Psycho's Movie Reviews #394: Aladdin (1992)

Aladdin is a 1992 American animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film is the 31st Disney animated feature film and was the fourth produced during the Disney Renaissance. It was produced and directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, and is based on the Arabic folktale of the same name from the One Thousand and One Nights. The voice cast features Scott Weinger, Robin Williams, Linda Larkin, Jonathan Freeman, Frank Welker, Gilbert Gottfried, and Douglas Seale. The film follows the titular Aladdin, an Arabian street urchin, who finds a magic lamp containing a genie. He disguises himself as a wealthy prince and tries to impress the Sultan and his daughter, Princess Jasmine.

Lyricist Howard Ashman first pitched the idea, and the screenplay went through three drafts before then-Disney Studios president Jeffrey Katzenberg agreed to its production. The animators based their designs on the work of caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, and computers were used for both finishing the artwork and creating some animated elements. The musical score was written by Alan Menken and features six songs with lyrics written by both Ashman and Sir Tim Rice, who took over after Ashman's death.

Aladdin was released on November 11, 1992, to critical and commercial success, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1992 with an earning of over $504 million in worldwide box office revenue. Upon release, it became the first animated feature to reach the half-billion-dollar mark and was the highest-grossing animated film of all time until it was surpassed by The Lion King (1994).

Aladdin garnered two Academy Awards, as well as other accolades for its soundtrack, which had the first and only number from a Disney feature to earn a Grammy Award for Song of the Year, for the film's "A Whole New World", sung by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle. The film's home video VHS release also set a sales record and grossed about $500 million in the United States. Aladdin's success led to various derived works and other material inspired by the film, including two direct-to-video sequels, The Return of Jafar (1994) and Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996); an animated television series of the same name; and a Broadway adaptation. A live-action film adaptation directed by Guy Ritchie was released on May 24, 2019.

Plot

A merchant shows the viewers a lamp that is up for sale, and begins to tell a story.

Jafar, the Royal Vizier of the fictional city of Agrabah, seeks a lamp hidden within the Cave of Wonders. He is told that only one person is worthy to enter: "the diamond in the rough," whom Jafar later identifies as Aladdin, an Agrabah street urchin. Meanwhile, Princess Jasmine of Agrabah becomes upset that the law requires her to marry a prince instead of marrying for love. She escapes the palace, and meets Aladdin and his pet monkey, Abu, who save her from an angry merchant. The palace guards then capture Aladdin on Jafar's orders. Jasmine confronts Jafar to demand Aladdin's release, but he lies and says Aladdin has been executed.

Disguised as an aging man, Jafar frees Aladdin and Abu and brings them to the cave, ordering them to retrieve the lamp. After being told to touch nothing but the lamp, Aladdin finds a magic carpet inside, and obtains the lamp. Forgetting the cave's rule, Abu grabs a jewel. Aladdin, Abu, and the carpet rush to escape the cave as it collapses. Aladdin gives the lamp to Jafar, who throws him and Abu back into the cave, though not before Abu steals the lamp back. Trapped, Aladdin rubs the lamp and meets the Genie who lives inside it. The Genie grants Aladdin three wishes. Aladdin tricks the Genie into freeing them all from the cave without using a wish, then uses his first wish to become a prince to woo Jasmine, and promises to use his third wish to free the Genie from servitude.

Jafar's parrot Iago suggests that he plots to become Sultan by marrying Jasmine. Aladdin, as "Prince Ali Ababwa," arrives in Agrabah with a large host, but Jasmine becomes angry when he discusses her fate with her father, the Sultan, and Jafar without her. As a means of apologizing, Aladdin takes Jasmine on a ride on the magic carpet. When she deduces his true identity by mentioning Abu, he convinces her that he only dresses as a peasant to escape the stresses of royal life. After Aladdin brings Jasmine home, the palace guards capture Aladdin on Jafar's behest and throw him into the sea. The Genie appears and saves Aladdin, at the cost of his second wish. Aladdin returns to the palace and exposes Jafar's evil plot. Jafar flees after spotting the lamp and thus discovering Aladdin's true identity.

Fearing that he will lose Jasmine if the truth is revealed, Aladdin breaks his promise and refuses to free the Genie. Iago steals the lamp, and Jafar becomes the Genie's new master. He uses his first two wishes to become Sultan and the world's most powerful sorcerer. He then exposes Aladdin's identity, exiling him, Abu, and the carpet to a frozen wasteland, though they escape. Jasmine tries to help Aladdin steal the lamp back, but Jafar notices and overpowers the heroes with his magic. Aladdin taunts Jafar for being less powerful than the Genie, tricking Jafar into using his last wish to become an all-powerful genie himself. Now bound to his new lamp, Jafar ends up trapped inside it, taking Iago with him. The Genie then throws Jafar's lamp far into the desert, hoping to banish Jafar to the Cave of Wonders.

With Agrabah returned to normal, the Genie advises Aladdin to use his third wish to regain his royal title, so the law will allow him to stay with Jasmine. Aladdin instead decides to keep his promise, and frees the Genie. Realizing Aladdin's nobility, the Sultan changes the law to allow Jasmine to marry whom she chooses. The Genie bids the group a fond farewell and leaves to explore the world, while Aladdin and Jasmine start their new life together.

Production

Script and Development

In 1988, lyricist Howard Ashman pitched the idea of an animated musical adaptation of Aladdin. Ashman had written a 40-page film treatment remaining faithful to the plot and characters of the original story, but envisioned as a campy 1930s-style musical with a Cab Calloway/Fats Waller-like Genie. Along with partner Alan Menken, Ashman conceived several songs and added Aladdin's friends named Babkak, Omar, and Kasim to the story. However, the studio was dismissive of Ashman's treatment and removed the project from development. Ashman and Menken were later recruited to compose songs for Beauty and the Beast. Linda Woolverton, who had also worked on Beauty and the Beast, used their treatment and developed a draft with inspired elements from The Thief of Bagdad such as a villain named Jaf'far, an aged sidekick retired human thief named Abu, and a human handmaiden for the princess. Then, directors Ron Clements and John Musker joined the production, picking Aladdin out of three projects offered, which also included an adaptation of Swan Lake and King of the Jungle—that eventually became The Lion King. Before Ashman's death in March 1991, Ashman and Menken had composed "Prince Ali" and his last song, "Humiliate the Boy".

Musker and Clements wrote a draft of the screenplay, and then delivered a story reel to studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg in April 1991. Katzenberg thought the script "didn't engage", and on a day known by the staff as "Black Friday," demanded that the entire story be rewritten without rescheduling the film's November 25, 1992 release date. Among the changes Katzenberg requested from Clements and Musker were to not be dependent on Ashman's vision, and the removal of Aladdin's mother, remarking, "Eighty-six the mother. The mom's a zero." Katzenberg also influenced in changing the plot element about Jasmine's marriage, which originally had her required by law to be married by sixteen, to remove the age—the Sultan only says "your next birthday"—and make it more specific that her suitor needed to be a prince, which would also set up the ending where the Sultan, inspired by Aladdin's altruism, changes the law to make Jasmine able to marry anyone she deems worthy.

Screenwriting duo Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio were brought in to rework the story, and the changes they made included the removal of Aladdin's mother, the strengthening of the character of Princess Jasmine, and the deletion of several of the Ashman-Menken songs. Aladdin's personality was rewritten to be "a little rougher, like a young Harrison Ford," and the parrot Iago, originally conceived as an uptight British archetype, was reworked into a comic role after the filmmakers saw Gilbert Gottfried in Beverly Hills Cop II, who was then cast for the role. By October 1991, Katzenberg was satisfied with the new version of Aladdin. As with Woolverton's screenplay, several characters and plot elements were based on the 1940 version of The Thief of Bagdad, though the location of the film was changed from Baghdad to the fictional Arabian city of Agrabah.

Design and Animation

The design for most characters was based on the work of caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, which production designer Richard Vander Wende also considered appropriate to the theme, due to similarities to the flowing and swooping lines found in Arabic calligraphy. Jafar's design was not based on Hirschfeld's work because Jafar's supervising animator, Andreas Deja, wanted the character to be contrasting. Each character was animated alone, with the animators consulting each other to make scenes with interrelating characters. Since Aladdin's animator Glen Keane was working in the California branch of Walt Disney Feature Animation, and Jasmine's animator Mark Henn was in the Florida one at Disney-MGM Studios, they had to frequently phone, fax or send designs and discs to each other. The animators filmed monkeys at the San Francisco Zoo to study their movements for Abu's character. Iago's supervising animator Will Finn tried to incorporate some aspects of Gottfried's appearance into Iago's design, especially his semi-closed eyes and the always-appearing teeth. Some aspects of the Sultan were inspired by the Wizard of Oz, to create a bumbling authority figure. Andreas Deja, Jafar's supervising animator, tried to incorporate Jonathan Freeman's facial expressions and gesturing into the character. Animator Randy Cartwright described working on the Magic Carpet as challenging, since it is only a rectangular shape, that expresses itself through pantomime—"It's sort of like acting by origami". Cartwright kept folding a piece of cloth while animating to see how to position the Carpet. After the character animation was done, the carpet's surface design was applied digitally.

Designed by a team led by supervising animator Glen Keane, Aladdin was initially going to be as young as thirteen, and was originally made to resemble actor Michael J. Fox. During production, it was decided that the design was too boyish and wasn't "appealing enough," so the character was made eighteen and redesigned to add elements derived from actor Tom Cruise and Calvin Klein models.

For the scenery design, various architectural elements seen in 19th-century orientalist paintings and photographs of the Arab world were used for guidance. Other inspirations for design were Disney's animated films from the 1940s and '50s and the 1940 film The Thief of Bagdad. The colouring was done with the computerized CAPS process, and the color motifs were chosen according to the personality—the protagonists use light colors such as blue, the antagonists darker ones such as red and black, and Agrabah and its palace use the neutral colour yellow. Computer animation was used for some elements of the film, such as the tiger entrance of the Cave of Wonders and the scene where Aladdin tries to escape the collapsing cave. Some of the software that was used was Pixar's RenderMan.

Musker and Clements created the Genie with Robin Williams in mind; even though Katzenberg suggested actors such as John Candy, Steve Martin, and Eddie Murphy, Williams was approached and eventually accepted the role. Williams came for voice recording sessions during breaks in the shooting of two other films he was starring in at the time, Hook and Toys. Unusually for an animated film, much of Williams's dialogue was ad-libbed: for some scenes, Williams was given topics and dialogue suggestions, but allowed to improvise his lines. It was estimated that Williams improvised 52 characters. Eric Goldberg, the supervising animator for the Genie, then reviewed Williams's recorded dialogue and selected the best gags and lines that his crew would create character animation to match.

The producers added many in-jokes and references to Disney's previous works in the film, such as a "cameo appearance" from directors Clements and Musker and drawing some characters based on Disney workers. Beast, Sebastian from The Little Mermaid, and Pinocchio make brief appearances, and the wardrobe of the Genie at the end of the film—Goofy hat, Hawaiian shirt, and sandals—are a reference to a short film that Robin Williams did for the Disney-MGM Studios tour in the late 1980s.

Robin Williams's Conflicts with the Studio

In gratitude for his success with Touchstone Pictures' Good Morning, Vietnam, Robin Williams voiced the Genie for SAG scale pay—$75,000—instead of his asking fee of $8 million, on condition that his name or image not be used for marketing, and his (supporting) character not take more than 25% of space on advertising artwork, since Williams's film Toys was scheduled for release one month after Aladdin's debut. For financial reasons, the studio went back on the deal on both counts, especially in poster art by having the Genie in 25% of the image, but having other major and supporting characters portrayed considerably smaller. The Disney Hyperion book Aladdin: The Making of an Animated Film listed both of Williams's characters "The Peddler" and "The Genie" ahead of main characters, but was forced to refer to him only as "the actor signed to play the Genie".

Disney, while not using Williams's name in commercials as per the contract, used his voice for the Genie in the commercials and used the Genie character to sell toys and fast food tie-ins, without having to pay Williams additional money; Williams unhappily quipped at the time, "The only reason Mickey Mouse has three fingers is because he can't pick up a check." Williams explained to New York magazine that his previous Mork & Mindy merchandising was different because, "the image is theirs. But the voice, that's me; I gave them myself. When it happened, I said, 'You know I don't do that.' And they (Disney) apologized; they said it was done by other people." Disney attempted to assuage Williams by sending him a Pablo Picasso painting worth more than $1 million at the time, but this move failed to repair the damaged relationship, as the painting was a self-portrait of the artist as Vincent van Gogh which apparently really "clashed" with the Williams's wilder home décor. Williams refused to sign on for the 1994 direct-to-video sequel The Return of Jafar so it was Dan Castellaneta that voiced the Genie. When Jeffrey Katzenberg was replaced by Joe Roth as Walt Disney Studios chairman, Roth organized a public apology to Williams. Williams would, in turn, reprise the role in the second sequel Aladdin and the King of Thieves in 1996.

Music

The third—after The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast—and final Disney film score the duo would work on, Alan Menken and Howard Ashman began writing the Academy Award-winning score together, with Tim Rice taking over as lyricist after Ashman died of AIDS-related complications part way through the production of Aladdin in early 1991. Although fourteen songs were written for Aladdin, only seven are featured in the movie, three by Ashman, and four by Rice. Composer Alan Menken and songwriters Howard Ashman and Tim Rice were praised for creating a soundtrack that is "consistently good, rivalling the best of Disney's other animated musicals from the '90s." The DVD Special Edition released in 2004 includes four songs in early animation tests, and a music video of one, "Proud of Your Boy", performed by Clay Aiken, which also appears on the album Disneymania 3. The version of the song "A Whole New World" performed by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle, which plays over the end credits, is, as of 2019, the only Disney song to win a Grammy Award for Song of the Year.

Themes

The filmmakers thought the moral message of the original tale was inappropriate, and decided to "put a spin on it" by making the fulfilment of wishes seem like a great solution, but eventually becoming a problem. Another major theme was avoiding an attempt to be what the person is not—both Aladdin and Jasmine get into trouble pretending to be different people, and the Prince Ali persona fails to impress Jasmine, who only falls for Aladdin when she finds out who he truly is. Being "imprisoned" is also presented, a fate that occurs to most of the characters—Aladdin and Jasmine are limited by their lifestyles, Genie is attached to his lamp, and Jafar to the Sultan—and is represented visually by the prison-like walls and bars of the Agrabah palace, and the scene involving caged birds which Jasmine later frees. Jasmine is also depicted as a different Disney Princess, being rebellious against the royal life and the social structure.

Release/Reception/Box Office

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 95% of critics gave the film a positive review based on a sample of 74 reviews, with an average rating of 8.1/10. The site's consensus reads, "A highly entertaining entry in Disney's renaissance era, Aladdin is beautifully drawn, with near-classic songs and a cast of scene-stealing characters." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 86 out of 100 based on 25 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare "A+" grade.

Most critics' praise went to Robin Williams's performance as Genie, with Janet Maslin of The New York Times declaring that children "needn't know precisely what Mr. Williams is evoking to understand how funny he is", and Roger Ebert commenting that Williams and animation "were born for one another". Warner Bros. Cartoons director Chuck Jones even called the film "the funniest feature ever made." Furthermore, English-Irish comedian Spike Milligan considered it to be the greatest film of all time. James Berardinelli gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars, praising the "crisp visuals and wonderful song-and-dance numbers." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said the comedy made the film accessible to both children and adults, a vision shared with Desson Howe of The Washington Post, who also said "kids are still going to be entranced by the magic and adventure." Brian Lowry of Variety praised the cast of characters, describing the expressive magic carpet as "its most remarkable accomplishment" and considered that "Aladdin overcomes most story flaws thanks to sheer technical virtuosity."

Some aspects of the film were widely criticized. Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine wrote a negative review, describing the film as racist, ridiculous, and a "narcissistic circus act" from Robin Williams. Roger Ebert, who generally praised the film in his review, considered the music inferior to its predecessors The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, and claimed Aladdin and Jasmine were "pale and routine." He criticized what he saw as the film's use of ethnic stereotypes, writing: "Most of the Arab characters have exaggerated facial characteristics—hooked noses, glowering brows, thick lips—but Aladdin and the princess look like white American teenagers."

A large promotion campaign preceded Aladdin's debut in theaters, with the film's trailer being attached to most Disney VHS releases (including 101 Dalmatians in April 1992 and Beauty and the Beast in October), and numerous tie-ins and licensees being released. After a limited release on November 13, 1992, Aladdin debuted in 1,131 theaters on November 25, 1992, grossing $19.2 million in its opening weekend—number two at the box office, behind Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. It took eight weeks for the film to surpass Beauty and the Beast as the most successful animated Disney film at the US box office (surpassed by The Lion King in 1994). In the United States, the film held the top spot five times weekly and breaks the record for the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve with $32.2 million during its 22-week run. Aladdin was the most successful film of 1992 grossing $217 million in the United States and over $504 million worldwide. It was the biggest gross for an animated film until The Lion King two years later, and was the first full-length animated film to gross $200 million in the United States and Canada. Additionally, it was the first film to cross that mark since Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991.

Outside of the United States and Canada, the film grossed $200 million in 1993, and $250 million by January 1994. In Europe, Aladdin defeated Jurassic Park to become the continent's box office leader. It set an opening weekend record in South Africa. By 2002, the film had grossed $287 million overseas and $504 million worldwide. Currently, it is the 35th-highest-grossing animated film and the third-highest-grossing traditionally animated feature worldwide, behind The Lion King and The Simpsons Movie. It sold an estimated 52,442,300 tickets in the United States and Canada, where its gross is equivalent to $477,749,800 adjusted for inflation in 2018.

Budget $28 million

Box office $504.1 million

My Review

I will never forget the first time I watched "Aladdin", I was with a group of friends waiting in the airport for the plane that would take us from Orlando to Paris at the time when "Aladdin" was the 'big thing' in the USA while some previews of "The Lion King" were starting to screen. "Aladdin" will forever be associated to that wonderful week I spent in Disneyland, and it's only fitting if the movie is my favourite Disney film, slightly edging-out "The Jungle Book".

I know I can get all rational in this review, analysing what makes "Aladdin" such an appealing film and using the expected words of 'Disney Renaissance' and a comparison with the glorious Best Picture nominee predecessor. I can also talk about the animation, the music, the extraordinary multi-vocal performance of Robin Williams as Genie… but I don't feel like getting rational. I love the film for personal reasons that are essentially due to the excellent timing of this film in its penetration of my pre-adolescent life. "Aladdin" took a forever cherished place as one of the last treasures that enriched my childhood even playing a pivotal role in the way I would start enjoying cartoons.

"Kid's day in the USA!" was the motto of the week that was celebrating the 65th birthday of Mickey Mouse, and for a kid who never travelled outside his country, going to Disneyland was the most unexpected destination, the most extraordinary trip I would never have dared to dream of. This is when I discovered "Aladdin", through the 'Prince Ali' fanfare endlessly performed during the parades, through the films' images aired on TV; something was strangely attracting me to the film. And I guess the fact that I knew the story helped a lot: I grew up with a French cartoon from 1969, titled 'Aladdin and the Magic Lamp' recorded in an 80's videocassette, a movie I can recite (and sing) by heart, and there was also an obscure Manga 'Aladdin' film we watched at school before the summer holidays.

Needless to say I was already familiar with the story, and seeing it translated into Disney language was something I was excited to see. Would they talk about Aladdin's deceased father Mustapha? Would he live with his mother? What kind of roles would Genie play? Well one thing matters apart from these questions: I knew the story and I could understand the film even if I didn't speak English at that time … it wouldn't have helped me anyway because the airport was very noisy, so I just sat on my luggage, eating some candies, and I could understand who was who and what was everyone's scheme: obviously, Aladdin wanted to be a prince to marry the princess and Jafar to marry the princess to become the prince, and between them, the Genie would come to fulfil their dreams. So, I saw the film and I loved it.

{I wish I had a pet Tiger}

And for one year, before I would see it again, the music of 'Prince Ali' and 'A Whole New World' was the musical remembrance of that magical week in Disney World. And when I saw it again, it took another dimension: I finally understood the subtleties of the stories, I learned all the songs after repetitive viewings, and for months and months, I was transported by the 'Prince Ali' parade and its climactic conclusion and the romantic 'A Whole New World' and its beautiful opening, when Jasmine jumps on the carpet and the zoomed-out Rajah looks smaller and smaller, watching from the balcony. I saw the film so many times during my pre-teen years that I would never forget the first sensations it immersed me into, with an unexpected awkward one.

I must confess that Jasmine was one of my first movie crushes and my idea of the ideal woman as a kid, I don't know why but the way she looked during the 'love at first sight moment' hypnotized me and the moment where I always melt occurs in the carpet ride, when Aladdin gives her the apple, when you understand that she understood who the Prince Ali is, there are no words to describe how incredibly sexy she looks at that very moment. The crush didn't last of course, and as I grew older and was disappointed with the 'Return of Jafar' sequel and the TV series, my interest for "Aladdin" declined and it was reduced to 'kid's stuff I used to like'.

And then 10 years later, as a student, I saw the film again on my computer, eating a pizza, and something magical happened when the 'Whole New World' music started during the closing credits, my heart was inundated by a nostalgic torrent, so immense that I couldn't stop crying because it reminded me of the privileged place the movie occupied once in my heart. The magic was back, and whenever I was spending a good time with friends, we were having fun listening to these old Disney songs, and the clip of 'A Whole New World' was a must-see … and how glad I was to discover that I wasn't the only one who 'liked' Jasmine.

I feel so concerned by this film and so deeply attached to it, that I don't want to spoil this review with critical or ecstatic reviews, the film is just thrilling, romantic, adventurous, and features certainly the greatest cast of supporting characters without it being the counterpart of a dull hero or heroine, there's not a single minute of the film that seems pointless and wasted and certainly not with a character like Genie. That's the best I could do to rationally 'explain' my love for "Aladdin".

Aladdin is a brilliant movie. Sure, it isn't as good as Beauty and the Beast, but I think it is definitely one of my favourite Disney movies. It is beautifully constructed, with some of the best animation sequences of recent times. The music score is just delightful. How can I ever forget the animated sequence to "A Whole New World?" Perfect. Jafar is one of Disney's finest villains, voiced with relish by Jonathan Freeman. Unfortunately, like Shere Kahn, he was another Disney villain that was ruined by a DTV sequel. Aladdin and Jasmine's romance is so believable, and while people have said they are bland, they do appeal to you soon enough. And for me Jasmine along with Esmeralda is one of the sexiest female Disney characters. I actually found it hard to tell what was computer animated, whereas there have been some movies that make a mess of that. I want to guess what is computer animated. The best aspect of this movie, is a hilarious performance from Robin Williams as the Genie If he hadn't ad-libbed so many of his lines, the script could have won an Oscar- that said his genie was a perfect match and fitted with the story very well. Some people say the movie starts off slow. But with the songs and animation, that really isn't an issue. The movie also spawned the best DTV sequel, the King of Thieves. 10/10!!!!