George of the Jungle

Back in 1967, ABC aired George of the Jungle, one of Jay Ward’s most famous creations, which lasted 17 episodes (thanks to the animators regularly going over budget) and spawned some legacy media of its own. One of these was a film adaptation, George of the Jungle (GOTJ), which started life as a spec script called Gorilla Boy that parodied Tarzan. Disney would buy this spec script and have it rewritten into GOTJ (fitting, since the original cartoon was itself a parody of Tarzan). The final film released in 1997 and, in spite of the mixed reception, would more than earn its $55 million budget back with a final box office tally of about $174.4 million. I myself had vague memories of watching it as a kid, though not in a theater, and recently found myself curious about it again while revisiting the original cartoon. One stream through Disney+ later and while I can see how many children of the 90s would have more familiarity with this incarnation than the original, as well as fond memories, I found it less than stellar watching for the first time through adult eyes.

Tron: Ares

Note: This review contains spoilers for Tron: Legacy.

About fifteen years after the release of Tron: Legacy, and coincidentally about fifteen years after the start of this blog, Tron fans finally witnessed the release of a third film, Tron: Ares. Although Legacy director Joseph Kosinski had plans for a sequel, which would have been known as Tron: Ascension, it entered development hell due to a combination of Tomorrowland bombing at the box office and Disney’s buyouts of Lucasfilm and Marvel, though the company never outright cancelled it. Around 2017, plans shifted to the Jared Leto-led sequel that we have now, with a different writer (Jesse Wigutow), director (Joachim Rønning) and composer (Nine Inch Nails) to boot. As a fan of the franchise, I felt hyped going in despite the chosen lead, as I simply felt glad that Disney gave us more Tron at all. However, now that I’ve actually seen Ares, in IMAX 3D no less, I can happily say that although it’s not the best written installment, it was well worth the fifteen-year wait.

Lilo & Stitch (2025)

2002 saw the release of Lilo & Stitch, which launched one of Disney’s most lucrative franchises that continues to see legacy support in some way, shape or form. As an anecdotal testament to this, I’ve attended the Animation Academy attraction twice on a trip the California Adventure park, where a Disney animator guides guests through drawing a character, and there was some crowd control for drawing Stitch in particular. 2025 eventually saw the franchise enter Disney’s recent push for remaking their animated films into live-action and/or very realistic CG, with the remake simply bearing the Lilo & Stitch moniker. As someone who is largely not a fan of this second wave of remakes, I was turned off enough by the announcement to not see it in a theater, but decided out of morbid curiosity to watch it anyway after it made its way to Disney+ just to see how bad it was. After satisfying my curiosity, I feel that skipping the theater was the right call on this one.

Freakier Friday

While each generation can say they have their own adaptation of Mary Rodgers’ book Freaky Friday, probably one of the more iconic adaptations would be the 2003 film starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis. So much so, in fact, that it would be the first to get a sequel 22 years later, Freakier Friday, featuring the return of Lohan and Curtis in starring roles. I did have some interest in seeing this film after watching the 2003 Freaky Friday, but I will admit to having some concerns over its quality due to have Hocus Pocus 2 turned out. Feeling confident enough to see it in a theater, it was not only far better than I expected, but I even say it’s what Hocus Pocus 2 should have been.

Freaky Friday (2003)

While Disney is no stranger to adaptations, the novel Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers is one that the company has made into a franchise with multiple unique adaptations for each generation since 1976. Perhaps the most well-known of these is the third adaptation of Freaky Friday from 2003, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, which was also the one that was advertised to me as a kid. Though I had always had the curiosity about it in the back of my head, I didn’t watch it in earnest until the announcement of a 2025 sequel to it, dubbed Freakier Friday. After streaming the movie through Disney+, I not only enjoyed it more than I expected, I also thought it mostly aged surprisingly well.

Frankenweenie (2012)

Tim Burton’s 1984 live-action short Frankenweenie has an odd place in his career. Not only did it have a more niche audience for the longest time, only seeing a home video release within certain releases of The Nightmare Before Christmas, but the short’s creation also led to Disney firing him for what they considered a waste of company resources. Fast forward to 2007, when Disney hired Burton to direct two 3D films, one of which was a feature length remake of Frankenweenie, this time in stop-motion. The finished product would release in 2012 to generally positive critical reception and also had the honor of being both the first black-and-white feature and first stop-motion film shown in IMAX 3D. In the context of its creation and release, Frankenweenie is certainly a technical achievement, as well as a personal one considering that not many people can say they got to remake a project that got them fired by the same company that hired them. In the context of the rest of his output, however, Frankenweenie’s second chance at life doesn’t change the fact that it’s not one of Burton’s best creations.

Elemental (+ Carl's Date)

Within the last year or so, there have been fewer movies we’ve been willing to see in a theater, mainly due to having some varying degree of interest that’s not high enough to justify paying higher ticket and refreshment prices for a group of multiple people. Pixar’s Elemental is one such film, with it being a combination of the advertising not grabbing my attention enough and because of how underwhelming much of Pixar’s recent output has been. Not even the included Up short provided enough of an incentive, and so we opted to wait until it was recently added to Disney+ before considering it. On watching it the same week it was added, it turned out to be better than the trailers made it out to be, but still not one of their stronger films.

Ratatouille

 

While Pixar had a sort of “Golden Age”, that being the time between Toy Story (1995) and Toy Story 3 (2010), these films didn’t necessarily come without struggle. Such was the case for Ratatouille, the studio’s eight feature, which saw Brad Bird take over as writer and director after the original creator, Jan Pinkava, left Pixar during the film’s early development. After about two years of work, which included story rewrites and extensive research into cooking and Parisian culture, the film saw the light of day in 2007 to critical acclaim, successful box office returns and the Academy Award for Best Animted Feature (beating out Persepolis and Surf’s Up). Today, Ratatouille remains not only a classic animated film, but an enjoyable celebration of the joy of creation, particularly through the power of cooking.

WALL-E

“What if mankind had to leave Earth and somebody forgot to turn off the last robot?” This was the question Andrew Stanton posed at a now famous lunch in 1994, where, following the success of Toy Story, he and fellow Pixar pioneers Jon Lasseter, Pete Doctor and the late Joe Ranft discussed ideas for their next projects. The films that came out of this lunch were A Bug’s Life, Monster’s Inc., Finding Nemo and WALL-E, the last of which had a much longer development time, finally seeing the light of day in 2008. While longtime Pixar fans may feel divided on some apsects of WALL-E, the film received critical acclaim on release and has not only since been preserved in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, but has also seen a re-release through the Criterion Collection, the first Pixar film to do so.

Oliver & Company

 

Following the financial failure of The Black Cauldron, Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg invited Disney animators to pitch ideas for future animated features. Among the many pitches, story artist Pete Young suggested “Oliver Twist with dogs”, which manifested in 1988 as Oliver & Company, the final film in Disney’s “Dark Age” of animation. Although critics had a divisive reaction on release, it still did very well enough at the box office, making an estimated $121 million against a budget of $31 million, enough that justified Katzenberg’s mandated yearly release schedule.

In the years since its original release, Oliver & Company has also gained a cult following, much like other overlooked Disney films like Treasure Planet or Atlantis: The Lost Empire. One key factor in this film receiving comparatively little attention, however, may be that it came out only one year before Disney’s take on The Little Mermaid, which kicked off the Disney Renaissance. Regardless, there are plenty of things to like about Oliver & Company that make it worth watching it today, even if the finished product is far from perfect.

The Black Cauldron

 

If there’s one film that could be considered the black sheep of the Disney Animated Canon, it would be The Black Cauldron, the studio’s 25th animated feature. Released in 1985, The Black Cauldron is recognized as the antepenultimate film in what’s colloquially considered Disney’s “Dark Age” and is notable as not only the first film from the studio to receive a PG rating and feature CG, but also the most expensive animated film ever made at the time. Unfortunately, it was also a box office bomb, earning a mere $21.3 million compared to its $44 million budget, and nearly bankrupted the studio, as well as sideline any further attempts at adapting the source material, Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain, for decades. On top of that, it didn’t get a proper home video release until 1998 entirely as a result of its failure.

In the years since, however, The Black Cauldron has developed a cult following due to the very elements that led to its initial failure at the box office. Disney themselves have even acknowledged its existence with a 4K Disney+ release in 2019, a 2021 Blu-ray release (though exclusively through the Disney Movie Club) and representation in the Disney Villainous tabletop game, as well as a small selection of merch for the 35th anniversary. This cult status also led us to finally check it out, as we sometimes do with other lesser-known Disney films. In this case, while it’s certainly not the best film the studio has ever released, it’s easier now to at least appreciate what they were going for at the time.

Pinocchio (2022 Disney)

In an effort to continue their wave of live-action remakes of animated films, Disney has been digging deeper into their catalog, this time going as far back as 1940’s Pinocchio, the studio’s second ever animated feature. Putting aside the odd timing of releasing within a sudden sea of Pinocchio adaptations in the year 2022, the film was released straight to Disney+ to negative reception. While I normally don’t have much interest in unnecessary remakes, this backdraft spurred me to watch this remake to see if it really was that bad, especially since I could watch it for free, after re-watching the original 1940 film for comparison. While the 1940 version remains a classic, the 2022 remake really is that bad.

Frankenweenie (1984)

Among the many films directed by Tim Burton, one was the stop-motion animated feature Frankenweenie, which released in 2012 to positive reviews and modest success. What most may not know, however, is that it was based on a 1984 live-action short also called Frankenweenie. Of course, no one would blame you if you didn’t, as it had a fairly niche audience for the longest time, with only one theatrical run alongside a rerelease of Pinocchio, as well as the critically panned Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend in the UK, with every home video release attached to certain versions of The Nightmare Before Christmas before the inevitable Disney+ listing. In the spirit of the season, we decided to look back on this lesser-known part of Tim Burton’s career. Unfortunately, it’s not very remarkable.

Hocus Pocus 2

While certainly not the longest gap between sequels, twenty-nine years is still a pretty long wait for a sequel to Disney’s Hocus Pocus from 1993. At the time we finally saw the original, we found it entertaining and could see why it developed a cult following, but didn’t find it enough to go into our regular Halloween rotation. Come the release of Hocus Pocus 2 and although we were on the fence about watching it, we thought we might as well see how well the second appearance of the Sanderson sisters stacks up to the first. The good news is that it does a great job at emulating the tone and feel of the original film, but the bad news is that not everything lands.

101 Dalmatians (1996)

Note: This review contains spoilers for 101 Dalmatians (1961) and 101 Dalmatians (1996).

Long before Disney’s current stream of unnecessary live-action remakes, they had dabbled in a scant few. One of these was 101 Dalmatians, the 1996 remake of the 1961 animated classic One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Although this remake evidently did well enough to spawn a sequel, 102 Dalmatians, critics weren’t too fond of it, at least according to the 41% Rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which calls it as a “bland and pointless remake” in the critic consensus. Among many other films from the 90s, the live-action 101 Dalmatians is one that I have a vague memory of watching as a young child, but no real memory of the actual content. After watching the original animated film again not too long ago, I felt more in the mood to give the remake a real watch and, to my surprise, it was a bit better than I thought it would be.

The Emperor's New Groove

Note: This review contains spoilers for The Emperor’s New Groove.

In 1994, Disney started production on a musical epic titled Kingdom of the Sun. Over the course of four years, however, the project went through a troubled production period (as detailed in the documentary The Sweatbox, viewable through Internet Archive), only reaching about 25% completion. As a result, studio executives stepped in and, after some discussion, the film changed direction to a lighthearted comedy. The final product, renamed The Emperor’s New Groove, would see a theatrical release in early December, 2000. Though it received a generally positive reception from critics, with an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film underperformed at the box office, making only $169.9 million on a budget of $100 million.

Although I was only eight at the time The Emperor’s New Groove came out, I distinctly remember watching it in a theater and enjoying it. However, it would be about 20 years before I would watch it again through a TV broadcast, which reinforced the fond memories I had of the film. After watching the first episode of  the Disney+ series Sketchbook, in which Story Artist Gabby Capili drew Emperor Kuzco, we felt compelled to watch the film again, which led us to conclude that even after 22 years, The Emperor’s New Groove still holds up as a Disney classic.

Mickey's Christmas Carol

Considering the longevity of Charles Dickens’ immortal novella, A Christmas Carol, and Disney’s penchant for adapting public domain works, it was only inevitable that the two would eventually cross paths. That was exactly what happened in 1983, when Disney released Mickey’s Christmas Carol, an adaptation of A Christmas Carol starring Scrooge McDuck and featuring Mickey Mouse and friends, as well as characters from other Disney films. This featurette would also mark Mickey’s return to theaters after a thirty-year gap, with The Simple Things (1953) serving as his last original venture, and accompanied a re-release of The Rescuers (1977). Naturally, Mickey’s Christmas Carol would also receive its own home video release, which was how we watched it for the first time, specifically through a Blu-ray, and how we concluded that despite its short length, it could still easily serve as a Christmas staple.

Lightyear

Of all of Pixar’s IPs, Toy Story is easily one of their most popular and the most expansive. Starting from the original 1995 film, Toy Story would go on to have four films, several shorts, a few specials and now two spin-offs focused on the character Buzz Lightyear, including the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command TV series. For over twenty years, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command served as Buzz Lightyear’s in-universe origin, showcasing his adventures as a Space Ranger fighting the evil Emperor Zurg. Now, in 2022, Pixar has released Lightyear, an in-universe film meant to serve as the new official origin for Buzz. While the idea behind creating and releasing an in-universe movie is an interesting one, the execution in this case leaves a lot to be desired.

Hercules (1997)

Note: This review contains spoilers for Hercules (1997).

Towards the end of the Disney Renaissance, Disney released their 35th animated feature, Hercules, to good reviews from critics, but underperformed at the box office, especially in comparison to the Disney films that came before it. At the same time, the liberties taken with Greek mythology, especially the Hercules myths on which the film is based, angered Greece enough that the film didn’t have its planned premiere in the country. As a kid at the time, however, I was completely unaware of this and only remember watching it through someone else’s VHS copy, though only certain parts of the film stuck with me. Growing up, however, I got more familiar with the different elements of the film through the heavy representation in the Kingdom Hearts series until, eventually, I finally rewatched the film in time for its 25th anniversary. While I can see now how it’s not that great as an adaptation of the Hercules myth, I did still find it a great film in its own right.

Winnie the Pooh (2011)

Since its release in 1977, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, a compilation of three theatrical shorts based on the Winnie the Pooh book series, has proven itself a timeless classic from Disney’s body of work. In 2011, a sequel film based on other stories from the books, simply titled Winnie the Pooh (2011), was released to theaters, however it had the misfortune of coming out the same weekend as the highly anticipated Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, leading to the shutdown of Disney’s traditional animation department and the movie to seemingly become largely forgotten as a result. While I did not see the movie when it first came out, revisiting the 1977 film and seeing Christopher Robin made me curious about actually watching the 2011 film, though I would not end up actually doing so until much later. From watching it through Disney+, I found it to actually be quite enjoyable, though a victim of unfortunate timing in its release.