I know me and
Frankenollie got some of this out of the way before, but I'm anal and have to defend my favorite film in the official threads for it.
By the way I edited this twice to mention the mice's struggle and the vitality of them and other characters.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:I recently watched several scenes from both these movies again, and now I can whole-heartedly say that Sleeping Beauty is the superior movie. I previously viewed Beauty as merely style over substance, whereas Cinderella focuses on what really matters: story and characters. However, I now believe that not only does it have far superior visuals (I could honestly watch it with the sound off because it looks so immensely beautiful), but Beauty has the stronger substance too.
I say that's not true and Cinderella is the superior movie. And one big flaw I think you made is that you only are saying this after merely watching scenes of either film instead of watching both as wholes.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:Cinderella seems to be telling two stories: a tale about a neglected young woman wanting to escape the confines of her callous stepmother's home; and a tale about some mice who often end up in trouble with an evil cat, whereupon Tom & Jerry-esque hijinks ensue. These two tales don't really fit together, and whilst the animation of them is wonderful and hilarious (not to mention they're much more compelling than Cinderella himself), Lucifer and the mice are overall pointless characters clogging up the plot.
I already pointed out how Cinderella's mice are integral to the story and not pointless at all. They fit very well with Cinderella's story because they are her friends and in her same situation. It isn't two stories together, their story is her story, if she becomes free from her stepfamily and gets a better life, so too do they become free from Lucifer and have a better life. She helps them, and they help her. And as has been said, their struggle is a more action-packed reflection of what goes on with Cinderella and her stepmother, which adds to it. Them being more compelling than Cinderella herself is only an opinion, as the two are very different and Cinderella's warmth and sweetness is just a different kind of compelling than the mice and cat's humorousness.
I think Sleeping Beauty would be the actual mis-match of two stories, as is it the story of The fairies fighting Maleficent or the story of Aurora getting her dream prince and suffering a curse? However, even though those could be viewed that way with your own logic you used on Cinderella, I say that it's not two stories put together but one very well one except for when it gets to how imbalanced Aurora is portrayed. And she's not just McGuffin, it is a true imbalance. If she was a McGuffin she would be more like Cinderella's prince who is a true McGuffin. But instead, we get to spend time with Aurora and learn about her hopes, dreams, and worries. Essentially, Aurora becomes not a McGuffin but a side character while the fairies and Maleficent are also side characters. If Aurora was just given more screen time, dialogue, and a more endearing personality like Snow White, Cinderella, or Ariel, it would feel that the star of the film everyone thinks is the star is actually a good star.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:Prince Philip is a much more interesting and developed character than the lifeless Prince Charming; Stefan and Hubert are more likable than Cinderella's King; and Maleficent is a more entertaining and memorable villainess than Lady Tremaine.
Prince Charming is supposed to be a McGuffin and actually works as one. Prince Phillip in a way fails on what Prince Charming did because Prince Phillip was supposed to be a more exciting personality-filled prince and I'd say that like other said he just proved to be bland with more screentime as well as kind of a douchebag who doesn't seem care much for or listen to his horse, Aurora, or his father. Prince Charming works better as a symbol of romance and power. Stephan and Hubert are not more likeable than Cinderella's King. Perhaps Hubert's show of changing his mind for Phillip's sake and caring about Stephan sound like good actions on paper, but neither he nor Stephan have the vivacity and real character presence of Cinderella's King, which is the point people have made about Cinderella having more warmth, feeling, substance, and even better animation (as in not referring to the actual drawing and flowiness of the animation) than Sleeping Beauty. As for Lady Tremaine, I will admit I find Maleficent to be a greater more memorable presence, but only personally. There's no way Lady Tremaine could be any better than she was, and serves her film more perfectly than Maleficent, who should be a more competent villain. All in all, it means Lady Tremaine helps make Cinderella the superior movie.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:Nevertheless, Tremaine is an excellent villain and one of the best things about Cinderella, and there are some utterly great scenes in the latter: 'Sing Sweet Nightingale' is a wonderful song and Cinderella's reflection in the bubbles is animated marvelously; the stepsisters' destroying of Cinderella's dress is a suspenseful and striking sequence; and finally 'Bibbidi Bobbodi Boo' is a fantastic scene, and Verna Felton's portrayal makes the kindly Fairy Godmother rather memorable.
Yet despite this, Beauty has individual scenes that are about a thousand times better than Cinderella's: the initially enchanting and then rather suspenseful Christening sequence; the Fairies' hilarious preparations for Aurora's 16th birthday party; the haunting moments when Aurora is hypnotically led to a spinning wheel by Maleficent; and of course the thrilling climax.
I won't list all of the scenes I find particularly great or memorable for both films, but think about how these scenes you listed are not exactly about substance. It's more personal opinion about which you find to be more beautiful or more memorable, and I don't think many people really remember the christening or the fairies preparing the birthday party very well or fondly. If we must compare since you find Sleeping Beauty's a thousand times better, I would say that the fairies' gifts to a baby we don't really know or see is not as magical as Cinderella's fairy godmother making magic to make Cinderella's misery change to happiness right before Cinderella and her animal friends' eyes and hilarious reactions with a jaunty, warm, personality showing song. I don't think the fairies preparing for Rose's birthday is nearly as great as the mice all singing and banding together to very creatively and cutely prepare for Cinderella's ball. I don't think Aurora hypnotized up the stairs has as emotional a reaction as the way we care and fear when Cinderella's stepmother follows Cinderella up the stairs, and I don't think Prince Phillip's easy, big set piece climax is as suspenseful or full of clever, thrilling twists and turns as the mice getting the key to Cinderella and fighting Lucifer while her stepsisters could fit the slipper or the Duke could leave, plus we care more about Cinderella than either Prince Phillip or Aurora so it gets us more emotionally involved and gut-wrenched and I would even say we care more about the mice than the fairies with the mice's cuteness and amazing heroic acts. EDIT: And we see the mice have a harder, more struggling time which their strength and ingenuity overcomes and Cinderella must even think of a clever idea to help.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:Therefore, it seems pretty clear that Sleeping Beauty is twice the movie Cinderella is, in terms of both style and substance.
Therefore, it is clear to me that Cinderella is a better movie than Sleeping Beauty is in terms of its balance of still pretty beautiful style and substance.
Lazario wrote:I think you're making a bit of a stretch with that argument. These parallel situations are incidentally connected at best. Heroine helpers in Disney films typically have conflicts of their own and similar obstacles to overcome. Plus: they're mice. Almost every mouse in this kind of film, Disney or not, has cats to contend with.
Yes but Cinderella's mice are small and good, like her, while Lucifer is big and evil, like the stepmother. The mice wear Cinderella's bright clothes and help their heroine and the cat is an over-pampered dark yellow-eyed Satan-named creature. They reflect the main character and villain as well as their struggle. A Disney Family Museum site officially said they are meant to do so, and one person pointed out when Cinderella is in the stepmother's room, the bars of the window reflection on her make it look like she's trapped in a cage like Gus was earlier. And the mice are not incidentally connected, as I said there struggle and goals are Cinderella's struggles and goals, minus romance and power over a whole kingdom. The mice are like an extension of Cinderella and the cat is an extension of the stepmother, its her doing evil even to Cinderella’s little friends.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:You're right about how their is a necessity for sidekicks (like, as you said, Ariel's fish friends), but showing the mice listening to Cinderella in the morning, making a dress for the ball and getting the key for her would have been enough. In The Little Mermaid, you don't see Flounder getting into a conflict with a shark when Ariel isn't there. I agree that the mice are necessary, but the extent to which they were used was too much.
It's okay for side characters to do things while the main character isn’t there. In the film
Elizabeth the titular character is the star but the main people who help her or are against her get lots of time to themselves in discussing what they will do that ends up affecting her, and they had their own goals and arcs and endings. However, as you know I agree the time spent with the mice goes too far.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:Secondly, I don't understand why there has to be symbolism to show Cinderella and the stepmother's conflict when it's already pretty clear; there's no need to show this in a more action-packed way, and dullness can be averted if the mice appear more briefly in scenes with Cinderella.
It adds a level to the film, something to comment on and enhance what Cinderella and her stepmother are doing. It's just neat, thinking "Oh, Cinderella's getting treated like how the cat goes after the mouse! Her stepmother's playing cat and mouse with her!" Or “Wow the stepmother’s so evil she even goes after her little friends with her cat!” It also shows that even Cinderella’s animal friends must obey, fear, and go through the same oppression that Cinderella must. It just adds to the film in little ways.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:Prince Charming is nothing. He's just a blank, forgettable space that is never filled. He does nothing. He says barely anything. He doesn't even accompany the Grand Duke in searching for the Princess.
He's not "nothing". We can at least see that he has high standards when it comes to women, boredom and reluctance at his father's pressing, and he's rather romantic in his rushing to Cinderella and claiming he will only marry whoever fits her slipper, demanding his father let him do so. Also, he is like Cinderella in soft, not very active, and ruled by his father and having to obey him to a degree. And perhaps his father would allow him to put the slipper on every maiden himself, along with societal and upper class rules. Perhaps even as a way to get the prince to be with any girl as opposed to refusing a girl who didn't look like the one he remembered.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:As Lazario said, the King is simply a childish and short-tempered character who doesn't care about anyone but himself. As you yourself noticed, King Hubert does care about others (e.g. "What am I going to tell Stefan?" shows that he isn't entirely determined to stop Philip and the way he says it shows his compassion for his brother) and even though he's similar to the King in design, he is a genuinely caring and therefore likable character.
Well the King does care about grandchildren and does care about the Prince because he felt sad that he grew "farther and farther away" from him and he thinks the Prince will be able to fall in true love if he gives him all the possible choices from his kingdom. For Hubert, Phillip just leaves, and basically makes Hubert accept what he wants. I suppose he could have disowned his son afterward, but he looks more like a pushover than genuinely caring. Anyway, it does make him slightly likeable in the last few scenes, but most people really care about and like or at least remember Cinderella's King just because of how big and lively his personality and character are. He's funnier than Hubert ever is when they try to make him funny. EDIT: And it's not just the King who has more vitality, it's pretty much all the characters in Cinderella that have more liveliness than the ones in Sleeping Beauty, which is part of why the movie's considered better in terms of character, except for Maleficent and Prince Phillip in comparison to Lady Tremaine and Prince Charming...but I'd say the burning in Lady Tremaine's eyes is more powerful than Maleficent's tantrums.
Dr Frankenollie wrote:As I mentioned previously, Aurora is a macguffin. She's like the diamond necklace in a crime story or a kidnapped princess. Just because we don't entirely sympathize with her directly doesn't mean we don't sympathize with the Fairies, Stefan, et cetera. Admittedly, Tremaine's look of shock is more inherently satisfying, but Maleficent's death gives a sense of success and of completion.
You get a sense of success and completion along with more satisfactory and happy feeling when Lady Tremaine is defeated, and I don't think anyone during the fight with Maleficent is thinking or feeling much about how the poor fairies won't get their Rose if Phillip loses. I think most people just think "OH COOL DRAGON FIGHT!!!!" which is not much substance. They don't
just think that but you get my point. We really should care more about Aurora whether she’s a McGuffin or not so that we really care more during the fight and whole movie, too.
Big Disney Fan wrote:For some reason, I just think that "Sleeping Beauty" is better, if only because it's not quite as sad and tear-jerking as "Cinderella"
Is it because you just don't like sad movies? Pinocchio is so so sad!
Lazario wrote:If Disney were making such a good movie about a such a successful fairy tale pairing, why is the King for all his "I'm not getting any younger" tyrades so full of energy? He's not dying any time soon. And again, the extraordinary anger and desperation? How many Kings honestly have children when they're in their 20's? (Just look at Sleeping Beauty as a reference, Stefan is definitely pushing 55 and he has a brand new baby.) Cinderella's King is barely 50. I'm willing to stick my neck out make this statement definitively. For the behavior he exhibits, the argument that he MUST have the child produce him heirs "now or never" is severely flawed. And would require him to be far too mindful of an impending heart attack. Also much too progressive for this time period (both periods of the story's telling and the story's origin). He's a psychic? No, really, I'm going to have to have someone explain to me how this makes sense (just so you know I'm not the only one whose theory has holes in it).
The King has energy because he's a lively character, and it's a cartoon and a fairy tale and a lively old guy is hilarious. He is clearly older than King Stephan. He has white hair. His hair was black when the Prince was born, like Stephan's is even when Aurora's 16. The Prince definately looks at least 18, but could be in his very early 20's. Back then, you were supposed to marry and have kids young. Men would usually be older than the girls they married, and some people, including kings, would put it off. It actually looks like the King's problem is he put his marriage off too long because he has white hair when his son only looks about 8 or 10 in one painting. So his fear of not seeing grandchildren or an heir to the thron before he dies is warranted.
However, I really don't think he's thinking of his death or an heir to the throne much at all. I think he's just worried about the prince finding someone for himself soon ("It's high time he settled down!") and about not being lonley (he says he's lonely and wants the company of children). The paintings show how he loved his son and now his son is off doing things so he wants his son back home as well as children that will keep him company, perhaps until his death.
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I'll finally reply later today.
