Hello Nightly!!!

Tonight it’s a triple feature as we take a look at The Lion King, Pocahontas, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The Lion King represents the Disney Renaissance at its height. As of this writing, it is the highest grossing traditional animated movie of all time. And watching the movie, it’s not hard to see why. The story, the animation, the grand and epic feel of it, the characters, it is a great movie. And while there’s other Disney films that I would watch before this one, it is still a great movie.

Pocahontas is essentially the complete opposite of Lion King. It was an attempt by Jeffrey Katzenburg to repeat Beauty and the Beast’s Oscar nominated success. So Pocahontas is basically an Oscar bait movie. And like most Oscar bait movies, it sucks and is boring. I’m not even going to get into the historical inaccuracies because there’s just too many to choose from. It’s easily one of Disney’s weakest movies in its entire catalog.

Hunchback of Notre Dame is a strange movie for Disney. It’s based on the novel, and is arguably the most ambitious movie Disney has ever done. Not everything about the movie works, as I could do without the Gargoyle comic relief statues, and it maybe could have had a polishing of the script but overall, it really is a good movie, especially considering the source material it’s adapting. The animation is great, especially in the climax, and the characters are well written for the most part.

On to the Nightly.