Best Disney movie of the 1950s?

[JeanGreyForever]

I love Cinderella's bangs, her whole hair! All I need them to do is pleat the front of her dress!

Aurora's bangs are the ones that were ruined. They got rid of her signature curl on the left (her left) bangs.

I know, right, that Ariel looks so much like...well, Ariel! Oh, and thank you!

I forgot that the bun is too modern for my taste as well. Her hair is better suited for Anastasia in her opera gown during the ballet scene. And aren't her skirts already pleated in the middle?

It bothers me in the redesign clipart but I don't notice it as much in the wig.

Agreed!

[JeanGreyForever]

It makes it easier to let the audience know that this is the villain because he looks inhuman and almost demonic. There's no in-universe explanation but a deleted scene reveals that originally Shan Yu's falcon (Hayabusa) had a special bond with Shan Yu. Shan Yu could see through the falcon's eyes so he did have at least one magical skill, besides being able to survive an avalanche.

Yes, a normal human couldn't have survived that avalanche. I bet that magical skill you mentioned he originally had is the reason of his look in the final film. It doesn't make sense, though, after removing that element given that in the final film he's supposedly a normal person. Of course, making him easily recognizable as the villain must also be one of the reasons. It's curious how they do the opposite nowadays with the surprise villains.

Yes, Return to Oz and Oz the Great and Powerful both did the same thing. Although it's a little weird in Oz the Great and Powerful because the characters are all clearly based on people that Oz already knew but unlike the other two films, he never "wakes up" at the end. He chooses to stay in Oz so technically that could suggest that he never left his dream. I've heard some people think this meant he died in the tornado.

It's kinda weird in Burton's AiW because Wonderland/Underland is clearly a real place and Alice only thought it was a dream. The Oz parallels don't exactly work there.

I haven't seen Oz the Great and Powerful since its release, so I didn't remember if that happened there as well or not. I guess it's a tradition now to have that element in a film about Oz.

From what I'm remember, they didn't make it completely clear it wasn't a dream in Tim Burton's film, but maybe I'm mistaken.

And the confusing thing is that all the Huns have the same appearance as him basically (the gray, undead skin and strange eyes). So is the implication that all of them have the same powers or does only Shan Yu have them? I do miss the days when villains like Jafar, Frollo, or Cruella were clearly identifiable by their appearances rather than this surprise villain twist. I wonder if the reason why Disney has stopped making great villains is because they fear controversy...they might not feel they can get away with a Maleficent who curses babies to death or a Cruella who would skin puppies or a Gaston who would harass women.

I haven't seen the film in a while but when she leaves Wonderland/Underland, it wasn't in the form of her waking up from a dream I think but her climbing out of the rabbit hole. And she treats the characters like real especially when she returns in the sequel and she's constantly skipping between the real world and Wonderland/Underland in the sequel. There's nothing about the characters being a dream, except for how the characters explain to Alice that when she first appeared in Underland (and called it Wonderland) as a girl, that's when she thought it was all a dream afterwards.

[D82]

And the confusing thing is that all the Huns have the same appearance as him basically (the gray, undead skin and strange eyes). So is the implication that all of them have the same powers or does only Shan Yu have them?

Yes, the other Huns have a similar skin color and their eyes are a bit yellow sometimes, but not black like Shan Yu's. By the way, I've found a possible explanation for the color of his eyes that wouldn't involve magic on Wiki:

Shan Yu's black eyes may be a procedure known as scleral tattooing, in which tattoo ink is injected into the whites of the eye. This procedure is traditionally done in certain cultures and is still sometimes practiced today.

I'm not sure if that would explain the yellowish iris, though. On that page, they also mention the deleted scene you told me about as another possibility.

I do miss the days when villains like Jafar, Frollo, or Cruella were clearly identifiable by their appearances rather than this surprise villain twist. I wonder if the reason why Disney has stopped making great villains is because they fear controversy...they might not feel they can get away with a Maleficent who curses babies to death or a Cruella who would skin puppies or a Gaston who would harass women.

It seems now everything has to be politically correct, so it's possible. I've also noticed that the latest trend is to redeem the villains at the end. I won't say the titles to not spoil anything, but I've seen it in three recent animated movies already.

I haven't seen the film in a while but when she leaves Wonderland/Underland, it wasn't in the form of her waking up from a dream I think but her climbing out of the rabbit hole. And she treats the characters like real especially when she returns in the sequel and she's constantly skipping between the real world and Wonderland/Underland in the sequel. There's nothing about the characters being a dream, except for how the characters explain to Alice that when she first appeared in Underland (and called it Wonderland) as a girl, that's when she thought it was all a dream afterwards.

I've checked it and you're right that in the first film she leaves Underland climbing out of the rabbit hole, but she could've fallen into the hole, hit her head and have dreamed everything. At the end, she sees a blue butterfly and thinks it's Absolem, but it could also be a regular butterfly. The only things that seem to indicate it's all real is that she says at the beginning that she always has the same dream and that she sees the white rabbit before falling into the hole, though I guess that could also have logical explanations like that she was suffering from hallucinations. So, I think they leave it a bit ambiguous after all.

In the sequel she just returns to the real world in the middle of the film once, when she wakes up in a mental institution and her mother tells her she was found in a room at the Ascot's behaving strangely. She escapes from there and returns to the same room where she goes through the mirror again and comes back to Underland. One possible clue in the sequel that the world of Underland could be real is that at the end she appears in the real world in the same outfit she was wearing in Underland. However, I don't know if that's proof enough. Maybe she just had that dress in real life too.

EDIT: I've found a couple of videos that talk about this. Here are the links, in case you're interested in knowing more:
Was Alice in Wonderland REALLY Just a Dream? (Wonderland: Part 1) [Theory]
The Mystery of Alice Through the Looking Glass! (Wonderland: Part 2) [Theory]

[Disney Duster]

I really love her hair JeanGreyForever, though I see how it is a lot like Anastasia's ballet night hair.

Guys...I think they are just using animation techniques to make the villain look...well, villainous.

[MrXemnas1992]

ALICE IN WONDERLAND GOT ZERO VOTES???

HERESY! HERESY I SAY!

[Disney Duster]

I forgot JeanGreyForever, I cannot tell if she has pleats in the front of her skirt or if it's just her gown folding in on itself.

[JeanGreyForever]

And the confusing thing is that all the Huns have the same appearance as him basically (the gray, undead skin and strange eyes). So is the implication that all of them have the same powers or does only Shan Yu have them?

Yes, the other Huns have a similar skin color and their eyes are a bit yellow sometimes, but not black like Shan Yu's. By the way, I've found a possible explanation for the color of his eyes that wouldn't involve magic on Wiki:

Shan Yu's black eyes may be a procedure known as scleral tattooing, in which tattoo ink is injected into the whites of the eye. This procedure is traditionally done in certain cultures and is still sometimes practiced today.

I'm not sure if that would explain the yellowish iris, though. On that page, they also mention the deleted scene you told me about as another possibility.

I do miss the days when villains like Jafar, Frollo, or Cruella were clearly identifiable by their appearances rather than this surprise villain twist. I wonder if the reason why Disney has stopped making great villains is because they fear controversy...they might not feel they can get away with a Maleficent who curses babies to death or a Cruella who would skin puppies or a Gaston who would harass women.

It seems now everything has to be politically correct, so it's possible. I've also noticed that the latest trend is to redeem the villains at the end. I won't say the titles to not spoil anything, but I've seen it in three recent animated movies already.

I haven't seen the film in a while but when she leaves Wonderland/Underland, it wasn't in the form of her waking up from a dream I think but her climbing out of the rabbit hole. And she treats the characters like real especially when she returns in the sequel and she's constantly skipping between the real world and Wonderland/Underland in the sequel. There's nothing about the characters being a dream, except for how the characters explain to Alice that when she first appeared in Underland (and called it Wonderland) as a girl, that's when she thought it was all a dream afterwards.

I've checked it and you're right that in the first film she leaves Underland climbing out of the rabbit hole, but she could've fallen into the hole, hit her head and have dreamed everything. At the end, she sees a blue butterfly and thinks it's Absolem, but it could also be a regular butterfly. The only things that seem to indicate it's all real is that she says at the beginning that she always has the same dream and that she sees the white rabbit before falling into the hole, though I guess that could also have logical explanations like that she was suffering from hallucinations. So, I think they leave it a bit ambiguous after all.

In the sequel she just returns to the real world in the middle of the film once, when she wakes up in a mental institution and her mother tells her she was found in a room at the Ascot's behaving strangely. She escapes from there and returns to the same room where she goes through the mirror again and comes back to Underland. One possible clue in the sequel that the world of Underland could be real is that at the end she appears in the real world in the same outfit she was wearing in Underland. However, I don't know if that's proof enough. Maybe she just had that dress in real life too.

EDIT: I've found a couple of videos that talk about this. Here are the links, in case you're interested in knowing more:
Was Alice in Wonderland REALLY Just a Dream? (Wonderland: Part 1) [Theory]
The Mystery of Alice Through the Looking Glass! (Wonderland: Part 2) [Theory]

Oh wow, I didn't know that was a real thing. That could very much be the explanation for the eyes of the Huns so thanks for searching that up. And it does seem like maybe the yellow eyes for Shan Yu specifically are a holdover from the deleted concept of his magical link with his falcon.

I can see that as well. I don't mind the idea of a villain being redeemed because in real life people usually aren't one-dimensionally good or evil. But I don't like how Disney has completely eradicated the classic Disney villain trope completely.

You're right, I guess it could still be ambiguous and my interpretation of it was that Alice was physically in Underland and it wasn't just a dream while others may see it differently. I don't remember Alice's outfit from the end of the sequel (I only remember that multicolored Chinese outfit). Thank you for those videos btw!

[JeanGreyForever]

ALICE IN WONDERLAND GOT ZERO VOTES???

HERESY! HERESY I SAY!

Apparently the poll is glitched so Cinderella got most of the votes by accident.

I really love her hair JeanGreyForever, though I see how it is a lot like Anastasia's ballet night hair.

Guys...I think they are just using animation techniques to make the villain look...well, villainous.

I'm surprised you really like her hair because when the redesigns came out, she got the most criticism for her hair.

And yes, that's the case in real life, but we were deliberating over if there was any historical precedent for the Huns or any people looking like that and it appears there is.

I forgot JeanGreyForever, I cannot tell if she has pleats in the front of her skirt or if it's just her gown folding in on itself.

It's pleats in the original dress so I just assumed it was the same case in the redesign dress but maybe not.

[Disney Duster]

I'm surprised you really like her hair because when the redesigns came out, she got the most criticism for her hair.

And yes, that's the case in real life, but we were deliberating over if there was any historical precedent for the Huns or any people looking like that and it appears there is.

It's pleats in the original dress so I just assumed it was the same case in the redesign dress but maybe not.

I liked her hair in the drawing but it's actually even better in the parks.

Oh, ok, well...I doubt the Huns really would look like that but maybe.

Well their are pleats in her original film dress of course, and then Disney did not pleat her parks dress except one time for a special stage show (I could be wrong, they could have pleated her dress other times but I don't remember/didn't see), but in her latest look, I can't tell if it's pleats in the front of her skirt or just natural folds like her entire skirt has.

[Disney's Divinity]

It seems now everything has to be politically correct, so it's possible. I've also noticed that the latest trend is to redeem the villains at the end. I won't say the titles to not spoil anything, but I've seen it in three recent animated movies already.

I've never really thought about it before, but, yes, I think political correctness or, rather, the fear of blowback for being politically incorrect in some way is where the lack of villains in PIXAR films emanated from. Of course, their absence in WDAS films is for the same reason, because Lasseter's influence infected the studio via PIXAR becoming a part of Disney. It's so easy to do something "wrong" now without meaning to, enraging someone or other. Come to think of it, so many villains can be labeled "problematic" these days by the sort of people who want to find something wrong with everything. Ursula and Cruella are misogynist, many villains can / have been labeled homophobic because of their mannerisms and/or racist because of the fact that evil is often depicted in dark colors in animated films. I suppose only white male aggressors like Gaston and Frollo can be villains without inciting an uproar now.

[JeanGreyForever]

I'm surprised you really like her hair because when the redesigns came out, she got the most criticism for her hair.

And yes, that's the case in real life, but we were deliberating over if there was any historical precedent for the Huns or any people looking like that and it appears there is.

It's pleats in the original dress so I just assumed it was the same case in the redesign dress but maybe not.

I liked her hair in the drawing but it's actually even better in the parks.

Oh, ok, well...I doubt the Huns really would look like that but maybe.

Well their are pleats in her original film dress of course, and then Disney did not pleat her parks dress except one time for a special stage show (I could be wrong, they could have pleated her dress other times but I don't remember/didn't see), but in her latest look, I can't tell if it's pleats in the front of her skirt or just natural folds like her entire skirt has.

For me they're about the same.

No, the real life Huns have almost nothing in common with what Mulan portrayed, so another mark against it for "historical accuracy." The movie Huns are more based on Mongolians but you can imagine that they aren't exactly fond if this portrayal.

Oh I see. I can't tell either then.

[Disney Duster]

Oh, yeah, that's true, making Huns look like Mongolians? What was Disney thinking?

Ok, yeah, so we can't tell lol.

[JeanGreyForever]

Now in the clipart for the redesign dress, to me it looks like the dark blue part of Cinderella's skirt is a top layer while the "pleated" middle is an underskirt. Do you think the Disney Parks dress is trying to replicate that?

[Disney Duster]

Definitely trying to imitate it but are not actually doing it.

[JeanGreyForever]

And it's funny because Cinderella's new parks outfit is the closest to the redesign out of all the princesses. Jasmine's outfit is completely different. Snow White's parks outfit is more movie accurate than the clipart. Aurora's is similar but it loses the length and volume of the dress, plus the pleats, and it's a much paler shade of pink. Belle's is something else entirely different from the clipart. Ariel's is similar but the color is aqua instead of sea green.

[Disney Duster]

Yes. Yes exactly to all of that!

[D82]

And it does seem like maybe the yellow eyes for Shan Yu specifically are a holdover from the deleted concept of his magical link with his falcon.

That's quite likely.

I don't mind the idea of a villain being redeemed because in real life people usually aren't one-dimensionally good or evil. But I don't like how Disney has completely eradicated the classic Disney villain trope completely.

I don't mind it either, but like you, I wish classic villains don't disappear completely. I would like a bit of variety in that regard: some movies with a classic villain, some with more than one, some with a surprise villain or a redeemed one, and some without any villain.

You're right, I guess it could still be ambiguous and my interpretation of it was that Alice was physically in Underland and it wasn't just a dream while others may see it differently. I don't remember Alice's outfit from the end of the sequel (I only remember that multicolored Chinese outfit).

I always prefer to believe the magical worlds and all that happens to the protagonists there is real too.

The outfit Alice has at the end of the sequel is this one: https://animationscreencaps.com/alice-l ... ?strip=all

It seems now everything has to be politically correct, so it's possible. I've also noticed that the latest trend is to redeem the villains at the end. I won't say the titles to not spoil anything, but I've seen it in three recent animated movies already.

I've never really thought about it before, but, yes, I think political correctness or, rather, the fear of blowback for being politically incorrect in some way is where the lack of villains in PIXAR films emanated from. Of course, their absence in WDAS films is for the same reason, because Lasseter's influence infected the studio via PIXAR becoming a part of Disney. It's so easy to do something "wrong" now without meaning to, enraging someone or other. Come to think of it, so many villains can be labeled "problematic" these days by the sort of people who want to find something wrong with everything. Ursula and Cruella are misogynist, many villains can / have been labeled homophobic because of their mannerisms and/or racist because of the fact that evil is often depicted in dark colors in animated films. I suppose only white male aggressors like Gaston and Frollo can be villains without inciting an uproar now.

I guess you're right that many old villains would be considered problematic now. I actually haven't really being worried about the lack of classic villains in animated films lately. I thought the surprise villains were just a fad and they would return. It wasn't until I watched all these films in which the villains are redeemed at the end that I started to think that maybe classic villains really are in "danger of extinction". In the past, villains didn't really need to have an excuse for being evil, later they started to give them a backstory, so maybe redeeming them is the next step. Though I guess people would get bored of the same ending over and over, so it must be just a trend after all.

[Disney Duster]

Lol political correctness is not the reason there are no villains, otherwise surprise villains and villains that get redeemed would still not exist. I mean what the heck are Lotso and Turbo?

[Disney's Divinity]

I guess you're right that many old villains would be considered problematic now. I actually haven't really being worried about the lack of classic villains in animated films lately. I thought the surprise villains were just a fad and they would return. It wasn't until I watched all these films in which the villains are redeemed at the end that I started to think that maybe classic villains really are in "danger of extinction". In the past, villains didn't really need to have an excuse for being evil, later they started to give them a backstory, so maybe redeeming them is the next step. Though I guess people would get bored of the same ending over and over, so it must be just a trend after all.

I'll give it the next few years with Lee in charge of WDAS. If things still haven't changed with Lasseter gone in regards to the villains, I don't expect they ever will. That's the reason I never liked Lasseter or the majority of the films he was a part of, because everything he put out felt sanded down to the lowest common denominator to reach the widest audience possible (in other words, to bring in as much money as possible). Everything's sanitized. Even their villain redemptions aren't as well-done as in, say, Kubo and the Two Strings or several Ghibli films.

For me, I like to have some backstory or dimension given to villains, but I still enjoy an old-fashioned villain (who dies at the end).

[JeanGreyForever]

I don't mind the idea of a villain being redeemed because in real life people usually aren't one-dimensionally good or evil. But I don't like how Disney has completely eradicated the classic Disney villain trope completely.

I don't mind it either, but like you, I wish classic villains don't disappear completely. I would like a bit of variety in that regard: some movies with a classic villain, some with more than one, some with a surprise villain or a redeemed one, and some without any villain.

You're right, I guess it could still be ambiguous and my interpretation of it was that Alice was physically in Underland and it wasn't just a dream while others may see it differently. I don't remember Alice's outfit from the end of the sequel (I only remember that multicolored Chinese outfit).

I always prefer to believe the magical worlds and all that happens to the protagonists there is real too.

The outfit Alice has at the end of the sequel is this one: https://animationscreencaps.com/alice-l ... ?strip=all

For example, there are some films in the 90s that could have used a surprise villain. Hercules could have used Hera as a surprise villain with Hades as the placebo (a bit like Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief which does the same thing while staying true to the mythology). And one could argue that Clayton and Gaston are sort of surprise villains.

I remembered sometime after I posted to you about that outfit. That one only did exist in Wonderland/Underland (she went into it wearing the Chinese one) so there's another sign it's real.

Lol political correctness is not the reason there are no villains, otherwise surprise villains and villains that get redeemed would still not exist. I mean what the heck are Lotso and Turbo?

I guess one issue is that it's been 8-10 years since we had those villains. Turbo is considered by some to be the last classic Disney villain because we're allowed to see him in all his evil glory unlike Bellwether or Hans. Others say it's Gothel.