"I'm free! I'm free!.... Dangit!!!"

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Post here if you are a fan of Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame.

With all animated films these days being largely CG, this film has some exquisite animation. I find it more emmersive than much of what has been produced lately! Sure, there is a good amount of CGI used in this film, the bells, the crowd, some of the lighting and architecture, but the animation truly has a soul and dirty hands behind it. The story is dark, and probing.

Three cheers... for Quasimodo!

 

[auntiehill]

I love Quasi.

"Out There" is one of my all-time favorite Disney tunes. It even gets me a little choked up.

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

The movie is quite good, and the music is excellent. It was also rather dark for a kids' movie. I thought it should have been rated PG, personally.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Really? A PG Disney musical?

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

With songs like "Hellfire" and scenes like the one in which the villain orders a house burned to the ground with a family trapped inside? Yeah, I'd say so.

 

[Maurice]

Sorry to rain on the parade, but I really disliked the film because of the magical (gargoyles) element. If they had been purely his imaginary friends I could have bought it, but nooooooooo.

 

[the G-man]

With songs like "Hellfire" and scenes like the one in which the villain orders a house burned to the ground with a family trapped inside? Yeah, I'd say so.

That's actually pretty par for the course with classic Disney. People [and animals] would die horribly on a fairly regular basis in Walt's films and even when they didn't there was quite a bit of actual menace.

 

[Lonemagpie]

This is the movie that proved that Disney's an Aryan-obsessed organisation. They ditch the theme that even Quasimodo can find love, and go with the idea that fifteen minutes of fame is better for him before he returns to obscurity, while the blue-eyed blonde-haired hunk of a guard captain wins the hand of the pretty girl, who would certainly never stoop to actually loving that ugly bellringer when there's some Aryan beefcake around.

Yeah, fuck that shit all to hell. Doesn't much resemble the story they're supposed to be adapting.

 

[the G-man]

This is the movie that proved that Disney's an Aryan-obsessed organisation. They ditch the theme that even Quasimodo can find love....

While she may have taken pity on him, Esmeralda never loved Quasimodo in the book, either. She was too disgusted by Quasimodo's ugliness to even let him kiss her hand.

Furthermore, the Disney version's ending was inspired by an opera created by Hugo himself.

 

[Trekker4747]

With songs like "Hellfire" and scenes like the one in which the villain orders a house burned to the ground with a family trapped inside? Yeah, I'd say so.

Perhaps you're not remembering some of Disney's other movies where similar and arguably worse things happen?

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Sorry to rain on the parade, but I really disliked the film because of the magical (gargoyles) element. If they had been purely his imaginary friends I could have bought it, but nooooooooo.

I do agree that the gargoyles bring some shifts in tone for the film (it is Disney) but the idea that the Gargoyles were alive in the main character's mind originated in the novel (though they didn't have names).

and who is to say that they ever were actually alive? Quasi could have done in some fashion everything that the gargoyles actually did. They say early in the film that they are imaginary. That they seem to play a part in the story is akin to Nash's imaginary friends physically interacting with his roommate in A Beautiful Mind. Remember, his roommate pushed the desk out the window. Yet, his roommate was an imaginary character. The idea was that Nash actually did it, but when shown on screen, Nash was on the other side of the room (or he thought he was). So, this film shows the gargoyles dropping bricks but maybe Quasi actually did it.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I enjoyed the film. It wasn't one of my favorites as a kid, but now that I'm older I appreciate the music very much. Really every song in that movie is great. My personal favorites are Topsy Turvy and Bells of Notre Dame (it gives me goosebumps every time, it feels so epic!).

 

[Admiral2]

I can't get too philosophical about it. I only watched it to see Esmerelda dancing around (and to hear Demi Moore do her voice). My favorite Disney animated feature is Sleeping Beauty.

 

[DigificWriter]

I love this movie, and rank it as one of my favorites of Disney's Animated Classics stable of films (along with stuff like The Great Mouse Detective, The Rescuers Down Under, and The Emperor's New Groove, among others). It is significantly darker in tone overall than many of the films which preceded it, but the nature of that darkness isn't much different from elements in a number of other Disney Animated Classics films. Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz's music is, IMO, some of the best to come out of a Disney animated film, with The Bells of Notre Dame, Topsy Turvy, and God Help the Outcasts being standouts for me.

 

[Rush Limborg]

I love the film for its truly cinematic qualities. Dramatic, romantic--and dare I say it, epic. The opening sequence is pulse-pounding and stirring in its power--the music of "The Bells Of Notre Dame", the "camera angles" (or, ah...what substitutes for it in an animated film)--eveything.

"Hellfire" is similarly dramatically compelling.

The Lion King is my all-time favorite Disney film, but Hunchback has a lot of worthy moments, too.