Growing Up: Disney Movies

The one reason I have a dream...
On
June 25, 2008
As a child of the 90's, I grew up watching Disney movies. I'm actually glad I got to see these classics, because media these days just isn't what it used to be, and I'd like to share a memory that I will pretty much hold dear to me. (Keep in mind, my first article =D)


"You think that was easy?"

The age of 3 is as far back as I can currently remember. It was 1993 and I was enjoying life as a kid, not having to put up with school or the hassles of a teenager. I could sit around and play with my toys or play my SNES for all I cared. When I wasn't doing any of those, my mom would rent videotapes from a local video store a block from our apartment complex in Fresh Meadows, NY. Seeing as how my mom wanted me to grow up like all good kids she'd rent me Disney movies, with one of them being "Beauty and the Beast" (1991). Of course I wouldn't understand much of what was going on but I could clearly remember Mrs. Potts, Cogsworth, Lumiere and of course Belle and the Beast. The characters were instantly etched into my mind, plus a faint memory of the film's intense climax between Beast and Gaston... All in all, I found this movie very interesting and before you know it I'm suddenly watching all kinds of Disney movies like Aladdin (who could forget Robin Williams as that genie?), "The Little Mermaid" and Pocahontas, the story of a Native American princess that falls in love with an English sailor.


"I just can't wait to be king!"

The one Disney movie that REALLY got me started was The Lion King. It was THE MOVIE. Once I saw it, I played that tape till my VCR chewed it up. I just loved Simba and the rest of the characters. I had many things that were themed after the movie, such as that toy where you pulled a lever and it would cause the arrow in the middle to spin. Whatever the arrow pointed at afterwards it would make the intended sound effect of the animal pictured. I had a watch that looked like Simba and my little brother got a set of eating utensils with Lion King designs. Anyway, at 5 years years old in 1995 I could understand a lot more than I could, and the scene where Mufasa is killed by the stampede left me devastated, yet angry. I actually found myself hating the evil Scar, and did he look bad-ass! The weird thing is, I would keep on wishing that Mufasa would somehow come back alive at some point in the film. I'd sing along to the film's famous songs, such as "Hakuna Matata" (which was a BIG favorite of mine) and "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" which was a pretty awesome song.

"You know, there may be something there that wasn't there before!"

As I would continue to grow I would see the movies "Mulan" and "Tarzan", which were both some of the best Disney animated films I'd ever see. I still have not seen "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" or "Hercules" and I'm sorry for missing out on those. I did, however, cop one of the puppets from Burger King when the movie [Notre Dame] was seeing its release. Too bad I don't have it anymore. After Tarzan, many of Disney's movies began to lose the quirky charm they possessed and things started going downhill from there. After Atlantis, I pretty much said "OK" and left it at that. "Lilo and Stitch" rolled around during June of 2002 and I had pretty much finished 6th grade by then. It managed to satisfy me enough with the Hawaiian theme and the colorful characters, not to mention the top-notch animation Disney does so well. Fabulous!


Tell me Stitch wasn't lovable... You HAD to love that part where he crashes the tanker into lava and uses it to blast himself into the sky in the thrilling climax!

I have been drawing cartoons and things on my mind since I was a child of 4 or so, and I haven't stopped since. I draw every chance I get. As the curious child I once was, I wanted to know how animation was done, and once I found out through the use of a flip book I recieved from the inside of a cereal box, I was pretty much set on what I wanted to do in life...
Nowadays, all you see is CGI-animated features, and I havent been too happy with it. Not to be hasty, but the only talent I've seen was Pixar, Dreamworks and Blue Sky studios for their work on several movies and it should simply remain at that. When Disney announced that they were ceasing all traditional animation procedures I was deeply saddened. The bread-and-butter of Walt Disney Pictures was suddenly gone. They wanted to develop CGI features too, and what do they create? A few movies that have earned nothing but fair and so-so reviews from most of the newspapers in my area and negative reactions in comments found in YouTube video clips of older Disney movies. "Chicken Little" didn't even FEEL like a Disney movie to me, and yet it was thrown in along with the rest of the Disney Features Canon, a list of Walt Disney Pictures' legendary line of movies.

As they say, anyone can make a difference, and I hope to maybe one day find a career with Disney and bring back the high-quality animation Disney was actually famous for.


Hey! My idea for a new Disney Princess!
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