Which country would you like to see the next Disney movie set in?

Your other points are good, but this one's kind of out of left field. I don't think there are enough Hellenic Pagans in the U.S. to make this an actual concern.

I suspect they specifically wanted to avoid another Evil Stepmother, actually. By the time of their Renaissance, Disney had a reputation for always making their "good" female characters innocent and artless and casting powerful women in the role of villains. Notice that in the whole of The '90s, the villains were all male...and in Hercules in particular, the female romantic lead is cynical and snarky (and has had a boyfriend before...one of the very few Disney characters not to marry their first love).

That's an interesting point. Disney films are hip-deep in Parental Abandonment—orphans, half-orphans, and even a divorced family (Treasure Planet), but there's never any indication that the parents were never "properly" married (or, I guess, honorably mated in the case of animals). Sadly, I suspect Middle America is still too conservative for such a thing to go over well. Let's hope they never catch on to the underpinnings present in Lady And The Tramp!

I think the only heroic character explicitly born out of wedlock from a Disney-affiliated movie I remember is Linguini from Ratatouille, a revelation that I remember kind of shocking me for how unprecedented it was, despite my own background hardly being a conservative one (my own parents were never married). Oh, and I guess maybe Flynn from Tangled, going by his real last name.

Point is, the change in Hercules to Hera being his real mother doesn't serve to make Herc look any better (and if that was the intention, colour me insulted), but Zeus. However, they easily could have written Zeus as just not that great a guy and focused more on Herc's relationship with Amphitrion as his "real" father. The message that the people who raise you have more of a claim to being your parents than a biological parent who had nothing to do with you would actually be a nice one to send to real adopted children (one that they kind of touched on in Treasure Planet and ignored almost entirely in Tangled).

That's not really the topic of Tangled, though.

And concerning Hercules - I remember very well how much certain movies sharped the way I did see the world. That has nothing to do with religion and a lot with believe. I used to be terrified of strangers because of Pinocchio (not that I really believed that someone would turn me into a donkey, but that didn't lessen my fear). And the question what happens after you die is one without a clear cut answer. So, yes, I am concerned that Hercules might made children afraid of what happens after dead. I don't approve of the dead being portrayed as something dangerous and villainous in general. I think it is way better to portray it as some sort of neutral entity, a natural part of life.

I thought of a Disney movie that champions the people who raised you over the people who birthed you: Meet The Robinsons. Lewis was probably born out of wedlock too, since his birth mother was alone when she dropped him off at the orphanage.

(Actually, funny story about that...a friend of mine told me about a scathing review of the film written an adoption advocate. Apparently this person walked out of the cinema as soon as Lewis declared his intent to find his birth mother, assuming it would be just another "birth > upbringing" story. And the moral of the story, kids, is that you have to watch the whole movie before you can confidently declare what it's about and whether there are any Unfortunate Implications.)

No, that wasn't what Tangled was about, but it still has some pretty strong elements of Changeling Fantasy, in that all we see of Rapunzel's birth parents shows them to be perfectly noble and loving and tender (and, of course, royalty). It would be interesting to see some supplemental material where Rapunzel has to learn how to get along with her parents, since even if they've been waiting for her and love her, they're still essentially strangers.

Getting back to Hercules and its portrayal of the afterlife...I guess that's why it's important for parents to talk to their kids about things they see in movies. Because whether your Christian or atheist or Muslim or even Hellenic Pagan, you'll have the same interpretation: It's not really like that; that's just a cartoon.

Odd considering the director said he's an orphan and wanted this film to express a message about that better than movies before.

Wow, been almost a year since the last post in this thread!

I updated my list on page 12 with the setting for Big Hero 6. We have a South Pacific film upcoming in 2016 (Moana). Any ideas what setting they're using for Zootopia?

Now that I think about it, how many Disney films have taken place in North America (Canada US)? The only one I can think of right now is Pa TF. Most usually take place in Europe or other countries on the eastern hemisphere.

edited 24th Jan '15 5:11:24 PM by Teddy

I advocate for a movie in a third - world country. No joking this time, either - this is a subject that needs to be tackled involving said places. Disney could do a lot of good if they approach this just right.

Check my list on page 12 of this thread. There are actually quite a few that take place in the U.S., both continental and otherwise.

ah. Thank you.

I honestly don't think Disney could it. They'll screw it up somehow by making it too inaccurate or PC. Though, I could imagine a studio like Pixar or Blue skies doing it.

edited 24th Jan '15 5:25:33 PM by Teddy

It would be nice to see more Japan and South Korea in Disney things.

Also, was Frozen set in Finland? Or was it Sweden or Norway or somewhere? If not, it would be neat to see a sequel to Frozen set in Finland. Or another place in the North than Frozen was set.

Frozen is set in Norway, with a fair amount of Swedish cultural influences. About the only Finnish thing in it is the sauna.

big summer blowout.

Most of the Disney movies are not set at a particular place or time. They draw inspiration, but that's all.

The fairytales can be very "Once upon a time, in a faraway land" about setting, but I don't think you can say most of the Disney Animated Canon is like that. Where do you put the line between drawing influence from a given place and time and simply being set there? Do they have to name-drop the country in the movie for it to count? If so, does that mean Lady And The Tramp doesn't really take place in the United States ca. 1900?

Multiple-Choice Past in a literal sense. Those movies leave it open so you can try sticking it to more-or-less actual countries or assume they take place in an alternate fantasy universe that might or not be a shared one.

edited 25th Jan '15 7:58:17 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

Personally I think more nations need to start making their own animated features before we will see real representation of the whole world.

I'm seconding the third world thing though, too much US media dodges third world nations altogether.

How about a Disney movie about that Nigerian prince that sends everyone spam emails?

Kidding, mostly. I'd love to see one set in Africa that features people rather than animals though. There's more than enough folklore to draw from. Any country would be fine, fictionalized or otherwise.

edited 20th Jun '16 3:05:11 PM by Ozbourne

I think it's Dreamworks that's doing a CGI movie set in Australia. THAT'S the types of stories I been waiting to see in animated films for decades! We did get The Rescuers Down Under, but people barely remember that one.