DVDizzy Forum

What is the best looking hand drawn film from Disney in your opinion and what is the worst?

Best: Sleeping Beauty / Aladdin / The Lion King

Worst: The Sword in the Stone / The Jungle Book / The Fox and the Hound / The Black Cauldron (it's not Xerox as it absolutely works for 101 Dalmatians, there's just something unsightly about all those earthy color tones)

Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Bambi, Frozen, Hercules, Pocahontas, Pinocchio, Mulan.

Big Hero 6 is actually very pretty at times, between San Fransokyo and the portal at the end, a shame it's not attached to some better characters. Snow White also has a few scenes that are sumptuous--almost exclusively at the beginning of the film before the Dwarfs come in. The fact that it's really just the early parts makes it sort of a draw for me. Same with Sleeping Beauty. It is very beautiful, but I also find it cold and drab at times. Really only Maleficent's scenes shine (visually) for me.

Worst: The Rescuers, Robin Hood, The Aristocats -- Everything is so drab in these movies. It's not an ugly film as far as hand-drawn animation by any means, but I hate the CGI whales in Treasure Planet and a lot of the alien designs. And the film is very...brown. I hate the aesthetic of Altantis, Strange World, The Emperor's New Groove (aside from Yzma), and even Hunchback (the fingers on some of the characters, ugh). I'm not too crazy about Lilo & Stitch either although it's much better than those, the designs of several characters is off-putting in different ways (Pleakley, Jumba, Lilo). I also hate Tangled, I'm sorry. Rapunzel's Ariel-esque eyes look horrid in 3D, Gothel has always had a horrible design, Flynn's facial hair doesn't work for me in 3D either, and there's something about the grass and background characters that rubs me the wrong way (as far as visuals) in that movie. Maximus and Pascal are probably the best-looking of the characters in the film. With Flynn/Rapunzel, I don't really blame the designs outright so much as that they don't work in the medium for whatever reason, they look better in the TV series. There are some good moments though and Rapunzel's hair at least looks nice. Dinosaur, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons and Bolt are some others where the 3D animation is more often than not just... Repulsive.

Best: Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Cinderella (especially down to the clothes, architecture, and magic scenes, but I also love how they make realistic humans work), Beauty and the Beast (again, the clothes and architecture, but also the next CAPS film to use light and shading, and Belle and the Beast's designs are amazing, as is the actual animation for so many scenes), The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Alice in Wonderland.

EDIT: And Fantasia!

My opinion:

Best hand drawn:
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Pinocchio
Bambi
Cinderella
Lady and the Tramp
Sleeping Beauty

I have no worst hand drawn films.

I'd have to think a little on which are the worst, but when thinking of the Best Looking I think of Sleeping Beauty, Lady and the Tramp, Fantasia, and Bambi. Stylistically, those stick out to me but everything before the Xerox method (although it probably saved the studio) is not exactly my taste. I feel like the studios were in a different kind of mindset in the earlier years, and did their best work never minding the cost.

Of the newer Hand Drawn films The Lion King, Pocahontas, and Hunchback stand out. Really though I could probably make a case for anything Little Mermaid onward.

singerguy04 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 22, 2023 6:01 pm I'd have to think a little on which are the worst, but when thinking of the Best Looking I think of Sleeping Beauty, Lady and the Tramp, Fantasia, and Bambi. Stylistically, those stick out to me but everything before the Xerox method (although it probably saved the studio) is not exactly my taste. I feel like the studios were in a different kind of mindset in the earlier years, and did their best work never minding the cost.

Of the newer Hand Drawn films The Lion King, Pocahontas, and Hunchback stand out. Really though I could probably make a case for anything Little Mermaid onward.

Did you mean "after" the Xerox method and before The Little Mermaid? Also, thanks for saying Fantasia, I forgot that one!

The best looking I think is Sleeping Beauty. The backgrounds are beautiful, and the character designs work so well.

Other ones that I think are very good looking are Pinocchio, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Pocahontas, Beauty and the Beast, Fantasia, Snow White, Aladdin, Lady and the Tramp.

LOL, I did mean "after" Disney Duster. Thank you! I was having a lot of thoughts. Everything that came from when the Xerox method was introduced is due to it's nature... "dirtier". Not to say there aren't some diamonds in the rough, 101 Dalmatians is a great movie! I just sometimes try to imagine those films in an earlier style. Can you imagine something like an Aristocats animated like Lady and the Tramp? Or Robin Hood like Peter Pan?

I know some of the problems with Xerox were eliminated by Little Mermaid, but in my opinion animators were not really going for classic "beauty" until then. Probably because it was a fairy tale. That's not to say I don't find some moments beautiful from the dark ages. Thematically it wasn't what they were going for. An example can be The Black Cauldron. There's some really detailed and gorgeous backgrounds in that film despite being so darkly themed. I think after Little Mermaid's massive success, it give more leverage to the artistic side to make the calls so we got more beautiful films as a result.