The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

I worked for Disney helping create the style guide for Hercules and was told by so many people that Hunchback merch was the worst seller in the company's history. Of course, it didn't help the film's hero was such an ugly cripple.

I didn't like this film at all as a child, but when I rewatched it as an adult I loved it! The opening is up there with "Circle of Life" from The Lion King. I imagine Walt Disney himself would be impressed by the "Hellfire" - it reminds me of some of the darker scenes from the earliest films, such as the "Night on Bald Mountain" segment from Fantasia. I also like that while they Disneyfied the book significantly, they didn't go too far - after all, Esmeralda ends up with the handsome Phoebus rather than with Quasimodo.

R1 well, it is not all about merchandise.

R2 Yeah, I think this movie was more for adults. And very true. It is a good adaptation.

I grew up during the 80s/90s wave of Disney movies. Little Mermaid was my favourite (which in retrospect should have been the first "obviously gay" sign for my parents) but I remember loving Notre Dame when it came out but most of my friends hated it.

R4 Little Mermaid seems to be a definitive film for most gay guys who were kids in the 1980s and 90s. I wonder why that is? I also loved Little Mermaid but it was Ursala that I loved LOL!

R4 and R5 What are other obvious gay signs you had growing up?

It's my second favorite Disney film behind Beauty and the Beast. Hellfire is an amazing song

I recreated Part of Your World (Reprise) in the creek with a big rock behind my house as a child.

Bells of Notre Dame is probably the most dramatic song in the Disney canon.

I remember the film almost got a PG rating. That was controversial at the time.

The film's lack of success could partly be attributed to it not having a hit single. "Someday" by All-4-One was a dud and went nowhere.

Count me as another gayling who was obsessed with The Little Mermaid in the '90s. 😁

R9 indeed, and one the most frightening and moving. The lyrics are masterful at summarising the arc of Frollo’s quandary, and the way he turns his back on morality in a few twists of Fate. “Who is the monster, and who is the man?” Brrrrr...

And I still get shivers hearing the outro, where, along with Clopin, the chorus chant/sing “bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells...” ominously. There’s something spine-chilling to me about it (probably because I’m a gay Pagan terrified of Catholics😅)

The metal cover version of ‘Bells’ goes so hard🤙

[quote][R1] well, it is not all about merchandise.

Um, it is to Disney.

for fans of the film, keep your eye out for a live production.....

it has consistently gotten very positive reviews in different versions over the years, despite Disney's decision not to move to Broadway.

A friend involved in the 2015 NJ production said everything was looking great until Disney decided it was too dark a piece for the Disney brand.

It's one of the best of the Disney Classics. The serious tone, the shockingly adult nature. It makes me cry. There is a purity to animation that is not possible in live action. Of storytelling, of character. It's not for children but they should watch and learn. When Quasimodo gets crowned the King of Fools it's like Carrie at the prom. Heartbreaking.

Personally, I think it should be required viewing in schools, and usually that’s the opposite of what I say about D*sney.

This movie though is unique and special for the way it righteously batters organised religion for its hypocrisy.

The score is one of the best ever, certainly post-Howard Ashman. Absolutely stunning. Unfortunately, there are some Disney-esque touches that just ruin it for me, most notably those stupid ass gargoyles.

The best stage version of it was actually the German one, written and directed by James Lapine, back when still had an inkling of talent. It was VERY dark and followed the story of the novel much more closely. Disney, of course, wouldn't allow it to transfer it to London. And now we're left with that very twee version concocted by Stephen Schwartz's talentless son.

R17 I like the Gargoyles. Jason Alexander, Charles Kimborough, and Mary Wickes are very talented actors that pull it off. Plus their song, A Guy Like You, is the only "fun" song.

I didn't like the gargoyles at first. But they represent Quasimodo's sad delusion that they are alive and his only friends, trapped inside the "safe" walls of Notre Dame. For me they take on ominous undertones to his mental state, making the character even more lost and emotionally crippled. It's disturbing whenever they turn back into statues. The real world crashing through.

R19 yes! I love it!

The ending makes me cry like a baby.

I like that Quasimodo just leaves the gargoyles behind in the cathedral at the end. A lot of other kids' films would have made that into a big emotional scene: e.g. Quasimodo asks them if they're coming with him, and they smile through tears and say, "You don't need us anymore, Quasi you have real friends now" and turn into statues. Instead, it's left unsaid.

Anybody familiar with the French musical "Notre Dame de Paris"? It didn't really catch on in the US and UK but was huge in much of the rest of the world. Divine music.

It’s very much in the tradition of the French tableau musical, r23, much as Les Miz was in its original incarnation; more like a highlights concert than an A to Z story told with songs.

I didn’t care for it when I saw it at the Dominion in London twenty-some years ago, but it’s not my kind of music. A lot of people really love it.

[quote] I also like that while they Disneyfied the book significantly, they didn't go too far - after all, Esmeralda ends up with the handsome Phoebus rather than with Quasimodo.

The ending is still pretty Disneyfied. Originally:

[quote] From the tower of Notre-Dame, Frollo and Quasimodo witness as Esmeralda is hanged. Frollo laughs triumphantly at Esmeralda's death; upon observing this, Quasimodo pushes the Archdeacon from the height of cathedral to his death. With nothing left to live for, Quasimodo vanishes and is never seen again.

[quote]Quasimodo's skeleton is found many years later in the charnel house, a mass grave into which the bodies of the destitute and criminals were indiscriminately thrown, implying that Quasimodo had sought Esmeralda among the decaying corpses and lay beside her, letting himself slowly die while holding her. As the guards attempt to pull the embracing skeletons apart, his skeleton crumbles to dust.

While I enjoyed the movie on its own terms, it is hardly a good adaptation of Hugo’s dense, complex novel, one of the greatest in history. The 1939 film with Laughton and a young Maureen O’Hara (yes, I know, not a musical) is the best filmed version and Laughton is remarkable in it.

The Disney stage version from 2015, with Michael Arden as Quasimodo, sounded sublime.

Did anyone see the '90s TV version starring Mandy Patinkin ("Quasimodo"), Salma Hayek ("Esmeralda"), and Richard Harris ("Frollo") that was made to cash in on the hoopla surrounding Disney's version?

Incidentally, Patinkin had earlier auditioned for Quasimodo in Disney's HUNCHBACK, but blew his chances when he insulted Menken and Schwartz with this presumptuousness, according to the film's directors.

[quote]The filmmakers said that the ensuing argument was so loud and so over-the-top that the engineer and casting director fled the room and stood outside with the directors in shock, while Patinkin so angered lyricist Stephen Schwartz that he stormed out and had to be cajoled to come back into the audition room -- and maybe the film? -- by composer Alan Menken.

That’s so unlike Mandy. Cough, cough….

R14 - a friend of mine and I saw that production at the Paper Mill Playhouse and we loved it.

We wondered why it never got to Broadway.

Thanks for providing the reason.

R14 wasn’t the biggest problem for Disney moving it to Broadway that Quasi dies/suicides at the end? Not exactly on-brand.

Watched this as a gayling with my parents. I remember cried during this scene. And even back then I want to be like Esmeralda so I can elope with the Captain.

Esmeralda & Phoebus banging must be one of the top hottest visuals of all the canon Disney couples. Two gorgeous people. That’s probably why even Quasimodo couldn’t begrudge them in the end.

In Disney movies, the pretty people always fall in love.

And Quasi is up the bell tower, watching them and fapping away.

My friend Heidi is Esmeralda’s singing voice. She introduced Outcasts, which IMHO is tied for best Disney ballad with Feed the Birds.

Quasimodo

My friends and I thought it was so funny that Disney made Esmeralda a pole stripper. 😂 This was less than a year after the SHOWGIRLS fiasco, so it was still fresh on our minds. We giggled during this segment in theaters. 🤣

Great discussion. I watched this movie on Disney Plus last night. Still holds up.

I did notice that the cast are mostly theatrical actors. Tom Hulce, Tony Jay, Kevin Kline, Paul Kandel, Charles Kimborough, David Ogden Stiers, and Mary Wickes are all probably known more for their stage work than their television/movies roles.

Only Demi Moore and Jason Alexander are "mainstream" actors. Mary Kay Bergman was the creme de la creme of voice acting.

R38 bet the male animators loved doing the research, design and art for that sequence..

R40 😂

A friend of mine was convinced that whoever drew Pocahontas had one hand on the pencil and one in his pants, the way she was drawn all bosomy and leggy -- in a buckskin minidress, no less. 🤣

Esmeralda was a great character. It was refreshing seeing a major Disney female character and look, sound and act like a grown woman. Same reason I loved Megara in Hercules and Jane in Tarzan. They seemed more mature and to have more depth than the typical Classic and early Renaissance era heroines.I figure that's why they are less marketable, they are realistically portrayed women not little girl fantasies. Tiana from the underrated Princess and the Frog was similarly a mature, fully realized woman character too. I loved Esmeralda's banter with Phoebus.

When the fire broke out in the real Notre Dame a few years ago, I remember reading about how committed the Disney animators were to making that movie a testament to its architecture. From the earliest storyboards, they were obsessively nerdy about it and refused to cheat or change things for narrative convenience. I always found that kind of touching.

Pocahontas was presented as a mature sounding/acting woman, too.

R42 ia, it’s nice seeing adult Disney women who can hold their own, make their own decisions, and go after men if they want. Women who have complex challenges that they may or may not overcome alone, but who aren’t defined entirely by those challenges.

The women of the earlier films seem to be so inert, just going along with whatever happened to them or to their male partner—I’m thinking here of Snow, Cinderella, Aurora, Alice, Maid Marian, Perdita, Duchess etc. The heroines of now tend either to be Godmoded ‘manic pixie dream’ teens like Moana, or conversely to be grown women with some significant traumatic damage, no-inbetween. Even Elsa, an older young female with a glamorous Princessy cast to her, is sort of crippled by her own internal issues.

Characters like Megara, Mulan, Pochahontas, Esmeralda, Belle, Jasmine, Tiana and even more obscure less-classical or non-human females like Vixey, Nala, Princess Atta, Elastigirl, EVE etc. all had at least a bit of agency, and seemed resilient enough to deal with any external problems they had such as poverty or sexism or racism without sacrificing any femininity. They had both spunk *and* sensitivity.

You just don’t really see that much now. The last female of this type in the Disney animated canon I can think of is Judy the bunny from ZOOTOPIA, several years ago.

Disney need to address that, as well as the issue with having no M/M or F/F movie couples who aren’t merely tokenistic.

Disney seems too scared to write female characters who are too human. It's like they must either super-perky girly dream girls with an upbeat attitude or strong and overly serious warriors. And neither can show too much weakness, they always have an arc of overcoming sexism and they must be the smartest in the room. They aren't allowed to show too much vulnerability, have a fatal flaw or be frustrated. R45 I love the examples you used.

A character like Megara seemed even risky for the time. She as a character because she started off as an anti-heroine working for Hades, clearly was more worldly and sexually experienced (Hercules in comparison was naive and virginal) and she was jaded and cynical due to her breakup and betrayal.

Atta in A Bug's Life pretty much hit the nail on the head of a neurotic and stressed woman who had all these responsibilities shoved onto her. She was inexperienced as a ruler, so she made a lot of mistakes and misjudgments. She learns and gets better and becomes more capable and confident.

Jasmine seemed written as a response to Ariel and Belle. Ariel was too impulsive and eager to win the heart of a prince she didn't know and was more motivated to become human after her father angered her. Her motivation shifted from being human to winning Prince Eric's heart and becoming his bride. Belle was forced into a captive situation because she offered herself as a sacrifice to protect her father and she later became devoted to the Beast. Both were strong characters but both basically acted in relation to the men in their lives. Also Belle and Ariel never really change after the story ends. Triton changes and The Beast changes though and they become better people.

Jasmine on the other hand was purely selfish but that was not a bad thing. She was outspoken, hot-tempered and strong-willed and wanted to escape the confines of palace life. She was willing to sneak out and explore the outside world. Women are told they can't be selfish and must please others or they are written to be motivated by love. Jasmine simply wanted freedom to what she pleased and was not motivated by love or sacrifice. She did what she wanted because she wanted it. When she reunites with Aladdin (disguised as Prince Ali), she doesn't go on the magic carpet for love, she just does it because it's a way to explore the outside world outside of Agrabah. The Aladdin spin-off movies and animated TV series fleshed out Jasmine more. She explores the world with Aladdin and they both equally engage in combat and smarts to save the day. Some episodes focused on Jasmine do call out her flaws like her arrogance, vanity and short temper and she learns to become more patient and less quick to assume.

Nani and Lilo from Lilo & Stitch were a very realistically written sister duo. Nani was always exasperated and lost her temper at times due to the pressures of going from a big sister to a parent to Lilo. Lilo was a bit bratty and obnoxious to Nani but was acting out because she was still mourning their parents' death and had a hard time getting used to Nani as an authority figure. In fact, Lilo is one of the most realistic child characters I've seen. She's sweet, adventurous, easily bored and spontaneous and be bratty and make dumb choices. She's not wise or holier-than-thou like many child characters are in movies.