Aladdin (1992)

"why...the Royale Vizer..." (Jafar)

As a kid, I saw Aladdin so many...almost too many times.  And as I happened to wake up early on a Saturday to find it on a channel above 200, I said "alright" and proceeded to have a very lazy morning.  It felt awesome.

Quick review: Aladdin is one of the Top 10 Disney movies ever released and is a wonder for children and adults alike.  It features great songs that everyone knows by heart and the prodigious talent of Robin Williams. As I have aged I also give more and more respect to the voice actor of Jafar, Jonathan Freeman.

Now onto a topic of more substance; story compression and movie length.  I understand that movies are bound by certain immutable factors over which they have no particular control: the attention span of 8 year olds, the size of an average movie goers bladder, the size of big gulp, the number of usable hours in a day, the number of screenings that can be scheduled per day, and more.  In old movie days it was not uncommon to have an intermission ,just like a real theater production, and a standard movie might be a three hour experience. I have no particular data to back this up but my hunch is that movie executives know that for a children's movie, targeted at those 12 and under, their product cannot cannot cannot cannot exceed 110 minutes total with the goal to have the product under 100 minutes. That's about the longest any child can sit still and the maximum a parent feels comfortable plopping their child down for distraction to watch a DVD.

This time sensitivity leads to story compression.  Characters must make decision quickly. The plot must move swiftly. Time must pass in flash, and resolution must be complete and final.  (So long, denouement!)

As I watched Aladdin, I couldn't help but think about how much plot is stuffed into its 90 minutes.  If you didn't know the story and left for the bathroom you would be lost.  The inner cinophile in me would want to see multiple formats of Aladdin and see which one is actually the best.  Would a mini-series of 10 episodes of an hour (HBO style) give more time for bedazzlement, or how about an Aladdin where 2 hours was the goal?  For some ideas less is more.  For others, the more we see the more we love.

On a scale of a baseball game condensed to the pure 20 minutes of action to a natural baseball game, I give Aladdin 4.0 out of 5 stars.

RIP Robin Williams