Disney Shows Best and Worst

[JayGatsby]

Posted: 6/2/14 at 7:26pm

What do people think of Disney Shows in general and what are peoples favourite?

[AKarp2013]

Posted: 6/2/14 at 7:30pm

What do you think of Disney Shows in general and what is your favourite?

[JayGatsby]

Posted: 6/2/14 at 7:34pm

I think Disney gets lots of crap for theme parking Broadway. I also think Disney needs to put more effort into Shows. I think Aladdin is fine but they needed to put more money into it and get a better book writer. I think Disney was very lucky that it got nominated this year. Personally I would rather them do something more innovative then just making the same scenes on stage but actually be more like the Lion King on Broadway where they took a risk. Updated On: 6/2/14 at 07:34 PM

[Nateben2]

Posted: 6/2/14 at 8:04pm

I think they are in a catch-22, if they do something too off-base, then they run the risk of losing the built in fan base. Play too close to source material, they are "edgy" enough. I think with both Jungle Book and Hunchback, you are seeing Disney taking more risks, I think Aladdin is what Aladdin is because of the source material.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 6/2/14 at 8:42pm

I think that they can be wonderful and very magical if they really try and care about the project. They may not always be innovative or groundbreaking, but they can be pretty solid. The Disney films have a lot to offer and can make a really solid foundation for a decent and very enjoyable show. Unfortunately they sometimes don't take the time to develop them properly, and the shows come across as pointless and turgid spectacles.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is probably the best they've turned out so far (from the ones I have seen). It didn't hurt that they hd a very strong movie to start with (although LITTLE MERMAID proves that that doesn't necessary mean anything).

[hundredsofhats]

Posted: 6/2/14 at 10:06pm

I still think Aladdin is the best of the Disney shows, and I've said why before, I think. Worst I don't really know..

The book in Aladdin is a huge improvement over the book in the California Adventures show. They made Aladdin and Jasmine too perfect and not interesting. Mentions of thief were avoided so Aladdin is a 'peasant'. Aladdin steals because of the Sultan's heavy taxes. The guards don't respect Jasmine's authority, with the effect of her not being burdened by any real power. Jasmine is given awful lines like "Stop calling him street rat! He's a person like you or me," so she's suddenly like Esmeralda. Jafar and Iago force Aladdin go into the cave rather than it being (though not initially) Aladdin's choice. The Sultan is completely ineffectual, but not affably idiotic like in the movie or strong in the Broadway show, just bland. Jafar doesn't say "die" when it's logical for him to. One of Jafar's really bad lines is "We'll just have to do some trapping of our own!" : ( Any real moment the Genie might have is disrupted by making a joke.

I like how in the Broadway show Aladdin and friends are stealing for fun and then they steal for food and then eventually they go completely straight, they have agency. The show handles deviancy much better, not everyone is a peasant. Jafar tempts Aladdin initially with the chance to be an infamous thief rather than a petty thief. And Aladdin is flawed also because he wants to impress Jasmine badly and he causes the cave to collapse, and causes his own bad fortune. But he makes his own good fortune too by finding the lamp.

The real moments in the show are allowed to be there without any punchline, like with Genie saying he'll be in his prison cell rather than his sardine can, and Jasmine isn't obnoxiously pure-hearted--first thing she does when out of the palace is to go shopping. And, there's no five-minute flurry of jokes to interrupt the momentum of Jafar's takeover.

[deltatee]

Posted: 6/2/14 at 10:20pm

I think Disney produces some great movies that make for solid broadway shows. They aren't always ground-breaking, but they are entertaining. I personally always enjoy them. I think Lion King and Mary Poppins are the best disney shows so far.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 6/2/14 at 10:22pm

THE LION KING and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST are my favorites. MARY POPPINS was fine. ALADDIN and THE LITTLE MERMAID were basically disasters in my opinion.

[brdway411]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 1:49am

Tarzan,.....UGH!!!!!!!

[NewYorkPulse24]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:10am

Aida - Best
Aladdin - Worst

[Scarlet Leigh]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:23am

Beauty in the Beast was the first and I think to this day still the best. It was very true to it's source material while adding to it, expanding upon it, and at the same time begin something truly magical on stage. It found a nice ground for being true to the original while not being a total carbon copy. Lion King did this very well to. After that, they kinda slide downhill.

The Little Mermaid was by far the worst for me (jury is out for me on Aladdin as I will not be seeing it till next month). It made so many big mistakes that it not only ruined the source material but the magic of Disney as well. It was painful to watch. I am very glad I only paid for a standing room ticket for it because it was not worth more then the $26 bucks I paid.

Everything else is really scattered in the middle ground. Lion King is good, I don't think it's as great as the rest of the world does. Tarzan was good, I don't think it's as bad as the rest of the world does. The rest float around in there somewhere, but really nothing has been as good as the original but none of them have really come close to being as bad as Mermaid was.

[JohnyBroadway]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:40am

Poppins, King, and Beauty are magic. It's great to see that they have reached acclaim with newsies, and good notices with Aladdin. You must also remember that the show in California is 45 minutes so the book had to be simplified for that presentation.

[JohnyBroadway]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:40am

Poppins, King, and Beauty are magic. It's great to see that they have reached acclaim with newsies, and good notices with Aladdin. You must also remember that the show in California is 45 minutes so the book had to be simplified for that presentation.

[darreyl102]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:45am

I was one of like 6 people who actually liked The Little Mermaid. LOL.

[hundredsofhats]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 8:42am

[You must also remember that the show in California is 45 minutes so the book had to be simplified for that presentation.]

That's true, and I don't mind that it's short, what irked me is the California show taking the edge out of the characters just with the dialogue choices. Aladdin is a story with rogues and mystics, and the California show made it with peasants and nobles. The only reason for Aladdin being a thief is the Sultan's high taxes, whereas in the movie and the Broadway show one gets the sense he has an adventurous spirit.

And Jafar in the DCA version is just your typical aristocrat taking advantage of the disadvantaged, whereas in the movie and the Broadway show he comes off as a shadowy underworld-connected figure who also lives in the palace.

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 11:40am

1. Mary Poppins is a Cameron Mackintosh show. Disney was a glorified presenter and the show used Disney songs and their visual take on the character only because Mackintosh felt the audience would accept nothing without that. The Travers Estate would NEVER call it a "Disney show" and it only seemed more Disney here because it played in a theatre leased by Disney and staffed by Disney.
2. Beauty and the Beast succeeds best as a book musical because it was the first. Disney had not done a show before, so they had not established a "formula" (reference: every Disney animated feature from the mid-80s to late-90s is essentially the same visually AND in writing). Once they say that Beauty worked, they forced it's book formula on every show they have done, often to its detriment, until Newsies.
3. The Lion King succeeds most visually because it managed to be visually rich, commercially successful and crazily "artistic", given Disney a little artistic "street cred". Again, this worked because they hired a great visual artist and let her work her magic while keeping her tightly reigned in.. After, it became a problem because Disney wanted to replicate it, so they started coming up with a show and a concept for the show, then hiring people and saying "it needs to be done this way."
4. Newsies succeeds probably most overall because it is able to stand on it's own more on stage whereas the previous offers were all leaned on the crutch of highly successful, beloved films and came with great expectation. (Which is the one reason we may never see an adaption of Wizard of Oz on Broadway)