Damn this word limit.
I'd heard the reviews and comments of this movie; None of them even came anywhere near close to truly doing justice to how much of an abomination this horrible sequel it is.
My second favorite Disney film of all time has just been utterly ruined by the thought of such a lame, boring and anticlimactic sequel. I feel like I've just seen a close friend get bludgeoned to death and I just sat there and watched in horror.
How can they take the wondrous animation of the original, which I think looked better than anything, and turn out with something that looks worse than Youtube flash animations in the sequel? It looks downright lazy with how choppy it is. And Phoebus? What have they done to him, he was an utter jackass with no real explanation here! At least when Simba was like that in The Lion King II, he had a damn good reason to be so.
And what did they do to Esmarelda's design? She looks horrid compared to her original counterpart, and her eyes were blue! They're supposed to be green, idiot animators, green as in emeralds, hence her name? We clearly saw Esmarelda's green eyes in broad daylight before! They were never blue at any point in the original, so what happened here? Oh, and the villain... dear God, what a pathetic waste of animation.
You're telling me that this insufferable idiot of a magician is supposed to be the successor to Judge Frollo of all people? Frollo was amongst the most complex of any Disney villain ever conceived, he was interesting, lustful, deceptive, dishonest, and he burnt Paris to the ground because he thought he was some sort of soldier for God. He followed what the Church did, but not what it said, he was so great.
But here, it's just a circus owner who wants a bell. That's it. Nothing more. Disappointing doesn't even begin to cover what that is! Not to mention, I REALLY hate using this term to describe things I don't like and hearing others use it, but I have no choice in this case: The villain was, both figuratively and literally, gay. His unsettling love for himself was just uncomfortable to watch, and his voice is absolutely unbearable.
The only positives that I have is that the backgrounds look nice, and that Quasimodo and Madaline did have some legit good chemistry. But even then that's flawed. Quasimodo meets her once, and then after she runs off from him being ugly, he starts singing about marrying the girl! What? That's rushed even by Disney standards! Their romance lasts three days TOPS, and it happens literally immediately. For comparison, look at Kiara and Kovu, once again from TLKII- They didn't even START to fall in love until the 2 day mark, and even then they knew each other since childhood, so they had a brief, yet impactful friendship to build it upon. Where was that in The Hunchback of Notre Dame II? Where I ask?
Oh, and that's another thing! How could they take The Hunchback of Notre Dame, one of the most complex, deep and rich Disney stories ever told, and follow it up with something so simplistic that it's insulting to its own intelligence? All that happens is the villain steals a bell, and that doesn't even happen until 45 minutes in. The whole movie is only 58 minutes long too, so the conflict, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution all happen in the span of time that a regular Spongebob episode would last! In a sequel to one of the best animated stories ever told! Until the climax, it was so degradingly boring that I almost didn't make it through.
And although the romance had good chemistry, I still can't fathom the principle of Quasimodo getting the girl in the end. One of the reasons Hunchback is my second favorite Disney movie of all time was because it was one of the few Disney flicks where the main character doesn't get married in the end. He walked away with self respect, dignity, and the pride that he had saved all of Paris from Frollo in that awesome final battle scene. Here, they just take that and chuck it out the window for an oh-so typical Disney trope and ruin one of Quasimodo's best traits as a character. Could they just not handle having even one of their characters go without getting the girl in the end so they can keep in line with that tired tradition? And the girl they gave him wasn't even worthy, either. She's not horrible, but it's incredibly underwhelming how she has no personality traits outside of being clumsy and stupid.
Also, why are none of the events of the last movie even mentioned at all? Frollo is not acknowledged by name once. NOT. ONCE. A man who burnt Paris to the ground, lied to Quasimodo all his life and kept him locked in the bell tower for 20 years, and convinced him that he was a horrible creature who'll never be loved is not even hinted at, as though the last movie never even happened. You could've taken out Frollo all together and it wouldn't have made a difference. There's no continuation of his actions, no consequences, no shots of Paris rebuilding after his attack. Nothing.
Just when things like The Lion King II and Aladdin and the King of Thieves gave me hope that Disney sequels had another, brighter side to them, then comes this. I suppose those select few really are the only good ones out there. My faith in future Disney sequels has been greatly reduced, if not shattered now all together.
Bottom line, this is one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life!
I'd heard the reviews and comments of this movie; None of them even came anywhere near close to truly doing justice to how much of an abomination this horrible sequel it is.
My second favorite Disney film of all time has just been utterly ruined by the thought of such a lame, boring and anticlimactic sequel. I feel like I've just seen a close friend get bludgeoned to death and I just sat there and watched in horror.
How can they take the wondrous animation of the original, which I think looked better than anything, and turn out with something that looks worse than Youtube flash animations in the sequel? It looks downright lazy with how choppy it is. And Phoebus? What have they done to him, he was an utter jackass with no real explanation here! At least when Simba was like that in The Lion King II, he had a damn good reason to be so.
And what did they do to Esmarelda's design? She looks horrid compared to her original counterpart, and her eyes were blue! They're supposed to be green, idiot animators, green as in emeralds, hence her name? We clearly saw Esmarelda's green eyes in broad daylight before! They were never blue at any point in the original, so what happened here? Oh, and the villain... dear God, what a pathetic waste of animation.
You're telling me that this insufferable idiot of a magician is supposed to be the successor to Judge Frollo of all people? Frollo was amongst the most complex of any Disney villain ever conceived, he was interesting, lustful, deceptive, dishonest, and he burnt Paris to the ground because he thought he was some sort of soldier for God. He followed what the Church did, but not what it said, he was so great.
But here, it's just a circus owner who wants a bell. That's it. Nothing more. Disappointing doesn't even begin to cover what that is! Not to mention, I REALLY hate using this term to describe things I don't like and hearing others use it, but I have no choice in this case: The villain was, both figuratively and literally, gay. His unsettling love for himself was just uncomfortable to watch, and his voice is absolutely unbearable.
The only positives that I have is that the backgrounds look nice, and that Quasimodo and Madaline did have some legit good chemistry. But even then that's flawed. Quasimodo meets her once, and then after she runs off from him being ugly, he starts singing about marrying the girl! What? That's rushed even by Disney standards! Their romance lasts three days TOPS, and it happens literally immediately. For comparison, look at Kiara and Kovu, once again from TLKII- They didn't even START to fall in love until the 2 day mark, and even then they knew each other since childhood, so they had a brief, yet impactful friendship to build it upon. Where was that in The Hunchback of Notre Dame II? Where I ask?
Oh, and that's another thing! How could they take The Hunchback of Notre Dame, one of the most complex, deep and rich Disney stories ever told, and follow it up with something so simplistic that it's insulting to its own intelligence? All that happens is the villain steals a bell, and that doesn't even happen until 45 minutes in. The whole movie is only 58 minutes long too, so the conflict, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution all happen in the span of time that a regular Spongebob episode would last! In a sequel to one of the best animated stories ever told! Until the climax, it was so degradingly boring that I almost didn't make it through.
And although the romance had good chemistry, I still can't fathom the principle of Quasimodo getting the girl in the end. One of the reasons Hunchback is my second favorite Disney movie of all time was because it was one of the few Disney flicks where the main character doesn't get married in the end. He walked away with self respect, dignity, and the pride that he had saved all of Paris from Frollo in that awesome final battle scene. Here, they just take that and chuck it out the window for an oh-so typical Disney trope and ruin one of Quasimodo's best traits as a character. Could they just not handle having even one of their characters go without getting the girl in the end so they can keep in line with that tired tradition? And the girl they gave him wasn't even worthy, either. She's not horrible, but it's incredibly underwhelming how she has no personality traits outside of being clumsy and stupid.
Also, why are none of the events of the last movie even mentioned at all? Frollo is not acknowledged by name once. NOT. ONCE. A man who burnt Paris to the ground, lied to Quasimodo all his life and kept him locked in the bell tower for 20 years, and convinced him that he was a horrible creature who'll never be loved is not even hinted at, as though the last movie never even happened. You could've taken out Frollo all together and it wouldn't have made a difference. There's no continuation of his actions, no consequences, no shots of Paris rebuilding after his attack. Nothing.
Just when things like The Lion King II and Aladdin and the King of Thieves gave me hope that Disney sequels had another, brighter side to them, then comes this. I suppose those select few really are the only good ones out there. My faith in future Disney sequels has been greatly reduced, if not shattered now all together.
Bottom line, this is one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life!