Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: What are the best and worst movies from the Disney Animation Machine?

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-18-2010, 02:17 PM:

I have a friend who is blind to Disney doing anything not fabulous, so I am curious to everyone's opinions here. Lets hear your top 5 favorite Disney animated movies, and also your most hated/disappointing 5 Disney animated movies.

You can go back as many years as you like, but it MUST be animated. Anything with live action is not for this list. For example, Snow White, Lion King, Princess & the Frog and even that fabulous classic Home on the Range are all fair game. Hand drawn or cg is all fair game.

Lets exclude Pixar from this list since it wasn't actually from Disney, just released by them.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-18-2010, 08:01 PM:

Favs (in order):
-Aladdin
.
-Beauty and the Beast
.
.
.
.
-The Little Mermaid

Middle of the Road:
-The Lion King
.
.
.
- The Hunchback Of Notre Dame

Absolute Crap: (not in order)
Hercules
Mulan
Tarzan
Fantasia/2000
The Emperor's New Groove
Snow White
Cinderella
Fantasia
Sleeping Beauty
and everything else.

I realize that some of those are "classics", but they simply don't float my boat.

Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 07-18-2010, 08:26 PM:

Favorites:

Aladdin
Lion King
Sword and the Stone
Jungle Book
Dinosaur

Dislikes:

Snow White (cant stand her voice)
Pocahontas
Emperors New Groove
Hercules
Tarzan

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 07-18-2010, 08:29 PM:

Top 5:

1. Beauty and the Beast
2. Lady and the Tramp
3. The Jungle Book
4. Dumbo
5. Aladdin

Bottom 5

1. Hercules
2. Tarzan
3. Robin Hood
4. Fantasia 2000
5. The Rescuers Down Under

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-18-2010, 08:53 PM:

To me, most all were good. To start off with some favorites (which I ran and all were IB technicolor releases..)

"Sword in the Stone" -1962
"101 Dalmations" -1961
"Jungle Book" - 1966 (last animated feature by Walt himself)
"Song of the South" - 1946
"Lady and the Tramp" - 1956 (First Disney anim feature in CinemaScope)
"Sleeping Beauty" - 1958 (70mm release)

Worst

"Pocahontas" - 1994 (why did they make this one .. so unentertaining.. )

with "The Princess and the Frog" - it was good to see cel animation come back from "The Mouse Factory".

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-18-2010, 09:05 PM:

My favorites:

1. The Lion King
2. Aladdin
3. Beauty and the Beast
4. The Princess and the Frog
5. Bambi / Lady & the Tramp / One Hundred and One Dalmatians (tie)

I could probably insert many of the classics into #5 depending on what kind of mood I'm in at a given time, but those are my current favorites.

Least favorites:

1. Home on the Range (Thank heavens they resurrected the hand-drawn division, I would hate to see this piece of crap go down in history as the last hand-animated Disney movie)
2. A Goofy Movie
3. Chicken Little
4. Pocanhontas (except the music was good)
5. Mulan / The Emperor's New Groove (tie)

I liked "Tarzan" quite a bit and don't understand the hatred for it on this thread. The music in it was good, too -- it was nice to see Disney step away from the strictly-musical bag for animation.

I know there is a lot of love for "Dumbo" but I've never seen it.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-18-2010, 09:22 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
I know there is a lot of love for "Dumbo" but I've never seen it.

Here you've been in the business for all of these years and never have seen that 1941, 62 min mini-feature called "Dumbo"? Should be slapped for that..."lol"

Dang, that was definitely a family "tear jerker" in that one scene with Dumbo and his mother... (I ran it three times...)

This was made during the "Fantasia" production and right after "Pinocchio" (and the U.S. was gearing up for war if needed..).

Walt used a technique in this film called "Sonovox" to make the circus steam engine speak.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-18-2010, 09:24 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
I know there is a lot of love for "Dumbo" but I've never seen it.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 07-18-2010, 09:28 PM:

Top 10 - this list changes all the time depending on my mood [Wink]

1) Lion King
2) Lilo & Stitch
3) Hunchback of Notre Dame
4) Mulan
5) Dumbo
6) Beauty & The Beast
7) Aladdin
8) 101 Dalmatians
9) Tarzan
10) Hercules

Not my cup of tea, in no particular order.
-Atlantis
-Rescuers
-Black Cauldron
-Almost everything from DisneyToon Studios (Except A Goofy Movie, I think I must have been exactly the target age for that film when it came out, and to this day I still like it.)

Posted by Danny Yancey (Member # 5499) on 07-19-2010, 01:56 PM:

Can't list favorits as I worked for Disney and the animations studio. Ran the dailies every Tuesday morning for the animators back when they where doing Rescures down under, Mulan emperor and Roger rabbit and others up untill I retired in 05. Emperor stared out to be another prince and pauper storie with MM in South America an quite a lot completed film completed when they complely changed it. It looked real good. I took care of the camera that tranfered the drawings to the cells and the cameras and tables for making the film from the cells. It was a very interestering job. I ran the frist showing of Rescures and Little Mermaid at Disney MGM studio for the press release and VIPs in our Dailies theatre.

Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 07-20-2010, 08:02 AM:

Favourites (pre-1990s):

Alice in Wonderland
101 Dalmatians
The Rescuers
Lady and the Tramp
The Aristocats

After Mermaid and Lion King, I didn't care any more for new Disney movies (Hercules was an exception because it at least tried to break from the formula), and I couldn't stand another Randy Newman song without throwing up.

Dislikes:

The Little Mermaid
The Lion King
The Black Cauldron
The Sword in the Stone
The Great Mouse Detective

Special Cases

Disney did a number of feature-length films made up from shorter segments in the 10 to 22 minute range. I think this is a league of its own, so these are my favourites:

Fun and Fancy Free (1947)
Make Mine Music (1946)
Three Caballeros/Saludos Amigos (1943/45)
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad (1949)
Fantasia (original)

FANTASIA is most impressive technically, you can find in it anything that could be done with traditional cel animation. Nutcracker Suite, Night on Bald Mountain and Dance of the Hours are highlights of animation, no matter whether you like classic music or not. FANTASIA 2000 didn't do anything for me, even in 15/70 presentation, although the Firebird segment was done beautiful.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-20-2010, 02:31 PM:

I kind of liked Lilo & Stitch but I don't like Stitch the character. The Stitch-based attraction at Disney World (Stitch's Great Escape) is one of the worst things in the Magic Kingdom.

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 07-20-2010, 02:43 PM:

Stitch, like Donald Duck, sounded like he could have been cussing unintelligibly. I recall a character named "Gurgi" in the Black Cauldron who had a similar "speech defect."

Posted by Ian Parfrey (Member # 5122) on 07-20-2010, 04:05 PM:

Likes:

In order of preference-

Aladdin
Hercules
The Lion King
The Little Mermaid
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Beauty and the Beast
Snow White
Nightmare Before Christmas
Spirit of '43 (as an insight into WW2 propaganda)
Silly Symphony series inclusive

Dislike:
The Rescuers
The Rescuers Down Under
101 Dalmations
Aristocats
Lilo & Stitch
Chicken Little

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 07-20-2010, 08:18 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
The Stitch-based attraction at Disney World (Stitch's Great Escape) is one of the worst things in the Magic Kingdom.

That saddens me. The Extra-Terrorestrial Encounter that it replaced was one of the best things at the Magic Kingdom in my opinion. Sorry - not to hijack. Carry on.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 07-20-2010, 08:30 PM:

Extra-Terrorestrial? Is that a typo?

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 07-21-2010, 03:18 AM:

Nope.

Posted by Galen Murphy-Fahlgren (Member # 4535) on 07-21-2010, 11:06 AM:

I can't say how long it has been since I've seen an animated Disney movie, but I never had a great fondness for them. I suppose Aladdin is pretty good, but other than that, I just don't really care for them. I don't think it was a particularly good movie, but I do recall having a very visceral reaction to the Hunchback of Notre Dame as a child when my mother took us to see it, at the second run no doubt. So, in the sense that they serve as morality tales for children, they can be effective. I haven't persecuted and tormented a single hunchback since that day.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 07-21-2010, 01:31 PM:

quote: Mark J. Marshall
The Extra-Terrorestrial Encounter that it replaced was one of the best things at the Magic Kingdom

That was one of my favorites too. The page Mark links to above mentions Michael Eisner had it closed after previewing it. I was in "the business" then and we were told his instructions to the design team were "Make it scarier!" - and they did!

In the spirit of the thread I liked most of the mentioned films. A few I don't care for would include:

Lilo and Stitch
Beauty and the Beast
Hunchback of Notre Dame
Atlantis
Pocahontas