymax is a gentle and naive acrofatic healthcare robot who was built by Hiro's Canon Foreigner brother, Tadashi. Wasabi No Ginger goes from a quiet, disciplined warrior to a neurotic plasma engineer with obsessive compulsive tendencies. Fred goes from The Stoic to a Fun Personified, Plucky Comic Relief character.
  • Adaptation Expansion:
    • All of the fairy tale-based films fall under this by default, as the original fairy tales are typically rather short and simplistic, requiring a good amount of character and plot expansion to stretch them out to an hour and half. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs padded out its length with several dwarf-centric scenes, Sleeping Beauty greatly expanded the roles of the fairies and gave the prince something to do other than be lucky enough to be standing in front of the thorns just as the century-long spell expired, Tangled has Rapunzel spend more time outside her tower than inside it for the film's running time, etc.
    • Dumbo was based on a very short (thirty-six pages) children's book. Even with a decent amount of padding, the final film clocks in at only sixty-four minutes.
    • Meet the Robinsons added a whole time travel plot around the children's story A Day With Wilbur Robinson. The second act, where Lewis meets the Robinson family and looks for Grandpa's teeth, is the only part of the movie that's actually in the book.
  • Adaptational Heroism:
    • The Enchantress from Beauty and the Beast is a curious example. In the original tale, she was a wicked fairy who cursed the prince for no good reason. The film has her curse the prince after he refuses her shelter and shows himself to be selfish. While not presented as a heroic character, her spell served to teach the prince about love rather than anything malicious. Still pretty callous though in regards to the servants and castle staff who got transformed into sentient housewares because they happened to work for a guy who needed to learn a lesson about being selfish.
    • Captain Phoebus from The Hunchback of Notre Dame is transformed from a dishonest cad to a genuinely heroic figure, being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold at worst.
    • In Tarzan, Kerchak is deeply suspicious of the title character, but only because he considers him a potential threat. Other than that, he's a heroic figure and good leader. In the original books, on the other hand, he was a straight-up Killer Gorilla who was responsible for the death of Tarzan's father.
    • Rapunzel's parents in Tangled. The father steals lettuce from a witch's garden in the original tale, simply because his pregnant wife had a craving for them. They also disappear from the story and never seem to bother about the whereabouts of the daughter they gave up. In the film, the mother is dying. And rather than knowingly stealing from the witch, they find a golden flower that the witch had been using to make herself young. And the witch kidnaps the baby. Rapunzel is also reunited with her parents at the end — and they're implied to have been searching for her all her life.
    • Elsa the Snow Queen from Frozen is Not Evil, Just Misunderstood, instead of the Designated Villain from the original tale.
    • Big Hero 6: GoGo Tomago. Her comic counterpart was a criminal who was forced into the team to avoid imprisonment. In the film, she is a noble and kind Action Girl who willingly joined the team.
    • Fagin from Oliver & Company. In the original Oliver Twist novel, Fagin was an abusive criminal leader who forced children to steal for him. In the Disney adaptation, he takes the same criminal leader role with the dog pack, but is a Benevolent Boss and a rather desperate character who only enforces criminal pursuits to avoid the wrath of Sykes, the loan shark whom he's debted to. He ends up pulling a Heel–Face Turn for Oliver's sake during the climax, even if he remains something of a Loveable Rogue.
    • Silver of Treasure Planet is a far more sympathetic character than in the original book Treasure Island, saving Jim out of love rather than necessity. His surrogate father-figure traits are also played up.
  • Adaptational Jerkass:
    • Beauty and the Beast: In the original tale, the Beast was never a bad guy to begin with. He is seen to be kind-hearted for the most part, and gentleman-like, with only an occasional tendency to be hot-tempered. In the Disney version, he starts out as an antagonist and outright Jerkass who is always angry, and only becomes good after Character Development.
    • Big Hero 6: In the comics, Hiro Takachiho is an Ordinary High-School Student. At the start of the animated movie, Hiro Hamada partakes in illegal bot-fights before his brother shows him around his school.
    • The Sword in the Stone: In the original book, both Lord Ector (Arthur's foster father) and Kay (his older half-brother) were much more shaded and sympathetic in personality. Ector's Jerk with a Heart of Gold qualities were much more clear—he was stern towards Arthur and Kay, but not mean, and he truly cared for their welfare and actually wanted Arthur to have a tutor to educate him, and was even proud of him well before he pulled out the sword, and not to mention Ector was on much better terms with Lord Merlin, to the point where he was as distraught to see him leave as Arthur. Kay could act like a jerk, but he had a justifiable reason, since he suffered from an inferiority complex and Sibling Rivalry with Arthur. The Disney adaptation throws out most of their sympathetic qualities and plays up their flaws in turn—Ector is almost a 180 in personality, becoming a bossy, demanding and judgmental disciplinarian who is against Arthur being educated because it would mess up his rigid schedule, while Kay is reduced to a one dimensional bully who hates Arthur for no good reason.
    • Tangled: In the original tale, "the prince" (who Flynn is based on) was the stereotypical heroic character. Here, he is a selfish anti-heroic thief, but becomes less selfish after spending time with Rapunzel and steps up to true blue heroism.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy:
    • Pinocchio: Pinocchio was still the hero in the original, but was altered from a Bratty Half-Pint to a more innocent and merely easily misguided Cheerful Child. Geppetto is a milder example. He was similarly altered from a bad-tempered, antisocial crank to a kindhearted character who genuinely wants a son of his own — and something of a badass to boot.
    • The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad: In the original The Wind in the Willows story, Mr. Toad was in fact guilty of stealing the car. The Disney adaptation changes it so that Toad, eccentric as he is, was framed for it and has to clear his name.
    • In the original stories and plays by J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan was one of The Fair Folk and came off as a Sociopathic Hero — he didn't show much concern for his "friends," took nightmarish pleasure in killing pirates, and even murdered Lost Boys just for growing up (or to make a battle against the pirates more interesting). The Disney version, understandably, left out this aspect of Peter.
    • Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh went from a snarky and self-centered Jerkass in the books to a forlorn sweetheart who just needs a hug in the Disney films and associated media. Although, he is still mostly a Deadpan Snarker.
    • Aladdin: Aladdin is a great deal more ruthless and unscrupulous in the original tale.
    • Hercules: By modern standards, the Hercules of Greek Myth wasn't exactly a paragon of heroic virtue. He killed more than one innocent person simply for being too close when his temper got the better of him (although he was always remorseful when this happened), and he would go stage a HUGE war for a mere verbal insult one day, although he did go to great lengths to help his friends and his deeds did the world a lot of good. The Hercules in this movie is a wide eyed boy scout who doesn't have much, if any, vices. The worst thing he does is lash out at Phil for trying to warn him about Meg being in league with Hades, but he immediately comes to regret that. Also, Hera is presented as Hercules's loving mother. In the myths, she was not his mother and did not like him one bit — it was her that made Herc go mad and murder his wife. The film omits that plot entirely and gives Adaptational Villainy to Hades. And anyone who knows their Greek myth knows that Zeus is a self-righteous, womanizing jerk and rapist. Here, he's pretty much a cross between Grandpa God and Bumbling Dad who certainly loves Hercules and stays loyal with Hera, making his status as a Top God of Mt. Olympus and Big Good of the series a lot more plausible.
    • The Hunchback of Notre Dame: While still a heroic character, book Quasimodo was much more asocial and inclined to violence, displaying a softer side only toward Frollo and Esmeralda due to them being the only human beings to treat him somewhat decently. This incarnation pretty much is a Nice Guy with no resentment​ or animosity toward anyone.
  • Adaptational Personality Change: Some characters in Disney's adaptations of a story have their personalities completely overhauled:
    • In The Jungle Book (1967), Baloo and Bagheera essentially switch personalities (Baloo was a Stern Teacher and Bagheera was a laid-back friend in the book), Kaa becomes a clownish villain rather than a wise mentor for Mowgli, and Shere Khan is turned from a Smug Snake to a Faux Affably Evil villain.
    • In The Little Mermaid, the eponymous mermaid and one of her sisters change personalities — the most distinguishing traits of Andersen's heroine were that she was thoughtful, quiet, and pensive (quite unlike Ariel), and one of her sisters is actually said to be by far the most daring and boldest of the family (quite like Ariel). Also, the Sea Witch becomes a cunning, dishonest, power-hungry villain who tricks Ariel into signing a contract with her, rather than the neutral character in the original tale who warns the mermaid of the consequences of her magic.
    • In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, compared to their book counterparts, Quasimodo is much more gentle, Esmeralda is smarter and less naive, and Phoebus is more heroic, with his womanizer tendencies dropped. Meanwhile, Frollo gets Adaptational Villainy and loses all his redeeming traits (which are given to an original character, the Archdeacon of Notre-Dame).
    • In Tarzan, Kerchak is a stern, but benevolent leader of the apes, rather than the violent, abusive character he is in the books.
    • In Chicken Little, Foxy Loxy gets downgraded to a schoolyard Barbaric Bully as opposed to a Big Bad out to fan the flames of paranoia for a free meal.
  • Adaptation Species Change:
    • Bambi: The novel's Bambi was a roe deer in (presumably) Austria, but Disney made Bambi a white-tailed deer in Maine because the latter species was more familiar to American audiences.
    • In the original Peter Pan, Nana is a Newfoundland, but in the Disney adaptation, she is a Saint Bernard.
    • In the original Basil of Baker Street books, Professor Ratigan was implied to have been a mouse. In The Great Mouse Detective, his species is changed to a rat to be more in line with his last name.
    • In Edgar Rice Burroughs original Tarzan stories, Sabor was a lioness, but in Disney's Tarzan, she was changed to a leopardess—since lions don't live in the jungle, this was a largely pragmatic change. Also, the apes Tarzan lived with weren't gorillas, but a fictional species of ape (or hominid?) called mangani. The mangani were mortal enemies of the bolgani (the mangani's blanket term for gorillas).
    • In The Snow Queen, the titular queen is heavily implied to be of The Fair Folk. In Frozen, Elsa is a human who was born with the ability to create and manipulate ice and snow.
  • Adaptation Title Change:
  • Adaptational Ugliness:
    • The original illustrations for The Hundred and One Dalmatians show Cruella De Vil as an elegant yet cold-hearted beauty. The Disney version turns her into a wild-haired harridan with a corpse-like face.
    • In the original The Chronicles of Prydain novels, Fflewddur Fflam the bard is a 30-year-old man who is described as handsome, if unkempt. In the Disney adaptation, Fflam is an unattractive man in his 50s with a potbelly.
    • Downplayed in Moana: Maui in Polynesian Mythology is described as being a thin, lithe, handsome teenager on the verge of manhood that usually has his hair tied back in a neat topknot or ponytail. The movie portrays him as a massive, muscular adult with a head of thick, wild hair. However, his broad, round face, big nose, bigger mouth, heavy brow, sloped forehead and small, piggish eyes, makes him rather weird-looking.
  • Adaptational Villainy: A lot of their movie adaptations tend to do this to characters from their original stories;
    • Pinocchio: The puppeteer from Pinocchio (Mangiafuoco in the book, Stromboli in the film). In the film, he was far more cruel and simply wanted to exploit Pinocchio, and states that he'll use him as firewood after he can't perform anymore. In the book, although he initially does want to use Pinocchio as firewood after the boy accidentally ruins one of his puppet shows, Pinocchio is able to convince him not to do so, and he even gives the talking puppet some coins to help Geppetto out. This is probably an influence from Alexey N. Tolstoy's book adaptation, Buratino, where the puppeteer, named Carabas Barabas, is the main villain and a very ominous person (although, incidentally, the scene mentioned above still happens anyways).
    • Fantasia: Chernabog in the Night on Bald Mountain sequence. While he was a black god, he wasn't evil; he was a pre-Christian Slavic deity. Though we don't really know enough about Chernobog to say whether he was or wasn't evil, it's certain he wasn't a giant Satanic figure who called up the spirits of the damned. The film works around this by referring to him as Satan himself, but Disney prefers to call him Chernabog these days.
    • Bambi: Ronno the deer is an ominous antagonist who appears only once to battle over Faline, and abiding by the non-Animated Canon Interquel, was initially a jealous bully who spent much of his childhood antagonising Bambi. In the original book, Ronno and Bambi were actually good friends instead of enemies, although this does change as they grow older and see each other as competition for does. Also, the human hunters in the book are ordinary people who are frightening and god-like from the perspective of the animals, although Bambi's father makes a point of showing Bambi a dead hunter to teach him that humans are subject to the same rules as the forest animals are. The sequel book even begins depicting sympathetic human characters. In the Disney movie, the hunters are explicitly reckless and careless, shooting everything that moves and setting the forest ablaze from a badly tended campfire. Bambi's mother is, judging from the time of her death in early spring, the victim of a poacher.
    • The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad: In the original story, Brom doesn't physically attack Ichabod, due to his rough sense of honor and fair play. He so thoroughly outclasses Ichabod physically that he might as well have two other guys there to hold him down as fight one on one, and limits himself to trying to hound him away from Katrina with practical jokes. In this version, however, he clearly was about to beat the snot out of him, and Ichabod only escaped due to Brom suffering a Wile E. Coyote-level bout of bad luck.
    • Alice in Wonderland: The Queen of Hearts is depicted as an Ax-Crazy villainess in the Disney adaptation. In the book by Lewis Carroll, while she does constantly order executions, the King quietly pardons everybody she sentences to death when she isn't looking and no real harm is done. She never notices this, and the inhabitants of Wonderland just choose to play along with her. Also, it's outright said by the Gryphon that she doesn't execute anyone. Part of the reason for this is because the Queen as depicted in the movie is a mash-up of three different characters from Alice's Adventure in Wonderland and Alice Through The Looking Glass (the Queen of Hearts, the Duchess, and the Red Queen). The King himself goes from pardoning people to openly supporting the Queen's executions (though in Alice's case, he instead makes sure all available options are exhausted before going along with it). The Cheshire Cat in the Disney movie is a Jerkass to Alice if not a villain, while in the book he was a more friendly character. And as a lesser example, the White Rabbit in the Disney version is a pompous servant of the Queen. In the book, he's a little friendlier to Alice, advising her not to play well in the croquet game so the Queen can win. The Walrus in "The Walrus and the Carpenter" also goes through this. While neither he nor the Carpenter were particularly good people in the original poem (Alice notes that the Walrus showed remorse for his actions but still ate more oysters than the Carpenter, while the Carpenter ate as many as he could), he was much more remorseful in the poem. Here, however, he's depicted as an arrogant, manipulative, greedy, evil aristocrat. Also, this movie portrays the oysters as youngsters, making the Walrus seem even more monstrous!
    • The Jungle Book (1967): Kaa the python. In the book, he is a mentor and friend of Mowgli as much as Bagheera and Baloo are and helps to save him when he is kidnapped by monkeys, engages him in friendly wrestling matches, and offers him advice for battle against the dholes, indeed never harming or threatening him in any way and saving his life more than once. The other animals in the jungle respect and fear him for his wisdom and powers of hypnosis, which only Mowgli, because he is human, is immune to. In the Disney movie, he is an Affably Evil villain whose only role in the plot is to serve as a minor nuisance. Apparently it was thought by Disney that audiences wouldn't accept a snake as a heroic character. This also applies to Shere Kahn; in the books, he was an antagonist, but represented as somewhat pitiful (he has a bad leg, restricting his ability to hunt), is something of an arrogant fool, and is taken half-heartedly by a lot of residents of the jungle, including Bagheera. The other animals generally see him as a troublemaker and a coward because he attacks humans (something forbidden under the Law of the Jungle), and characters like Bagheera and Kaa command a lot more respect and fear. In the original Disney film, he is somewhat comedic and playful, but is genuinely feared and implied to be stronger than many animals put together.
    • The Black Cauldron: The three witches in the film are grasping and sneaky, if not evil, characters who try and trick Taran into giving up a treasure for the cauldron. In the book, they are neutral figures who bend their own rules to help Taran and the others get rid of it.
    • The Little Mermaid: The Sea Witch in the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale is a neutral character who shows no vindictive intentions toward the unnamed mermaid, only making the famous tongue-for-legs exchange, even warning the mermaid of the consequences of the transformation. She doesn't go back on the deal or interfere with her relationship with the prince until she is asked to by the mermaid's sisters, and only indirectly. In the Disney movie, she is named Ursula, is an out-and-out villain with a tendency toward Faustian deals, and gets in the way of Ariel's romance with Prince Eric far more than the character in the fairy tale did. Ursula also takes the place of the princess who the prince eventually marries in the original, who is innocent in Andersen's fairy tale and genuinely loves him.
    • Aladdin: While it's far from the first adaptation to make Grand Vizier Jafar a villain, it's probably the most well-known example of it. In the Arabian Nights, Jafar was a minor character but generally a hero (although Sunni tradition, which thinks very highly of Harun al-Rashid, assumed that Ja'far must have been guilty of something if the great Caliph had him killed). And in the Aladdin story, the Grand Vizier (who is actually not the same character as Jafar, as Jafar did not appear in the Arabian Nights Aladdin story, but he is replaced by Jafar in the movie) is hostile to Aladdin at first, but then he has a point, and is actually The Good Chancellor in contrast to the Disney movie's depiction of Jafar as an Evil Chancellor; the real villain of the story is a magician from North Africa.
    • The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Claude Frollo was a more sympathetic character in the original novel by Victor Hugo. While driven to evil deeds later by his lust for Esmeralda, he willingly adopts and cares for Quasimodo, instead of threatening to throw him down a well as he did in the Disney version of the story. All while looking after his layabout of a brother, Jehan (who most movie adaptations composite with Claude), and being orphaned himself to boot. He was also more tolerant of gypsies, asking only that they keep their activities away from the cathedral rather than actively hunting them down. Also, Frollo was originally archdeacon of Notre Dame; in the movie, the archdeacon is a separate, kindly character, who induces a guilt trip on Frollo at the beginning and is beaten up by him at the end. In a sense, both these scenes depict the man struggling with himself. It's believed the reason for this Adaptational Villainy was due to Disney being concerned that having a priest for a Big Bad would offend people, and their solution was to divide the literary character in two and give one all the good qualities and the other all the bad.
    • Hercules: Hades is a Satan-like villain (again), intent on overthrowing Zeus and taking over Mount Olympus. In Classical Mythology, he was a neutral but just ruler of the dead and was downright nice compared to the other Greek gods. Hades had no antagonism towards Heracles, only meeting the hero when Heracles asked to borrow Cerberus for one of his twelve labors. Heracles's original divine enemy was Hera, his stepmother and Zeus's wife. As for overthrowing Zeus, Hades never tried that in the myths. While Hades did kidnap Persephone (with Zeus's permission), he was nowhere near as bad a husband as his brothers Zeus and Poseidon. In fact, Hades is probably the least antagonistic god Hercules ever met in the original myth; the entire obstacle Hercules has in borrowing Cerberus is that Hades politely asks Hercules to bring it back when he's done. His sidekicks, Pain and Panic, also go through this compared to Deimos and Phobos, who they were both very loosely based on. While neither of their original counterparts were exactly good guys, they were the sons of Ares and definitely weren't evil, impish comic relief lackeys. In fact, Heracles worshiped Phobos as a god and had him depicted on his shield. And in the myths, the Cyclopes were Zeus' allies in the fight against the Titans, and they gave the thunderbolt to Zeus, the trident to Poseidon and the helmet of invisibility to Hades. The movie has one lone Cyclops who is in league in the Titans, and is sent by Hades to destroy Thebes and kill Hercules.
    • Tarzan: Clayton. In the novels, he is Tarzan's cousin who inherits the title after Tarzan's parents are presumed dead. His worst fault is that he is not as brave or capable as Tarzan, and his worst crime is concealing Tarzan's true identity after he figures out the truth so that he can keep the title. Other than that, he is a decent man who is willing to sacrifice himself for Jane. In the movie, he is an Egomaniac Hunter.
    • Fantasia 2000: In the story of "The Firebird Suite", the titular creature aids a Prince in defeating an evil wizard. In the animated segment at the end of the film, the Firebird is a destructive Eldritch Abomination in the shape of a bird that destroys an entire forest.
    • Wreck-It Ralph: A number of villains get together for a support group, and among them is Zangief, who isn't a villain in the games — though he is often a victim of this trope, being a villain in the first Street Fighter movie and the Street Fighter animated series. This makes his comments toward Ralph during his sole scene all the more poignant. Word of God admits to considering Zangief a villain simply because he was That One Boss.
  • An Aesop/Central Theme: Most of the films in the line-up have one, though how prevalent and deeply tied into the story it is varies from film to film. Several of them have more than one, though, and generally one for each song for those that have them:
    • Pinocchio: Evil Is Easy, but it will get you nowhere good in the long run.
    • Cinderella: Staying strong and hopeful, even if just a little bit, in circumstances that try to beat you down.
    • Peter Pan: Not Growing Up Sucks, but you should not let go of your inner child, either.
    • Lady and the Tramp: The divide between the rich and the poor.
    • The Sword in the Stone: Knowledge is power.
    • Beauty and the Beast: Who you are inside is far more important than what's on the outside.
      • Being kind to others will make you a better person.
      • People are always capable of change; while some never will, others will if given the chance.
    • Aladdin: Be honest with yourself and others, for deception will only get you so far.
    • Pocahontas: Fearing racial differences leads to destruction; love, not just romantic but for fellow humans as a whole, is the only answer.
    • The Lion King (1994): Taking responsibility, whether for yourself or for your duties.
      • Even the most destructive despots will be deceptively charming.
      • You cannot run from the past, only overcoming it will let it rest.
      • Your loved ones will always be with you, even in death.
    • The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Again, it's what's inside that counts.
      • We are all humans deserving of respect and love, no matter where we come from or what we look like (and it sucks to be an outcast, so why treat others that way).
      • Again, selfless people can change the world.
      • How the clergy can and has been used as a platform for corrupt ends.
    • Hercules: Selflessness is what makes a hero, not strength or force of will.
    • Mulan: Do not be ashamed of who you are inside; live for yourself rather than the demands and prejudices of others.
      • Gender roles are archaic; women are not inferior to men and have the capability to be as strong or stronger, and acting 'effeminate' does not make a man weaker.
    • Tarzan: Family extends further than blood ties; adoptive parents can be just as loving as birth parents.
    • The Emperor's New Groove: Being selfless can make you a better person.
    • Lilo & Stitch: Family refers to those who turn to each other when no one else will.
    • Brother Bear: True brotherhood comes from love, not blood.
    • Chicken Little: Talk to your parents, rather than find easy solutions to not deal your problems.
    • Meet the Robinsons: Persevere towards the future and don't let your past control you.
    • Tangled: A free spirit can never remain confined for long.
      • Your dreams will motivate you to achieve in life, but you may be overlooking what will truly make you happy.
      • Again, the importance of honesty; however, this time the fact that dishonesty will make it harder for people to trust you is emphasized more than previously.
    • Wreck-It Ralph: Heroes come in all shapes and sizes.
    • Frozen: The nature and importance of love, and how it is far greater than mere romance.
    • Big Hero 6: Healing from a painful loss and not letting it consume you.
    • Zootopia: The nature of bias and prejudice in a society, and the role we play in overcoming it.
  • Ambiguous Time Period:
    • A lot of the Disney films have this; being fairy tales, they're just set "a long time ago." Sleeping Beauty actually does say "This is the fourteenth century" (though the fashion doesn't match) and newer films tend to aim for more historical accuracy (for example Frozen is set in the 1840s, albeit with some Anachronism Stew here and there), but most of the rest don't even have that.
    • Bambi, despite being featured in a more down to earth setting, is very difficult if not impossible to pin down to a specific point in time. There is no indication of what time the film, its midquel or tie-ins take place or where beyond the general depiction of a eastern American forest. The stories do not feature any (on-screen) humansnote , only animals in the wild who have basic, symbolic personalities, and there are zero pop culture references, so there's hardly anything within the setting that could ever become dated. Even the characters' more humanized behaviour in the direct-to-video midquel is just detached enough from any specific human culture to remain rooted outside of any specific time or place.
    • The Lion King gives no indication of what time the story takes place. There are references that hint it is set in present day. On the other hand, since we never see any humans, it's still plausible to depict the setting as taking place in very ancient or even prehistoric times. Further muddled in the spin-off series, which does feature humans and likewise has references and elements indicating that it is set in the present day, but also has elements such as The Wild West, the city of Rome having Ancient Rome features, and a T-rex being seen in one episode.
  • Anachronism Stew: Several of their features deliberately employ this for laughs, most famously Aladdin, Hercules, and The Emperor's New Groove. Even the more serious features like The Hunchback of Notre Dame will employ anachronisms for laughs (most notably in the "A Guy Like You" musical number). Some features like Mulan and Atlantis: The Lost Empire employ it on purpose for the sake of atmosphere or story.
  • Animorphism:
  • Animated Adaptation:
  • Animated Musical: Most of the movies in the canon are this, though there are exceptions such as Tarzan, Lilo & Stitch, Wreck-It Ralph, and Zootopia (Tarzan does include several musical numbers, but only one of them is sung by the characters in-universe).
  • Animation Bump: Generally in the musical numbers, the animation may change.
  • Anti-Villain: Several characters in the canon fall into this.
    "The biggest threat, of course, is from the predator, man, and his gun. As victims, the deer have no way of combating this foe and must suffer the consequences. Man, for his part, has no thought or understanding of the pain he has inflicted on the wild animals by pursing his own personal desires. There is no villainy in his heart when he kills Bambi's mother, yet to the audience, this is an event that stays with them for the rest of their lives."
    • Professor Terri Tatti from "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met", since he has a somewhat justifiable reason for attacking Willie — whales normally don't sing opera, so he assumes the whale swallowed three whole opera singers to get his talent (it actually comes from the fact that Willie has three uvulas), so he kills Willie with a harpoon to free them. His act is described not as a villainous one, but a misguided one springing from his lack of understanding.
    • Brom Bones from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. The Sleepy Hollow segment goes out of its way to prove that while Brom is not above terrorizing the local schoolmaster to drive him out of town or bullying Katrina's other suitors, isn't really bad (just a bit of a Jerkass), and may in fact be a better husband for Katrina (unlike Ichabod, who appears to care more about her money.)
    • Lord Ector of The Sword in the Stone. While he's a jerk to Arthur, he's not evil, just a very strict and demanding Control Freak.
    • Edgar of The Aristocats is one of the few Disney Villains who is not exactly pure evil; while he is greedy, he does not seem to be cruel. It would have been easy for him to just kill Duchess and her kittens, but instead, he chose to kidnap them and release them into the wild —- and when that didn't work, he decides to send them to Timbuktu. Moreover, he's shown to have more redeeming features and is never willing to kill anyone.
    • Amos Slade is a more shaded antagonist than a typical Disney villain. He may be a curmudgeon who wants to kill Tod, but his true nature comes out when Copper convinces him not to kill Tod. Even beforehand, his hatred for Tod is driven mostly by misunderstandings or his supposed injuring of his dog Chief, who Slade legitimately cared for along with Copper.
    • The Beast starts off as this. He acts malicious for the first part of the film, but he's not acting out of evil intentions as much as he's consumed by anger and despair at being trapped in the body of a beast while his chance to regain his humanity is slowly ticking away. The scene where he saves Belle from the wolves is the part that makes it clear to the audience that he's not a villain. Glen Keane, the lead animator of Beast, is quoted on this in The Disney Villain;
    "He probably wouldn't have minded killing Maurice. That was the extent where someone like the Beast, who had the potential to be good, could become a villain. The Beast was pitying himself, frustrated, so he felt justified in treating the father that way, and when he comes back, Belle is crying — his actions do cause people pain — and he starts to get a glimmer that he's not entirely comfortable with the role of a villain... He had incredible limitations — it's kind of like taking the villain and the hero and wrapping them up into one body."
    • In Treasure Planet, John Silver is supposed to be the bad guy; and he does it pretty well, most of the time. But he also turns out to be a great father figure to Jim Hawkins and his soft spot for the lad pushes him to do the right thing now and then. His core motivation of wanting to get what is, in his eyes, rightfully owed to him, is more complex than just standard pirate-related greed.
    • Brother Bear: Denahi goes rather nuts after losing both his brothers.
  • Art Evolution: Given how many decades the series spans, it has gone through several iterations. In the 40s and 50s the animation got progressively more on-model and the artstyle got more defined. 60s and 70s movies had a sketchier style in general, while movies in the 80s started going for a more detailed look than before. The 90s brought digital ink and paint and thus brighter colors with more realistic shading. Then from the mid-2000s onwards the medium has changed to CGI (which itself has grown more refined over time).
  • Artistic License – Biology: The films are not really known for their accuracy when it comes to animal behavior or anatomy, to say the least. Bambi in particular is notorious for this, due to its numerous creative liberties spreading many misconceptions about wild deer behavior in real life, to the extent that it has its own subpage about it. The Lion King (1994), while nowhere as infamous for it, likewise takes just as many if not more liberties and also has its own subpage on the subject.
  • Audience Shift:
    • Wreck-It Ralph was made to appeal to gamers along with traditional children/family audiences.
    • Big Hero 6 is aimed at Marvel superhero fans and the general boy demographic.
    • Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet were designed to appeal to teenagers more than just children. Unlike the film released in between them, they did not do well at the box office.
    • The Great Mouse Detective, Oliver & Company, and The Little Mermaid were intended by Roy E. Disney and (then-new) studio heads Jeffrey Katzenberg and Peter Schneider to take Disney animation in a lighter, more 1980s direction after former studio head Ron Miller's attempts in the late 1970s/early 1980s to take the studio in a darker and moodier direction with The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron pretty much ended in failure (Fox and Hound only enjoyed as a moderate financial successes, with Rescuers getting a sequel from the new guard; Cauldron was NOT a success, and almost killed the canon off, making it the only Disney film of the Disney Dark Ages to be both a critical and financial failure). The Great Mouse Detective itself was retitled from Basil of Baker Street after Michael Eisner decided that the original name was "too English" for American kids, which led to a major backlash from the animators who were working on the film; they protested with an infamous fake memo that Katzenberg got, and said memo made it to the press and on to Jeopardy!, embarrassing Schneider in the process; Schneider repaid the favor by ripping into the department in a meeting for the stunt (Katzenberg was also unamused with the decoy memo at first, but he lightened up to the situation according to the documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty).
    • On a similar note, recently and not without backlash, Tangled, and Frozen received their title changes from Rapunzel and The Snow Queen respectively, as well as a whole new marketing strategy to make sure their more princess-central films can still net young males. Notably this came after the presumed failings of The Princess and the Frog. Though admittedly it was for the better as far as Frozen is concerned, seeing as the title fits the setting and theme a lot more than The Snow Queen does (it was also initially going to be an adaptation of The Snow Queen, but ended up being inspired by it instead).
    • Of course, the MPAA rating system didn't exist until 1968, so everything released before then (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs through The Jungle Book) had the G rating applied to them retroactively on their post-'68 re-releases.

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