genie – The DVD Fairy

Presented without context.

Okay we’ll get to Aladdin sulking in a minute, because Genie’s entrance is a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

I’m just going to quote the whole thing to you:

Howdy, kids! Oh, you wouldn’t believe where I’ve been! This delightful little bistro in the Jurassic Era, just before the aliens left the earth?

And then he notices Aladdin is sad, but –

No, Genie. We’ll get to Aladdin’s feelings in a minute. I need you to explain where you’ve been.

“Oh, I get it! It’s Make the Bird Doubt His Sanity Day!”

I so cannot get over the expression Genie is making in this shot.

“Seems to be a Genie of some sort. Absolutely powerless when confined.”

This raises some interesting questions. We know that Genies are magically bound to specific objects. Genie was bound to a lamp, Eden to a bottle, and in the original plans for the movie there was a genie of the ring, too.

(For this reason it would have been REALLY INTERESTING to see Jafar bound to an object he already had, like his snake staff or the hourglass in his lab and not just another lamp.)

We know Genie can be captured because we’ve seen it happen multiple times, even in Return of Jafar. We let that slide because Jafar was a genie himself and could conceivably create something that could trap another.

But if a Genie can be caught in any old thing, I have to wonder why Mozenrath’s Crystals of Ix are supposed to be significant? Perhaps because they actually catch their captives themselves without someone having to put the captive in there. Maybe if used correctly a magical creature can be fully bound to it.

Either way, Genie thinks it’s a big deal but considering Moze’s first appearance was the seventieth episode written we have seen Genie caught in bottles and jars enough times that there HAS to be something different enough about it for him to be afraid.

I kind of love how Jafar avoids inevitable plot holes

He knows that he pretty much has to do what Abis Mal tells him to do until he’s made his third wish (having tricked him out of the first two), so he just scares the bejeezus out of him anytime he starts talking about wishes. This isn’t a man afraid of being killed. This is a man afraid of the genie that’s going to intentionally misinterpret his wish.

And Iago might not be a favorite among fans, but at least it can be said that he goes through genuine growth in the film. He’s changed enough well before this point that the choice to screw someone over because Jafar told him to is no longer an immediately simple thing to do. This is pretty much the moment he becomes the character that follows into the rest of the TV series.

Oh, and then Jafar sings a song at the Genie about how his powers are better. This could have been a lot more interesting. The notion that Genie is now “semi-phenomenal, nearly cosmic” is touched on here and several times during the series. He recognizes that he has become limited, and I like to think that a lot of his fail!antics here and in the series are because he’s so unaccustomed to being so limited.

He’s used to that shit just working.

And this could have been a fun conflict to explore, especially since Jafar even refers to the comparison between the two of them as a rivalry, but not enough time goes into playing around with this for it to really mean anything. We could have had a genuine moment where Genie wonders if he really is better off free from the lamp, because he lacks the power he used to have, ultimately deciding that yes, freedom is worth it and he knows Jafar envies him that now.

Kind of a big point this could have been, considering Jafar was the only person in the original movie who pointedly referred to him as “slave.”

Also interesting that Genie spends MOST of this movie, with few exceptions, with legs, as a way of showing he’s no longer bound to the lamp (as opposed to losing his bracelets). In fact, I don’t think you even SEE the lamp in this movie.

I’ll be interested to look for when it first pops up in the series.

Also what the Hell, Jafar:

Because we needed creepy imagery AND a rhyme.

You tried, Dan Castellaneta.

Get ready for a whole lot of nonsense.

Which I’m going to try to balance out with some worthwhile commentary.

I think it was the Nostalgia Chick who said that it is not easy to take on a role like this, where you’re essentially told to be another actor. In this case, “Be Robin Williams.”

AM I ROBIN WILLIAMS YET?

That’s a tall order for anyone. I let this guy slide as far as the character consistency goes, probably because I grew up watching the TV show and saw more of a character in Dan Castellaneta’s Genie than Robin Williams’ Genie. Because, y’know. An entire series gives you way more room to explore conflict and growth and such. And despite being a running modern-pop-culture-references machine, the Genie DOES get to develop some in the series, and even starts to here when he has to deal with being only slightly as powerful as he was before he was bound to the lamp. So again, I let the character differences slide. Dan C gets a chance to make the character his own.

Oh, apparently we’re singing again.

This song is okay. It’s not spectacular but the people behind the direct-to-video sequels were pretty hit and miss when it came to music. This song “There is Nothing in the World Quite Like a Friend,” deserves some distinction because as “meh” as it is, by virtue of its chorus, it’s probably the most catchy and melodic of the offerings in this film.

It goes from a general sound that’s a clear imitation of Friend Like Me, and then in the chorus slips into something almost sweet. I really think they were on to something and the song just needed to cook more.

It’s the song that stuck with me when I was a kid, and I remember looking forward to hearing it whenever it came up.

But yeah, beyond that the visuals are well-animated, but pretty disorganized because Genie has a lot of references to make and only about 2 minutes to do it.

Also, suddenly it’s nighttime:

Those last two frames were back to back.