Favorite Disney Stories or Movies?

[Kali Eyad]

Dea Mariella

Try reading the fairy tales that all of their movies came from. Amazingly gory and fun! The little mermaid dying, the stepsisters being blind and crippled, Beauty not having sisters at all... much less evil ones, etc.

Your Beauty comment confuses me. I assumed you were referencing Beauty and the Beast... Which, in the real version, she does have sisters. Brothers, too. All the others were references to how the actual version went, did you just reverse your tactic and name what was missing out of the Disney version? Sorry, I'm just a die hard Beauty and the Beast fan.

Disney will always hold a special place in my heart with all the other stuff I loved as a kid, but I defenintely prefer reading the real versions (as well as various adaptaions of fairy tales) now. I mean, when I was 10 I didn't care if Pocahantos was accurate, I just liked singing "Just around the riverbend."

Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid were my favorites.

I still watch my Disney movies once in a while. My question is, what's with the "Disney Vault"? Apparently they put movies away for twenty years and then release them again. What the hell is that? I've also heard it's 10 years... I don't know what's accurate. Either way it's a huge pain in the butt.  

[Annikaya]

The Disney vault is a marketing strategy so that they don't glut the market. If Cinderella was on sale for the last 20 years, only a few copies would be sold in a year. Stores wouldn't want to waste the shelf space on a movie that isn't going to sell. However, if Disney doesn't waste the money to make it for 5 or 10 years, when it comes out again, it's rare and more people are waiting to buy it. It's a case of supply and demand. Although, it is annoying when you've been waiting for a copy of Cinderella for the last ten years. I know a teacher who wanted to show it in her classroom every year and would scour garage sales for a copy but it still took her a good four years to find someone selling it.  

[Jasmine Snape]

My favorite Disney story of all time is Robin Hood. In fact it's not just the Disney version that captures my attention; I'm very much a fan of all things Robin Hood. The story is so incredible in it's own way that I just crave reading anything that has to do with it.
Robin Hood is a wonderful story. There are versions upon versions of it and although not all of them are well done or well written, there are several different ones that are incredible. The original (I'll be honest when I say I don't think I've ever come across it... does anybody think they can direct me to the original Robin Hood?) I'm sure is good and wonderful and definately worth the read, but the tellings of it are also worth the read, in a lot of cases. Mostly the story is based on your interpretation of it. Stories change oftentimes with time because of the interpretations of the ones telling the story and the point they want to get across. They may change facts because they want to prove a different point. Isn't that what a lot of folktales have done? Older tales have not been written down until recently but can you imagine just how many times they have been changed throughout the years? Some of them have been changed several times and yet they are still breathtaking stories with a point. We need to remember that.
This comes to the point again, where you can't judge a book by it's cover. Disney created these movies and changed a lot of the actual plotline so that chldren could come to love and understand these movies like their parents do. Sure they do not hold the same amount of respect or truth to them as the older versions, but they are just children, you must remember. I think the changes can be good, for the children so that they can start to understand the classic stories and grow to love them. What I mean to say is that I think it can be a good thing to get children to appreciate the stories and grow to love them as we have.
I don't know.
That's just my opinion.  

[Annikaya]

I'm pretty sure in the original version of Robin Hood he dies at the end. It's hard to tell though because Robin Hood is really a set of short stories that were told orally for years before they were written down-sort of like King Arthur stories. That's why when you read about King Arthur, sometimes you'll find the same story told with a different knight as the main character, such as the story of the Loathly Lady. I can't direct anyone to some of the older Robin Hood stories though because I grew up on the modern ones and when I read that Robin died I got rather upset and tried my best to forget that version existed. Other than that, I remember Robin Hood being pretty similar in spirit to a lot of the movies out there. I know there definitely was the bow and arrow shooting competition that's in the Disney version in most of the older versions of the stories.  

[inadequate_angel]

I find most Disney stuff sexist and irritating.

But I do love Winnie The Pooh, although the original books were much better.