Beautiful animation, catchy songs, and an incredible performance from Robin Williams
have made Aladdin a beloved kids' movie since it hit theaters in 1992, but watching it as
a grownup can be a whole new world.
Here are the wild things going on behind the fairy tale fun of Aladdin that you'll only
notice as an adult.
Disney's animated offerings have a long history of keeping their violence implied so that
the kids don't notice, but not Aladdin!
Not only is there a truly incredible amount of gruesome stuff happening right there on
the screen, it's our hero who's responsible for most of it.
While Aladdin is cheerfully singing "One Jump Ahead" — a song about how he has to steal
to avoid starving to death on the streets, which is itself a little more grim than the
average Disney fare — the chase through the bazaar has a level of carnage that most
hard-R movies would find hard to top.
There's the poor guy who gets impaled on a bed of nails after he's squashed by a guard,
a sword-swallower who has the blade yanked out of his throat by Abu, and plenty of guards
who plunge several stories into a wooden cart full of manure.
That might not be fatal, but it's almost certainly unpleasant, and most likely results in plenty
of disease.
Considering all this happens in the first ten minutes of the film, watching Aladdin
as an adult makes you realize pretty quickly that this might not exactly be the children's
movie it's advertised as.
While we're on the subject of "One Jump Ahead," it seems pretty weird that Agrabah's police
force is willing to send dozens of armed men after one guy (and one monkey) for the crime
of of stealing a loaf of bread.
“Thief!
I'll have your hands for a trophy, street rat!"
"All of this for a loaf of bread?"
As a kid, this seems like a fun romp to start off the movie and establish Aladdin as a rogue
with a heaert of gold, but as an adult, this seems really suspicious.
Don't they have better things to do?
Like, for example, investigating the impending coup being plotted by Jafar?
Or maybe they could devote some time to finding the missing princess after she sneaks out
of the castle to mingle with the common people.
She leaves when it's dark and she's still gone at sunset the next day, but nobody ever
goes to look for her.
When she finally is found, it's just because Jafar has sent the guards out to find Aladdin.
Get your priorities in order, guys, and stop leaving everything to the tiger.
When you're a kid, Abu seems like a cute, lovable animal sidekick, but adults can pretty
quickly come to realize that Abu is actually…
“The woo-ooo-orst!"
Abu is the one who is reluctant to give his bread to starving children, even though they're
cute as all heck.
He's the one who steals a bunch of apples and jewels even after Jasmine has already
been held at sword-point by a shopkeeper.
He's the one who touches the treasure and triggers the lava that forces Aladdin to flee
for his life in the Cave of Wonders, and then, on top of all that, he decides to cover Aladdin's
eyes as they try to fly away.
Any adult watching the movie can tell you that Abu is the worst animal sidekick in Aladdin,
and this is a movie where a talking parrot is part of a conspiracy to commit regicide.
Don't worry: we're not going to go deep into nitpicking the existence of the Magic Carpet.
It's magic, it flies, and accepting that is just part of watching the movie, no matter
how old you are.
That said, while zipping through the clouds on a trip around the world is fun enough for
the kids, adults who have a better understanding of the distances involved are going to have
a lot of questions about how fast that thing can go.
In "A Whole New World," the Magic Carpet takes Aladdin and Jasmine all around the globe in
a single one night, but doesn't seem like it's going fast enough to even ruffle their
hair.
If we assume that Agrabah is somewhere in the Middle East, let's say around Baghdad,
then a trip that goes to Giza for the Sphinx, Athens for the Parthenon, the Forbidden City
in Beijing, and then back to the Middle East covers a little bit over 10,000 miles.
Giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming that the whole trip covers a single eight-hour
night, we're talking about a throw rug that can hit speeds of thirteen hundred miles per
hour, and that's if they didn't do anything but fly at full power the whole time.
Since Jasmine's hand isn't vaporized when she dips it into the pond, the Carpet was
definitely going a little slower then, so its maximum speed is even higher.
Forget about flying, the real magic here is that Aladdin and Jasmine arrive back home
safe and sound without being turned to dust by the friction.
Who knew the Magic Carpet was that powerful?
Everyone can agree that it would definitely be a bad thing if Jafar took over Agrabah,
right?
From what we can see of his rule, in which he makes some unsavory advances towards Jasmine
while the city becomes a fiery hellscape, it would be a bad time for everyone.
The question we have as adults, however, is whether things are really that much better
under the Sultan.
"From now on, you’re to discuss sentencing of prisoners with me, BEFORE they are beheaded."
“I assure you, your highness, it won't happen again."
Jasmine's dad definitely seems like a really nice person and he's a surprisingly compelling
character, but he's been under Jafar's thumb for so long that the bad guy is basically
running the place already.
The Sultan is indecisive, anxious, childlike, and fidgety, and it seems pretty unlikely
that he'd be able to inspire confidence in his own people or negotiate with other rulers.
Without someone like Jafar around to actually run things — even if he's running them evilly
— those next few years before Jasmine takes the throne are going to be pretty rough.
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