Disney/Pixar In General

Mor'du?

As a slight flip on the premise: Which died in the most undignified manner?

Shere Khan had a stick of fire tied to his tail.

(Though he lived if you count the sequel.)

Scar, maybe?

Gaston?

I would argue that the most dignified end for a Disney villain would be that of every villain in Pinocchio - because they get away with everything they do, leaving their dignity intact.

They just get away, they don't die...but that's one half of having a dignified death.

The most undignified would probably be the Queen from Snow White. Getting eaten by birds, after all, is not very dignified.

In that case, the most undignified ever would be Hopper from A Bug's Life.

edited 6th Feb '16 5:31:04 AM by DrDougsh

Villains and dignity is overrated. As Roald Dahl put it: "the more nasty a villain is, the more fun it'll be to watch them get scrunched."

Well, the Coachman - mostly because he got away, so he excited as a winner (all villains from Pinocchio, really). But still dignified in death - Maleficent, considering how terrifying she in until the very end. She nearly manages to pull Phillip down while dying. Ursula has the best last line, though.

Imo, most undignified is probably Syndrome, at least among villains who actually died. Thanks to his own hubris he got humiliated repeatedly before getting sucked into a jet turbine because he had to go for the flashiest costume he could.

edited 6th Feb '16 12:08:48 PM by KnownUnknown

I don't know...there is Scar who gets killed by his own henchmen, Clayton who manages to hang himself, Jafar who allows Aladdin to trick him - there are a number of undignified ends for villains. (though the ones which survive tend to get humiliated the worst).

Ratcliffe actually had it better off after his defeat in Pochontas. He convinced the King that John Smith's group was lying and got all the power he wanted.

Undignified Disney Death?

Well, I always thought Hades getting dragged into oblivion by the very souls of the underworld after getting uppercutted by Hercules was pretty undiginified for him.

As awesome as it was for Hercules to dish out.

edited 6th Feb '16 2:44:02 PM by TargetmasterJoe

As far as undignified villain deaths in Disney, a dark horse candidate of mine would be Splatter Phoenix in Darkwing Duck. Who in her second appearance actually gets an onscreen death, by melting as she laments and complains. It was... well. It was a thing that happened.

A thought just came to me - and I feel like I can declare this a fact:

The only good non-Disney animated adaptations of stories that Disney has adapted are those that came out before Disney got their hands on them. After that, the only non-Disney animated adaptations of these stories that are produced are those made to fool nearsighted grandmas into thinking they're the Disney version.

In my experience, 9 out of 10 times this is true. Does anyone else feel like this is true?

edited 7th Feb '16 8:50:34 AM by Aldo930

Robin Hood is an exception, though. I actually like the Kevin Costner version far better than Disney's.

Eh, the Mel Brooks version was better. Mostly because he had an actual English accent.

That wasn't meant to fool nearsighted grandmas into thinking it was the Disney film, though, which is what I was on about... (And yes, even though the Mel Brooks take is one of his more marginal films, it's better.) And I have edited it to make the point clearer.

Corollary to the above - the above truism generally only works after 1989. Adaptations of stories Disney did before 1989 often are genuinely trying to adapt the story and not trying to fool nearsighted grandmas into thinking it is the Disney film.

edited 7th Feb '16 8:50:50 AM by Aldo930

The Mel Brooks version is more of a parody than an 'actual' adaptation, which is why I didn't count it.

Oh! Pretty much no adaptation of Hercules made after Disney's has tried to follow any of its beats. Even the animated DTV starring the Sorbo version and Xena tried to set itself apart from it, despite seemingly trying to ride on its hype wave at the time.

edited 7th Feb '16 9:07:38 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

An issue is that Disney films, especially classic Disney films, run into the same adaptation displacement that things like the Wizard of Oz does. Instead of adapting the material, later adaptations tend to try to capture what Disney did, often through trying to redo the spirit of the Disney film even when it clashes with the rest of what they're trying to do.

Although, I'd say Hook was a good movie (I don't know about a good adaptation, but it's a good movie) but that's not animated.

Concerning animated adaptations, it is hard to tell because there weren't that many animated movies before Disney got their hands on them. One thing for sure, there is a really good animated adaptation of Peter Pan, though it is a TV show, not a movie. There is also a good take on the Jungle book, though again, a TV show, not a movie. There are also a number of really good life action adaptations which were made after Disney's take on it - I could give you at least five great takes on Cinderella which were all made after the 1950s.

Disney certainly did influence how we expect animated fairy tale movies to be but, well, for example all the Barbie takes on the various fairy tales are very "Barbie", and they ARE animated. I wouldn't say that they are good takes, but they exist.

How to Train Your Dragon was an excellent movie that happened to be an adaptation. Shrek was also pretty good despite the pop cultural influence it would happen to have.

Well, some of these adaptations try to include stuff that was in the original to fool you into thinking they're not ripping off Disney. For example: there's a mockbuster version of Beauty And The Beast that includes the Beauty's two sisters you generally find in most Beauty-and-the-beast tales.

(Speaking of The Wizard Of Oz - despite the material being in the public domain, nobody outside of Japan has tried to do a new adaptation of it. The Judy Garland version is the only straight American adaptation. Weird, huh?)

Sure, Peter Pan And The Pirates was a good show, but what's the Jungle Book show?

edited 7th Feb '16 9:24:20 AM by Aldo930