Reconstructing the Disney Animated Canon

I was watching "I can hold the distance" from Disney's Hercules, and, well, there was Zeus doing his Brian Blessed impression, and I thought of what the real myth of Hercules entailed and what sort of person Zeus was, and how to reconcile the two. What if Amphitryon and his wife were in fact unable to have a child, and only Zeus's miraculous seed could overcome that? What if neither of them was expecting it, and it came as a blessing? What if Hera's attitude to Herakles ("Hera's Glory", his birth name was Alcaeus, or maybe Alcides) was more complex than a Woman Scorned? Perhaps something Snape-ish?

How does one reconcile the extreme brutality and cynicism of the original myth with Disney's Broadway Muscial "keep it bright, keep it light, keep it gay" mentality, as well as maintaining an overall epic The Hero's Journey monomythic feel?

And, of course, same for the other works...

edited 22nd May '12 8:34:13 AM by TheHandle

Even if both parts agreed to do it (and maybe even less if both parts agree to it, because that's dirty and evil an immoral, you know), no way there will ever be an out of marriage affair in a Disney movie.

Edit: Oh, sorry, you meant it in fanfiction. For a moment I thought this was a Western Animation thread put in the wrong forum.

edited 22nd May '12 3:49:57 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

Original myth isn't any more brutal or cynical than any other myth. Hell, you want cynical You Can't Fight Fate just look at friggin Oedipus or Sisyphus. Heracles is actually pretty light and fluffy in comparison - massively strong guy who has a bit of a habit of going berserk and killing his family because Hera doesn't like him. Has to go into indentured servitude, accomplish ten fantastic labors, then Hera goes "lolnope that doesn't count" and he has to do two more.

Far as depressing goes, I always thought the story of Jason was the biggest downer. After all that, guy ends up dying alone.

Problem with doing any sort of combination with the Disney version is that pretty much none of this is in the Disney version. They just went and did their own completely different thing. Hell, they could've named the characters pretty much anything else and nobody'd notice the difference.

Well, think of it as a crossover between completely different universes.

Plus, there's nothing wrong with going and doing our completely different thing ourselves, basing ourselves only in the loosest sense on the myths and Disney.

Suppose we had Greek Mythology happen in the moden day, but not in a Fantasy Kitchen Sink. Rather, as an allegory, a theme, that replaces the sotries in their universal context.

For example, Ulysses's startup company is currently in the process of being hostile-OPA'd by the snooty, sadistic heir to one of the most vast banking empires of the world: truly a sea of money. However, Ulysses is able to exploit the one-dimensional way this kid has of the world to con him into cutting off his own access to the market's information brokers, and losing his reputation in the process. Then he takes advantage of that blindness to remove his assets from that kid's power through an unrelated sale that needed to be done very quickly because of his plummetting values. However, he is stupid enough to actually inform the rich brat about exactly how he screwed him over, and the brat asked his father to completely fuck up Ulysses' financial operations.

No-one wants to loan Ulysses money anymore, people keep deliberately messing with his values, and he embarks on a long, gruelling journey to obtain the trust funds and the holders that will help him reach home: financial safety, and that his product finally reach the public, who have been expecting it and shunning the competitors. However, by the time it's done, it's too late, the product is outdated and there's no place for it in the modren world.

Or something like that.

You mean kinda like how the Coen Bros. took The Odyssey and made O Brother Where Art Thou

edited 29th May '12 1:47:46 PM by Pannic

Probably. But with an actual Disney-Musical-Sounding-like-a-self-help-book attitude.