Simba3 wrote:By the way, I <strike>can't believe</strike> wholeheartedly agree with anyone who could pick The Lion King or Cinderella for worst Disney movie ever. <strike>It is one thing to think</strike> These films are highly overrated <strike>- but to say they are your least favorite seems like a bit of a stretch, when</strike> there are plenty of films whose quality are much <strike>poorer</strike> better. Just my opinion though...
Much better.
I love the fact that even though I've outlined my many and specific reasons for not liking
The Lion King, people (lots of people, not necessarily singling you out, Simba3!
) still say, "OMG, why why why??? You should like
The Lion King! It's so great!" As if five minutes of reading online pleadings to hump the film will change my feelings of 13 years. Besides, I never said it was the worst film, just my least favorite.
And I've softened a bit towards
Cinderella in recent months. Probably after seeing Hottie McHotHot aka Scarlett Johannson in those live-action pictures by Annie Leibowitz (sp?). And probably after watching the surprisingly thrilling
Cinderella III: A Twist in Time. So Cindy and her no-name prince have moved up a bit on my list, but only a couple notches. It's still nowhere near my top fifteen.
But my disdain for
The Lion King continues. While my fanboyish love for
The Black Cauldron and
Chicken Little flourishes.
Anyways, continuing with my least favorites. Right after
The Lion King comes a film that is definitely a love-it-or-hate-it one, it's held in such high regard by the company and a disturbingly large group of fans that I wonder if there's some type of subliminal messages in the film to make them fall over and love it. I'm talking, of course, about a film known as...
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
What's ironic is that when I was younger, I really loved parts of the film, mainly because I was brought up on the first two Sing-Along Songs VHS tapes:
Heigh-Ho, which included that and "The Silly Song" among its other musical offerings, and
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, which included "Whistle While You Work". Those sequences entranced me as a kid and I longed to actually see the film. Of course, since its last theatrical outing was 1987, and I didn't see my first theatrical film until 1992 (
Aladdin, which is and always will be my #1 favorite Disney film), our family had to wait for the 1994 VHS to come out for us to rent(and for us to illegally record it to a blank tape...yeah, bad Escapay!).
Anyway, come 1994, I had finally seen
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in full. And I was not as impressed as I hoped I'd be. Mainly the voice. It was always the voice that got to me. I had always read that Walt wanted a child's voice, someone that sounded young. He passed up on Deanna Durbin because her voice was too deep, too mature. And who'd he pick? A shrilly high-pitched breaks-glass one-octave-too-high-only-dogs-should-be-able-to-hear-it Adriana Caselotti. Big mistake. It turns what could have been at least a tolerable character into a downright annoying one. I didn't care at all for her at all, I hated how perky and happy she looked cleaning the castle steps or cleaning the house. I hated that she was so Stepford Wife-ish to the dwarfs, practically treating them as her children. I hated that she survived the trip through the enchanted forest (which is quite an impressive sequence in itself). All in all, I hated her character through and through and she was one of the biggest reasons why I rarely watch the film.
I think, though, that the main reason this film is my second least favorite after the tripe known as
The Lion King, is because it's been built up by plenty of people over the years as this awesome and wonderful fairy tale that will melt your heart and make you fall in love with Disney. But...it's not. It's simply the first film from Disney, and it made an impact 70 years ago, but that impact seems to have diminished in later years. Nowadays people only know the film by the barrage of Princess merchandise or by one song. It aged gracefully, but still doesn't quite shine as good as it used to. And it's fairly mediocre compared to the films that followed it.
Pinocchio and
Fantasia are such grand and epic films that when you size
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs up to it, it pales greatly.
It's just that...well, the film is best known as the first, the "one that started it all". But beyond a couple good songs and the incomparable dwarfs, there's not much else I feel it has going for it. And it's just...dull. If I ever do sit to watch the film, I know I'll simply skip to a few chapters and call it a day. I just could never sit through it all in one sitting without shifting around or glancing at my watch.
Coming soon, third least favorite film. But I'll make this a game. Which do you think it is?
Could it be
The Jungle Book?
Or maybe
Home on the Range?
What about
The Little Mermaid?
Then again, it might just be
The Rescuers...
Escapay
(and I also haven't read the book) I put it down because I didn't know if it was one I'd regret getting. Is it worth getting or not? 
