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Disney's Aladdin
November 11, 1992 Aladdin was released on the big
screen. With a budget of $28 million it managed to gross $217 million
worldwide. The song "A Whole New World" won Disney an
Oscar, and eventually the movie spawned a TV show and two sequels.
However, the production of Aladdin didn't go off with out a hitch
-- or even three. Aladdin's production had many set backs. By the
end animators had only two and half months to animate half the movie.
The original storyboard for Aladdin differs greatly from the movie
people know today. Disney had planned for there to be two genies,
the genie of the lamp and the genie of the ring. Aladdin himself
was supposed to look much, much younger. Since Jasmine was 16 it
didn't make sense that she would be interested in a kid, so they
decided to make him look a lot older. This caused a problem as most
of the animated footage had to be redone. In the song "Friends
Like Me", however, it was decided it would be too expensive
to redraw so in some of the shots the younger-looking Aladdin was
kept and can be seen in the movie. Once decided to make Aladdin
older, the animators originally drew him too look like Michael J.
Fox, and then later they changed their mind and made him more Tom
Cruise-ish.
Another change in the film, which set the schedule back, was the
omission of Aladdin's brothers. Originally, Aladdin was supposed
to have three brothers named Babkak, Omar, and Kassim, who had abarbershop
quartet style song entitled "Babkak, Omar, Aladdin, and Kassim".
Also, Aladdin had a mother who sang a song called "Proud of
Your Boy" while Jafar sang, "Humiliate the Boy".
Jafar's song was cut because Disney decided it was a bit too cruel.
Thus Aladdin's mother was cut as well. Because the musical score
had already been completed before the cuts, the entire score had
to be rewritten as well.
Yet one more delay in the making of Aladdin was the choice of voice
actresses for Princess Jasmine. Linda Larkin won the role of the
princess in January of 1991 after three months of auditions. Overjoyed,
Linda set to herself to working on the project. However, six months
later, she learned that Disney was once again holding auditions
for the role of Jasmine since the studio chief Jeffery Katzenberg
didn't like what Linda was producing. He didn't think Linda sounded
regal or commanding enough to portray a proper Disney princess.
So with the help of co-producer Don Ernest they finally convinced
Katzenberg to give Linda another chance. They coached Linda Larkin
through a carefully staged recording session that was deliberately
don to win Katzenberg over. Finally they convinced him that Linda
was right for the part by having her speak low and slow, which appealed
to Katzenberg. He then backed off and let the recording artists
do as they pleased.
Another interesting note on the voice acting was that
Disney allowed Robin Williams to ad-lib three hours in the studio.
However, only 10% of what he said could actually be used in the
final film. The rest were politically incorrect.
A few cameos can also be spotted in the film. The stack of blocks
Jasmine's father is playing with is sitting on a toy of the Beast
from Beauty and the Beast. Sebastian from The Little Mermaid and
Pinocchio can also be seen in the film.
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