Lighter And Softer / Animated Films

• The Open Season sequels and rest of the series are like this, except for the short Boog and Elliot's Midnight Bun Run.
• Believe it or not, there's the Italian animated film Titanic: The Legend Goes On, which made a Disney-like fairy tale out of a real-life disaster where over fifteen hundred people died. And the dog raps. And then there's The Legend of the Titanic, in which evil sharks tricked a dopey octopus into throwing an iceberg in front of the ship. Tentacles the octopus saves the day, and everyone survives. In the sequel the shark raps and is mainly set in Atlantis where the mice and human characters encounter living toys.
• Some Disney DTV sequels:
  • The Lion King II: Simba's Pride and Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch are aversions. They're as dark, if not darker, as their first movies. For The Lion King (1994), that's especially saying something.
  • The Brother Bear featured the tearjerking deaths of Kenai's brother Sitka and Koda's mother, so the sequel is more lighthearted by comparison, until near the end where Kenai nearly dies after Nita's fiance tries to kill him
  • Bambi II is a midquel that focuses on Bambi's relationship with his father, but it's a somewhat mild example, given the original mostly wasn't that dark to begin with, though had it's share of extremely ominous moments. While the midquel does not feature violent shooting deaths or a forest fire, we see Bambi put in not one but two near-death situations, him coming to terms with his mother's death (even getting his chain yanked and nearly getting shot by a hunter for believing she was still alive) and the stress of earning his stern father's approval. There's a stronger development of character trauma and psychoanalysis as well, with Bambi overcoming what is all but a family friendly rendition of PTSD, the Great Prince cutting off all emotions in despair over the loss of his mate prior to bonding with his son, and Ronno (the sinister rival from the first film) revealed to have initially been a mere childish bully who slowly got more and more bitter and obsessive from Bambi constantly upstaging him.
  • The sequel to The Hunchback of Notre Dame, especially as the original movie is one of the darkest Disney movies of all time. Comparing the villains of both installments (Judge Claude Frollo vs Sarousch) makes it even moreso.
  • Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin averts this. In a possible attempt to avoid this trope this direct-to-video sequel was chock full of Nightmare Fuel.
  • The Fox and the Hound 2. Whereas the original movie (toned down from the original though it may be) is one of Disney's best-loved and most mature works, the midquel is a light, fluffy romp about the eponymous duo joining a band.
• While on the subject of Disney animation, some installments in the Disney Animated Canon tend to be much, much lighter than others, standing out because of this.
  • Dumbo is this in comparison to Fantasia. It was produced on a lower budget with less intricate animation, intended mainly to generate money and therefore more catered toward children, which resulted in a more light-hearted adventure compared to the other movies of that era such as Pinocchio and the aforementioned Fantasia. Dumbo does an excellent job of proving Tropes Are Not Bad in this case, however.
  • The Aristocats, as both movies preceding and succeeding it had gut-wrenching moments and violent, possibly frightening imagery, if still as cartoony in execution.
  • Home on the Range takes this up to eleven, even by Disney standards. Whether this was a good thing or not depends on who you ask.
  • The second Winnie the Pooh movie in the Disney Animated Canon is this towards The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, faithful as both adaptations are to their source material.
  • Although Hercules has some dark moments, it was intentionally created as a lighter followup to 1996's much darker The Hunchback of Notre Dame and to a lesser extent 1995's Pocahontas. Notably, the take on Greek Mythology in the film is much more family-friendly than the original myths.
• Furthermore a lot of the Disney Animated Canon for all their occasional scary and dark moments are still Lighter and Softer than the folklore tales and books they're based on. This was done pragmatically since the films are still largely aimed at young children.
  • The original Hans Christian Andersen version of The Little Mermaid ends on a far darker note than the Disney version. The Prince marries another woman. The Mermaid is given a Last-Second Chance to return to the sea by murdering him with an enchanted knife; but unable to murder the man she loves, she instead throws herself into the sea and turns into foam. That's right, she dies.
  • The Fox and the Hound, seeing as in the original book the title pair aren't friends and die at the end.
  • Pinocchio while still darker than most animated Disney films made nowadays, is still leaps and bounds softer than Carlo Collodi's darkly humorous and twisted original novel. In the book Pinocchio is largely a wicked wooden boy who kills the talking cricket shortly after Geppetto creates him, bites off the cat's paw during an attempted ambush and commits numerous other crimes and selfish misdeeds before he becomes a human boy. The films omits much of the violence and cruelty of the original book, the cricket survives and Pinocchio is a much nicer protagonist who is merely misguided rather than wilfully selfish and antagonistic like the book version.
  • In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ending is much softer than the original tale, as Snow White actually takes revenge on the queen making her wear a pair of red-hot iron slippers and to dance in them until she drops dead. In the Disney version, the queen falls to her death during the climax. Not to mention in the original 1812 version, the Evil Queen isn’t Snow White’s stepmother but her birth mother instead.
  • Cinderella is this compared to older versions of the tale but particularly The Brothers Grimm version where the wicked stepsisters cut their heels off trying to fit the glass slipper and then are blinded by birds. Naturally none of this appears in the Disney film. Although Cinderella (2015) is ironically softer and lighter than the 1950's film, toning down the abuse Cinderella gets from her stepmother and stepsisters.
  • J. M. Barrie's original Peter Pan has multiple dark elements that were expunged or softened in Disney's Peter Pan. In the book Peter is a Blood Knight and borderline Sociopathic Hero who will switch sides if the fight is too easy, kills thirteen pirates in a pitch black room and "thins out" the Lost Boys when they grow up, the Disney version does none of these things. Not to mention the ending of the book where Tinkerbell is dead and Peter has forgotten her, whereas in the Disney version she lives on. Captain Hook is also ridiculous and Laughably Evil in the Disney film, whilst in the book he's a cold blooded Noble Demon who is completely serious and threatening.
  • Tarzan loosely follows Edgar Rice Burroughs' Rated M for Manly books but has a few key differences which make it's story and characters lighter and softer than the book. In the original story rather than being killed offscreen by Sabor the Leopard, Tarzan's mother died of sickness and his father was killed by Killer Gorilla Kerchak who almost kills Tarzan as well before Nala steps in and saves him. In the Disney movie Kerchak is nicer, not harming Jane when given the opportunity and only becomes violent when his troop is threatened by Sabor or Clayton, he also accepts Tarzan as his son when the latter rescues him and rest of the Apes from Clayton. Tarzan's first meeting with Jane is a lighter affair, in the book she's kidnapped by another Gorilla Terkoz who plans to rape her before Tarzan saves her; in the Disney movie Jane just ticks off some Baboons who chase her forcing Tarzan to swoop in and pull Jane out of danger. Also a lot of the racism of Burroughs's books are omitted from the animated film and Tarzan is a much less bloodthirsty character.
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame is of course Darker and Edgier compared to the majority of Disney animation, but it's nevertheless lighter and softer than Victor Hugo's original book. In the novel Quasimodo is not only uglier but is a much more bitter and dark character who tries to kidnap Esméralda, in stark contrast to the idealistic Ugly Cute hero from the Disney film who spends the whole movie protecting Esméralda. Phoebus rather than a cad who just wants Esméralda for sex, is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who does a Heel–Face Turn to good. Frollo's lust for Esméralda while still quite explicit for a family movie, still omits the Attempted Rape scene. The Downer Ending where Esméralda is killed and Quasimodo (after throwing Frollo off Notre Dame) dies by her lifeless body is changed to a Golden Ending where Frollo gets himself killed, Esméralda and Phoebus hook up and Quasimodo is accepted by public.
  • Tangled while it has a few dark moments is still sufficiently softer than the original Rapunzel tale. In the original the prince (Eugene in the film) gets Rapunzel pregnant with twins and the witch cuts off Rapunzel's hair and banishes her into the wilderness in response. When the prince comes back to the tower, he finds the witch who tells him he'll never see Rapunzel again and he falls off the tower and into a thorn bush which scratch out his eyes forcing him to stagger around blind until he finds Rapunzel and their twin children in the desert and is healed by Rapunzel's tears. The Disney version changes it so that Eugene is stabbed in the side instead, which while dark is still less gruesome than the original tale.
  • In the older Giambattista Basile's version of Sleeping Beauty Sun, Moon, and Talia (which predates Charles Perrault's Pentamerone and Brothers Grimm's Little Briar Rose versions), when the princess (Talia) falls into her enchanted sleep after getting splinter of flax in her finger she is found by a king who after failing to wake up, rapes her while she sleeps. After the king leaves Talia gives birth to twins! One of whom sucks the flax out of her finger waking her up. Disney's Sleeping Beauty unsurprisingly follows the later adaptations and ignores the aspects of Basile's version altogether, having the prince just kiss the princess to wake up her up.
  • The Ballad of Mulan or to be exact the more fleshed out versions of the folklore tale are much darker and bittersweet than Disney's Mulan. In one early version (from the Legends from Sui and Tang) after coming home from war Hua Mulan finds that father is long dead and receives an order from the Emperor to become his concubine, at which Mulan kills herself. Other versions, have Mulan be a Shell-Shocked Veteran who is haunted by experiences on the battlefield and again kills herself to escape the grief. Disney's Mulan while it doesn't shy from showing the heroine killing, is still a fairly lighthearted romp and ends with Mulan returning home where her father is alive and proud of her^note  arguably this happy ending is more in line with the original folk song.
  • The Lion King (1994) is loosely based off William Shakespeare's Hamlet, though Hamlet is a Tragedy instead of a feel-good musical romp. The protagonist also doesn't drive his Love Interest to suicide (nor does he directly/indirectly kill the analogues to Polonius, Rosencrantz, or Guildenstern), and he along with all the good guys survive in the end, unlike the play where he dies shortly after avenging his father.
    • Interestingly, Hamlet itself is something of a Darker and Edgier take on the Danish epic of Amleth, whose protagonist does many of the same lethal things, but is presented as a sly trickster figure while doing them, rather than Shakespeare's brooding soliloquizer.

  • Frozen (2013) is very loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen but removes and changes several dark elements from Anderson's story. What kicks off the story is The Devil having evil mirror which breaks and the splinters get in the heart and eye of Kai one of the protagonists turning his heart to ice and he is taken in by The Snow Queen. This is changed in Frozen as the heart turning into ice plotline is given to Anna who was accidently struck by her sister Elsa in a moment of despair and The Devil is not involved. Speaking of Elsa her titular character in the original tale was very much of The Fair Folk having none of the positive qualities of her Disney counterpart. Frozen also omits the robber girl, who held the reindeers hostage and threatened to cut their throats.
• This was par the course for every Don Bluth movie ever to receive a sequel, in large part because he wasn't involved in the sequels:
  • The Land Before Time. The first one, while still primarily aimed at children was very dark, featuring the child dinosaurs coming very close to dying several times, adult dinosaurs actually dying, including Littlefoot's mother, who fought Sharptooth, getting a nasty gash on her neck among other things, with Sharptooth also being an unstoppable, terrifying force of nature that wouldn't be out of place in a slasher film. And then the incredibly controversial sequels came. Never Say "Die" was introduced, to the point where it seems the Sharpteeth at most just want to scare the herbivores, and put very little effort into feeding. There are also big musical numbers, something the original never had, and almost all the appeal for adults was thrown out the window.
  • The most major example is The Secret of NIMH 2; it is far more lighthearted and family-friendly than the very dark original. The original had multiple characters die on screen in bloodless but not particularly G-rated ways including crushed by a brick and stabbed in the back, and multiple kids almost drowned in mud. The sequel had no deaths, retconned several from the original, and replaced the scary Playing with Syringes at NIMH with comparatively tame electroshock therapy.
  • All Dogs Go to Heaven starts with the protagonist getting straight-up murdered in a mob hit and resurrecting himself in a method that he's told will essentially damn him to Hell when he dies again. The sequel is about him and his friends retrieving a stolen horn and the animated series has them performing random good deeds in order to remain on Earth.
• The straight-to-DVD animated movie Ultimate Avengers and its sequel, Ultimate Avengers 2, are kid-friendly adaptations of Mark Millar's The Ultimates — which itself is a Darker and Edgier version of The Avengers.
• The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water is still somewhat dark, due to Bikini Bottom becoming an apunkalypse for a good chunk of the film, but otherwise it's not as serious as The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie's surprisingly disturbing dystopia.
• While the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line normally provides Darker and Edgier fare, it did also produce an adaptation of All-Star Superman, which was PG. Not only is it lighter than the normally PG-13 (and four R-rated movies as of 2018) fare of the line, it's also lighter than the comics as Superman doesn't completely bend Atlas's elbow the wrong way (the suicidal Regan is also Adapted Out). Green Lantern: Emerald Knights and the tie-in movies to Batman (1966) are also PG.
• Pixar:
  • Finding Nemo's sequel, Finding Dory, has been regarded as a step downward from the first film drama-wise. Of course, being a Pixar movie, it still takes itself seriously throughout.
  • Toy Story 4 while still dramatically heartfelt and very sad with Woody leaving Buzz and co is still considerably more lighthearted than its predecessor Toy Story 3 which (in)famously had the toys holding hands together as they accepted death via furnace before being saved right at the last moment and having a Tear Jerker farewell to Andy.
  • Incredibles 2 is much lighter in tone than its predecessor with a greater emphasis on action and comedy in general. There's no gratuitous mook deaths, less overall destruction and the film is generally less intense overall. Thematically, the movie is this as well. The first film dealt with several darker character issues. Bob is listlessly shuffling through his post hero life in a job as an insurance agent, Helen is frustrated with Bob trying to relive the glory days of being a hero, the kids are trying to come to terms with their superpowers in a world where acting as a superhero in public is illegal, and there is a subplot where Helen thinks Bob is having an affair. The sequel focuses more on the action, and the character subplots are more limited to Bob trying to raise the kids without Helen, Violet having boy problems, and Dash struggling with his math homework, all while Helen is out doing superhero work.
  • Elemental lightly homages West Side Story with Ember and Wade being expies of Maria and Tony. However the racial conflict and clash between their respective cultures backgrounds, while still apparent, is heavily downplayed compared to West Side Story and while like the musical, the Pixar film has one member of couple dying at the end, Tony due to getting shot and Wade evaporating, Wade being a water person is able to reform himself and reunite with Ember unlike West Side Story where Maria has to cope with Tony’s death.
• The Batman vs. Dracula is loosely based on Batman Vampire, an Elseworld story where Batman was turned into a vampire after fighting against Count Dracula. The original comics were very dark, featured very graphical violence (for example, a guy gets his face ripped off) and lots of death so much so that almost all named characters are dead by the end, including Batman. By contrast, the feature movie ditches nearly all plot elements and have all established characters to survive, which makes sense since this is supposed to be tied with The Batman animated series.
• All three Batman Unlimited movies are lighter fare than the aforementioned DC Universe Animated Original Movies—and the Batman: Arkham Series seeing as several voice actors there reprise their roles in the films, most notably Roger Craig Smith and Troy Baker reprising their respective roles from the prequel games as the Dark Knight himself and the Joker.
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse being based on Ultimate Spider-Man (which comes from the aforementioned Darker and Edgier Ultimate Marvel) and Spider-Verse tones down the dark elements from both stories. In the comics, Miles is tormented and used by his uncle Aaron aka The Prowler before the latter gets Hoist by His Own Petard, in the animated movie Miles has a loving relationship with his uncle making the reveal of him being Prowler The Dragon of the Kingpin and killed when he refuses to hurt his nephew all the more tragic. In the Spider-Verse comic multiple Spider-Men are butchered by Inheritors, in the animated movie only Miles's Spider-Man is killed by the Kingpin and 616 Spidey's fear for Spider-Gwen's safety due to her mainstream counterpart brutal death is not discussed. Spider-Man Noir is a violent and Politically Incorrect Hero in the comic, in the animated film he's a Nice Guy voiced by Nicolas Cage, also Peni Parker is a Genki Girl rather than the moody Neon Genesis Evangelion-esque teen of the comics.
• Coming 17 years after Invader Zim's cancellation in 2002, the 2019 movie Enter the Florpus doesn't entirely abandon the original show's edge of Black Comedy, but it is markedly less cynical and bleak in its depiction of Earth and its human inhabitants. Dib, Zim's pre-teen human rival, reaps the most obvious windfall from this shift, as he not only has the actual sadistic aspects of his own personality excised but also becomes less prone to enduring torment at the hands of his peers and sister, and he assumes the role of a flawed but largely well-meaning Hero Protagonist who manages to save the Earth from Zim's machinations and reunite his family. For him, and for most of Earth, the ending is one that would be considered shockingly upbeat by the show's normal standards.
• The Seventh Dwarf, unlike the previous Seven Dwarves movies, targeted families. They still got a dick joke in, though. On the other hand, it ends with a straight musical number that isn't comedic at all.
• Kung Fu Panda 3 is a downplayed example of this, especially when compared to the second film, with more comedic moments and a more affably evil villain when compared to Lord Shen or Tai Lung.
• The 2011 Christian animated film The Lion of Judah is the most kid-friendly re-telling of the Passion of Jesus Christ compared to other works focused on Jesus' life and death (such as The Passion of the Christ and The Last Temptation of Christ). It's mainly focused on a group of talking animals (a cow, rooster, pig, horse, donkey, and mouse respectively) trying to save Judah the baby lamb who's about to get sacrificed for peoples' sins on Good Friday. However, Jesus' Crucifixion is taken very seriously and tones down the comedic humor from some of the animals characters (Judah the Lamb, Jack the Donkey, Esmay the Cow, and Slink the Mouse are the most serious of the animal cast) leading up to Jesus' death. While the film does include Jesus getting whipping, alongside keeping the crown of thorns, and Jesus gets nailed on the cross. Besides the removal of blood and other graphic imagery, most of the violence during Jesus' crucifixion would either cut to the animals reactions or obscured (since most of the humans are only seen from the knees down). The film does have a much happier ending when Judah finally meets Jesus (now resurrected) and thanks him for his sacrifice which occurs moments before Mary Magdalene, Salome, and Mary visit Jesus' tomb.
• My Little Pony: A New Generation is lighter than My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) in that in the former, the settings are friendlier, the stakes are lower, the loss of Equestria's magic keeps the Antagonist Abilities that were prevalent in FiM out of this film, and the heroes aren't constantly pursued.

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