The Hunchback of Notre Dame Discussion

[Disney Duster]

Well, I guess the archdeacon saw Frollo was now going to change, since Frollo did change his mind about the drowning, and Frollo saw killing the gypsy as wrong?

[DisneyFan97]

I KNOW i am in the minorty, But i really like the three gargoyles. And i wish the renmake keeps them. But makes them imaiganry instead aand make nmmake their sense a bit less childsih and way less silly !

[DisneyFan97]

In Swedish Frollo is voiced by en opera singer Stefan Ljungqvist who also voiced Governor Ratcliffe in the villain of the prairie Disney and Ljungqvist went on to voice Jumba in all Lilo and Stitch Productions unit Leroy & Stitch

[DisneyFan97]

I miss Tony Jay

He hade a GREAT voice

[Disney's Divinity]

Yeah, Tony Jay was a big loss among Disney voice talent. That was made more apparent to me when Kingdom Hearts featured this film and they had to get a voice replacement for the character. They really paled in comparison.

[Disney Duster]

Yes he did!

[Sotiris]

“We got a call from Jeffrey Katzenburg like ‘You guys, you gotta drop what you’re doing. This project is gonna change your life.’ And that’s how we got Hunchback,” Gary Trousdale shared about how their next project began. “We were working on a project about humpback whales so we went from humpbacks to Hunchbacks,” Kirk Wise joked. “The biggest challenge for me was staying true to the tone and the spirit of the original novel. Honoring the versions that had come before it, and at the same time making it feel like a Disney animated feature. That was the challenge throughout the production. Fortunately, I think a lot of critics agreed. We managed to maintain true to the original source material. I think a lot of people were surprised.”

“We were kind of worried that, because this is such beloved literature in France… we’re trumping all over it with our big Disney boots,” Gary Trousdale shared about their concerns with going too far with the material. “We want to honor it, but it is a Disney cartoon, so it’s finding that balance. Ultimately, we heard that France really accepted it… they didn’t get upset with us for taking liberties.”

“I remember our research trip to Paris,” Kirk Wise reflected. “Me, Gary, and a whole team of artists basically crawled all over medieval Paris… and I remember part of that experience was sitting in Notre Dame cathedral and listening to an organ music recital… this organ, you could feel it in your chest, it gave me goosebumps.”

“It’s always fun to throw little details in that reward repeat viewings of the films and we knew going into the age of home video… that people would be watching these movies over and over,” Kirk Wise shared. “And it was never to put anything subversive in the films. It was always with a sense of fun. The chuckle someone might get seeing Belle walk through medieval Paris.” Gary added to that same shot from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. “That same scene also has the magic carpet and Pumba. Gary added one final Easter Egg that few people have spotted from Hunchback. “On the top of Notre Dame cathedral, in the last shot as the camera pulls away, the statues are Buzz and Woody. They’re very hard to see in the film.” Kirk Wise shared his limits on what he will and won't approve for Easter Eggs. “I think the limit for me is it needs to be a fun little touch, like a little bit of seasoning on a repeat viewing, but it can’t distract from the main movie.”

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

[Disney Duster]

That's such cool info! I'm glad they worried about the tone and spirit of the original and the movies that came before and wanted France to love it, and then they accepted it! I love that they put stuff in that they hope people will see on repeat viewings.

[Disney's Divinity]

I never knew about Buzz and Woody in-film reference before.

[DisneyFan97]

In Sweden the guy who voiced Quasimodo later went on to voice Squidward in the Swedish dub of Spongebob and also ddubbed Chris Rock in Doctoir Dolittle, He also took over the vopice of Sleepy for the Disaney Channel show 7D

[Jules]

Ok now I really need a screencap of gargoyle Woody and Buzz.

[Sotiris]

Disney’s ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame’ Directors Discuss Mandy Patinkin’s Disastrous Audition
https://collider.com/disney-hunchback-o ... meat-loaf/

[Disney Duster]

Haha, that was a funny story!

[Disney's Divinity]

Just the idea of Meatloaf as the hunchback of Notre Dame just makes me LOL. That audition was definitely an interesting read, although I haven't seen anything Patinkin's acted in to know him. Funnily enough, just a couple years later Patinkin starred as a different version of Quasimodo in a TV movie.

[DisneyFan09]

D23 Presents: Five Facts about The Hunchback of Notre Dame
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VxCnBjOxHw

Regarding how little attention Disney has been given Hunchback these last years (for obvious reasons), it`s nice to finally get something! Even Pocahontas (who also has been stuck with a dud-reputation) has been given more recognition by Disney and by the media.

[blackcauldron85]

Stephen Schwartz would literally go into the bell tower? People can literally just hang out in the bell tower (well, before the fire)?!?!?!? My mind is blown.

[Farerb]

[Sotiris]

New interviews with the filmmakers. Very interesting stuff. I learned many things about the film's production I wasn't aware of before.

‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ at 25: An Oral History of Disney’s Darkest Animated Classic
https://www.slashfilm.com/hunchback-of- ... l-history/

‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ at 25: ‘The Most R-Rated G You Will Ever See’
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/21/movi ... -dame.html

[blackcauldron85]

What a great interview- thanks so much for posting it, Sotiris!

We [had] to create the illusion of a throng of thousands of cheering people. To do it by hand would have been prohibitive, and look cheap.

I love the film- I just watched it a few nights ago- and while I understand that the crowd would have been prohibitive in hand-drawn animation, um...1995 technology doesn't make the crowds less cheap looking... every single time I watch the film I can't help but notice how the crowds stand out... But like Toy Story, it was high-tech for the time so I can't hate on it or anything, and now it has kind of a '90s charm...

Hunchback is Alan’s best score. And that’s saying a lot, because he’s written a whole bunch of really good ones.

I agree.

How did Alan Menken NOT win awards for this score!?!

So if this film were made a year earlier, maybe Michael Jackson would have been on the soundtrack. Wow. I LOVE All-4-One's "Someday" so I am happy they did that song (on the US release, anyway).

The [MPAA] said, “When Frollo says ‘This burning desire is turning me to sin,’ we don’t like the word ‘sin.’” We can’t change the lyrics now. It’s all recorded. Kinda tough. “What if we just dip the volume of the word ‘sin’ and increase the sound effects?” They said, “Good.”

Wow. Whoa.

I knew I had gone too far when, one morning, we were sitting at the breakfast table and my daughter, who was two or three at the time, started singing the song and doing the mannerisms.

We learned that the difference between a G and PG is the loudness of a sniff.

That part is just so creepy.

“Ewww, he’s rubbing his boogers in her hair!”

I’m not sure we should have made the movie, in retrospect. I mean, it did well, Kirk and Gary did a beautiful job. The voices are beautiful. The songs are lovely, but I’m not sure we should have made the movie.

Well, it's Michael Eisner's favorite Disney film, so different strokes for different folks.

“I didn’t know you had a kid,” which is the worst line ever. But he pulls it off. He had good comic timing.

This line always makes me laugh!

“Just put on the old one. It’s still good!”

I like him.

[Disney's Divinity]

From the NY Times article:

Maybe it was the marketing, which presented “Hunchback” as a complete departure from the dark Victor Hugo novel on which it was based, reframing it as a carnival with the tagline “Join the party!”

This is all I remembered about the movie as a child. I remember coloring some of the coloring books at my grandmother's the afternoon after we saw it and feeling like all the colorful pictures didn't really feel like the film we'd seen. I think partly how they got away with "Hellfire" is that most children, like me back then, wouldn't even "get it" entirely. It was done in a tasteful way.

Hahn, Menken, Murphy, Trousdale and Wise all agreed there would be no chance of the film getting a G rating today — or even, Murphy suggested, being made at all.

The bolded--they're right about that. Disney doesn't really do adaptations at all anymore, whether the source is dark like Hunchback or not, which is disappointing. Making nothing but original stories is something carried over from PIXAR.

From the http://www.slashfilm.com article:

Kirk Wise: [Songwriters] Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty had a pitch called Song of the Sea, a loose retelling of the Orpheus myth with humpback whales. I thought it was very strong.

This sounds amazing! With humpback whales though? No weirder than a cow movie, I guess, but that still sounds odd.

I think it would've been great to have a film like Tarzan where Michael Jackson had been the performer of the songs. I think he could've pulled off "Someday" really well, actually. Not so sure about "God Help the Outcasts" or "Out There" though.

Paul Kandel: Tony Jay knocked that out of the park. He [was] an incredible guy. Very sweet. He was terrified to record “Hellfire.” He was at a couple of my sessions. He went, “Oh my God, what’s going to happen when it’s my turn? I don’t sing. I’m not a singer. I never pretended to be a singer.” I said, “Look, I’m not a singer. I’m an actor who figured out that they could hold a tune.”

Wow, he did incredible for not even having sung before this movie.

Kathy Zielinski: I listened to Tony sing “Hellfire” tons. I knew I had gone too far when, one morning, we were sitting at the breakfast table and my daughter, who was two or three at the time, started singing the song and doing the mannerisms. [laughs]

Kathy Zielinski: Brenda Chapman came up with that idea and the storyboard. I animated it. It’s interesting, because two females were responsible for that. That scene was problematic, so they had to cut it down. It used to be a lot longer.

It makes sense. It feels very real.

Will Finn: Katzenberg saw Meat Loaf and Cher playing Quasimodo and Esmeralda – more of a rock opera. He also wanted Leno, Letterman, and Arsenio as the gargoyles at one point.

OMG! I'm laughing, but I almost think Cher would've been better as Esmeralda.

Gaëtan Brizzi: Hunchback is poetic, because of its dark romanticism. We have tons of animated movies, but I think they all look alike because of the computer technique.

Yes.

Peter Schneider: What Disney did around this period [is] we stopped making musicals. I think that was probably a mistake on some level, but the animators were bored with it.

I agree, it was a mistake. Not every Disney film needs to be a musical, but there shouldn't have been a whole decade without one.