Everybody loves Disney characters, but it turns out that some of your favorites were
almost very different!
For this video we are taking a look at the secret origins of 10 of your favorite Disney
characters.
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ahead!
Before we start can you guess the movie from these emojis?
Stay tuned for the answer at the end of our video and be sure to keep watching for fun
trivia questions and fun facts along the way!
Here are 10 Secret Disney Origins That They Kept From Us
Tangled Disney has brought us some pretty great movies
in recent years and in 2010 we finally got to see a good adaptation of the classic fairy
tale Rapunzel.
The movie introduces some pretty great characters (both human and not) and also leaves us singing
their very catchy tunes.
It’s definitely impressive to think that Disney was able to take such a simple story
and turn it into a massive feature length success.
One thing that really added to the movie was the great leading male character of Flynn
Rider.
Flynn is Rapunzel’s love interest and he presents a much more complex version of the
prince who rescues the damsel in distress in the original story.
In the movie, Flynn looks like your classic Disney Prince but it turns out his original
designs were very different.
One early draft of Flynn Rider had him looking short and plump like Shrek’s Lord Farquaad
and another version presented a rugged older looking Prince whose look was actually based
on Johnny Depp.
Looking back at Flynn Rider’s origins gives us a fun glimpse into what could have been
and as it turns out Rapunzel’s original look was far different as well.
Hang around until the end of the video to find out what the Tangled Princess almost
looked like!
The Beast Wit the live action adaptation of Beauty and
The Beast hitting theaters, the classic Disney movie is all over the news these days.
From the looks of things, the film seems to have done a pretty great job of staying faithful
to the animated picture.
That being said, there has been a lot of controversy around the appearance of The Beast as many
folks were confused about the surprisingly large size of his horns in the new adaptation.
If this small change shocked fans, we can’t imagine what they might have thought if Disney
had decided to go back to their original designs for the beastly leading man.
By taking a look at the original concept art for the animated movie you can clearly see
that The Beast was first designed to look much more like a Wolf.
This appearance would have definitely made him look creepier – but it also would have
taken away his horns so who knows how people would have felt.
Genie If there was a competition of the greatest
Disney characters of all time we have to think that The Genie, who was famously voiced by
the late great Robin Williams, would finish near the top of that list.
Everything that The Genie does is amazing and he totally steals all of the scenes he
is in.
As it turns out, Robin Williams actually improvised a great deal of The Genie’s lines so we
will never really know what the characters lines were originally supposed to be.
The Genie’s giant blue look is also iconic but like the other characters on this list
– he almost looked very different.
Early sketches of the genie had him wearing clothes similar to Aladdin, having giant horns
and one drawing had the genie looking absolutely terrifying.
In the end, Disney totally nailed the look by creating a magical character that looks
like a cross between Jay Leno and a giant blue balloon.
The Princess and The Frog In 2009, Disney brought the world the Louisiana
based movie The Princess and The Frog and also introduced their first ever African American
Disney Princess, Tiana.
Although Tiana is the only Disney Princess who actually has a job, she stills looks pretty
young.
That almost wasn’t the case as the originals designs for the Princess had her look much
older and with much more sex appeal.
This alternate look definitely would have made a lot of sense if Beyonce had ended up
landing the leading role but since the singer refused to audition for the part, Disney didn’t
cast her.
In the end the younger appearance of Tiana matches the voice and the storyline and it
may have been somewhat confusing to see a much more sexualized version of the character
at the center of this fairytale story.
Pocahontas
This is one story whose origins we can actually talk a lot about as Pocahontas is actually
the only Disney Princess who was a real person.
Unfortunately, her life wasn’t exactly as the movie showed it – it was much worse.
First of all, she kinda hated John Smith, who pretty much lied about everything that
happened between them.
Also, Pocahontas was also kidnapped, held hostage for a year, renamed Rebecca, paraded
around as propaganda too during the colonization of North America.
On top of all that, after all of that trauma Pocahontas actually died at the age then died
at age 21.
We can understand why Disney decided to alter the story to make it more kid friendly and
we can also understand why they decided to alter their original designs for Princess
Pocahontas.
The first drawings showed Pocahontas looking much sexier looking Princess that would have
definitely added an elements of maturity to the kids movie but in the end Disney went
with the more PC option and we have to think it was probably the right call.
Aladdin A common theme on this list is that Disney
creators seem to often have a tough time deciding just how old their leading characters are.
This seems to usually be a problem with the female characters as the studio is likely
trying to make sure they don’t over sexualize their Princesses.
Interestingly, from taking a look at the original sketches of Aladdin it seems like the character
was supposed to be much younger.
This makes the story much more sad when you realize that it would mean that a very young
boy is living alone in the streets and having to steal all of his meals.
Disney has stated that Aladdin was supposed to be 18 in the movie and we are guessing
that making him a legal adult was a deliberate choice to distance the movie from any controversy
that could have come up with regards to his age.
Aladdin is one of the many movies slated for a live action adaptation and we will just
have to wait and see how old an actor they get to play the lead!
The Little Mermaid At this point we don’t know too much about
the upcoming live action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, but one thing is for sure
– they better do a good job bringing the iconic villain Ursula too life.
The Little Mermaid is a masterpiece and we have to think that a big reason for it’s
success is the choice that Disney made to base the look of their big bad sea monster
on the famous drag queen Divine.
Unfortunately, Divine passed away in the late 80s so she won’t be playing the part but
it would definitely be cool if another similar looking Drag Queen ended up in the role.
Interestingly enough, Ursula’s iconic look from the movie wasn’t Disney’s original
plans as her original appearance had her looking first more like a green fish and then in another
version much more like an evil queen.
The choice to base the villains look on Divine was definitely a good one as The Little Mermaid
is still on of the most successful animated Disney movies of all time.
The Lion King There is no denying that The Lion King is
one of the best movies that Disney has ever made – animated or otherwise, and we have
to hope that the upcoming live action adaption will live up to the original.
While it has been long believed that The Lion King was based off of Shakespeare’s Hamlet,
it turns out the story was actually completely stolen from a Japanese Cartoon.
That’s probably actually a good thing as Hamlet ends with – spoiler alert – everybody
dying some pretty gruesome deaths.
As it turns out, the original artwork and designs for The Lion King were quite different
as well and the first drawings of Simba and Mufasa presented some much more cartoonish
looking lions.
In the end, Disney decided to stick with their classic animation style and created some very
slick looking jungle cats for people of all ages to fall in love with.
Regardless of how they ended up looking, we all still would have cried when Mufasa died!
Elsa In 2013, people all around the world fell
in love with Frozen and it’s leading lady – Princess Elsa.
With her power ballad “Let It Go”, Elsa became a force of empowerment and a role model
for kids of all ages, but as it turns out this was almost not the case.
In the original script for Frozen Elsa was actually the villain but when Disney heard
her iconic song they decided to switch up the story and make her the hero.
Villainous Elsa would have looked much different as well as early drafts of the character actually
show her to have short black hair instead of the long blonde braid she is famous for.
It would have been very interesting to see Elsa on the dark side and maybe we will get
to see this side of her in the long awaited Frozen sequel that will be coming out in 2018.
Tangled Pt. 2 Great, you
stuck around!
Well, now, as promised, it’s time to talk about Rapunzel’s original appearance in
2010’s Tangled.
In the movie the character is undoubtedly pretty
but as it turns out the original sketches presented a much older and sexier version
of the blonde haired princess.
Some of the sketches showed Rapunzel wearing a more revealing dress and all of them actually
gave the princess some freckles.
In the end, Disney decided to go with a younger and more innocent looking protagonist and
we can’t argue with their decision as the movie turned out great.
No word on sequel, but who know, maybe Rapunzel and Flynn will make a second appearance in
Arendelle in Frozen 2.
And that brings us to the end of our list.
Let’s answer those Trivia questions!
First off Dan Stevens is playing The Beast in the new live action movie and he looks
awesome!
Next, Anna (of Frozen) is the only other Disney Princess to have multiple love interests and
they were Hans and Kristoff.
And finally, the youngest Disney Princess is also the first ever Disney Princess – Snow
White!
How old was she supposed to be?
14, which is pretty young to be out living in the woods with 7 strange dwarves if you
ask us.
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