Monday, June 15, 2020

My Top 5 of Walt Disney Animation Studios Movies

    Hello everyone and welcome back! We have arrived at another countdown blog! As the title suggests I will be listing off my top 4 favorite movies from Disney Animation Studios! This, of course, does not encompass the entirety of the Disney library. Movies made by Pixar, Disneytoon Studios, Touchstone, Fox, etc. are not available to pick from for this list. This means that while they are great movies, The Nightmare Before Christmas, A Goofy Movie, The Simpsons Movie, and all the wonderful (cough cough) Disney sequels will not be seen here. Remember this is my personal top 4 and chances are it will be very different from your own!

5.) The Jungle Book (1967)

    The Jungle Book is the last movie that Walt Disney himself had a hand in making. The movie is full of fun and excitement throughout. The music is super catchy and the characters are all so unique and entertaining. I really cannot think of a time in this movie where I am hoping for the pace to pick up. Mowgli is essentially on an episodic feeling journey back to the man village where he encounters foes in the form of Kaa the python, King Louie the orangutan, Shere Khan the tiger. Each of these villains are great in their own way, but Shere Khan is the looming threat throughout the movie. While not the most popular Disney feature, The Jungle Book was my favorite when I was a kid and my love for this movie has not gone away as I have gotten older. 

4.) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

    This is why it has taken me so long to make this blog. This movie is why months ago I didn't post a top 4. This movie is brand new to my list. When I was younger I honestly wasn't a big fan of this film. When I first saw it, I didn't really understand it much, didn't care for the plights of the characters much, and the music just didn't sound Disney to me. Well, younger me apparently was nothing more than a child looking for a funny animated movie because when I finally revisited this movie, it blew me away in every sense of the word. Really since The Little Mermaid, Disney had stuck to a very strict formula for their movies. It wasn't until Pocahontas that that mold started to shift and then ultimately The Hunchback of Notre Dame broke it. The story is dark, yet strangely beautiful. The animation is out of this world good for 1996 (and still holds up well today). The characters are all incredible. Lastly, man oh man is the music good. I don't know where this movie was for a chunk of my life, but it's quickly become one of my all time favorites.

3.) Pinocchio (1940)

    There isn't really too much to say about Pinocchio that hasn't been said a million times. From it's beautiful, and I mean beautiful animation, it's lovable characters, and charming story Pinocchio is really the total package. Jiminy Cricket is one of the most wholesome characters that you can find in any Disney movie and really steals the show. Musically the movie is simply incredible. What more really needs to be said other than this is the movie that featured When You Wish Upon a Star. That's how good the music in this movie is. It's main song has in a way become the theme song for Disney itself. There is a little bit of everything in here. There's action, there's heartbreak, there's a bunch of humor, and there is 1940s cultural history such as the seemingly promotion of both drinking and smoking as a way to be cool. This is another one of those movies that for me has continued climbing my favorites list as I get older and am able to appreciate it as the masterpiece that it is. Speaking of which...

2.) Fantasia (1940)

    Alright nobody probably saw this coming. So what do I love so much about Fantasia? I mean after all, it is pretty much a classic music concert with animation over top of it with no story tying it all together or anything like that. Look, I understand that Fantasia is a difficult watch for a lot of people. I get that it isn't the most exciting, but what it is is a work of art. The animation and the music flow seamlessly together to create such an enchanting experience. I'm with the majority in that my favorite scenes from this film are The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Night on Bald Mountain. The former gave birth to sorcerer Mickey while the latter gave rise to the sinister Chernabog. That said, the movie as a whole is just visually stunning and is one that I find myself putting on as background music or just taking a few minutes to watch a specific segment. Fantasia was one of Walt Disney's most ambitious projects and while it didn't get the full blown 4-D effects he wanted (like folks in a theater getting splashed with water), the movie still cemented itself in history as a complete masterpiece.

    So before I reveal the big number one I want to toss out a few honorable mentions to a few movies that fell just shy of making this list (note: these are not in any order). The first goes out to Aladdin. It really in hunchback's fault that this movie isn't on the list. Aladdin is an incredible movie that boasts one of my favorite villains in any Disney movie in Jafar. Next is the inevitable shout out to The Lion King. The movie is just as good now as it was when it came out and Jeremy Irons is still on another level as Scar. Lastly I want to shout out The Rescuers Down Under. This is such an underrated gem of a movie. Every time I watch it I end up with a smile and whole lot of laughs. I really wish this movie was promoted more because it really is good and worthy of the promotion of many other Disney films despite being a sequel. Finally, my number 1 Disney Animation Studios Movie is....

1.) The Emperor's New Groove (2000)

    Up until around the year 2000, Disney had really settled into their own formula for making movies. The renaissance era cemented that formula as hit after hit came out in musical form. Towards the end though that formula started to be messed with. One example of Disney somewhat breaking the mold was The Hunchback of Notre Dame where it remained a musical, but was much darker. That mold was further challenged in movies like Mulan and Tarzan. Finally though in the year 2000 it was shattered by a broken movie called Kingdom of the Sun. Well no... Actually Kingdom of the Sun fell into a complete mess and was transformed into The Emperor's New Groove which actually broke the mold. This movie is so off the wall, so funny, so witty in its humor that I've been watching it for twenty years and still find it just as funny as the first time I saw it.

    While the movie doesn't have many characters, the four main characters, Kuzco, Pacha, Yzma, and Kronk, are all beyond funny in their own ways and interact just perfectly with each other throughout the movie. The story isn't complex at all in Yzma accidentally turns Kuzco into a llama. From there Kuzco (the emperor) needs the help of a peasant (Pacha) whom he just told he was going to build a water park where his village stands (complete with water slide). What ensues is a hilarious chase as Yzma and Kronk try to catch Kuzco before he is able to return to the palace and turn himself back into a human.

    Is the movie an all time classic like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Pinocchio? Not at all, but for me it is a movie I can pop in at anytime, laugh my head off, and enjoy each and every second of without any form of boredom. For a movie that has the history this movie has (look up the sweatbox documentary on Youtube), it is incredible that it became what it is today and even more incredible that it continues to gain popularity and just continues to endure despite very little promotion and very very little merchandise.

    Well there you have it. My top 5 Disney Animation Studios. I have to admit this list was incredibly hard to make. It was also incredibly hard to just not start talking about specific scenes in the movies I like (that's for another time). So many of the movies that this studio has put out I have loved. Even recent releases like Zootopia and Frozen II have found a special place with me so just picking five was really a chore. I'm sure there were some surprises on this list (especially the top 2 probably), but there it is. As always thank you for reading. I know there was a bit of a gap in blogs, but I can blame that on a bonkers work schedule as opposed to any health related delays, so I appreciate the patience. Stay tuned because the next blog will be coming real soon!    

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