Discussion Main / DisneyFication

In 'Borat 2', there is this cartoon. Full version of the cartoon here. Does it count as Disneyfication?

Edited by CH4S

Needs a self-consistent example writeup:

• Actually mostly subverted with Frozen, as the trailers made it look like it would do this to The Snow Queen. While the final film is almost completely different from the book, the only particularly dark element actually removed is the devil-troll and his evil mirror. Disney compensates by adding much more dark elements to the story than are in the original tale: the film's protagonists are notably older than the ones in The Snow Queen and go through much deeper psychological turmoil than they did, especially Elsa.
  • But the trope is accurate here, too. The film is somewhat dark, what with Elsa and Anna's issues, but it removed some elements just because of how different it is: Gerda, the heroine of the original story, has to deal with her best friend suddenly becoming cruel and callous for no apparent reason. He disappears, and she goes off, entirely alone, hoping to find him. She doesn't get anything approaching a permanent ally until more than halfway through the story. On the way, she's kidnapped by a witch, threatened by violent robbers, and nearly freezes. There's also no explicit, conventional romance subplot, which they added and played around with in the movie.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman Hide / Show Replies

Just out of curiosity: who invented this term 'disneyfication'? Was it us?

And then everybody died. The end. Hide / Show Replies

Really looking at the Hunchback of Notre Dame it wasn't even an adaption of the novel a all. It was an adaption of the play that Victor Hugo himself wrote years later because HE HIMSELF agreed the original ending was too dark.

Harpie Siren: The Lion King is supposed to be an original story that has been influenced by Hamlet and has some shout outs in the plot. Hamlet wasn't the only influence, and the creators have said this. Therefor I'm cutting that example and leaving it here.

• The Lion King is pretty much Hamlet minus humans and themes about whether life is really worth living. The character of Hamlet/Simba is turned from a psychotic but intelligent man bent on revenge to an angsty lion who thinks he killed his father. The love interest Ophelia/Nala is turned from an egocentric bitch who blames everything on herself and whom Hamlet/Simba has a tormented relationship with to a strong female role model who's willing to tell our main character what's what. Let's also not forget that Simba lives and becomes king while Hamlet and the rest of the Danish court dies and makes Fortinbras the king(with the caveat that Hamlet approves of this as he is dying: "I do prophesy the election lights/On Fortinbras; he has my dying voice"). Hamlet's tortured relationship with Gertrude is axed. A more minor change is the nature of the graveyard scene. Not only is it moved from the end of the play to the beginning of the movie ,but the scene ceases to be black comedy. Many changes have been made that the only thing both movies/plays really resemble is the basic plot line.
  • In other words, it changes so much stuff that one has to wonder whether it really was supposed to be based on Hamlet at all to begin with?
  • It was: the directors and writers of the movie said so themselves.
  • To be fair, there's really no way they could have retained most of Hamlet for a Disney animation. Anyhow, I personally see more commonalities with Macbeth The Scottish Play (because the true heir goes into exile and then returns to defeat the usurper) and Richard III (Scar's cleverness and political abilities nicely parallel Richard III's — it's really not that hard to imagine Scar giving the "Now is the winter of our discontent" speech).
    • Now that you mention it, Scar's Villain Song ("Be Prepared") is set to hordes of goose-stepping hyenas, and then there was that Modern Dress film of Richard III set in a 1930s England where Richard is a fascist dictator...
  • While Hamlet was a definite influence, The Lion King is by no means supposed to be an actual adaptation of Hamlet. So listing the ways The Lion King strayed from Hamlet is rather beside the point.
    • Except that the similarities are way too strong to ignore. I swear Timon and Pumbaa are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and the Gravediggers.