Chelsea Burnes

When going into this movie don't think of it as the animated classic or the Broadway musical version in a separate way. Think of it as a merge of the two with a modern splash to top it off. I found the music to be a wonderful blend of classic Broadway hit and Modern beat. Smith's rendition of Genie is a wonderful mix of his own personality and the character as well as giving a honorable bow to William's classic character. The new small twists they have regarding characters ambitions, & past bring out a more well rounded idea of the characters and how/ they act the way they do. Jasmine isn't just looking for a husband to become Sultan, SHE wants to be sultan. Jafar isn't just the Royal adviser, He was once a thief that climbed the social ladder. and Genie, has dreams of not only being just free, but human. Seeing these key things help you see the world from their eyes, why they do certain things and their process. I felt this was a good start to what the live-action movies should be. Beauty and beast was one of my favorites when it came out as i felt it blew the prior Jungle Book and Cinderella out of the park.However Aladdin has shown me what these movies are actually doing to the franchises, which is opening the animations and musicals to more details about the world that was already set. They are expanding our childhood movies in a way that we now can relate on am ore deeper level. It's not that Cinderella just lost her father, they SHOW us how she lost her father and the impact it had on her and WHY Cinderella was so kind. We understand WHY Belle's father kept her in that small town that called her foolish and odd. We truly saw how horrible the prince was before the spell was cast. We now know why Jafar was how he was, we see that jasmine had a big impact on her people and show the ambition. Our small golden paged books are being expanded into a large novel now, just like all our lives have since the first time we saw the flms.