Video Essays

I know Dracula will never watch DreamWorks but I expect more from PG Cooper

Fair point. I definitely didn't want to make "that" video. Actually I have a pretty strong distaste for that discussion thanks to a second year film course I took where the instructor thought he was blowing our little minds by showing how Disney movies are actually "problematic". The arguments themselves weren't wrong but man was the dude and the materials he used remarkably smug and self-satisfied.

I wasn't making a history of, I was analyzing the screenwriting. It's not the formula "stopped working" so much that the formula is fundamentally inappropriate for the stories Disney was trying to tell in Pocahontas, Hunchback, and Hercules (but especially Pocahontas).

As for the framing device you suggest, I don't know that it actually adds all that much the video doesn't already do. There isn't much more to my throwaway line. When I heard peers in high school talk about how great 90s Disney was I thought they were just reminiscing, but rewatching the movies as an adult the screenwriting is remarkably solid, a massive improvement over the writing of classic Disney and a lot more consistent/focused than the Disney which followed, at least until recent years.

Sure, there are other factors, but part of my goal with this video is to focus specifically on the writing and not the animation and music. Plus, I still think the writing is the key. Pocahontas looks beautiful and the music is really catchy, but the overall film is still trash. "Make a Man out of You" is one of the most memorable tunes Disney ever did but is an exceptional element in what is otherwise a fairly unremarkable movie. Tarzan has some wildly impressive animation that blends traditional 2D and CGI near seamlessly, but the characters are dull and the story has no spark.



Do you mean when I was in high school or in the video?

PG Cooper is mad that I shit on is video

The "I Want" song in Beauty and the Beast kind of strikes me as a weakness. She says she wants "adventure in the great wide somewhere" and while I suppose being trapped by a monster in a castle just outside your hometown could be considered an "adventure" I'm not sure that's what she had in mind, but the movie doesn't really seem to care. She says she wants adventure, but the movie treats her like what she really wants is a man.

I like that. Would have fit with your Little Mermaid analysis.



The one thing I liked about the live-action version is that it made the Beast older. Getting punished felt more justified. In the cartoon, he’s just a child that doesn’t wanna let in some random ass lady into his home. He got turned into a Beast for that? What kinda weird ass message is that telling kids? But... on the other hand... it means the Beast is a teenager. The fact he’s angry and kind of an asshole makes sense. Wouldn’t you? Imagine spending your hormonal-driven years locked in a castle as a Beast. His experience with Belle has less to do with “learning a lesson” and more to do with him finding someone that understands him. The script is flawed because it lacks a clear message. What exactly is the point of the movie? It shows that these movies were made by a committee and conflicting ideas were stitched together. But it works because the characters and well-defined, engaging and the songs guide the audience emotionally. I think Beauty and the Beast is a great movie but that’s in spite of the script.



Narratively speaking, Aladdin is pretty straightforward. It functions as a action-adventure-comedy film. The script requirements are different than the other Disney films. You could have touched on that more. This is a movie that has to function as both a Robin Williams movie and a “Disney movie for boys.” You could have also talked about how Disney tackles a Princess movie and how it shifts things for a different audience. The other notable thing about Aladdin is being the only franchise (other than the more comedic-heavy Emperors New Groove and Lilo & Stitch) that worked. The two Aladdin sequels were well-received and the TV series was popular. How Disney managed to take the characters, world and themes of Aladdin and expanded them into other works is pretty rare & significant for Disney. Even now, Disney relies on acquisitions such as Marvel and Star Wars to give them franchises. Really, Pirates of the Caribbean is the only other non-comedy franchise they have.

This could have led you to make follow-up videos. I know you watched the whole Pirates series recently and are probably working on a video essay. Connecting Pirates to Aladdin makes sense since they share the same screenwriters. Also, by diving deeper into Aladdin, you can talk about Disney’s television output, in particularly, Gargoyles a/k/a Disney’s answer to Batman: The Animated Series.

Did you listen to all of it?

Naw, just skipped around for a couple minutes. Had some laughs then got bored.



Ha! I wish. Manufactured Youtube drama to ride straight to the top.