DVDizzy Forum

Trumpet Joe wrote:Also, I get tired of hearing people complain that the comic relief in this movie was cumbersome. Without the gargoyles, all the little kids who saw this movie would turn out to be serial killers.

I hope by God you were being sarcastic.

Goliath wrote:

Trumpet Joe wrote:Also, I get tired of hearing people complain that the comic relief in this movie was cumbersome. Without the gargoyles, all the little kids who saw this movie would turn out to be serial killers.

I hope by God you were being sarcastic.

He might as well be. You don't see today's killers being reported as having had Video Game systems in their houses. And on-screen violence is not as enraging to many ppl as real life is.

Bebopgroove wrote:

Despite the changes from the original literary source material in order to ensure a G rating, the film does manage to address some rather mature themes such as lust, infanticide, religious hypocrisy, the concept of Hell, prejudice, and social injustice. It presents many themes concerning very serious and deep aspects of Christianity that are thought to be very complex and difficult to understand, especially to young children. Songs also contain rather mature lyrical content such as the words "licentious" or "strumpet" which introduce the concept of sexual indulgence. Additionally, it is also the first animated Disney film to use the word "damnation."

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I don't see what's wrong with all these things. It's great for children to see what real life is about. And villains do bad things all the time. But in this film there is a great balance between the good characters and the bad ones and it's a great learning experience.

Disney's Divinity wrote:

a-net-fan wrote:
LMAO. Its so hard for me to imagine that someone feels Pocahontas' and Hercules' animation style was better then Hunchbacks. Sure it is all a matter of personal taste but........ I cant help but think of Pocahontas and her un-detailed facial features (esp that nose of hers) and all the amazing character animation in Hunchback. Hunchbacks animation is a TRUE work of art in motion.

Pocahontas is Native American--her facial features are very different than John Smith's in the same film, so I think there was a specific reason she looked that way. Sorry you missed it. And you didn't say anything for why Hercules was inferior to you, so I'm left thinking you couldn't think of a reason...?

Im not saying that the animation in either Pocahontas or Herculese is awful (aside from a few exceptions in places in Pocahontas), its just of a more traditional style. Hunchback is on a level of its own. It pushed the envelope in animation. Look at the detail of each character (face, hair, clothes, jewelry). Look at the backgrounds and the color variations. I have "The Art of" books of all three of these movies and when it comes to quality in animation and artwork.....Hunchback easily stands out as the better of the three.

I dislike movies with bad songs and this is one of them.

yukitora wrote:I dislike movies with bad songs and this is one of them.

Well, this is also a matter of taste! I think there were quite a lot of good songs.

BelleGirl wrote:

yukitora wrote:I dislike movies with bad songs and this is one of them.

Well, this is also a matter of taste! I think there were quite a lot of good songs.

I like the songs, even though they're not memorable. The score is better, IMO.

I'm still hoping for a good two-disc special edition of THOND
Including:

- A decent 'making of' (not with that cheesy presentation by Jason Alexander I have on a separate video)
- Featurette on the music
- Behind the scenes
-Art Gallery
- If a music video is included, please do not let some Disney- teenager with a thin voice do the singing!
- A game that is a little more exiting and challenging than the "Topsy Turvy underground game".
- Selection of deleted scenes
- Character Design featurette

BelleGirl wrote:I'm still hoping for a good two-disc special edition of THOND
Including:


- A game that is a little more exiting and challenging than the "Topsy Turvy underground game".

The Topsy Turvy game was kinda fun. It wasn't supposed to bne challenging, it was supposed to be original.

BelleGirl wrote:I'm still hoping for a good two-disc special edition of THOND
Including:

- A decent 'making of' (not with that cheesy presentation by Jason Alexander I have on a separate video)
- Featurette on the music
- Behind the scenes
-Art Gallery
- If a music video is included, please do not let some Disney- teenager with a thin voice do the singing!
- A game that is a little more exiting and challenging than the "Topsy Turvy underground game".
- Selection of deleted scenes
- Character Design featurette

I like that! Though I think they should skip the game altogether and put in a music only track as an option to select before starting the movie like Tim Burton's Corpse Bride DVD has. That would be a great movie experience: no sound effects, no voices, just the score to listen to.

EDIT: Ever wondered what the Heaven's Light/Hellfire scene would sound like with just an instrumental playing? Watch this!
Heaven's Light/Hellfire Instrumental

Sky Syndrome wrote:

BelleGirl wrote:I'm still hoping for a good two-disc special edition of THOND
Including:

- A decent 'making of' (not with that cheesy presentation by Jason Alexander I have on a separate video)
- Featurette on the music
- Behind the scenes
-Art Gallery
- If a music video is included, please do not let some Disney- teenager with a thin voice do the singing!
- A game that is a little more exiting and challenging than the "Topsy Turvy underground game".
- Selection of deleted scenes
- Character Design featurette

I like that! Though I think they should skip the game altogether and put in a music only track as an option to select before starting the movie like Tim Burton's Corpse Bride DVD has. That would be a great movie experience: no sound effects, no voices, just the score to listen to.

Corpse Bride has a music track? I'm certain that was never on the HD DVD.

I like that! Though I think they should skip the game altogether and put in a music only track as an option to select before starting the movie like Tim Burton's Corpse Bride DVD has. That would be a great movie experience: no sound effects, no voices, just the score to listen to.

So that you can do your own Hunchback of Notre Dame karaoke thoughout the film?

Bebopgroove wrote:So is it possible that, should Disney ever re-release HoND, that it would be completely butchered?

I know that the Sing-Along Songs VHS tape had changed some lyrics in "Topsy-Turvy": from "It's the day the devil in us gets released/It's the day we mock the prig and shock the priest" to "Good is bad and best is worst and west is east/On the day we think the most of those with least"...I guess the Sing-Along Songs tapes are supposed to be more kid-friendly than the movies are...?

I mean, there are the "Hell"s and the "damnation", but they're not used vulgarly. They're literally talking about Hell!

KibrickFan wrote:First of all, it's already released on dvd, so the 'questionable stuff' is already out there.

Well, the priest hadn't yet been changed on the Limited Edition DVD of The Little Mermaid. Just saying...!

KubrickFan wrote:The only bit I can think of was the Esmeralda figure in the fire and smoke during 'Hellfire' who appeared 'nude'. It got redrawn.

This sounds almost familiar to me, but I don't remember. Are you saying that it got redrawn for the initial VHS release? Or it was redrawn prior to being released to theaters?

BelleGirl wrote:I do not hope some 'offensive' lyrics in any song will be changed -they did it with the dvd-release of Pocahontas in the song 'Savages''

Weren't the lyrics changed on the initial VHS tape, too?

toonaspie wrote:They shouldve rated this PG.

I dunno how they got away with a G rating.

I agree. I even agreed with that when I was 11 years old, watching it in the theater.

Trumpet Joe wrote:I think this movie worked well for what it was, but the cruel fact is this: there is NO WAY that the story can be adapted and be faithful to the original text, and that deeply saddens me.

Are you just a big fan of the novel, or are you saddened by Disney's other adaptations of literary works (like, for example, The Little Mermaid, whose ending was also changed from the original story)?

Disney's Divinity wrote:it mostly excels with its soundtrack

I love THOND's soundtrack. I've never been much interested in listening to scores on the soundtracks, but THOND has an amazing score.

Disney's Divinity wrote: Quasimodo also has a strange voice, though not necessarily a bad one. I just always pictured him as having a much lower, almost brutish voice.

Well, maybe Disney wanted Quasimodo to have a "nice" voice, so people will know that he's not as evil and people think he is. That young man has a lot of misconceptions about him floating around...people need to know that he really is nice!

DisneyJedi wrote:I don't really think they can do that, with Tony Jay dead, I dunno if it's possible to change any lyrics in that song.

For "The Morning Report" in The Lion King, they had some kid sing who didn't even sound like Jason Weaver...so I think that it is definitely possible for Disney to change lines. But I hope (I really, really hope) that they won't!

Goliath wrote:Because it is not 'worthy' of PG. There's nothing in there that's PG.

I think that people could argue that other aspects of Disney films would give those films a PG-rating today. (Heck, Lilo & Stitch is rated PG, and that's not even violent!!!) Would the violence in The Lion King have given it a PG rating if it were released in 2009? I think that there is quite a bit that is 'worthy' of getting a PG rating in THOND. Even just Frollo's attitude towards baby Quasimodo- he was going to kill an innocent baby because he's deformed. And, of course, the lust, the torturing of Quasimodo at the Festival of Fools, and even the Court of Miracles scene could be called "scary images" or something, and Paris burning could be "scary" or "violent"...

Goliath wrote:I think Frollo is the best Disney-villain ever, because he's so realistic. He's not evil for the sake of being evil; he doesn't even think what he's doing is bad; he's a fanatic who believes he's morally on the right side. Yet he also feels shame, guilt and sin and asks God for forgiveness. It's this kind of nuance that I haven't seen in any other Disney film.

In my opinion, Frollo isn't the best Disney villain ever, but I agree with everything else you wrote. He isn't trying to be mean for the sake of being mean...he's just very ignorant.

yukitora wrote:I dislike movies with bad songs and this is one of them.

There really isn't even one song in the movie that you like?!?!

I really like THOND. It's in my Top 10 DACs, I think, even though there are more than just 10 movies in my Top 10 DACs list. I really like the gargoyles, actually. I think that they're really funny. I love movies that can make me laugh and cry, and this movie definitely makes me do both.

KubrickFan wrote:The only bit I can think of was the Esmeralda figure in the fire and smoke during 'Hellfire' who appeared 'nude'. It got redrawn.

Does anyone have the image in question? If so, please share

This is always a hard film to discuss because you get the intellectuals who appreciate it's superior writing and score, and then you get the "shallows" as I call them, who want a silly little simple story where everyone goes off skipping into the sunset. As far as child appeal, I was 12 when the film came out and I appreciated its maturity. I was not turned off by its adult themes, but rather went back two more times. I was thrilled that they had kept up the more serious themes and tones that started with TLK and really got stronger with Pocahontas. I've been hoping for years now that it would get a re-release, but who knows? It's such an amazing feat artistically. It's been my favorite film of theirs since its premiere. Maybe the Broadway show, whenever they announce a premiere date, will prompt a DVD SE. Oh yeah...who ever said the score to this wasn't good, it beyond professional help. This is by FAR one of their best scores, lyrically and composition wise. Maybe it's a matter of taste, but one should at least be able to appreciate something even if it's not their cup of tea.

It was before it got released in theaters, and it had to be given a rating. So, I don't think there are any pictures of this.

And blackcauldron85, it's true the bit from The Little Mermaid was available earlier, but that dvd was only released a short amount of time. Also, it was letterboxed, so the quality wasn't that good.
With The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the dvd is still available, if you look good. And it's in much better quality. And it's not like they're going to make the best efforts for this film (a direct copy of the CAPS files would look amazing, in fact and that's not too difficult) the film simply isn't too popular enough to warrant that.

DARTH KNITE wrote:This is always a hard film to discuss because you get the intellectuals who appreciate it's superior writing and score, and then you get the "shallows" as I call them, who want a silly little simple story where everyone goes off skipping into the sunset.

Well, I don't care that the ending isn't a "Happy Ever After," it's just that I don't think this film had superior writing. It was kind of a mess, to be honest. As for score, I wouldn't really say it's superior, only that it suits what this film is and what it needs, just as the other scores suit their particular films. If I were to go on score alone, and not songs, I would say Pocahontas is Menken's best work.

Song-wise, I think Mermaid, B&tB, Aladdin, Hunchback and Hercules are all equally entertaining, with the songs filling the needs/points of their respective films near perfectly.

blackcauldron85 wrote:I think that people could argue that other aspects of Disney films would give those films a PG-rating today. [..] I think that there is quite a bit that is 'worthy' of getting a PG rating in THOND. Even just Frollo's attitude towards baby Quasimodo- he was going to kill an innocent baby because he's deformed. And, of course, the lust, the torturing of Quasimodo at the Festival of Fools, and even the Court of Miracles scene could be called "scary images" or something, and Paris burning could be "scary" or "violent"...

I can see your point, but, like you said, that would mean almost all Disney-films would have to be rated PG. Even the old Walt-era films. Maybe the dragon-fight scene in Sleeping Beauty is very upsetting for children? And what about Jungle Book, where for a moment we are lead to believe Shere Khan has killed Baloo?

Besides the fact that I believe the American rating system is absolutely worthless, I don't think it's good to shelter children from everything. A film may be a little exciting, as long as everything turns out for the best in the end. And with Disney, one can be sure of that.

Goliath wrote:

blackcauldron85 wrote:I think that people could argue that other aspects of Disney films would give those films a PG-rating today. [..] I think that there is quite a bit that is 'worthy' of getting a PG rating in THOND. Even just Frollo's attitude towards baby Quasimodo- he was going to kill an innocent baby because he's deformed. And, of course, the lust, the torturing of Quasimodo at the Festival of Fools, and even the Court of Miracles scene could be called "scary images" or something, and Paris burning could be "scary" or "violent"...

I can see your point, but, like you said, that would mean almost all Disney-films would have to be rated PG. Even the old Walt-era films. Maybe the dragon-fight scene in Sleeping Beauty is very upsetting for children? And what about Jungle Book, where for a moment we are lead to believe Shere Khan has killed Baloo?

Besides the fact that I believe the American rating system is absolutely worthless, I don't think it's good to shelter children from everything. A film may be a little exciting, as long as everything turns out for the best in the end. And with Disney, one can be sure of that.

I couldn't agree more. In fact, (this is a bit off topic), but to even further your belief in the MPAA system being "worthless", I suggest you check out this documentary feature called "This Film is Not Yet Rated". Heven't seen it, myself, but from what I hear, It makes the MPAA look like a complete laughing stock. It's not even the "association" we've come to think of it as. They're just a group of about 6 or 7 "parents, half of whom's kids are already grown up.

ajmrowland wrote:I couldn't agree more. In fact, (this is a bit off topic), but to even further your belief in the MPAA system being "worthless", I suggest you check out this documentary feature called "This Film is Not Yet Rated". Heven't seen it, myself, but from what I hear, It makes the MPAA look like a complete laughing stock. It's not even the "association" we've come to think of it as. They're just a group of about 6 or 7 "parents, half of whom's kids are already grown up.

Yes, I have seen that documentary! And that's why I hold this opinion about the MPAA! You should definitly watch it as soon as you get the chance.