Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney)
Jan. 8th, 2012 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaserI finally made time to watch this. Unlike Fox and the Hound, Pocahontas, and other Disney movies I've been rewatching, I think I liked it less on this viewing than I did when I originally saw it.
Minor complaints:
- I dislike anthropomorphized animals in "realistic" animated movies. Horses rolling their eyes at a joke told by their rider, a horse that looks evil when its rider does something nasty, a goat that understands political situations and knows just which man in the crowd to butt. My patience for this has grown less over time, so it probably didn't bother me as much the first time I saw this movie.
- This was a slightly bigger point. In the movie, the gypsies were brown skinned. Quasimodo's mother (and assumedly his father) were gypsies. Why in the world was he pale white?
- Things were way more heavy-handed than I recalled. Yeah, I know, kids movie and all, but still.
- I didn't like the ending. After the whole city turned on Quasimodo because he was ugly, suddenly they just accepted him in the end.
The music/songs were outstanding. A lot of the scenes were good fun.
I really liked the Clopin character a lot. The coloring, the shape of his face, the design, he's really interesting to look at, somehow the shape is really satisfying. (Link goes to fanart, but none of the screenshots I could find were crisp and sharp.)
I think at least part of why I like it less now is because I can see the truth in the fiction: The harm that religion can do. In big ways (the church going after the gypsies) and in smaller more personal ways (the very human nature "lust" being considered a sin, thus Frollo's issues).
Unfortunately this was another example of a movie where I very much noticed how slowly time seemed to be passing. It was only an hour and a half long, but it felt like it took five or six hours to watch the whole thing. This is strange as I mostly enjoyed it. It never hooked me, I never lost myself in it, but I wouldn't call it a bad movie.
Minor complaints:
- I dislike anthropomorphized animals in "realistic" animated movies. Horses rolling their eyes at a joke told by their rider, a horse that looks evil when its rider does something nasty, a goat that understands political situations and knows just which man in the crowd to butt. My patience for this has grown less over time, so it probably didn't bother me as much the first time I saw this movie.
- This was a slightly bigger point. In the movie, the gypsies were brown skinned. Quasimodo's mother (and assumedly his father) were gypsies. Why in the world was he pale white?
- Things were way more heavy-handed than I recalled. Yeah, I know, kids movie and all, but still.
- I didn't like the ending. After the whole city turned on Quasimodo because he was ugly, suddenly they just accepted him in the end.
The music/songs were outstanding. A lot of the scenes were good fun.
I really liked the Clopin character a lot. The coloring, the shape of his face, the design, he's really interesting to look at, somehow the shape is really satisfying. (Link goes to fanart, but none of the screenshots I could find were crisp and sharp.)
I think at least part of why I like it less now is because I can see the truth in the fiction: The harm that religion can do. In big ways (the church going after the gypsies) and in smaller more personal ways (the very human nature "lust" being considered a sin, thus Frollo's issues).
Unfortunately this was another example of a movie where I very much noticed how slowly time seemed to be passing. It was only an hour and a half long, but it felt like it took five or six hours to watch the whole thing. This is strange as I mostly enjoyed it. It never hooked me, I never lost myself in it, but I wouldn't call it a bad movie.
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no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 06:14 am (UTC)For shame Thistle. For shame.
I think disliking the anthropomorphism of animals is because it's mostly a kiddy thing. Soft of like a "Look how funny that was, even the horse realized it was funny!" sort of thing.
As for the skin colour thing, we could just go with that his father was of a fairer skinned group of Romani. Although I have a feeling it was more of a political choice. A lighter skinned main character could have been easier to identify with for white people and I imagine there would have been backlash over a darker skinned Quasimodo.
Even though the whole idea was to look past physical appearance and see what was underneath. The whole 'darker skinned character being repressed by white religious man' thing would have been an easily attackable target of bigger racial issues. Although that's just what the little niggling voice in the back of my head tells me.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 01:03 pm (UTC)Actually, just last year, I decided to see the original black and white. That was interesting.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 05:49 pm (UTC)It's definitely pretty dark for a children's film. Murder, infanticide, and ethnic cleansing? Lusty old men? Publicly burning people at the stake? Severe religious implications of all kinds, including the almost literal "smiting" of Frollo at the end? Yeah definitely a lot of not-kiddie themes there.
What annoyed me the most about it though is that it has one of the worst Disney Environment Retcons I've ever seen. I'm not even talking about how it's suddenly dark and stormy when bad things happen, I mean that business where they dump gallons of molten lead off the walls of Notre Dame, filling the streets with it like a damn waterfall.
Yet when everything's said and done, not only is it Magically Sunny again despite being so dismal earlier, but there's no sign of any of the catastrophic structural damage that would have resulted from that. Ignoring the fact that it probably would have set half the surrounding buildings on fire outright, the sort of damage to the people crowding around the base of the cathedral that you could expect from that looks more like the end of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Use your imagination.
Oh but wait. NEVERMIND GUYS, THE BADGUY'S DEAD. It's all good!
Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 09:13 pm (UTC)I watched the travesty once. I doubt I'll watch it again. Disney robbed Hunchback of its power.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 12:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 02:43 am (UTC)I think you're right about it being a political thing. Which makes me all :/
no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 02:49 am (UTC)I tried to read the book after seeing it, but it was just too hard for younger me to get through.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 02:52 am (UTC)That part was really well done and disturbed me a lot. Not the whole Hellfire song, but when he held her captive (arm twisted behind her) and he's whispering threats at her... then he's got his nose in her hair, smelling her. I went all ARG EWW EEK.
I mean that business where they dump gallons of molten lead off the walls of Notre Dame, filling the streets with it like a damn waterfall.
Yes! What in the world was that? I boggled.
The whole ending was such a let-down. I know it's a kids movie and all, but it could still have been better.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 08:06 pm (UTC)I really liked God Help The Outcasts a lot.
Especially about a minute in, when you learn the things that people are praying for. "I ask for love I can possess" especially -- Ick! Contrasting that to Esmeralda who says "I ask for nothing" and points out how everyone should be the children of god, not just some.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-15 12:12 am (UTC)And I mutter to myself, "deacon DEACON deacon" and nurse dark thoughts about how Victor Hugo was a lot meaner than this, but then, I think a lot about Hugo and his two-page-long, grammatically flawless sentences when I write a certain mean warlock.
IN CONCLUSION: ... stained glass!!!