Aladdin Review - 1992 Animated vs 2019 Live-Action

When I first saw the original 1992 Aladdin, I expected it to be good. I did not realize it would be that good.

This was shortly after the release of its 2019 live-action remake; barely a week later I was seeing the remake in theatres. This was my first time watching both the original and live-action versions of a Disney movie, and I decided to compare the two and to explore what the new remake got right or wrong in comparison to the original. (When I say original, here and throughout the rest of the review, I refer to Disney's original Aladdin movie, since they were remaking their own story. I know that technically, the tale from the Arabian Nights would be the true original.) A word: If you really loved the live-action Aladdin, you may not want to read this. Also I do talk about how the movies end, but if you're going to read sixteen pages about a particular movie, I'm presuming you expect that.

You have been warned. Let the double review begin.

The Plot

Of course, Aladdin is a Disney fairy tale, but it blends a number of more general genres remarkably well. I probably shouldn't need to point this out, but since I see it done poorly so much these days, I couldn't review the original 1992 Aladdin without mentioning that the romance is done beautifully, making sure we're invested in a happy ending for Aladdin and Jasmine, and never overshadowing the other elements of the plot. If anything, the romance drives along the exciting-adventure side of the plot. It's almost like – Jasmine and Aladdin are giving us a romance while Jafar is giving us a thrilling tale of royal intrigue and Genie is providing us with a comedy, and it all blends seamlessly together. Add to this Aladdin's own rags-to-riches tale, some engaging animation, and a consistently beautiful soundtrack, and we've got an uplifting, inspiring story that will appeal to everyone. Do not make the mistake of thinking that, since 1992 Aladdin is animated, it must be a kids' movie. This movie is for everyone of every age.

The live-action movie, in many places, seems to have made changes just to be different from the original, or to make the movie somehow more “grown-up”. Then they invariably had to bring all these changes back to the original story and try and make it all fit somehow, not always succeeding. Sometimes the movie would include a new plot thread which could have explored new elements of the story, or simply be made into another, original story that would have nothing to do with Aladdin, but these were always dismissed so they could get back to telling a story which didn't really need to be retold. For a remake, the movie didn't seem all that concerned with bringing the original to life; nor did they allow themselves to just use the original movie for inspiration and then go off and create something entirely new. What we get is a rather confused middle ground that leaves us lacking on both ends, and often relies on our knowledge of the original story to make any sense. Sometimes, the live-action movie's additions actually do give us more insight into some part of the original movie, like Aladdin's, Jasmine's, and Jafar's backstories, but what with all the plotholes and lack of concern for the original plot, I can't say I'm inclined to take any of the answers they do give us as cannon.

The cinematography is beautiful (not more beautiful than the original's animation), but the overall feel of the movie is more subdued and less exciting than its animated counterpart. Most of the live-action song sequences are good, but they're either pretty much the same as they are in the original, or appear only in the live-action. I do have a minor quibble with the Prince Ali sequence: they left out a small moment where the Genie makes a number of the mean guards who used to chase Aladdin all round the marketplace bow before the approaching Prince Ali, who of course is really Aladdin. Maybe that moment in the original wasn't meant to be that significant and I was the only one who thought it was, but it was a nice point to make and I would have liked to see the live-action keep it. They did, however, keep the nice moment where Aladdin finds a large amount of gold next to him and tosses it into the crowd.

When they weren't changing scenes in ways that did not particularly benefit the movie, the live-action also made certain changes to dialogue that cause the lines taken directly from the original to feel jarring and out of place: “You are a worthless street rat!”, or stripping out an iconic line of dialogue that should absolutely have been in there: “I am not a prize to be won!” There seemed to be far more attention put on all the impressive CGI effects than on the characters' actual personalities and stories. In some ways, the live-action movie gave me the distinct feeling of “playing it safe”, in ways the original never felt the need to do. They never indicated there was a death penalty in Agrabah, or the possibility to get one's hand cut off, and chose not to reexplore the original Arabian Nights tale's statement that it was illegal and punishable by death to so much as look at the princess. They changed the brothel Aladdin jumps into during One Jump Ahead into a group of schoolgirls, and instead of emphasizing how creepy and wrong Jafar is for lusting after Jasmine and thus making him even more of a villain, they gloss it over entirely. I don't even remember them touching on religion at all, although I might be wrong. And this is the movie they were translating to a more “adult” medium. The live-action film also has significantly less humour than the original did, although to be fair the original does feature the voice talents of two professional comedians. More disappointingly still, there is nothing at all in the live-action Aladdin's character arc about realizing he should just be himself and not lie about who he is – the movie took away the whole message of being true to yourself, missing the whole point of the original.

But now on to the storyline. Both Aladdins open in a similar way. The exact scenes used are different, but the purpose is the same. The merchant in the original gives us some great comedic moments right off the bat, after introducing us to Agrabah with the song Arabian Nights. The live-action replaces this merchant with a family man living on a boat with his wife and two kids, who is later revealed to be none other than the Genie. It's a nice touch, since the original movie never ends up confirming this. I don't blame them at all for that, since they'd already ended the movie perfectly and it would have been superfluous to add anything else, but since Disney is having another go at filming this story, it's nice they took the opportunity to tell us. In this version, the man who turns out to be the Genie sings Arabian Nights after introducing the Aladdin story, but like I said, both scenes serve essentially the same purpose, and both scenes serve it well.

The original movie then gives us at least one whole scene introducing each of our other major characters. We see Jafar, his schemes to take over Agrabah, and his ruthlessness in doing so. We get a sequence introducing Aladdin, and in his song One Jump Ahead, he tells us all about his life on the streets of Agrabah, stealing food and evading the guards just so he can live another day. Then comes Jasmine, who tells us through a conversation with her father how she is sick of feeling trapped and having outside laws telling her what to do all the time. These introduction scenes allow us to fully understand our main characters and their motives before the start of the main action, while effortlessly holding our interest, never making us feel that the main action is being delayed. In this case, I would say the “main action” begins when Jasmine runs away from home and Jafar begins his search for the “diamond in the rough” who alone can enter the Cave of Wonders.

Every scene of the film is arranged for maximum emotional impact. My favourite example of this is the A Whole New World sequence, meaning all of Aladdin and Jasmine's first date, right up to their first successful, uninterrupted kiss. The sequence leaves us with the same sense of bliss that Aladdin must be feeling – a bliss that is suddenly, rudely interrupted when Jafar tries to kill him. There is no transition here, no warning. The mood changes so unexpectedly, and it's wonderful. The effect is deliciously jarring in a way that no build-up could have achieved. We get a similar effect right at the end, when we're not sure until the very last minute if Aladdin and Jasmine will be able to be together, and the joy when it turns out they can is made that much stronger by the despair we were feeling for them just a moment ago. The live-action movie didn't seem to understand the great impact of arranging scenes this way. They changed the order of, added, and combined scenes without regard to the perfect balance of the original, and as a result the story often feels too fast, too slow, or simply too unengaging to be able to grab our emotions the same way. (I could probably sum up the entire live-action Aladdin movie in one line by saying it wasn't designed to grab our emotions, only that wouldn't make for a very interesting review.) They haphazardly tear the scenes and characters apart and sloppily stick them back together, leading to a disjointed plot that makes no sense unless you've seen the original and are filtering the film through your knowledge of that, and making me question whether any of the people working on this movie had any love or respect for the original Aladdin at all.

In the live-action, the scene following the Arabian Nights sequence is only a few seconds long, barely enough for us to process that Jafar has sent an unfortunate into the Cave of Wonders who will not come out again, and that the Cave wants only a certain “diamond in the rough” to enter. I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't seen the original movie already, I wouldn't have had a clue what was going on here. The movie does make up for this a little later, with an invented Jafar scene telling us more about who he is, what he wants, and giving us a little foreshadowing that he cannot stand to think of himself as second-best. It doesn't change the fact, though, that the scene meant to introduce us to Jafar and the Cave of Wonders is rushed and confusing, and that by this point in the original, we already knew all about him.

There is another invented scene in the live-action movie dramatizing Jasmine's meeting with nasty Prince Achmed, her final suitor before Aladdin. (Only in this version, they changed his name to Prince Anders and he seemed to not be Arab at all; why they did this I do not know.) In the original movie, we don't see what happened between them, but we know Achmed stormed out of the palace after Rajah tore a hole in his pants, so we can guess their meeting didn't go too well. The movie uses the power of what we don't see, letting us use our imaginations and giving the scene that much more impact. Still, when I was watching the live-action, I was curious and excited to see what might have actually happened during that meeting. It would have been so satisfying to see Jasmine give the prince who was so mean to Aladdin what was coming to him, and the scene would still have told us what we need to know about Jasmine's life, how she hates all her suitors and is sick of them coming. Except it doesn't. Rajah doesn't chase Achmed (Anders?) away with a hole in his pants, and Jasmine never even indicates that she wants him to. She doesn't give us any indication that she dislikes Prince Anders or that she's feeling anything at all. Pretty much nothing happens here, and the whole thing felt very anticlimactic. It's disappointing, robs us of some great poetic justice, and leaves us without any real reason to have this scene or even this character. Prince Anders' role is extended slightly further than Prince Achmed's was, with no real purpose, and then dropped without any sort of conclusion at all.

The purpose of this part isn't even to introduce us to Jasmine. In this version, the sequence where she runs away from the palace has already happened – except that she wasn't actually running away at all, which ends up leaving us with either a very large plothole or a very unlikable character. In the original movie, this is Jasmine's first time outside the palace walls. New to the outside world and with no idea how life works in this strange place, she inadvertently steals an apple from a merchant while trying to help a hungry child. The live-action changes this. Now Jasmine has been sneaking out of the palace for years, going to the marketplace in disguise and observing how poor conditions have become under Jafar's control, and thinking how she would do a better job of serving her people. And yet, Jasmine still steals the apple from the merchant's stall! She clearly knows how the marketplace works if she's been coming here for years, she's had plenty of opportunity to realize she should bring money to the market when she goes so she can buy food for those too poor to buy it for themselves – and yet she still steals an apple from one of the very subjects she claims she could help! Aladdin has to steal because if he doesn't he'll die, but if Jasmine is going to go around robbing her own subjects it makes her no better than Jafar. I have to wonder if the live-action movie even checked the script for plot consistency after making their changes, or if they were just trying to make an Aladdin and Jasmine who think they somehow have the right to decide who deserves to be stolen from and who doesn't. In the live-action this leads right into the One Jump Ahead scene, which Jasmine then shares with Aladdin. This idea does have a lot of potential, and could have been a great opportunity for some extra chemistry between our soon-to-be happy couple. (I can just see the animated Aladdin and Jasmine in this scene together, and I predict there would be a lot of Jasmine falling into Aladdin's arms involved.) But the movie doesn't really take full advantage of the scene to do this, and I can't help but wonder why Jasmine doesn't just reveal herself to the guards and order them to leave Aladdin alone. Not only would this be a nod to a certain scene in the original movie which the live-action didn't bother to keep, but it's just hard to buy that Jasmine wouldn't have done this, or that she really cares about Aladdin if it's in her power to rescue him from the guards and she doesn't do it. The whole thing is a missed opportunity, and the One Jump Ahead sequence kind of loses its meaning this way. We've already met Aladdin and seen what his life is like, he and Jasmine aren't developed as a couple when they have this scene together, and the song isn't about Jasmine and can't introduce us to her, so there's really no reason to have the song in there at all except so as not to cut out anything from the original soundtrack.

The original scene where Jasmine and Aladdin talk about their lives at Aladdin's place is a great bonding moment between our soon-to-be couple, adding a depth to the romance that I was not expecting but which made me all the more invested in it. It's still there in the live-action, but done differently, so instead of them speaking in unison about how trapped they feel, it's Jasmine understanding in advance what Aladdin is going to say about feeling trapped because that's also how she feels. It's slightly less effective, but would certainly have still worked if they had developed Jasmine in that direction, instead of pushing her into that all-too-common female robot mold. But they also made one very major change to this scene: they have Jasmine lie to Aladdin and give her name as Dalia, in that movie her handmaid's name. Now to be fair, in the original Aladdin never gets around to asking Jasmine her name, and if she had been able to stay with him longer, she would have had to choose whether to tell Aladdin her real name and risk him connecting her with the runaway Princess, or give him a fake name and risk building any future relationship on a foundation of lies, and we don't know which one she would have picked. But in the original Jasmine never does lie to Aladdin, and as it's a fairly important part of the plot that he lies to her, having her lie to him first throws a whole new dynamic into their relationship that isn't really necessary or helpful. Come to think of it, I suppose this could explain why we never see live-action Aladdin apologize to Jasmine for lying to her. The live-action really didn't want to keep that theme of being true to yourself....

One of the movie's changes that stood out to me the most was Aladdin's fight with Prince Achmed, the one that culminates in Achmed taunting Aladdin: “You are a worthless street rat. You were born a street rat, you will die a street rat, and only your fleas will mourn you.” In the original movie, this is a powerful scene, one of those whose purpose is not to further the plot, but to deepen our understanding of the characters, and it does its job brilliantly. The scene also has the secondary function of telling us that the princess has been getting a lot of suitors (and obviously accepted none of them, or they wouldn't still be coming), but mostly, it's there to show us what most people in Agrabah think of Aladdin. We can tell this isn't the first time he's been accused of being a worthless street rat – probably he's been hearing it his whole life – and if affects him badly enough to sing a short song about it. The scene deepens our sympathy for Aladdin and makes us all the more anxious to see him get his happy ending. More than anything, though, without this scene we would never understand why Aladdin is so against the idea of telling Jasmine who he really is later on. If this is Aladdin's experience of what higher-ranking people – especially royal people – think of him in his usual, non-princely state, how could it occur to him that Jasmine, if she knew, would be any different?

Of course, one could argue that the scene in the live-action movie fulfills the same function, and maybe it does. But the dialogue is altered to the point where Prince Anders doesn't even appear that nasty (I suppose he wasn't quite as mean as Prince Achmed), so his remark about Aladdin being a worthless street rat seems to come out of nowhere, for no other reason than that it was in the original movie. The live-action also has Jasmine leave Aladdin to go back to the palace just before this fight, so no chance of her defending Aladdin or actually doing anything to build some more chemistry between them. This isn't the only time the movie changes something and gives the characters' emotional connections less chance to shine through – in the scene where Jafar has Aladdin captured by the guards, for instance, the changes made by the live-action don't affect the plot in any way, but they do rob both Jasmine and Abu of an opportunity to help Aladdin and show us how much they care about him.

At this point, there is an interesting scene in the live-action movie where Jafar tells Aladdin how much alike they are, and starts to tell Aladdin his backstory, stating that he was once in the same place as Aladdin and built his way up. This could have been a fascinating angle to play with in later scenes, exploring how our hero and villain really are similar and yet so entirely different, but it is never mentioned again and is used only to convince Aladdin to go into the Cave of Wonders for Jafar, which the original movie managed to do without Aladdin's even knowing it was Jafar who wanted him to do this. It's true that the whole time in this scene of the original film, I'm mentally shouting at Aladdin's instincts to turn on and tell him there's something wrong here and actually protect him like they're supposed to – but all that just makes the tension rise, and Aladdin's blindness to the obvious danger honestly just makes him all the more loveable. It also opens up one of those story moments where a bad decision turns out to be a very good one: if Aladdin hadn't agreed to help Jafar, he never would have met the Genie.

Meanwhile, the live-action never has Jafar tell Jasmine that Aladdin's dead, and so left out the whole scene where Jasmine threatens to “get rid of” Jafar for killing Aladdin, and Jafar's whole life's work is falling down around him. This way, we lose Jafar's desperation to do anything to still become Sultan, and yet another opportunity for Jasmine to show she cares at all about Aladdin. So many of the live-action's changes stripped out opportunities for Jasmine to show us she cares about Aladdin.... But some of the live-action's changes left real plotholes, and I think the moviemakers even knew it. In the live-action, Aladdin asks Genie if Jasmine won't recognize him inside his new prince outfit, and the Genie says she won't because of Genie magic. Of course, Jasmine still does recognize Aladdin, and Aladdin even asks Genie why the magic didn't work, but this is never properly explained. The original movie avoids all this with the simple line: “I hoped you wouldn't (recognize me)”, spoken by Aladdin when Jasmine confronts him about being the boy she met in the marketplace and lying to her about it. It's clear Aladdin can't see how much of an impact he made on Jasmine after he finds out who she really is, and wouldn't expect her to care enough about him to make the connection. “She was the princess![...] I must have sounded so stupid to her!” Oh, Aladdin.... This is honestly one of the most endearing and relatable things about him, that the same boy who figured out in one second that Jafar was hypnotizing the Sultan with his cobra staff can't figure out that Jasmine likes him.

The live-action movie includes details like servants and gifts to the Sultan, and parts of Aladdin's stay at the palace like the bedroom he's given and his first dinner there. All of these add colour and depth to the story without changing anything drastic. In the original we know the servants must exist, but they are never shown and hardly ever spoken about, and we can assume Aladdin must have slept and eaten at the palace at some point, but it's never shown or mentioned. The only quibble I have with all this is that Aladdin and Jasmine have an extra interaction during the dinner scene – and it isn't used to show that Jasmine is still angry at Aladdin, or for Aladdin to do anything that softens her anger, or to show us anything about Jasmine's feelings at all (assuming, of course, that live-action Jasmine has feelings.) The scene therefore has no significance and doesn't even need to be there, which is a pity because showing Aladdin's first dinner at the palace is a wonderful idea if done right. Do you know what I would have liked to see in that scene? I would have liked to see Aladdin's reaction to having all this food in front of him, and knowing he can just take it and eat as much as he likes, and no one is going to chase him or try and take it away from him or act like he's a horrible person for wanting it. These, in my opinion, are the new ideas the live-action remake should have been exploring.

The live-action certainly has both Jafar and Jasmine do more investigating into Prince Ali than they do in the original, trying to find out whether Ababwa is a real country. This idea might have added some depth and been an interesting new angle to explore, except that both characters were supposed to be very upset at the time for different reasons, and geography would probably be the last thing on their minds, so once again the movie is exchanging emotion for logic. Meanwhile, the movie is setting up Jasmine as this hyper- in-your-face- feminist character and even changes the scene where Aladdin comes to ask for her hand so that he winds up saying he wants to “buy” Jasmine – everything was all set up perfectly for her line “I am not a prize to be won!”, and it never comes. The whole time he's at the palace, Jasmine gives Aladdin no indication that she is either mad at him or falling in love with him. Live-action Jasmine never gets angry at Aladdin, not even when she realizes he's lied to her. A small part of me felt this was a pleasant change from the modern female characters who seem to get mad at men for everything they do, but mostly all I saw was the movie stripping Jasmine of yet another opportunity to show any emotions. Not to mention, in the original movie one of my favourite things about Jasmine is that she can be mad at Prince Ali, while never doubting she still loves him. There are probably other romance heroines out there who do that, but I honestly can't think of any. In my experience it's far more common to have heroines see one tiny little flaw in the hero and instantly doubt whether they could ever build a relationship together. Jasmine is not like that; she knows what she wants, and her reaction is just another reason we can be sure her love for Aladdin will last – we know she's not going to throw everything away the minute he does something that upsets her. I might also add that in the live-action, the dialogue in the two “Do you trust me?” scenes is not matched up exactly, so it's harder to believe that this is how Jasmine realizes Prince Ali must be the boy she met in the marketplace before, especially as the live-action couple doesn't have nearly as much chemistry.

My favourite part of the original movie is A Whole New World and its following scenes, right up to the part where the blissful sequence abruptly changes to Jafar trying to kill Aladdin. The live-action A Whole New World scene is similar to the original – so similar that that it no longer works in the new movie, what with all the changes they made to Jasmine's personality and character motivation – and, I might add, the scene directly afterwards is not Jafar trying to kill Aladdin. There is an invented scene sandwiched in between these two, involving Aladdin discussing his and Jasmine's date with the Genie, while Jasmine discusses it with Dalia (a character invented for the live-action movie) in another room. This scene could have been added somewhere later on – after the Genie saves Aladdin's life, for example, or the next morning, before or after Aladdin exposes Jafar. Anywhere but at the very place where it destroys the emotional impact by not turning utter bliss to nail-biting tension in the blink of an eye. The lack of abruptness also makes Jafar seem less ruthlessly evil, almost giving Aladdin a fair chance to not be killed which the original villain never did, and the changes to this scene leave one of the biggest plotholes in the entire movie. In the original, when Jafar tries to kill Prince Ali directly after the A Whole New World sequence, he does it for one simple reason: if Prince Ali stays and marries Jasmine, Jafar won't be able to marry Jasmine himself and become Sultan. In the live-action movie, however, Jafar (who never had any intention of marrying Jasmine until much later on; and I can't say I blame him for not finding live-action Jasmine appealing enough to marry, no matter what sort of power he'd get out of it) captures Prince Ali because he suspects he is really Aladdin, and tries to make him tell where the lamp is. When Aladdin refuses, Jafar tries to kill him. Of course, in both cases, trying to kill a visiting Prince is a very risky idea, but in the original movie, Jafar is desperate. He has to try something or his plan (and he's already on plan B!) will be ruined. It makes perfect sense, at least from a villain's point of view. But in the live-action movie, there's nothing Jafar has to gain from attempting murder instead of just exposing Aladdin to the Sultan – which seems the obvious course of action considering the Sultan trusts Jafar and Aladdin is definitely breaking some laws here – or just going straight to the part where he has Iago steal the lamp from Aladdin and bring it to him, which live-action Jafar still does, at the same point of the movie as original Jafar. The only reason live-action Jafar has for killing Aladdin is because that's what he does in the original, where his motivations were entirely different. I can't understand for the life of me why the moviemakers thought this change was a good idea. Maybe they thought it wasn't realistic that Jafar wouldn't recognize Aladdin's face, but I don't think Jafar cared that much about the face of someone who, in his mind, was merely a tool to help him get the lamp and could then be disposed of. If it bothered them that much, why not use the excuse of the Genie's magic on Jafar? I can't believe that the storyline wouldn't have been altered in any significant way if Jafar and Aladdin each knew who the other was when Aladdin came to the palace (and in the live-action, Aladdin did know it was Jafar who betrayed him at the Cave of Wonders, but still does absolutely nothing with this knowledge). Basically, in the live-action movie, this whole sequence no longer fits and in this new version of the story, I would have expected more, say, Aladdin and Jafar trying to outmaneuver and outwit each other as Jafar tries to get the lamp back and Aladdin tries to stop him. I have actually heard the live-action Aladdin summarized as being about Jafar and Aladdin fighting for possession of the lamp, which they both want. That's similar to the original movie, where no matter what Jafar's plotting, Aladdin just keeps getting in his way. Of course, in the original, Aladdin and Jafar also both wanted to marry Jasmine, which if the live-action had kept this would have added another interesting element to their whole theme of Jafar and Aladdin both wanting the same thing....

Another change I can't understand is the whole thing about Aladdin not wanting to tell Jasmine the truth about who he is. When Aladdin and the Genie have a fight just before Jafar steals the lamp, in the original it was because Aladdin was overwhelmed by all his lies and didn't feel he could manage without Genie's support, and Genie was mad because Aladdin had made a promise to set him free and was now going back on it. For whatever reason, the live-action movie changed both characters' motivations, so that now Aladdin doesn't want to set the Genie free because he is confident about the choices he's made and the place his lies have led him to, and Genie says he doesn't care about the wish and is upset because of the way Aladdin is acting. When I was watching the movie, all this did make sense somehow, so I won't talk about how I don't quite get Aladdin's reasoning here, but I still can't understand why the live-action movie felt the need to change the character motivations in this way. In both versions, Aladdin makes a bad choice and has to face the consequences later on, but his motivations in the original movie make for a far more sympathetic character.

Almost every iconic, memorable detail of the final battle with Jafar is cut out and replaced with something else. I knew right from the start I wasn't going to see Jafar turn Jasmine into his sexy trophy slave (because for some reason it's considered sexist when the villain does these things, even though that's like saying a movie promotes murder because the villain kills someone. Shouldn't the villain be a template of what not to do?) But we also never get to see Jafar trap Jasmine inside a giant hourglass, hurl increasingly inventive spells at Aladdin and his friends with power-obsessed glee, or turn into a giant snake. Why? What were they trying to prove by changing all this? With all the special effects at the movie's disposal, there was really no way they could show us all these spells or have Jafar turn into a giant snake?? Instead they add a scene where Jasmine agrees to marry Jafar to save her father, and Aladdin returns just on time to stop Jasmine from having to say “I do” – which of course, no movie has ever done before... They change Jafar's third wish, too, so instead of specifying he wants to be a genie, he asks to become the most powerful being in the universe. How does that translate to becoming a genie? Wouldn't that imply he wants to be something that has tons of power and can actually use it? Not to mention it makes Aladdin seem less clever if he can't trick Jafar into saying the exact words, like it was entirely the Genie who stopped Jafar by deliberately misinterpreting his third wish.

In both movies, towards the end I was worried that Aladdin and Jasmine would not be able to be together. In the original, it was because that scene is done so well that I was swept up in Aladdin and Jasmine's sadness at the thought of separating – even though I knew perfectly well I was watching a Disney fairy tale and they had to get their happily ever after! In the live-action, it was because by the end of it all, they had changed so much of the story already, and there had been so little chemistry between Aladdin and Jasmine, and Jasmine had already gotten her primary wish (in that movie) of becoming Sultan, that I wasn't sure if they would bother. In the original movie, when the Sultan comes in suddenly to announce he's changing the law so that Jasmine can be with Aladdin, bittersweet despair turns into utter joy as we see for ourselves that no, there is no way Disney is going to end this movie without making everything turn out perfectly for everyone (well, except Jafar and Iago), and that means a happy ending for our Jasladdin. It's not just the successful romance that makes the ending this good either. As the newly freed Genie flies off into the sky, we can be completely satisfied knowing that every one of these characters is finally free.

The live-action version of this scene is (surprise) far more quiet and less powerful, and doesn't involve anything like Jasmine's face lighting up and throwing herself into Aladdin's arms and him lifting her off her feet and twirling her round while she says “I choose you, Aladdin”, saying his name like he's the most special thing in the world to her. In the live-action, I was mostly happy to see Aladdin and Jasmine get together because I was afraid they wouldn't bother doing it once Jasmine becomes Sultan, and that would have been bad because Aladdin and Jasmine are too good a couple to let them split up, even if all their personality and chemistry has been stripped away.

As I said earlier, the live-action Aladdin also has many plot threads and scenes it invented on its own, meant to deepen our understanding of the characters and their backstories, and add new spices to the original plot. Unfortunately, most of these plot threads are simply dropped, presumably because they have no time to continue this plotline if they are going to get through Aladdin's entire story. For example, the movie decides to show us Jafar attempt to hypnotize the Sultan into starting a war, which could have made an interesting addition to his power-hungry nature, making us wonder just how much of the world he intends to conquer before he can be satisfied (he knows already he wouldn't be content with just Agrabah!), except that this plot thread never comes back and is never followed through to any conclusion. As a result, the only purpose of having this scene is to show us that Jafar can hypnotize people and has been doing it to the Sultan, presumably for years (the original movie showed us this with an example that furthered the plot at the same time), and to show us that Jasmine wants to be Sultan herself but is constantly being shut down and not listened to (which was not even close to what Jasmine wanted in the original). Jasmine also mentions to Aladdin that the nasty guards around the marketplace are Jafar's, implying that all Aladdin's troubles connect back to our villain and that she would have done things much differently. That statement even connects to the original movie in some ways, where the palace guards do have a disturbing habit of doing whatever Jafar wants them to no matter how dirty it is. But the only part of this that is ever explored again is Jasmine's invented desire to become Sultan, without any further attention given to how this new information affects Jafar or Aladdin, or even to what Jasmine thinks should be done instead!

One invented plot line that does work and is followed through is the Genie's romance with Dalia, Jasmine's handmaid, a character who exists only in the live-action movie. The pair of them make a sweet couple, and honestly a much warmer one than Aladdin and Jasmine do in this version. Their romance is developed well despite the relatively small amount of time devoted to it, and we're glad to see them get their happy ending.

The Characters

The original movie has a cast of vivid, colourful characters, all of which are a delight to have on screen. I honestly don't think there's a single character in this movie I don't absolutely love. The Disney animators give us just the right amount of expression, ever-so-slightly exaggerating the characters' expressions and gestures to give us the best experience and never leave us in any doubt as to who is feeling what. Maybe it's because the original characters had animators to concentrate only on how they look, and voice actors to concentrate only on how they sound, but every single character has a distinctive voice that suits him or her perfectly, and a memorable design that could tell you on its own exactly what kind of role this character is going to play in the story. The distinctness extends to the three animals, and while the movie takes liberties and give them all human qualities to some extent, I find something very realistic in the loyal bond each animal has with his particular human. The relationships between Aladdin and Abu, Jasmine and Rajah, and Jafar and Iago are all similar in this way – and yet, Jafar and Iago are distinctly lacking warmth or caring, thus never letting us see any sign of goodness in Jafar and making sure we're completely invested in his eventual defeat. Another link between three main characters is Aladdin's, Jasmine's, and Genie's shared feeling of being trapped and longing to be free. All three come from vastly different backgrounds and at a glance seem nothing alike, but that desire to be free becomes a running theme for our protagonists throughout the movie. In Jasmine and Aladdin's cases, they are also linked by loneliness, both stating in their introduction scenes that they have no friends other than their respective animal companions. Interestingly, Jafar and Aladdin also have some certain traits in common – ambition and the ability to convince others to do what they want without being entirely truthful – but Aladdin is very obviously the hero and Jafar the villain, and we're never once given any doubt as to who is right or who we should be rooting for.

In general, the characters in the live-action movie are less engaging, fun, and relatable than their animated counterparts. Even those characters whose personalities don't really change are significantly toned down from their colourful original versions. You'd think real-life characters would be easy to connect to, but they ended up choosing a cast who (for the most part) did a very poor job of communicating their emotions and thus making their characters easy to connect with, especially when compared to how brilliantly the original movie's animators and voice actors did it. Of course, real people aren't Disney cartoons and are going to play the roles more, well, realistically. But these roles are being played by real people with real emotions, and if the casting directors honestly couldn't find anyone who could express those emotions convincingly – well, we've got a real problem here far beyond a simple bad remake.

Let's go over each character individually, and see how they did. I'll start my comparison with the character I feel was done best in the remake, possibly because he is the only one it wouldn't have worked to make exactly like the original: the Genie.

The Genie, voiced to great effect in the original by comedian Robin Williams, is both a major source of comedy and our main source of power – Jafar is seeking him to gain all the power he wants, and it's when Aladdin discovers the Genie that he begins to drive the action of the story, whereas before it had been mostly Jafar driving it. The Genie is bound to grant wishes to whoever happens to own his lamp at any given time, but there's clearly nothing stopping him from having preferences or showing favouritism – Aladdin gets a whole song and parade down the street when he wishes to become a prince; Jafar's wishes to become Sultan and then a sorcerer are granted, but not with any particular enthusiasm and without any of the special effort that Aladdin gets. Genie is willing to bend the rules for Aladdin, at least as much as his Genie code will allow him to get away with – he clearly cannot save Aladdin's life without Aladdin's wishing for it (which is actually very sad the more I think about it), but he can twist the rules a little to make saving Aladdin's life count as a wish, he is happy to provide Aladdin with dating advice without making him wish for it, and he is able to cheer Aladdin on even when he is under Jafar's control. One of the main changes the live-action movie made to Genie is that he is much stricter with his magic. He has a set of rules he always follows, and he and Aladdin must find existing loopholes if they want to wiggle around them. Another difference is that Will Smith's Genie is shown to be more human, almost like a man trapped in genie form. He spends much of the movie in the form of a man, has a romance with a human woman, and after Aladdin sets him free, he transforms into an ordinary man who can marry Dalia and have ordinary human children with her. Robin Williams' Genie was larger than life, both literally and figuratively – he seems to be a being made from limitless power, and his Genie rules are as fluid as his appearance, as he changes shape so often it's hard to keep track of what he really looks like! Both Genies are charismatic, funny, and tend to steal the show whenever they're on screen (although in Robin Williams' case, this wasn't partly because none of the other characters were all that interesting.) Obviously Will Smith knew he could not play the Genie the same way Robin Williams did – if he tried to copy Robin Williams' style of comedy, it would never work – but his Genie hits just the right balance of similar and different from the original character, and is quite possibly the most enjoyable part of the movie.

Dalia is the only major character from the live-action film who does not appear in the original, and she is a welcome addition to the new movie. Played by Nasim Pedrad, Dalia is Jasmine's handmaid and sometimes acts as her confidante. She is sweet, a bit silly, and overall warm, kind, free-spirited, and assertive. In fact, if the character of Dalia hadn't been added, I think Nasim Pedrad could have been a good choice to play Jasmine. As it was, it was quite a relief to have some female character with a personality in that movie.

The Sultan, Jasmine's father, in the original is a fun character. Douglas Seale voices this sweet, befuddled old man, who is a loving father but perhaps not the sharpest tool in the shed. He is all-too-easily controlled by Jafar and is blind to his own weaknesses. But he welcomes Prince Ali as a potential son-in-law with open arms, and never treats him any differently after finding out Prince Ali is really Aladdin and not a prince at all. If not the excellent character judge he claims to be, he is certainly trusting and forgiving. I don't know whether Navid Negahban would have been able to portray these aspects of the Sultan's character if the script had given him better material to work with, but in the live-action movie the Sultan is disappointingly dull. He is simply never given any chances to let these aspects of his character shine, or to show us they exist at all. He's a Sultan, and Jasmine's father, and that's about it.

Iago suffers the same problem. In the original, Iago is a colourful, scene-stealing presence who is always fun to have on screen. Voiced to perfection by comedian Gilbert Gottfried, the bad-tempered parrot is Jafar's constant companion and his one trusted confidante. He is the only animal in the movie who can talk intelligent human speech, though he only ever does this in front of Jafar, and he can perfectly imitate other people's voices (at least ones he knows well; we see him do Jafar and Jasmine). As well as just being fun to have around, Iago also performs a couple of important functions without which the plot would have gone very differently. In stark contrast to this, the live-action cuts Iago's screen time until he is barely memorable. He still carries out a couple of plot points, but in this version, all of these could conceivably have been done without him and the overall feel is that there was no need to have him in there. Jafar never confides in Iago, sometimes confiding his plans in human underlings instead, and Iago never gives Jafar evil advice. He is voiced by Alan Tudyk, but for the amount of lines he got he might as well have not been voiced by anyone.

Abu is voiced in both movies by Frank Welker, and perhaps that's why his character didn't change much. Aladdin's loyal friend and monkey, Abu is cute, mischievous, easily offended, and unable to resist any precious jewel that comes into his sight. He is always ready to protect Aladdin and pounce on anyone who tries to harm him. In the original, we don't know how long Abu and Aladdin have known each other, or whether Aladdin learned his monkeylike evasive tactics from Abu or Abu picked them up mimicking Aladdin, though the live-action decided that it was Abu who taught Aladdin. We do know that while Abu doesn't speak, the original character is able to form his monkey chatter into certain human words, and Aladdin always seems to understand him perfectly. He performs an essential double plot function in the Cave of Wonders scene, making him truly indispensable, and fortunately, unlike with Iago, the live-action filmmakers realized this. Abu gets less humorous moments on screen in this version, portrayed instead as a more realistic monkey, but at least he's there, he's memorable, and no major changes to his character were made.

The magic carpet also remains the same in both films. Fortunately, the live-action movie had no problem with keeping a sentient carpet in the film even if they did somehow have a problem with a talking parrot, and as Carpet doesn't speak, I suppose it would be pretty hard to get its character wrong. The carpet has the remarkable power to fly wherever Aladdin wants it to with hardly any guidance on Aladdin's part – he can work it with no practice, no words, and even without fully paying attention. The live-action movie kept all this, only cutting out some of Carpet's more mischievous tendencies by changing the way Aladdin and Abu first encounter it in the Cave of Wonders.

Rajah, Jasmine's tiger, is also voiced by Frank Welker in both movies. He gets a disappointingly small amount of screen time in both versions, but the animated film does show us enough Rajah to demonstrate his loyalty and protectiveness towards Jasmine, his ability to pick up on and reflect her moods, and his willingness to attack everyone Jasmine doesn't want around. While I think both movies gave Rajah a similar amount of screen time (give us more Rajah!), in the live-action we don't see Rajah do any of this. The live-action movie does include a moment where Aladdin seems afraid Rajah is going to attack him, but instead Rajah licks his face. I like this new addition a lot and would definitely keep it – but Jasmine's feelings towards Aladdin at this point needed to be clearer, because the ideal time for Rajah to lick Aladdin's face (as opposed to attacking him, like he does in the original) would be once Jasmine warms up to Prince Ali and accepts him. The scene was probably there to show us that Jasmine is fond of Aladdin now, but that only works if Jasmine is also communicating those feelings, which she wasn't. It would have had more impact and been more faithful to the characters (Rajah and Jasmine both) if Rajah had licked Aladdin's face after trying to attack him at some point, and if both actions reflected the way Jasmine felt about Prince Ali at the time.

Jafar is the quintessential villain in the animated film, and I love it. Imposing, always dressed in dramatic red and black, with a twisted face and a twisted beard to match, given a wonderfully villainous hiss of a voice by Jonathan Freeman and sometimes an evil laugh, Jafar is everything a villain ought to be. His villainous motives are of the power-hungry variety – he wants, quite simply, to take over Agrabah. Of course, no matter how much power he gets, he's never content with it, and this eventually causes his downfall. Despite being the classic villain, Jafar also has a couple of very human traits, such as his need to constantly confide in someone (Iago), and his desperate action when Prince Ali comes to call and threatens his plot to become Sultan. A desperate villain is something I rarely see, and it's a fascinating treat, especially as Aladdin handles this as it ought to, and never lets Jafar's human side slip into being sympathetic or making us connect with him. No, in Aladdin, we are never left with any doubt as to who we should be rooting for, and there is no twinge of regret when Jafar meets his downfall. Marwan Kenzari's Jafar plays up on the power-hungry aspects of his character – he's trying to conquer other countries besides just Agrabah, and there is an extra scene foreshadowing the way Jafar cannot bear to be second-best. But Marwan Kenzari does not play up on any of that delicious, dramatic villainy, which is surprising since Jafar is just the sort of villain you could really have some fun with bringing to life. Honestly, I'm not sure what he and the director and scriptwriters were trying to do with this Jafar. They stripped out all his classic villain charm, and every new element they added to his character was dropped unresolved. And even though the Sultan's line about Jafar being too old to marry Jasmine does not appear in the live-action movie, Marwan Kenzari looks too young to be Jafar from the original, especially as I have heard tell that many viewers find his Jafar to be hot. I can't say anything about that – he isn't my type – but Jafar is not meant to be a young, hot guy and all this means that the movie did not succeed in finding a Jafar actor who brings to life his twisted, textbook-villain appearance from the original, and possibly that they weren't even trying.

Aladdin, our title character, is in every way the perfect hero. Everything that happens in his first few scenes is designed to make us either look up to him or relate to him. He's charming and all the clever acrobatics and stunts he uses to evade the guards make us start rooting for him even before we really know him – and then we see him give up the only food he has to a pair of hungry children who need it even more than he does. Now we've got this hero who is generous and kind as well as clever and impressive – and not at all bad-looking either, I might add – and as if that wasn't enough, the very next scene is the one with Prince Achmed taunting him. So now not only does Aladdin have all the best traits of a hero, we also feel sorry for him. By this point, we can't help but love Aladdin and will happily support him throughout the rest of the movie, even when – or perhaps especially when – he makes a decision we can tell is a very bad one. Aladdin is incredibly hopeful: living on the street stealing food to survive, he still dreams of living in a palace one day, and no matter how bad things get, he never seems to truly give up or believe all is lost. Voiced by Scott Weinger (who gives him a very American accent, but the voice suits him so well I couldn't picture Aladdin sounding any other way), and with his singing voice provided by Brad Kane, it's easy to see why Aladdin is the one “diamond in the rough” the Cave of Wonders decided was worthy enough to enter. In the original anyway. Mena Massoud doesn't change Aladdin's character in any obvious way, but a lot of little things make him ever-so-slightly less appealing than the original. I suppose the fact that I find animated Aladdin to be more physically attractive is a matter of personal taste only, but watching Mena Massoud's Aladdin steal a woman's jewellery, which might have had personal value to her for all he knows, and selling it for food is just a little bit off-putting. In the original, Aladdin steals the food directly, which certainly would have had no sentimental value to anyone. “I steal only what I can't afford,” he sings, but in the live-action it doesn't seem to be true. Also watching Aladdin casually throw his ill-gotten food at a poor family sitting against a wall just doesn't have the same impact as taking the time to show Aladdin noticing the children rummage for food, and realizing he can't just sit there and enjoy his meal while they starve. In the original movie, Aladdin is also crafty and clever, and one of his main character traits is his ability to manipulate other people into doing exactly what he wants them to. He uses this on a merchant Jasmine has a run-in with, he uses this on the Genie – and he uses this to very important effect on Jafar during the final battle. But in every one of these scenes, the live-action movie changes the dialogue to the point where it never seems like it was Aladdin's silver tongue that got him out of anything. Aladdin's costume is also changed somewhat, which seems like a small thing, but costume design is a big part of what makes a character recognizable, and these characters are already established and well-known. I don't see why the live-action movie couldn't have given Aladdin a purple vest and no shirt; you can't tell me the costume department couldn't have managed it. Live-action Aladdin is technically the same as the original character, but somehow feels just a little bit off.

Jasmine. Oh, Jasmine. I've tried to keep my temper. I've tried to hold off talking about her until it was time, even though I'm sure you've noticed some of my less-than-favourable opinion of Naomi Scott's Jasmine slip through. The fact is that I could have overlooked every other flaw in the movie – the unengaging pace, the plotholes, the unfinished plotlines, the awkward dialogue changes, and the boring characters – if it weren't for what they did to Jasmine, the biggest crime the movie commits. Before I can get into explaining why Naomi Scott's Jasmine was so bad, I must start by discussing the original character, the Jasmine Naomi Scott should have been trying to portray. If Jafar is the perfect villain, and Aladdin is the perfect hero, Jasmine completes the trio as the perfect heroine. Unlike so many other female characters I've encountered over the years, Jasmine hits exactly the right balance between strong and vulnerable. She is sweet, kind, and feminine, but never weak; she is fiery, assertive, and stubborn, but never heartless. Jasmine is driven by a desire to be free, and to make her own choices and not have her life lived for her. Linda Larkin gives Jasmine a most fitting voice, as sweet and rich as honey, and Lea Salonga matches her with Jasmine's singing. Jasmine in the original is a very emotionally-driven character, shown at different times to be openly excited, devastated, furious, and terrified, and never tries to hide what she is feeling. Sometimes she gets into trouble and has to be rescued (due to circumstances, not due to some innate inability to save herself). And surprise, surprise, it never detracts from her strength in any way. What it does do is make her relatable, someone we can root for because she lets us in, and someone we can care about because she cares about other people. She has a real personality. But Naomi Scott, whether through the fault of the actress, the director, the scriptwriters, or all three, plays this loveable princess with all the warmth and personality of a stone statue. Ignoring the perfect balance of female strength the original movie had already found, this film decides to use the all-too-common modern trope of turning the heroine into a female robot: cold, emotionless, and careful to cut out anything that could potentially be taken for weakness. Far from making a strong character, this method results in a heroine who doesn't feel human. They go so far as to change all the parts where Jasmine loses her temper – apparently even anger is too “weak” an emotion to be accepted in women anymore. In the live-action, Jasmine is driven not by a desire to be free but by a desire to become the next Sultan. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a heroine who wants to be Sultan – not if she's acting like a real human with a real personality while she's doing it. But that isn't what Jasmine wanted, and changing her motivation spoils the whole three-protagonists-who-just-want-to-be-free dynamic Aladdin had going. It also feels like the moviemakers are saying that a woman, especially a woman of colour, cannot be strong if her life's goal is anything less than becoming a Sultan. And it strips the A Whole New World sequence of all its meaning – if Jasmine's main goal in life is to become Sultan, not to be free, why is she so charmed by a trip on Aladdin's magic carpet? The whole scene in the live-action movie is kept much the same as in the original, and as a result it feels wrong – like they snatched a scene from another movie and stuffed it in there. Actually it feels more like a welcome break, but the fact remains that it doesn't belong in the story live-action Aladdin has become. Not to mention Jasmine needs more emotion singing A Whole New World than she shows in the entire rest of the movie put together, so it's very difficult to believe this is the same character. In the live-action movie, Jasmine is actually given her own song. I was pleased to hear about that because Jasmine is pretty much the only Disney princess without a song she can truly call her own (with the possible exception of Belle, but even she gets a song named after her and has the whole reprise to herself.) But Speechless is a song that relates only to the new, unrelatable Jasmine and her motivations, with no connection to the original character – or to any other Disney princess song for that matter; instead of being about hope and dreams and love, it's all “I'm a strong woman and no one will listen to me”. Perhaps part of the reason the song felt off to me was because it had a very distinct 2010s pop sound, which doesn't exactly blend in with a soundtrack written in 1992. At first when I heard the song's title I thought “Speechless” would be the way Jasmine feels after she first meets Aladdin. I couldn't picture the original Jasmine singing this song, and it's disappointing, because they had a chance to finally give Jasmine her own song and they messed it up. Jasmine doesn't even look like the original character. Her turquoise crop top and harem pants, her headband/crown with the large turquoise jewel, her gigantic golden earrings – everything that makes her look iconic – are all gone, and in fact she is more often shown in pink than in a turquoise anything. Her hair has zero volume (I know nobody could realistically achieve Jasmine's amount of volume, but is that an excuse for not giving her any?!) and is never tied into the triple ponytail that was so iconic on the original character. Even the shape of her nose is wrong, a quibble that seems unimportant, but Jasmine never had that stereotypical, conventionally beautiful nose, and it doesn't at all suit the exotic, standout vibe she should give off. Not to mention if they are trying to bring a beloved animated character to life, they should at least try to get these details right. Jasmine's whole look essentially changes from an exotic beauty to someone who looks exactly like every other conventionally beautiful woman in the 2010s. I'm not even sure what Aladdin sees in her in this version. “She's smart and fun and[...] beautiful!” Aladdin tells Genie in the original movie, and he's right. Naomi Scott's Jasmine may be smart, but no one could ever call her fun and she's at best mildly pretty. I think the whole problem with Jasmine is that they tried to make her stronger, and succeeded in making her a weak character and an unlikable person. Original Jasmine is strong because of her weaknesses; live-action Jasmine is weak because she has none.

The Romance

I want to give the romance its own section because it's a huge driving force in the movie, and also because it's rare that I see one done so well. Let us discuss: Jasladdin. (You can quote me on the ship name.)

The original Jasmine and Aladdin are in every way the perfect couple. They seem so different on the surface, and what with their vastly different upbringings, they probably are, but underneath it all they're very similar. Both are kind, brave, adventurous, and driven by this feeling of being trapped in their life situations and wanting to be free. Actually both Aladdin and Jasmine are perfect for helping each other get what they want most – Aladdin wants to be rich and live in a palace, and Jasmine can get that for him; Jasmine wants to make her own choices and live her own life, and Aladdin can get that for her. The fact that Aladdin and Jasmine didn't have to sacrifice their deepest desires to be with each other, that their deepest desires were fulfilled by being with each other, makes the romance that much stronger, that much more satisfying, and makes us that much more able to root for them. They've also seen each other's less desirable sides – she knows he doesn't always tell the truth, he knows she's got a short temper and allows her tiger to attack people she doesn't want around – and they've been through a lot together besides, so we can be confident if their love can survive all that, it can survive anything. Their on-screen chemistry is incredible. The original movie's running device of having Aladdin and Jasmine almost kiss, but then being interrupted just before their lips can meet, heightens our desire to see these two get their happy ending, an ending where they can finally be together forever and kiss as much as they like, because this couple deserves it.

In the original movie, Aladdin falls in love with Jasmine the moment he first lays eyes on her, and his dreamy, glazed look as he gazes at her could be a benchmark for lovers everywhere. I think Jasmine fell in love with Aladdin more gradually, and that the moment she fell in love completely was on the magic carpet ride. The live-action movie has no corresponding moment where Aladdin sees Jasmine in the marketplace and falls instantly in love, none effective enough that I noticed it, anyway. Looking back, I can't think of any moment where Aladdin begins to obviously fall in love with Jasmine. And yes, I do know plenty of romances work without that one super-obvious love-at-first-sight moment Aladdin has in the original, but here we don't get anything. Nothing to indicate to us when or why he's fallen for this cold, emotionless girl – although, to be fair, it could be that the movie did have some corresponding moment and the whole thing was just so uninspiring that I didn't notice it. Interestingly, it's Jasmine who gets a scene showing us she's beginning to have feelings for Aladdin, at least inasmuch as live-action Jasmine ever seems to feel anything – but at least it's something, even if the main indication of her feelings is that Dalia says so. In the original, Jasmine makes it very clear she's fond of the boy she met in the marketplace. When she thinks he's dead, she's devastated. Live-action Jasmine never gets that kind of chance to show us how much she cares for Aladdin, and I can't help but wonder how much she would care even if she were given one. These moments are replaced by new, invented goals for Jasmine that leave no need for an Aladdin in her life.

In the original movie, Aladdin and Jasmine make an excellent team, effortlessly playing off one another. Aladdin comes up with a scheme, and Jasmine slips into whatever role she needs to play to help Aladdin pull it off. Jasmine is quick at learning the skills she needs to keep up with Aladdin in his world, and he's very kind and caring, making sure to help her in any way he can. Jasmine is even willing to flirt with and kiss Jafar to help Aladdin, and if that's not loyalty I don't know what is. When Aladdin and Jasmine are together in Aladdin's home talking about their lives, they end up speaking as one since their feelings about their lives are so similar. Aladdin first makes himself known to Jasmine by saving her life, and Jasmine does her very best to return that favour for Aladdin, sacrificing the freedom she so desperately craves in the process.

The live-action movie shows us none of this. Naomi Scott's Jasmine is far too independent to work together with a boy or need one to take care of her, and I have to wonder why this character would even be part of a romance since they were going for that whole she's-too-strong-to-need-anyone-else angle. Mena Massoud's Aladdin is never given the chance to do any real scheming, and has much fewer chances to look out for Jasmine – I suppose because if Jasmine got in trouble and needed help getting out of it, that would make her “weak”. The final confrontation with Jafar is changed so that Aladdin and Jasmine both work to stop him instead of having Aladdin battle Jafar with Jasmine's life hanging in the balance, and even this does not feel so much like teamwork as like two people who both happen to want Jafar to be defeated.

In the original movie, Aladdin's way of flirting with Jasmine is on-point, as long as he believes they are both the same rank. He shows genuine interest in Jasmine as a person while ever-so-casually showing off some of the impressive things he can do – but the minute Aladdin finds out Jasmine is the princess, suddenly putting her way out of his league, all that changes. He knows Jasmine can only marry a prince, but more than that, he seems to think she won't want him unless he is a prince. He's much more awkward and out of his element when he visits Jasmine at the palace as Prince Ali, often pressing himself to be something he's not, and Jasmine is obviously much less charmed by Prince Ali than she was by Aladdin. Would Jasmine have fallen in love with Prince Ali if she hadn't realized who he really was? We will never know, although his apologizing to her for treating her like a prize to be won, and his giving her what she wanted most in the form of the magic carpet ride, were doubtlessly equally important factors. I think it's incredibly significant that Jasmine likes Aladdin far better as himself than she does as a made-up prince. The moment where she looks right at Aladdin – not Prince Ali, Aladdin – and says “I love you” is such a powerful scene because finally somebody sees Aladdin's worth without his having to pretend to be someone else. Jasmine loves Aladdin, not on the condition that he's a prince, not on the condition that he's never lied to her, she just loves him, exactly as he is.

The movie gives us some great visual representation of this, too. When Aladdin and Jasmine first meet, they're both dressed in peasant clothes, and he's being completely himself, but she's holding back. When they next meet, they're both dressed as royalty – again they appear to be on the same level, but now Aladdin is hiding who he really is, in fact outright lying about it. It's only in the second-to-last scene of the movie, the scene where Aladdin apologizes to Jasmine for lying to her and Jasmine tells him that she understands and that she loves him, when we finally see Aladdin and Jasmine together and both dressed as themselves, not hiding anything at all. In the movie's final scene, Aladdin has a new outfit – obviously a princely one, but it's purple and open-chested and is basically the prince version of Aladdin's real self, the perfect symbolism for his happy ending. This is also the scene where we finally get to see Aladdin and Jasmine successfully kiss more than once. In the live-action, we also see them kiss again at the very end, and we actually get to see them get married, and that the Genie came to the wedding, which was a very nice touch. Unfortunately, Aladdin and Jasmine's chemistry is done so poorly that it doesn't really matter anymore whether they get married or kiss more than once. I was much more touched by the fact that Genie came to the wedding, since Aladdin and Genie's friendship is still well done in the live-action, even if Aladdin is less likeable.

The live-action movie still makes Aladdin significantly more awkward as Prince Ali, but Jasmine has no clear progression of feelings. When she meets Aladdin the first time, there's the potential for a good romance assuming the movie gives them more obvious emotions later on (it doesn't). The second time they meet (the live-action adds in another scene for them to interact before Jafar has Aladdin captured and takes him to the Cave of Wonders), she seems somewhere between disapproving and impressed, like she wants to admire his nerve but can't be too impressed by anything a man does because that would be weak. She's completely indifferent to Prince Ali just like she was to her last suitor, and never even indicates she's angry when he tells her he wants to “buy” her. (Just try and tell me the original Jasmine would have been anything less than furious!) When the movie has her see him again at dinner, she seems to almost like him a tiny bit, only maybe she doesn't like him, we can't really tell, and in the scene just before A Whole New World, she gives him the same confusing treatment. Jasmine and Aladdin may have more scenes together in the live-action, but none of it develops their relationship half as well as the original did.

Jasmine in the live-action never looks right at Aladdin and says “I love you”. She's much more concerned with the fact that her father has agreed to make her Sultan than with paying that kind of attention to Aladdin at the end. We might think the only reason she marries him is because her father tells her to, much the same way we know Jasmine has some sort of feelings for Aladdin mostly because Dalia says so, or the way we know she's warmed up to Prince Ali because Rajah licked his face. There is simply never any indication that Jasmine's or Aladdin's feelings are strong enough to warrant them getting married in the end. Will they even be able to have a proper partnership, living as equals, once they do get married? Jasmine is Sultan now, so that makes Aladdin – what? Prince Consort? The only reason I was invested in their relationship at all was because I loved the original couple so much. A lot of the time the only indication I had that Aladdin and Jasmine should be a couple was knowing they were one in the original movie, which means the remake is relying on the audience's knowledge of the existing story for their own to make any sense. It doesn't say much for the live-action's quality.

Conclusion

So now that I've spent nearly fifteen pages talking about almost every scene and character in both movies, I'd like to finish up by asking myself the question: is there anything I would have changed about the original movie, did the live-action make any of these changes, and how would I have handled live-action Aladdin, if I could?

Is there anything I would have changed about the original... no, not really. The only thing I can even think of is to add some more Rajah, give him the same size role as Abu or Iago. I might also have given Jasmine her own song, to be sung either before or after she meets Aladdin, probably one having a lot to do with freedom since that was her driving force. But honestly, the people who worked on the original movie really knew what they were doing. Everything was arranged so well that adding in anything else might have upset the whole balance. I'll leave original Aladdin in their capable hands – after all, it became one of my all-time favourite movies exactly as it is.

Did live-action Aladdin add in any of those very few things I felt were lacking in the original? Well... not really. Rajah certainly isn't given more screen time, although I'm not sure whether or not he gets less (all the animals seem to get less in the live-action). Jasmine is given her own song, but it has nothing to do with the original Jasmine, doesn't feel right with the rest of the soundtrack, and isn't a concept that I, at least, could relate to.

So what do I think the live-action Aladdin should have done?

There's a few options, really. The best reason for doing a remake of a beloved movie, in my opinion, would be to bring the magic of the original to life, to show us what these well-loved characters and scenarios would look like if they were actually happening, maybe add a little depth to certain areas, letting us know more about certain parts of the story that weren't gone into in great detail, maybe adding another element or two from the original Arabian Nights fairy tale. Ideally every person working on this remake would love original Aladdin and want to do whatever they could to bring that experience to life. The remake would be nothing more than an accompaniment to the original, not unlike a fan-made video, a way of reminding us all how beautiful it was and giving people a chance to share that together, and probably motivating some of the audience to go home and rewatch the original. (I suppose, to be fair, the live-action movie could certainly have that last effect on some....)

If, on the other hand, they wanted to tell the existing story in a fresh new way, they'd need to avoid all the plotholes they made, and they could have done that by not reverting back to the original movie every time they added something which suggested a new direction for the story. For example, instead of keeping the part where Jafar tries to kill Prince Ali, why not see what direction these characters take them in a scenario where each one knows who the other really is? It would still be Aladdin, but a completely different retelling of the story from the one they did in 1992. (But please, please, for the love of all good stories, give Jasmine a real personality!)

The third option, since 1992 Aladdin was not exactly in desperate need of a remake and as there does seem to be a lack of original movie ideas around lately, would be to just use the original Aladdin movie as a jumping-off point to create their own story, something entirely different with only subtle similarities to their 1992 Aladdin movie. They actually had a lot of good original material to work with if they're not trying to shoehorn it all into an existing story. The romance between the Genie and the handmaid, the evil Royal Vizier who wants to start a war and take over not only his own country but all the surrounding ones, the cold-hearted princess who wonders why she isn't allowed to become Sultan. (It would be a great plot twist if it turned out the reason she wasn't allowed to become Sultan was not because she is a woman, but because her father feared she was too cold and emotionless to look after their people properly.) Give the characters new names and spin a plot structure around that which doesn't copy any of the main elements of Aladdin. They might have a winner on their hands – and all original, too!

I suspect their real reasons for making the remake involved such uninspiring motives as a lack of original movie ideas, wanting to make the old story more appealing to grown-ups who refuse to watch animated movies (aka a percentage of the population which has never been Disney's target market and has never needed to be), or perhaps just feeling it was “safer” to rehash an old idea that was already popular than to take a chance at releasing something new. (You'd think a big company like Disney could afford to take the risk, wouldn't you?) Whatever the reason, they succeeded only in stripping out all the fun, emotional engagement, plot consistency, and Jasmine's personality. Suffice it to say, I will not be watching the rest of Disney's live-action remakes, and am patiently waiting for them to release another animated princess.

My final ratings:

Original Aladdin, 1992 – 5 out of 5 stars, instant favourite, inductee into my personal Movie Hall of Fame, would watch again (and again and again), would absolutely recommend.

Live-action Aladdin, 2019 – 2 out of 5 stars, watchable but unengaging, disappointing, unable to live up to its animated predecessor. Watch if you must, but despite a couple of good performances like the Genie and Dalia, it's not worth it. Stick with the original.