Aida - the animated musical

[Jules]

Sure, it's a tragedy and they both die at the end. But it's also a happy ending in that they both find each other in another life.

I accidentally read that spoiler!

[blackcauldron85]

Yeah, there definitely should have been a spoiler alert...

[Prudence]

Again, what is the story about?

[SpringHeelJack]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aida_%28musical%29

[blackcauldron85]

They also worked on Aida, after the Lion King. A project that later got abandoned but did result into the musical version with the music by Elton John and Tim Rice.

Here's a picture with character designs from the canceled animated film:
http://animationarchive.net/Deleted%20M ... _large.jpg

[singerguy04]

I wonder who a lot of those characters were supposed to be lol.

[Super Aurora]

They also worked on Aida, after the Lion King. A project that later got abandoned but did result into the musical version with the music by Elton John and Tim Rice.

Here's a picture with character designs from the canceled animated film:
http://animationarchive.net/Deleted%20M ... _large.jpg

I can make out who most of these character are except that huge ass Mummy. Who the hell he suppose to be? Plus he's has very bad design. (no i'm not counting the animal sidekicks that are there.)

If people wanted a Black Princess, they could of used this one.

[robster16]

that is not actual concept art from the movie, as explained by the artist who made that piece, Ben Balistreri on his blog:

These Aida designs have been surfacing around as development art for a scraped Disney Feature production of Aida but it aint so. This was nothing more than a class assignment given out by Frank Terry when I was at Cal Arts back in 1996. (A couple of the characters were redrawn a few years later but the basic designs remained the same.) Frank brought in a newspaper clipping that Disney and Elton John were going to do an animated musical of Aida and our assignment was to create a line up of the main characters and give them all Disney style sidekicks. We then had the great Chen-Yi Chang come to evaluate the work which was pretty cool. In any case I posted them on my on-line portfolio and somehow they were mistaken for actual Disney development art.

source: http://benbalistreri.blogspot.com/2007/ ... isney.html

[SpringHeelJack]

Glad it's not... "Aida" as a stage musical was iffy enough. Granted, it might be improved by cutting down the songs as would happen in an animated feature.

[blackcauldron85]

Oh. This is the second time I posted something that I thought was legit and it's not. But, thanks for letting us know, Rob!

I want to see the real concept art, then...because at one point, Disney was considering making Aida an animated film...

[Mooky]

If people wanted a Black Princess, they could of used this one.

Funny you should mention that... By the way things are shaping up, it appears PatF will cover a few of Aida's aspects (race of characters, their personalities, and, to a certain degree, the love triangle), so maybe be it would be pointless to turn it into an animated feature now.

And speaking of music, has anyone here listened to Aida concept album (not the Broadway cast recording)? The songs sound much more, hm... cinematic. Especially "My Strongest Suit". I can already imagine it as something similar to "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" – upbeat, colorful and fun.

[SpringHeelJack]

I have both recordings. I too prefer the concept album because it's more of a pop album than a Broadway cast recording not-fully-successfully written in a pop idiom, and like you said "My Strongest Suit" particularly shines. I would still trim some of the fat either way. It's not a bad idea to adapt one of the original stage properties, it's really great synergy, but "Aida" has never been one of my favorites, and I'm more curious how they'd do the ending. I have a feeling Aida and Radames would end walking off into the Egyptian sunset with the blessing of Amneris rather than both being shut into a tomb.

[Mooky]

Yeah, I too don't see how they could possibly change the ending without stripping it off its poignancy. Unless they grow some balls and leave it as it is, because in its essence, it is a very Disney ending: true love conquers all, even death. But in that case they'd be left without a princess to whore out. Oh, choices, choices...

[Poody]

I still hope they'll make a movie version one day... preferably animated!

[Marky_198]

I think this would be a wonderful idea. It is an epic story and the musical has great music.

I think there is a way of animation in feature films that hasn't been done yet. I'm talking about the techniques used in "Paperman", with the painterly quality and structures, but then in color and taken to the next level. Using the best of both worlds. Making it visually stunning, without having that CGI computer look, like Tangled has.

Think of the backgrounds they can create with the pyramids and the rivers. And the character designs of princess Amneris, Captain Radames and Aida.

There are a lot of fun elements in this story, but it's also tragic. I love the idea of the "reincarnation miracle" element. That would work even better in an animated film than in the musical. They could show some magical scene after the burial where they embrace and turn into lights, lights that travel across space and time until they meet the "modern lovers" in the museum, in front of the Tomb of Aida.

This really could be a new animated musical for all ages again, and start a whole new era.

I do think they have to keep it edgy and mature, make it a visually and musically stunning journey, without too much slapstick jokes. A bit like Les Miserables, people love serious songs and sequences that touch them.

Can you imagine the opening scene in the museum when Amneris starts singing and then the scene changes into the ship blasting down the Nile when the story begins?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_XHTzc6lag

[DancingCrab]

I think Aida would be a great idea for an animated musical. The only bad part is they'd never make a 2+ hour long feature so they'd have to cut a lot of the great music. Look how much was cut from the live action Sweeney Todd and Les Miserables and those WERE over 2 hours in running time.

One musical that I think would work beautifully today would be FINIAN'S RAINBOW, which actually was almost a non-Disney animated film back in the 1950's. They had storyboarded and even recorded the music with the voices of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Lois Armstrong and members of the original Broadway cast, but unfortunately the film was shut down, and years later we got a humdrum live action version that just fell flat. I think with a script update and some plot changes it could still make a hilarious and poignant animated film today. The recent Broadway revival was a good starting place with taking out some of the more dated material, but a LOT of the show is incredibly relevant to today.

You can see some of the storyboards and read about it here: http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?p=2158

Others that I think would work better in animation than live action would be Lloyd Webber's Cats and Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

[Marky_198]

I think if a film is visually stunning and has a good story and music, it doesn't matter if it is 2,5 hours long.
It would be great if filmmakers started looking at ideas that are "out of the box".

Everybody said Walt Disney was crazy for making an animated feature film (Snow White). People wouldn't sit still. And in the end everybody sat still and was moved to tears.

I feel there are many types of filmmaking in animation that haven't been done yet. Certain types of painterly, mature animation, but also a sung-through musical, like Miss Saigon would be a great option. They could also make Aida sung-through. The possibilities of visual beauty and spectacle are endless.

All the animation films we see now have the same format and style and look like copies of what has been done before. Disney needs to be original again. Make the films longer, aim on all ages instead of just kids, create something new, maybe sung/composed through, different styles of animation, dare to be edgy.

And I agree, Finian's Rainbow would be a great option too.

[Prince Edward]

"Aida" sounds like an excellent source material for a Disney film! I hope we get to see them adapt it for a movie someday, and I hope we get to see a Disney version of "Ramayana" someday as well...

[RyGuy]

I loved Aida, but I think it would work better in live action. If animated, parents would be upset because it would go over their kids heads. And it's unlikely an animated movie would pull the same audience of adults that Les Mis pulled in (unfortunate, but probably true). The story of Aida isn't all that fantastical that animation would add much that live action couldn't (such as would be the case with CATS or Peter Pan).

At the end of the day, i think Disney would go with something that could be profitable and I think a 2.5 hour animated film is going to miss that mark from both directions - too long for kids and too "juvenile" for adults (because aside from fans, I don't think enough adults without kids go see animated films). Like it or not, Disney is a business - not a philanthropist - these days. They make films that they think will make them money, or at the very least will earn back costs, not stuff that is going to blow you away but not find mainstream popularity.

The appeal of Aida is the passion between Star-crossed lovers. There can be no happy ending, regardless of how badly we all want it. I think that builds through the songs. Cutting some of them to make the film fit the standard time frame for an animated film would cause that passion to fall flat - similar to cutting "If I Never Knew You" (I was much more devastated at Pocahontas and John Smith's separation after watching the 10th anniversary version where that song was reinserted).

While personally I'd be thrilled with an animated Aida, I think Disney fears the "more boring than Pocahontas" criticism (I think I read somewhere once that Pocahontas' disappointing performance was the reason the plugged was pulled on prior efforts to develop this as an animated feature).

If Disney did make this in live action, I hope Disney chooses talent over popular - ie, no Beyonce as Aida.

[Sotiris]

Dammit, Eisner!

“Disney likes to make things in a lot of different forms,” Linda laughed when she was asked about the animated version of Aida, which became a Broadway show instead with music by Elton John and Tim Rice. “It was meant to be animated. Actually it was Michael Eisner who decided that it should be a stage version instead. It doesn’t really fit in animation in my view.” She also talked about some story changes that she made to the classic tale for this version. “It was really interesting for me because if you know the story at all, these two women are fighting over a man and I wasn’t going to do that. So I took some license and these two women learn to care for each other very much because they’re both princesses and then there’s this one man that they both love, but it wasn’t exactly a traditional approach.”

Source: https://www.laughingplace.com/w/article ... ter-hours/