Mickey the Merciful: Part One – Who Disney Saved

Some of their characters have surprisingly horrible ends, so Disney don't always shy away from including darker elements in their films. That said, there are still occasions when they can't compete with the originals, so I thought we could look at a different kind of death match: a morbidly curious list of characters Disney decided …

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs vs. Sneewittchen

Who would've thought that the story of a wicked queen, a princess, seven dwarfs and an apple could have kick-started the legacy of one of the biggest animation studios of all time? Nobody apparently, as not only did Walt Disney have to mortgage both his house and studio to finance the film, but pretty much …

The Fox and the Hound vs. The Fox and the Hound

It's rather apt that Disney's The Fox and the Hound and Daniel P. Mannix's The Fox and the Hound are about as compatible as, um, a real life fox and hound. Part of the reason was good old fashioned politics. To carry on the Disney legacy, many "new bloods" were hired to work with the …

Five Characters Disney Took to the Dark Side

Disney's recent acquisition of Lucasfilm (and subsequent demolition of Lucas Arts, boo!) has reminded me that they can be just as adept at ramping up the evil as covering their characters in glitter and rainbows. Not all of them started off on the side of Luke and Yoda, but here are five characters the House of …

Tangled vs. Rapunzel

Our first foray into CGI Disney, Tangled is based on the tale of Rapunzel, the girl with the long golden hair who uses it as a ladder to let people into her tower. Interestingly, the DVD box says the source text is "hilarious", which is a slight departure from the original claim of "inspires Nazism". Okay, that's an …

Disney Play Cupid: 7 Couples They Had to Clean Up

You'd be hard pushed to find a Disney film without a spot of romance, but is the same true of their original stories? The short answer is yes, but that doesn't mean that they have the same outcome, or that the romance was a good idea in the first place. Or that it even existed …

The Hunchback of Notre Dame vs. Notre-Dame de Paris

The 1996 film The Hunchback of Notre Dame saw Disney take more than a few risks with their storytelling. Featuring darker adult topics such as religious genocide and lust, it also toed the line with some pole dancing and the first openly gay Disney character (non-human, but it's a start). Since this left many people …

Tarzan vs. Tarzan of the Apes

Set in the early 20th Century, Disney’s Tarzan is the story of a man who is raised by apes in the wilds of Africa and  discovered by his own kind years later. Cue the “nature versus nurture” argument, identity crises on both sides, and lots of partial nudity. One of the most popular and famous …

Sleeping Beauty vs. Sole, Luna e Talia

Sleeping Beauty is based on the story of a princess who is put to sleep by an evil curse and awakened years later by a handsome prince. The tale of the laziest dating method ever may go back as far as 14th Century Spain, so as you can imagine, tracking down an appropriate source text …

Aladdin vs. Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp

Aladdin is based on one of the best known stories from the One Thousand and One Nights or Arabian Nights collection. It's the tale of a peasant boy who finds a magical oil lamp with a genie inside, who grants him pretty much anything he wishes. There are many variations of the story (thanks in …

The Jungle Book vs. The Jungle Books

Disney's The Jungle Book is inspired by Rudyard Kipling's novel The Jungle Books - specifically, the stories of Mowgli, a young boy raised by animals who must one day return to the man village. For anyone unfamiliar with the non-cake-related Mr. Kipling, he was considered to be one of England's finest writers and poets during …

The Little Mermaid vs. Den Lille Havfrue

The Little Mermaid is based on the Hans Christian Andersen tale of a mermaid who falls in love with a prince and becomes human. It marked the beginning of the Disney renaissance in the late 1980s, with the studio returning to what they did best: animated re-tellings of classic stories. Since you’d have a job …

Mulan vs. The Legend of Hua Mulan

Based on a legend from medieval China, Mulan is the story of a girl who disguises herself as a man and goes to war in place of her father. At the time of the film's release in 1998, it was widely rumoured that the Chinese government banned it because they were so insulted by Disney's …

Beauty and the Beast vs. La Belle et la Bête

Widely regarded as one of Disney's best films, Beauty and the Beast is based on a French fairy tale about a beautiful woman who falls in love with a beast. Fortunately, it was written in the goode olde dayes before the internet, so the message of "it's what's inside that counts" resonates more strongly than …

Disneyfied, or Disney tried?

(Formerly known as "Disney - the Dettol of Storytelling?") Like most people, I grew up with Disney films, and some of my favourite films have been made in their studios. However, they are notorious for sanitising many a fairy tale for more modern and family-friendly audiences. Out of curiosity, I am embarking on a literary …