The REAL Stories Behind Popular Disney Movies
We all know that Disney has made some very popular and entertaining animated films over the years. Interestingly, what many of you don’t know is that these original story-lines are often so gruesome or deal with content so inappropriate for children that Disney alters the material to make it Kid Friendly. Disney movies based on R-RATED stories.
THE JUNGLE BOOK
The original Jungle Book was written by Rudyard Kipling. If you read Kipling’s short story “Letting In The Jungle”, you would probably come away wondering why it isn’t called The Jungle Massacre. That’s because, unlike the film where humans and wild animals become friends and Mowgli returns to civilization, the original material sees a path of destruction and death. In Kipling’s version, Mowgli does return to the village but the cillagers chase him out. He then teams up with HATHI (the elephant), who turns out to be a lot angrier and vengeful than the on disney creates together, and with an army of other jungle animals, they swoop down into the village destroying it.
THE LION KING
Anyone who has read Shakespeare’s Hamlet know the strong similarities it has with The Lion King. A jealous uncle kills the king to gain power and the son ends up getting revenge in the end. The two stories share that general similarity. However, where disney had to stray from the original storyline was in the number of people who get murdered. You see, HAMLET is not a happy story. Hamlet unlike Simba doesn’t spend his days signing Hakuna Matata but instead goes about life in a depressed, near suicidal state. When Simba’s father reappears as a ghost, he tells Simba to take his proper place as King. When Hamlet’s murdered father reappears as a ghost, he instructs his son to exact vengeance. If the lion king has followed the story faithfully, kids everywhere would have looked on in horror as basically everyone was murdered, poisoned and killed off. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “Circle of Life”.
SNOW WHITE
We all know how this disney classic goes, right? In a nutshell, Snow White takes a bite of an apple, falls into a long sleep and gets saved by the prince. The dwarfs chase the Evil Queen up a mountain and she ends up falling to her death. The actual Brothers Grimm story is a litter darker and has a more sadistic twist in the end. The Queen does try to kill Snow White not just once, but THREE TIMES. After the prince inadvertently saves Snow White from choking on an apple, they decided to get married. They two invite the Evil Queen where they exact a Game of Thrones style revenge. At the weeding, the Queen is forced to put on a pair of Red-Hot iron shoes and then made to dance until she dies.
TANGLED
We all know this version of RAPUNZELwhich sees the main character possess both magical hair and tears which can extend life and save those mortally injured. This Disney version is cleaner and less horrifying than the Brothers Grimm original which has Rapunzel letting down more than her hair to interested passers by. In fact, she doesn’t even have magical hair. Nonetheless, when a prince who is in love with her is tricked into believing Rapunzel is dead. He throws himself from the tower. Fortunately there’s a shrub to break his fall. Unfortunately the thorns of the shrub gouge out his eyes and he is forced to blindly wander the forest for years until Rapunzel shows up and heals his eyes with her magical tears.
THE LITTLE MERMAID
If you followed Disney films to the late 80’s and into the 90’s, you are more that familiar with the Little Mermaid. Ariel, The Mermaid did see a prince and did make a deal to get legs which costs her voice. This part is just like the movie. But where it differs is that the deal stipulates that Ariel will die if she can’t get the prince to marry her. As an added bonus, the price of adding human legs is that every step Ariel takes causes excruciating pain. In the end, Ariel is told she can be a Mermaid again if she kills the prince. Not a total psychopath, she opts to commit suicide and turns into nothing more than some sea foam.
MULAN
When Disney released Mulan in 1998, we watched as a young girl pretended to be a boy so she could go off to war. Of course, she is discovered and kicked out but saves the day at the emperor’s palace and ends up living happily ever after with the general. Then, there’s the real version of Mulan, originally written in 5 A.D. and adapted over the centuries. In the original, Mulan returns home from war to find the world has changed. to make a long story short, she is basically forced to become a prostitute for the new ruler. Unhappy with her life, Mulan doesn’t end up with general like in the film, but commits suicide in a very un-disney ending.
