#wsd watches aladdin

[writesailingdreams]

Month Summary

What I wrote (more thoughts than essays or meta)

Ralph Breaks the Internet | companion movie? | glitching

DT 2017: 2x04 | 2x05 | singing “The Three Caballeros” 

Mary Blair styled The Snow Queen

What does Aladdin mean?

Replies

reply to @thesexydancingcrepe

reply to @quietanarchist‘s answer 

[writesailingdreams]

When Aladdin says that he has servants who go to the marketplace for him and servants who go for those servants, does he mean Agrabah’s marketplace—so as to explain why Jasmine couldn’t have seen him in the Agrabahian marketplace, which is how I always interrpreted it—or the marketplace of wherever Prince Ali’s from?

[writesailingdreams]

Aladdin thoughts

So, I watched Aladdin a little over a week ago and here’s some general thoughts:

When Jasmine learns that Aladdin as Prince Ali wasn’t beheaded, who does she think got beheaded?

Aladdin’s drooping feather is supposed to = when he’s lying but… he’s lying about dressing up as a commoner, not about being a Prince. Or Aladdin’s wish wasn’t granted.

Jafar is only shown talking to the Sultan in private sessions; no reason to think there aren’t other advisors, but it’s likely Jafar supersedes them and has political privilege over them

Wishing to be a Prince does not automatically mean Aladdin would be inauthentic to himself. That is, if he’s learned it’s okay to be himself, being a Prince would just be a means to work around the law. (I read it as: he means being inauthentic by breaking his promise to Genie.)

What is the ontology of genies? Jafar’s third wish implies genies are automatically or naturally enslaved.

Additionally, it’s because of that, that Aladdin’s ruse worked. It also worked because Jafar saw Al’s wish get reversed. (Yes, he did it himself, but it opened up the possibility that someone could undo his wishes if they got the lamp, ergo Genie is more powerful)

What is the ontology of the Cave of Wonders? Why create all that treasure for no one? What’s it there for? If no one can get in except the Diamond in the Rough, and if it’s likely that DiR won’t take any treasure, it can’t be temptation?

When Jafar’s around there’s more extreme measures for punishment, i.e. beheading. He “beheads” Aladdin in the movie and tries it again in the Return of the Jafar. Vs in The King of the Thieves, a nortorius criminal is only sentenced to life imprisonment. Is the hand-cutting vendor an expression of Jafar’s underhand ruling?

I wonder if the “free Genie = Genie without magic = human” derives from a reverse Jafar idea? (I’ve seen this at least once, and in another story, not Disney, the jinn of the lamp was original human. I think.)

[writesailingdreams]

Is it strange that I can see how Jasmine has a much stronger story? She has a definite problem that is specifically her problem: having to get married by her next birthday.

Whereas Aladdin is only pulled into his story because he met Jasmine and Jafar’s magical macguffins told him Aladdin was the Diamond in the Rough.

Is this because Aladdin’s original character is hard to “hero-up”? Like a boy who gets a magic lamp, without earning it, is harder to....make appealing as a lead?

I mean, I don’t think so, and there’re fairy tales with “lucky guy gets magical service.” Disney just took more of a clever route, rather than lucky. But that opens up disguises and tricks, which doesn’t fit with Disney’s often straightforward leads. (If Disney had wanted to go the trickster way, there’s precedent in the 1001 Nights for that.)

So, like Aladdin can’t be lucky and, if he’s tricky there’s got to be more to him. The Diamond in the Rough set up.

[writesailingdreams]

July: Month Summary

What I wrote

Gladstone vs Luck

The Suffering of Heroes

The Lackluster Use of Jasmine 

I don’t get the “dad” angle in KoT

watching Aladdin: x | x | x | x | x | x 

DT17: newest Ducktales… | It was also nice how...

Story Comparison of Rapunzel to Jasmine and Aladdin

DT7: Who is Gizmoduck?! | more thoughts | shout out to Huey 

Other

read “The Hound of Baskervilles” rendition

So I’m reading One Piece chapter 904...

I only know a bit about Fethry…

replies:

to monkey-li: response 1 | response 2

tresdem

[writesailingdreams]

Aladdin vs d’Aladdin

I noticed Aladdin follows certain plot points from the original tale:

Villain gets the lamp through a ruse

Princess has to pretend to be attracted to the villain

Aladdin has to use a ruse to save his life and defeat the villain (in the original this is a different villain)

[writesailingdreams]

I realized that of the people who see Aladdin post-Prince-wish, only Jasmine and Jafar don’t recognize him. But once Jasmine is in closer vicinity to him, she does a double take. Jafar literally sees Aladdin face to face twice and he still needs the lamp to recognize Aladdin.

What I’m saying is Jafar didn’t register Aladdin as a person, just the “ragged urchin” who happened to be the Diamond in the Rough; why would Jafar remember what he looked like?

[writesailingdreams]

Aladdin Masterlist

Aladdin Essay & Meta

Aladdin Fanfiction Recommendations

Watching Aladdin the Series

Aladdin Name Etymology

[writesailingdreams]

Hercules character thoughts (+ Aladdin additions)

<3 Herc character arc, but it’s choppy

Herc finds where he belongs (with Meg, i.e. the person who makes him feel weclomed to be himself - like Genie did for Aladdin) but does he grow? Does he change? Does he learn anything about himself? Is he braver, wiser, kinder, stronger, more authentic, more honest?

But how often do Disney leads experience that? How often do Ron and John leads? How often to male leads? How do wonder tales vs myths fit, if at all? (fairy tale clever hero doesn’t have to show he’s worthy vs hero with help does impossible deeds and “wins” happy ending (i.e. Ivan and the Firebird) vs hero learns a growing lesson (brave, kind, good, wise, honest, etc.))

That’s what Aladdin in my Dreams is for: growth and change.

I bet KoT’s influenced this: at the time Al and Herc meet, Al’s already become jaded from life like Meg, but his is because of his daughter/the experience that the ‘good’ side doesn’t always prevail.

Going off that a bit: to me, Aladdin is good in a “I want to be you” (showing wonder = writing). Herc is good in a “I love you!/I am you”

Furthermore, if my young mind went “I am Aladdin in play -- and not a clever and insecure guy but a wonder-show-er-adventuerer” then, since I really love Herc, Aladdin would love him as much as me. It’s a weird sort of logic.

(It makes a difference if I watch these movies really close together.)

[writesailingdreams]

I was checking the timing of plot points in Aladdin and Moana cause those two are the ones with easiest access and… my biggest thoughts while going through Aladdin were “god, I love his character” and “the animation is so *pretty*” while Moana was mostly, I’m going to cry about everything because it’s just too wonderful. And then I thought, maybe I should I think about why I feel that way.

[writesailingdreams]

“Only bad guys own parrots” - Anne

[writesailingdreams]

If I had a nickel for every time someone called a friend “you little genius, you” after besting a snake, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it’s happened twice.

[writesailingdreams]

This might sound weird, but I kind of wish the finale of Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure had been more like Aladdin and the King of Thieves, insofar as its approach to the main character went.

Namely, I would have liked more of an emotional struggle to be centered around Rapunzel instead of Cass. Instead, it felt, a little, like Rapunzel was an resolute flame. Full of belief. Inspiring and healing everyone & Corona. Boosting and caring for Cass at her low point.

I don’t know, it just felt like she was so...undaunted. And I know her hopeful positivity is part of her. But I would also have liked to see her...I don’t know. Have something to overcome? Beyond a revived ancient demon? Like there was a lot of external conflict but was there any internal conflict?

(I feel the original movie had internal conflict: her realizing Gothel had lied to her, her reaction to that, her attempts to save Eugene, her grief at failing to do so, and then joy that he somehow (to her at the time) revived. Like that’s a whole emotional roller coaster of internal emotions to external events. I didn’t get as much of that from the Series finale. Except it did copy some similar plot beats. Which, um, made me feel the story was trying to manipulate my feelings a certain way.)

[writesailingdreams]

Watched "Garden of Evil"

And it was hard to follow any causally connected plot. Especially before Arbutus officially shows up. Like in the span of Aladdin and co. guarding the treasure I thought:

Why was Aladdin & co. guarding the treasure? Aren’t there guards for that?

Does anyone else sleep in the palace other than Jasmine and the Sultan?

Why would a treasure room just be a pile of gold and stuff?

and most of all: the scenes didn't flow or connect - Iago is asleep, then grabs the key, then is asleep. Aladdin’s sword shifts sides and disappears between scenes. Genie’s costume changes. About the only character on team-guarding-the-treasure, who doesn’t change their appearance or status of alertness in a way that contradicts what was established seconds before is Carpet

And plotwise, how did Arbutus’ “La Belle et la Bête” style anger at his flower being plucked have anything to do with Jasmine realizing Arbutus “was just different”?

[writesailingdreams]

Insults and action

Prince Achmed’s first line after meeting Jasmine (that we hear) is “I’ve never been so insulted!”. So getting your butt bitten by a tiger is a worse insult than a street rat saying you have the rear-end of a horse. (Poor horse; no wonder the horse looks offended.)

I finally made the connection between the Mystic Blue Diamond and looking for the diamond in the rough; there’s a diamond connection, I guess.

Jasmine, in contrast to Aladdin, is mightily more proactive. She feels trapped, so she leaves. Aladdin continues his day like usual. Some of that is likely character and some of it is probably social station. Jasmine has the time and her basic necessities met to think and therefore follow through on her ideals. Aladdin is still trying to make ends meat with basic necessities like food. The best he can do right now is convince himself there’s a better future for him, even if he might not know how to get there.

[writesailingdreams]

I actually teared up when Aladdin freed Genie.

Aladdin’s face after Carpet is turned to threads.

Other thoughts:

compared to my other favorite Disney movies, Aladdin is the one that drags in places; I like it, I do, but it doesn’t always engage me as immersively as Moana or Hercules or PatF or even Lady and the Tramp

due to the class division in Agrabah, it makes sense that people wouldn’t recognize people. A few examples include: Rasul not recognizing Jasmine until she announces herself; why should he look at a street mouse? Jafar not recognizing Ali as Aladdin; why should he bother to remember what a street rat looked it? Jasmine not recognizing Ali as Aladdin; why should she bother to pay attention to a spoiled prince? It’s not until she notices his similariites to Aladdin that she starts nosing about for information.

When Aladdin makes the claim, truthfully, that Jafar tried to kill him, I wondered if Jasmine totally believed that, since to her, Jafar had already tried that.

The Sultan was not very good at, um, acknowledging corrupt activities. All he had to say about Jafar killing an innocent poor man was don’t do that again and let’s all shake hands and make up. Like, you might what to look into that Sultan. Again, I feel it shows how disconnected the royalty are to commoners.

I noticed that Jasmine has a much, um, stronger story? Like she has a problem, she does something about it, that results in a negative result, then she has another problem which, as far as she knows, turns out to be positive (Ali is the boy from the marketplace). In contrast, Aladdin doesn’t really have any problems until after “A Whole New World.” I mean, sure, he goes to prison, obviously has self-worth issues, Jafar tries to kill him, but there’s not a lot obstructing his progress. He gets the lamp, makes his wish, and, after being himself unknowingly, wins Jasmine’s trust.

What I think its striking is that everything that happens after Aladdin has reached his “best point” -- outing Jafar, winning Jasmine, becoming the future Sultan -- is directly a result of 1. his inability to keep his promise to Genie, 2. his lying to Jasmine, 3. his lack of self-worth...which amounts to the aftermath, with Jafar getting the lamp, et. al, being Aladdin’s fault, insofar as his non-actions caused it. Which he returns to fix.

I never know what to think of the whole-Jasmine-seduces-Jafar scene. On a general level it’s skeevy as heck, but it calls to mind the original story where the princess pretends she enamored with the sorcerer so she can drug him/poison him (so Aladdin can cut his head off.)

When Genie says Aladdin will always be a prince to him, what does he mean? Does he mean that Aladdin has a good heart and noble nature? That’s what I assume. And is that supposed to be what a prince, royally speaking is, but doesn’t seem to be, going on Jasmine’s intial reaction to Prince Ali?

Also, remember when I asked this? Well, I wonder if he’s nervous because Jasmine says “a prince like you” and he gets uncomfortable cause he’s not really a prince and ohmigosh what if she discovers I’m not a prince kinda feeling.

At the end, I thought it was worth noting that Jasmine has the line “a whole new life”. In what way is her life changing? Or better yet, in what way does she feel her life is changing? (or does she mean it’s a whole new life for both of them together?)

Finally, I was struck by how...open-ended Aladdin’s characterization was. Like he has a personality, but there’s a vagueness to it, in my mind, that makes him a more accessible template than other characters. There’s just something about.