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Fridge Brilliance
- The beginning becomes brilliant Foreshadowing when one considers the seafarer's boathouse slightly resembles a giant oil lamp. Guess one might say his previous dwelling kind of grew on him; but at the same time, the boat is a nice departure from the lamp's cramped space.
- This also becomes meaningful when it dawns on you what the boat has that the lamp doesn't: freedom, to go anywhere they wish.
- Remember what Jack Sparrow said in the first Pirates film: "A ship is freedom."
- The Disney Live-Action Remakes series generally features the kingdom's castle in the logo as part of its Logo Joke. This film opens with a boat. Technically it's still accurate, because it's the Genie's home and he's presenting the story - it could have been set in Agrabah but it works better with a travelling nomad who was previously imprisoned.
- This also becomes meaningful when it dawns on you what the boat has that the lamp doesn't: freedom, to go anywhere they wish.
- The Genie has seen first hand what Greed can lead to. So of course he'll tell his kids not to wish for a bigger boat. He's raising them to avoid the same trappings as his previous masters.
- This also extends to how he and Dalia decide what kind of boat they want to live on. One of them decides a large ship, but the other suggests they live on a smaller boat, and they're unanimous that a modest-sized boat is just perfect. This may be the reason Dalia and the Genie have such chemistry, because they both agree that less is more, and sometimes the simple joy of a boat with elbow room is enough.
- The above fridge also ties in with Dalia's Establishing Character Moment. When Jasmine bemoans how she doesn't want to get married to just some random prince, Dalia points out the princess has it good, what with such handsome, rich suitors coming for her hand in marriage. This foreshadows that Dalia is a perfect match for the Genie because they both see the importance of counting one's blessings.
- There's an added stab and twist when Aladdin refuses to free the Genie; on top of all the betrayal, Genie's hopes of being human and pursuing a relationship with Dalia are wrecked. Aladdin's essentially destroying someone else's love story in an effort to salvage his own. This adds a whole new meaning when he says "You're breaking my heart."
- There's a parallel between how Genie's advice is treated in the animated and the live-action version. In the animated film, the Genie tells that wishes come with "provisos and quid-pro-quos". Aladdin gives a listening ear while Jafar tells him to shut up. In the live-action film, Genie says to be careful about making wishes with "a lot of grey areas". Again, Aladdin learns to be careful how he words his wishes, while Jafar throws that same caution to the wind.
- There's a slight change in lyrics during the song Prince Ali, from "He's got slaves/He's got servants and flunkies" to "He's got 10,000 servants and flunkies". Of course the Genie wouldn't include slaves in the entourage, he hates his own enslavement.
- This is another kind of brilliance: buying slaves and maintaining them is frequently cheaper than paying wages to laborers and servants who can walk away at any time. That many people being willing to work for "Prince Ali" marks him as a payer of good wages, providing good working conditions, and an overall good boss.
- Another example from the same song: Instead of: "brush off your Sunday Salaam" they changed it to "Brush off your Friday Salaam". Of course it's a Friday Salaam. Muslim day of worship is on Fridays.
- "A Whole New World" may seem like it's just showing Jasmine her home country of Agrabah, nothing new or beyond the borders of where she was born. But then one recalls she said that as a princess who can't leave her own palace, maps are her only window to the outside world. Aladdin/Prince Ali helped changed that with the carpet ride.
- In regards to the beautiful scenery, it's also showing Jasmine Agrabah's natural worth and the audience what would be at stake if Jafar became sultan and waged war with the other countries.
- Fridge-Heartwarming: Why were the people of Agrabah celebrating that particular night? Because of Prince Ali's generosity. Unlike in the first movie, the money-giving scene goes on a bit longer. It's possible the party-goers are celebrating their new-found financial stability.
- Jasmine becoming the Sultan at the end is more than just a case of society changing, it's essential to the parallel between Aladdin and Jafar. Jafar's Fatal Flaw is that he cannot stand to be the second strongest person in the room, and Aladdin gets uncomfortably close to developing that same obsession with power. By ending the movie with Jasmine as the Sultan and Aladdin as her consort, Aladdin is put into the position of always being at best the second most powerful person in Agrabah, and the fact that he's just fine with that shows how different he is from Jafar in the end. If Aladdin had ended the movie as the Heir-In-Law as he did in the original, it would have been a severe Broken Aesop.
- That Humanity Ensues for the Genie after he's freed from the lamp also likely means the same for Jafar, in a sense. He wished to become a genie so that he would never be inferior to another being, but all that power comes at the price of his freedom and can only be used toward the whims of another person. However, if he seeks to re-attain his freedom, then he loses all that power and becomes an ordinary human againnote . There is no means by which he becomes all-powerful without any drawbacks; just as Aladdin tried to warn him of, he will always be second.
- When Aladdin initially asked if the Genie could make him a prince, he didn't actually rub the lamp and say "I wish", so the Genie can take the time to explain the Ambiguous Syntax. When Jafar wants to become the most powerful being in the universe, he actually rubs the lamp and says "I wish", forcing the Genie to grant his wish almost immediately.
- This actually ties up with Aladdin's caution and Jafar's lack of it noted above: Aladdin knows he's out of his depth and has the sense of asking the Genie what he can do, while Jafar thinks he knows what he's doing. So Aladdin gets the explanation that one must be careful about their wishes and Jafar finds out the hard way.
- Also, Aladdin doesn't abuse having an all-powerful genie at his orders and treats him as a friend, while Jafar rubs it in. So the Genie does his best to help Aladdin and twists Jafar's final wish to screw him over.
- "Abu" is the Arabic word for "father". In the film, Aladdin states (if jokingly) that Abu is "the only parental authority" in his life.
- Jasmine is relatively more patient with Prince Ali here than she was in the original film, where she bluntly turned him down and set Rajah on him. She, Dalia and the Sultan can see that Ali is being a giant dork in trying to impress her, even if he's insulting her by accident. Rajah also recognizes Aladdin from the first encounter, hence the lick.
- Jasmine doesn't do much fighting in the movie. Instead, her awesome moment is the speech with which she brings Hakim over to her side (until Jafar uses his second wish). She doesn't want to be an Action Girl; she wants to be a ruler, so it's the latter's traits she gets to show off.
- After Jafar sends Aladdin and Abu to the ends of the Earth, Genie sends Carpet after them, seemingly breaking the rules. However, his using of Aladdin’s second wish specifically stated “I, Aladdin, being of sound Body and Mind, declare that my second wish is to be saved from certain doom.” Genie then backdates the wish by a day. Since the wish was non-specific toward the time, manner, or number of instances of “Certain Doom” Genie was free to interpret the wish as Aladdin wishing to be saved from all instances of certain doom. Genie wasn’t breaking the rules, merely exploiting the ‘grey area’ loophole of the wish.
- Of course Aladdin was so awkward while trying to impress the Sultan and princess Jasmine with his gifts, the way he explained about the spices, tiny spoons and especially the jams, sounded like he was trying to sell those items to them like merchants in the marketplace; who try to impress and persuade buyers that normally don't know better.
- Genie’s human form is that of a mariner. This fits with this genie having a preference for blue, the color of the sea and the sky.
- Going off of this, while urging for Aladdin to wish them out of the cave, Genie tells him a severe lack of sun has left him with a sky-blue pallor. What does he say is his natural color? Navy.
- This version of Jafar is seen to have a very bad temper, which may be why he has to rely on cobra staff hypnosis more than necessary.
- Genie says that he can't make people fall in love. Not that Genie doesn't try, but the princely entourage, gifts, and making Aladdin do an Involuntary Dance don't help at all.
- It has been noted that this version of Aladdin is much more bound and determined to pursue the deception of "Prince Ali" than the original animated version, going to much greater lengths to pull off a haughty, and in his own mind dignified and superior air. This is because here, Jafar, speaking with him well before Aladdin obtains the lamp and assumes the "Ali" persona, poisons his mind with how the two of them come from similar backgrounds and are ultimately not so different, driving home the belief that people who come from nothing will always be perceived as nothing, unless they perpetually pretend to be someone else.
- At first glance, it seems totally ridiculous that someone as charismatic and suave as the Genie would end up tongue-tied when it comes to asking Dalia out. However, considering the Genie has been trapped in his lamp for at least one thousand years, who’s to say when he last had the opportunity to try and woo someone like that? He also admits that he’s used to dealing with uncaring masters who exploit his power for themselves, and tells Aladdin straight-up that he’s not there to befriend him — which, in a way, would make it easier for him to hang loose and act chill all the time. But you’re bound to conduct yourself differently and maybe even slip up a few times when it’s your first time pursuing an actual, personal relationship.
- Why the Genie is shown to be depowered to the extent of becoming human when set free in here compared to retaining some measure of cosmic power in the 1992 film's epilogue? This is to resolve an often overlooked Plot Hole in the latter version: Why can't Aladdin simply wish him free while the Genie stays out of good will instead of servitude as he still keeps some of his powers. The Genie losing his powers completely when freed in here would have made Aladdin even more hesitant to wish for his freedom.
- According to
Word of God for the original animated movie, one of the concepts behind Iago was that Jafar took his emotions and transferred them into his parrot, so that he'd be able to cast magic without distractions (and that Iago was too small to suppress so many emotions, leading to a feathered Gilbert Gottfried). In this version, if Jafar chose not to do that, it would explain why he's much more short-tempered and why Iago doesn't appear to be any more sentient than Abu. - As a further detail regarding Genie's ability to help Aladdin even when granting Jafar's wishes, an obvious explanation occurs; since Aladdin hadn't used his third wish yet, technically Genie served both of them even when not explicitly granting wishes, allowing him to offer Aladdin some subtle help even if he couldn't outright defy Jafar.
- While the movie follows the Western idea of genies rather than the original concepts of jinn, the movie still manages to show exactly what the danger of messing with a jinni is and why one should act with the utmost respect even to a bound one:
- Aladdin treats Genie as a friend, talking to him and following his advice (to a point). Thus Genie grants his wishes to the spirit of them, even looking into loopholes when he can't help him directly.
- Jafar treats Genie as a slave... And Genie goes out of his way to screw him over: when Jafar wishes to be the Sultan, Genie effectively enacts a coup without forcing anyone's loyalty, something that allows Jasmine to enact a counter coup; when Jafar wishes to become a legitimate sorcerer, Genie gives him the powers and no idea how to use them, so Jafar's actual abilities are restricted by his own bias; and of course, when Jafar wishes to be the most powerful being in the universe, Genie turns him into an even stronger genie, thus bound to a lamp. The latter would work even better in Arabian folklore, as jinn aren't necessarily bound to lamps or other objects, so turning Jafar into a bound jinni would be the ultimate way to screw him over.
- Genie only ever mentions two of the three limits on his powers, making people fall in love and raising them from the dead. Which brings up the question: what if he actually can be made to kill people? And from how he describes his previous masters it certainly seems like this would have come up.
- This also extends to Jafar. In the animated sequel where he returns to Agrabah in service to his own master, he has to try to have the heroes killed through indirect means since even with all his power as a genie, he isn't able to just off them. Apparently, if he ever comes back in the live-action version, he will have no such limitations.
- A deleted scene shows two of Genie's previous masters dying due to poorly worded wishes. He might not be able to intentionally kill someone, but can kill someone on a technicality of granting a wish.
- Stemming from the above is that in the event Jafar does return, Aladdin and friends are at another disadvantage with their Genie having become human as a result of his freedom. In the animated sequel, he still retained some level of magical power that helped counterbalance Jafar's, but the live-action heroes won't be able to rely on that.
- Also applies to the 1992 movie, but anyone familiar with Mansa Musa of Mali might have some concerns about how celebratory the people of Agrabah are being after Ali's generosity, mentioned in fridge heartwarming above. The Mansa's gifts were so generous as to collapse the local economy, most particularly the value of gold, of Egypt for over (or almost) a decade. Those people might be happy to have all that gold right now, but that's not going to last long. (Granted, the Mansa's visit lasted several days, but given the apparent size of Agrabah, it probably wouldn't take as much to crash their economy.) Particularly since in the Disney animated Aladdin series episode, "Power to the Parrot", Iago managed to crash the animated Agrabah's economy within a week.
