W
e've been watching a lot of Disney movies recently (the classics, obviously), and just saw Aladdin for the first time in a very long while. It's fascinating going through movies that I knew inside and out as a child, but from such a different reference pane. I remember every scene very distinctly, and interesting emotional attachments stand out. I remember Princess Jasmine's tiger Raja being a much more important character than he actually is, for example. I remember feeling real shame and outrage at the indignity of the way that Jafar imprisoned and toyed with the Sultan, and horror at decadence of the palace after Jafar's takeover. I remember feeling like the Genie looked extremely naked with his bracelets removed when Aladdin frees him.
Aladdin is a very satisfying movie for a couple reasons, one of which was pointed out to me by a youtube video once. Compare the climax to that of The Little Mermaid. Prince Eric slays Ursula by ramming her with a ship. But it wasn't a part of Eric's character that he was an extremely skilful sailor, and there wasn't any buildup of some kind of ship-related weakness in Ursula -- it just happened, and it worked. But in Aladdin, his tricking of Jafar into becoming a Genie works perfectly -- the rules of the Genie are well-established, Jafar's lust for power clear, and Aladdin being a smooth-talking trickster has defined his character throughout the film. Thus everything comes to a head in a very satisfying close.
On this watch, I was also struck by the simplicity and effectiveness of the love story. Unlike, say, Beauty and the Beast, where we travel very quickly from mutual dislike to intense romantic love, in Aladdin, Jasmine and Aladdin have a mutual attraction almost immediately; they get out of a jam together using their own wits, then expose parts of their inner desires to one another, and are most of the way to being in love within the first act of the movie. The film transitions to being about honesty, and they have a brief "falling out" when Aladdin pretends to be Prince Ali, but are quickly "back in love" after resolving the tension. This just works -- most of the time, people are attracted to one another quickly, and it was nice to see this played in this direct way. I found myself believing Aladdin and Jasmine's romance in a way that I don't often get in animated movies.
Aladdin Quibble: if the Genie is actually out there granting real wishes, how come Aladdin didn't become a real prince? Multiple times, it's implied that he's just "pretending", such as when he doesn't have a kingdom to tell Jafar about, or at the end when there's a brief moment when it seems like Aladdin and Jasmine can't get married because he's not a real prince. But when Jafar wishes to become Sultan, he doesn't just look like the Sultan -- it seems that the title is stripped from Jasmine's father and bestowed on Jafar. Sure seems like Aladdin ought to really be Prince Ali. Fabulous he.