Disney Magazine
NEW MONSTERS INC. MOVIE REAL?
CAN YOU MATCH THE QUOTE?
DARK DISNEY
PETE DOCTER
The real stories
4. 5. 6. 8. 10. 12. 14. 16.
The Jungle Book differences What’s the Jungle Book story? Disney PIXAR Boo real? Meet Pete Docter! The most underrated disney films Can you match the quote? How many questions do you know? Dark Disney
How Is ‘The Jungle Book’ Different from ‘Jungle Book: Origins’? The new Jungle Book movie, Jungle Book story is based on the movie made in 1968. The movies are very similar, but there are some differences. The Jungle Book is made in 2016, that means it’s made 48 years later. The new mavie is made with real people and they made is look very real. Here are some differences between the two movies. The first and most obvious distinctions have to do with the people involved with each film. Veteran Iron Man director Jon Favreau is directing The Jungle Book, while actor and motion-capture pioneer Andy Serkis directed Jungle Book: Origins. The films also have different casts, The Jungle Book made the film with Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, and Idris Elba, and Origins cast are members Benedict Cumberbatch, Cate Blanchett, and Christian Bale. And then there are the rival studios at work. Disney is producing The Jungle Book, while Warner Bros. is handling Origins. That difference has to do with the following aspect:
Disney’s film is based on, Disney’s old film. The new movie includes the character of King Louie, a character who does not appear in Rudyard Kipling’s original stories. Warner Bros., on the other hand, obviously has Origins based upon Kipling’s stories, and therefore, there’s no King Louie to be found. Coincidentally, both movies have made the decision to gender-swap the role of the python Kaa, who was male in Kipling’s stories (and in Disney’s original animated film), but will be female in both new films. Another difference between the two is the music in the Disney version. Although the new film isn’t an outright musical like the original animated version, there is still a little bit of singing , and that is not expected at all in Origins. Especially when it comes to Disney songs like “Bare Necessities”, or the song that King Louie sings.
Both films will tell more or less the same basic story of Mowgli in the jungle that fans know already, with a few differences here and there, but another big difference is in the way the two films are made. The Jungle Book uses basically just one live action actor, Neel Sethi (Mowgli), and virtually everything else that appears on screen was created via computer. Jungle Book: Origins, on the other hand, will make use of more live action, and will also use a ton of motion-capture technology on its actors, which isn’t surprising given that Gollum himself is directing. So despite their similarities, the two Jungle Book movies seem to have enough separating them to warrant each of them being made. Both of the movies are really worth is to watch. The differences between the two movies make them two seperated films with the same storie. That means that when you have seen the first one, the second doesn’t get boring!
Is a movie about Boo from “Monsters, Inc.” ~actually~ happening? It’s crazy to think that Monsters, Inc. came out all the way back in 2001, because, like most Pixar films, it has so much re-watch value (and it teaches us valuable life lessons).
It’s hard to express in words the disappointment we are feeling right now, but this is pretty accurate.
To achieve the grown-up look of Boo, Nico explains in his Instagram post that he edited a picture of Anna from Frozen, changing her facial features and hair to look more like Boo. So, you can’t fault creativity. Good job on the Boo poster, even if it isn’t real.
Of course, it wasn’t Nico’s intention to shatter the dreams of Monsters, Inc. fans everywhere; he simply thought it would be cool to create some kick-ass concept art for fictional movies. And it is!
If you’re into seeing more fictional movie sequel posters, Nico has designed one for Ratatouille and Wreckit-Ralph, and they’re pretty impressive as well.
Remember the character of Boo? That sweet, wide-eyed little human girl who was fearless around all the monsters except Randall? Well, there’s been lots of buzz about a new movie centered ALL AROUND HER, because of this poster that began circling the internet waves. Understandably, devoted fans of Boo and Monsters, Inc. went into a frenzy! Could Pixar be making our wildest dreams come true?! A movie that explores Boo’s adult life? The answer is, unfortunately, no. This was just a (cruel!) rumor started by a Disney fan named Nico, who runs the Instagram account conceptdisney. The caption of Nico’s account states, “I make Disney concept movie edits that will probably never come true.”
Pete Docter interview: Meet the man behind Pixar’s Monsters Inc, Up and Inside Out
Pete Docter is like a perfect cartoon character. Impossibly tall, with a reed-thin torso and bendy arms, his narrow -shaped head reminds you of a pencil-top eraser. The ears jut out, the eyes bulge and the smile is like a toothy portcullis. But while you can imagine his fellow animators at Pixar have a lot of fun drawing his caricature, it’s what’s inside his skull that’s most interesting. In a company that’s revolutionised animated storytelling with the likes of the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo and Wall-E, the 46 year-old Docter might just be the most unique mind there is.
His last film, 2009’s Up, won Docter an Oscar for Best Animated Feature – with its story of Carl, an old man who ties balloons to his house to float away to South America. Even Docter admits it was a “bizarre” concept, albeit one he related to. “As a director, nobody told me I’d be talking to people all day,” he admits. “I’m naturally reclusive – I feel myself peek out at a certain point and go: ‘All the extrovert in me is done! I’m on reserve!’ So the idea of escaping everything and flying away … as soon as we hit on the image of the house, I was like, ‘That’s where I want to be!’” Sitting in a seventh-floor hotel suite in Cannes, Docter may not relish pressing the flesh with the media but he copes well enough. It probably helps that the reception for Inside Out has been nothing short of sensational. We meet just after its world premiere
on the Croisette, where the press screening concluded with a huge roar of approval. Since then, its $91m (£59m) first-weekend box-office take in the US was the hig hest-grossing opening haul ever for a non-sequel movie, while Vari ety declared “Pixar’s 15th feature proves to be the greatest idea the toon studio has ever had.” t’s hard to disagree. Co-directed by Ronnie Del Carmen, a longtime Pixar storyboard artist, it’s an elegant brain-bender set inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl named Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias). The principal characters are five emotions – Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger – that all help Riley navigate events in her daily life from a control room when they dictate her consciousness. However that’s only one locale in a complex interior world, which includes areas such as Personality Islands, where Riley’s character traits are store d, and the unhinged Imagination Land, all linked by the high-speed Train of Thought. If this is as philosophical and abstract as cartoons get, it’s nevertheless grounded in winning and accessible humour. The emotions are voiced by some of America’s leading comedians: Parks and Recreation’s Amy Poehler plays Joy; funnyman Bill Hader is Fear, stand-up Lewis Black is Anger and stars of the US’s version of The Office, Phyllis Smith and Mindy Kaling, play Sadness and Disgust. Their hilarious interaction,
Docter admits, was particularly influenced by the wonderful chaos of Jim Henson’s The Muppet Show. “That definitely framed who I am and the type of characters I’m attracted to,” he says. “Really, all the Emotions are kind of like Muppets.” With Riley’s mind coming on like the trippiest Disneyland you’ve ever seen, it’s a remarkable feat of world-building made more so when it begins to collapse after Riley’s parents move her from an idyllic rural home to San Francisco, a traumatic event that causes an interior meltdown. Docter took his inspiration for Riley from his own daughter Elie, who previously voiced the character of young Ellie in Up. When Docter began working on Inside Out four years ago, Elie was 11. “She was going through a definite change, as we all do,” says Docter, who’d noticed how quiet she’d become. It got him thinking about what it might be like to be inside a young girl’s mind, an idea that percolated until he took it to Pixar head, John Lasseter. “I pitched a very basic scenario of a kid about to raise her
hand in school and then gave voice to the inner struggle,” he recalls. “You zip in, and the characters are going, ‘We know the answer!’ and then Fear goes, ‘What are you crazy? Did you see the way they judged that last kid when they got it wrong?! We’re not answering!’ So something as simple as ‘Should I raise my hand in class?’ became a major battle.”
Docter knows from personal experience just how difficult childhood can be. Born in Bloomington, Minnesota, he came from a highly musical family; his mother, Rita, taught music while his father, Dave, was a choral director at a community college. Raised with two younger sisters, now both professional musicians, the socially awkward Docter had no real interest in the family business. A natural-born loner, shy of company, he spent many hours alone, drawing cartoons to keep himself amused. Echoing Riley’s experiences, his social discomfort got worse when his folks moved the whole family to Denmark, where his father was undertaking his doctorate. “I struggled mightily in Denmark to make friends,” he says. Then aged 10, he remembers watching one of his sisters, enviously. “She walked home literally with different kids holding on to every finger – she was the new kid everyone wanted to be friends with!”
His early years sound difficult, traumatic even. “There’s that bubble of childhood that makes you innocently do anything,” he says. “Then when you get older, that pops and you’re aware of limitations and judgement and social pressures and things like that.” After the family moved back to the States, Docter completed his schooling. He studied philosophy at the University of Minnesota for a year, before he transferred to the California Institute of the Arts to study film. Once there, he began to flourish, creating shorts including Next Door, which won him a Student Academy Award in 1992 for its story about an old, square-headed grump and a neighbouring little girl, in what sounds like a blueprint for Up. The same year, Docter was recruited by Pixar, even skipping his graduation to start work at the one-time pioneering tech company that, back in 1990, had been stripped back to its animation division. Thankfully, when Docter joined, Pixar had just signed its historic three-pic deal with Disney. Initially employed as an animator and co-writer on the company’s inaugural feature film, Toy Story (1995), he became a storyboard artist on A Bug’s Life and returned for story duties on Toy Story 2. “The way Pixar has been set up, it’s a really communal group effort but it’s also very personal,” he says.
In 2001, he made his directorial debut with Monster’s Inc. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film, it earmarked Docter as one of Pixar’s brightest talents. Key to his brilliance is his guileless exuberance, says his co-director Del Carmen, who worked with him as the head of story on Up before joining him on Inside Out. “When you meet him, he’s essentially a very large child who enjoys being child-like.” This playful spirit will doubtless be put to good use on the upcoming Toy Story 4, which Docter is again helping to co-write. But while he’s happy to yet again go back to the world of talking toys, he’s less convinced about a second trip inside Riley’s mind. “You’d really have to twist my arm,” he says. Perhaps it’s because his animated universes are real oneoffs. “Part of the excitement for me is the discovering of these worlds,” he nods. “Strangely, when you look back, that’s the part that’s the most ulcer-inducing. But now, as we’re done, I kind of miss it!”
11 most underrated animated Disney movies!
Forbes’ 2012 list of The World’s 25 Most Reputable Companies ranked the Walt Disney company number three. It seems that everyone knows the name of Walt Disney and knows his 52 “Walt Disney Animated Classics” as of January 2013. Disney has made a lot of good animated movies, but some of them aren’t as well known and even less well-appreciated. What is the first thing that comes to mind if someone were to ask you to name your favorite Disney feature film? Most answers wouldn’t be Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Home on the range or The Black Cauldron. So many Disney films aren’t that famous. It seems as if any Disney movie not in the “Disney Princess” franchise never can get really popular. The merchandise, the commercials, and the discussions seem to be for the most popular Disney animated movies like The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and Snow White. This is the list of the 11 most underrated disney movies.
1. Pocahontas On June 16, 1995 Walt Disney Pictures created their thirty-third animated feature film, named Pocahontas. Unlike other disney movies, Pocahontas never got very popular. The story is about the colonist John Smith and Native American Pocahontas who fall in love, despite their different beliefs and language barrier When Pocahontas’ father captures and plans to kill John Smith, Pocahontas saves him and manages to unite the Native Americans and colonists. 2. Mulan Disney’s Mulan is a story about a young chinese woman, who wants to prove her worth to her family. She masquerades as man and fights for her country. The movie didn’t get as popular as Disney thought. 3. Home on the range Walt Disney Pictures produced in 2004 the animated musical western feature film Home on the Range. Even when Home on the Range was first released, nobody watched the film.
4. The three Caballeros The Three Caballeros is the seventh animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. It centers around Donald Duck and his two friends, José Carioca and Panchito Pistoles. The film consists of several segments connected by a common theme. Released in America in 1945 and again in 1977, The Three Caballeros is all-but-forgotten by Disney. 5. Fantasia Upon its release in 1940 release, Fantasia surpassed every previous animated film in the high quality of its animation. Fantasia is the third feature film in the Disney animated features canon. The film consists of eight animated segments, each set to different classical scores. Due to Mickey Mouse’s decreasing popularity at the time, Fantasia was designed as a comeback role for Mickey. Disney had also always wanted to create abstract animation. 6. The Hunchback of Notre Dame The Hunchback of Notre Dame is the 34th animated feature in the Disney Animated Classics series and was released in 1996. The animated movie is set in 1502 and centers around a disfigured man named Quasimodo. Ensnared by the evil Judge, Claude Frollo, Quasimodo is forced to live in a bell tower isolated from anyone and anything except his friends the gargoyles.
7. Oliver and Company In 1988, Walt Disney released its twenty-seventh full-length animated feature film, Oliver and Company, inspired by the Charles Dickens novel, Oliver Twist. The movie is set in the 1980s and centers around the orphaned kitten, Oliver, who is looking for a home in the vast city of New York. Oliver joins a band of vagabond dogs led by a kindhearted homeless man named Fagin. Fagin has taught his dogs how to steal, cheat, and con to survive. When one of his schemes goes awry, the little kitten gets taken in by a little girl named Jenny who names the kitten Oliver. Jenny already has a pampered pooch named Georgette at home who is jealous of the attention Jenny gives to Oliver. Georgette tries to get rid of Oliver so she can reclaim her spot as head pet.
Percival C. McLeach, a notorious poacher who is in search of Marahute, a rare golden eagle. Throughout the story, we switch between Miss Bianca and Bernard’s adventures and how Cody is faring with McLeach and her lackeys. 9. The Black Cauldron The movie is about the evil Horned King who is searching for the magical Black Cauldron, which will help him rule the world. A little farm boy named Taran, along with his magic pig, who can see where the Black Cauldron is located, is captured by The Horned King. While in the dungeon Taran and his magic pig encounter Princess Eilonwy, a tomboyish princess trying to escape the dungeon. The dark quality of the movie makes the animation in it seem more dramatic.
10. The Rescuers The Rescuers was produced by 8. The Rescuers Down Walt Disney in 1977 and is the Under 23rd film in the Walt Disney The Rescuers Down Under is Animated Classics series. The the 29th film in the Walt Dismovie is about an international ney Animated Classics. It is the mouse organization, the Rescue sequel (a first for an animated Aid Society, which is headquarfeature) to Disney’s The Rescuers. Both The Rescuers and The tered in New York and dedicated to helping abducted children Rescuers Down Under were based on the novels by Margery around the world. Two mice from the Rescue Aid Sharp. The story line centers around two mice: the very classy Society, Bianca and Bernard, are Miss Bianca and the jittery jani- on a mission to rescue an orphaned little girl named Penny who tor, Bernard. is being held prisoner by treBianca and Bernard are part asure hunters. We follow Bianca of a secret organization called “Rescue Aid Society” that helps and Bernard on their adventure to rescue Penny from the trechildren in need. The action asure hunters who are trying to starts when a boy named Cody make Penny help them find the is kidnapped by treasure they’re seeking.
11. Brother Bear Brother Bear was produced in 2003 by Walt Disney Studios. Brother Bear is an animated feature film about three Inuit brothers who return to their tribe so that one of the brothers, Kenai, can receive his sacred totem. Kenai’s totem is the bear of love, much to his disappointment because, “bears are thieves.” When Kenai’s oldest brother gets killed by a bear, Kenai goes after the bear and kills it. Once he kills the bear, its spirit punishes Kenai by turning him into a bear.
Can you match the evil Quote to the Disney villain
1. I’ll see him wiggle like a 5. Miserable, darling, as worm on a hook. usual. Perfectly wretched. A. The evil Queen B. Ursula C. Captain Hook
A. B. C.
Mother Gothel Cruella Deville Randall Boggs
10. Great.. Now I’m the bad quy.. A. Yzma B. Javar C. Mother Gothel
2. It’s not right for a wo6. The soldier from the man to read. Soon she starts mountains. getting ideas and thinking. A. Wiggins A. Javar B. Scar C. Gaston
3. After all, there are things so much worse than death. A. Edgar Balthazar B. Madame Medusa C. Javar
4. You poor simple fools, thinking you could defeat ME?! Me, the mistress of all evil! A. Maleficent B. Cruella Deville C. Prince Hans
B. Yzma C. Shan Yu
7. A jealous female can be tricked into anything. A. Captain Hook B. Scar C. Ursula
8. Long live the king! A. Javar B. Scar C. Maleficent
9. I’ve never been a popular man. A. Captain Hook B. Gaston C. Phoebus
Answers: 1. B, 2. C, 3. C, 4. A, 5. B, 6. C, 7. A, 8. A, 9. C. 10, C.
How many of these incredibly hard Disney questions do YOU know?
1. What fictional country is Prince Naveen from? A. Maramorgos B. Mypos C. Marĉ D. Maldonia
2. What did Jasmine steal from the marketplace? A. B. C. D.
A loaf of bread A rug A tiny hat An apple
3. What does Alladin give the beggar children to eat? A. Dates B. Apples C. Bread D. Cheese
4. Which organization do Bernard and Miss Bianca work for?
A. The rescue aid socie ty B. The international rescue organization C. The rescuers D. The secret helpers
5. Who calls Jimmy Cricket 9. For how many years grasshopper? does the Genie tell AllaA. Lampwick din he’s been trapped n the B. The blue Fairy lamp? C. Pinocchio A. 100 years D. Stromboli B. 500 years C. 1000 years D. 10000 years 6. What was the working title for “Fanstasia”? A. Fantastic B. The concert feature C. Disney’s concert ma gic D. The sorcerer’s Ap prentice
7. Whose shoulders does Dopey stand on an order to dance with Snow White? A. Doc B. Grumpy C. Sneezy D. Happy
8. What is Merlin’s pet owl’s name?
10. When Alice encounters the White Rabbit what else is he holding besides a pocket watch? A. B. C. D.
A cane An umbrella A top hat All of the above
11. How many puppies does Perdita give birth to? A. 12 B. 15 C. 18 D. 21
A. Aristotle B. Socrates C. Archimedes D. Plato
Answers: 1. D, 2. D, 3. C, 4. A, 5. A, 6. B/C, 7. C, 8. C, 9. D, 10. B, 11. B
Dark Disney: The real stories behind popular Disney films Despite being kids movies, Disney films have a reputation for including dark elements like the death of a parent or villains hiding behind a pretty face. But the original stories many Disney movies are based on are even darker and more gruesome than what makes it into the final animated feature. We’ve already gone over the twisted tales behind Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, and other popular animated films, but we’ve got even more dark stories that inspired Disney movies. Peter Pan In addition to the 1953 Disney movie, the studio released a sequel in 2002 and spun the story off into an entire franchise surrounding Peter Pan’s pixie friend Tinkerbell. However, the one question Disney’s Peter Pan skips over is what happens to the Lost Boys when they decide they want to grow up. Maybe Peter sends them home? According to the original novel by J.M. Barrie, that isn’t the case; instead, “when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out.” It may not explicitly say Peter kills the Lost Boys when they get too old, but the phrasing is too menacing for it to mean anything else. So Neverland isn’t just fun adventures and avoiding responsibilities, after all. Pocahontas Borrowing the basic story structure of star-crossed lovers from Romeo & Juliet, Disney’s Pocahontas tells the story of colonist John Smith and Native American Pocahontas
who fall in love despite their different beliefs and a language barrier. When Pocahontas’ father captures and plans to execute John Smith, Pocahontas saves him and manages to unite the Native Americans and colonists. Of course, according to history, that’s not how it actually went. When John Smith arrived in America he was in his mid 30s while Pocahontas was around 10 or 12 and they never had a romantic relationship. Instead, Pocahontas was kidnapped and forced to marry the Englishman John Rolfe as well as convert to Christianity and change her name to Rebecca. This story doesn’t have a happy ending: Pocahontas died in her 20s from unknown causes. We may like the version of this story that includes learning to paint with all the colors of the wind, but history wasn’t as kind to Pocahontas. Beauty and the Beast The third film from the Disney Renaissance, Beauty and the Beast, stays close to the original text of the fairy tale about a beautiful and kind young woman who falls in love with a prince that has been transformed into a beast. However, some changes were made from the original story, like the inclusion of Gaston, and Belle’s father being portrayed as an inventor rather than a merchant. Another big change is the exclusion of Belle’s two wicked sisters. In the original story, Beast allows Belle to return home to visit her family for a specific amount of time, but when her sisters see that she’s well-dressed and well-fed they ask her to stay longer hoping the
Beast will be so angry with Belle that he’ll eat her alive. And you thought Cinderella’s stepsisters were wicked. Although the sisters are successful in keeping Belle away from Beast, she finds out that staying with her family has caused the Beast to nearly die of heartbreak. She returns and they live happily ever after. The fox and the hound Disney’s film about a fox named Tod and a hound dog named Copper is a tale of friends who grow up to be enemies because of their own natural animal instincts and the pressure of their owners. This Disney movie doesn’t necessarily have a happy ending, but it is much less sad than in the original novel by Daniel P. Mannix. In Disney’s version Tod saves Copper from a bear, then when Copper’s owner tries to kill an exhausted Tod, the hound dog protects his old friend and the two live happily, if separately, ever after. However, in Mannix’s book, the Hunter trains Copper to track Tod after the fox cased the death of another of the Hunter’s dogs. Copper ends up chasing Tod until the fox collapses from exhaustion and dies. Then, when the Hunter moves into a nursing home a few years later, he kills Copper with a shotgun. If you thought Disney’s version of The Fox and The Hound was sad, at least they changed the original ending of the story, which is so much worse.
The Jungle Book Disney’s The Jungle Book is the tale of an orphaned boy raised by a friendly bear named Baloo and the panther Bagheera. After a series of trials in the jungle and being pursued by a man-eating tiger, Mowgli returns to civilization in a nearby human village. However, in Rudyard Kipling’s original books, that’s not where the story ends. Mowgli is introduced in Kipling’s collection of stories titled The Jungle Book, but one short story in The Second Jungle Book sees Mowgli banished from the village after he’s accused of sorcery, with the villagers planning to torture his animal family. To get revenge, Mowgli enlists the animals of the jungle to destroy the village’s fields and food supply before eventually setting loose a herd of elephants that destroy all the village huts, sending the villagers fleeing. He didn’t even leave the bare necessities. Mulan The story of the Chinese heroine Mulan dates back centuries and each version follows roughly the same storyline: when the army calls on a member of each family to serve, Mulan takes her father’s place because he is too old and her younger brother is too young. Mulan fights as a warrior for 12 years and only reveals herself as a woman to her comrades after being welcomed home by her family. However, one tale features a different ending in which Mulan returns home to find her father has died and her mother remarried. Although that’s bad enough, it gets even worse: Mulan is summoned by a foreign ruler to be his concubine and instead of going, she commits suicide. Not the happiest ending for such a renowned warrior, but fans will be happy to know this ending only appears in one version of the Mulan legend.
Tangled Disney’s story about a young girl kept in a tower who just wants to see the source of the mysterious lanterns in the sky is based on the folktale of Rapunzel. The most famous version of this tale was written by the Brothers Grimm, which was violent enough since it featured the Prince in the story going blind after falling into some thorn bushes. However, the villain in this tale, Dame Gothel, gets a fairly tame comeuppance compared to the 17th century Italian telling of the story. In this version, the girl is taken as retribution for her mother stealing parsley out of an ogress’s garden. The rest of the story is similar to the one we all know: the girl falls in love with a prince who rescues her from the tower. But in this telling the girl – named Parsley for the plant her mother stole – escapes using three enchanted gallnuts. As Parsley and the Prince are running away, she throws each gallnut in an attempt to distract the ogress and they transform into three animals. Though the ogress outsmarts the first two beasts, the last one, a wolf, swallows her whole. So, by comparison, Mother Gothel had a much more Disney-fied death scene – with no animal violence involved. The Hunchback of Notre Dame Disney’s version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame isn’t exactly known for being one of the studio’s lighter films since Quasimodo’s mother is murdered by Frollo on the steps of a cathedral and the minister of justice later sings about being damned to hellfire. However, Victor Hugo’s original story is notably darker, which shouldn’t surprise anyone since he also wrote Les Misérables. In the original novel, Esmeralda is charged with the attempted murder of Captain Phoebus and sentenced to death.
Although Quasimodo is able to offer her sanctuary in the cathedral for a time, Frollo eventually hands her over to the authorities. When Frollo laughs while Esmeralda is hanged, Quasimodo pushes him off of Notre Dame, then finds Esmeralda’s body and stays with her until he dies of starvation. Again, this is a Victor Hugo story, so the fact that everyone is dead or miserable by the end shouldn’t be too surprising. Hercules Disney’s take on the Greek mythological figure of Hercules focuses on the demi-god’s transformation from zero to hero (in no time flat). For his love interest, Disney adapted Hercules’ first wife Megara into a spunky but conflicted heroine who won’t say she’s in love. But, by the end of the film, Hercules and Meg ride off into the sunset to live happily ever after. But in the original myth Megara’s love isn’t won over by the hero, she’s given to him as a gift for saving Thebes. Plus, in an even darker turn to their story, Hercules kills their children during a temporary god-induced madness, and in some versions kills Megara as well. In general, it’s not the kind of material suitable for a Disney movie.