Reviewing and Ranking Every Disneytoon Sequel (Part 1)

So, let’s establish something right out the gate: I know full well I am not the first person to do this. Pretty much everyone on the internet has talked about the straight to video and DVD sequels Disney churned out in the 90s and 2000s to make a quick buck. But the current siege of Disney’s live-action remakes had made me want to do this as a form of cleansing.

The Disney Remake era is basically what replaced the Disney Sequel era. A new trendy fad that was an easy money maker for Disney. And there is some debate on which is better, or rather, worse. It’s probably just my nostalgia talking as a 2000s kid born during this era’s peak, but I have a bit of a soft spot for the Disney direct-to-video era of films. Not saying it was perfect, and yes, it was obviously done just to make easy money and not because there was any real desire or demand for there to be sequels to any of these Disney Classics, but I feel like a lot of the visceral hate for it mainly came from early internet fan culture. The early days of online reviews of animated movies and shows were full of hate for this era of films, and I don’t think all of it was warranted. Some of these I think are hidden gems. I think this era was better than the Disney Remake era because at the least the sequels could expand on these worlds and stories. Even if the execution wasn’t great, the potential for story and character could at least make things interesting, and provide a new and unique experience. And if you didn’t like it, you could easily choose to consider them non-canon, something that Disney themselves sometimes does. The Disney Remakes are often just copying and pasting the same story but in a new medium. It feels much more like a novelty than a brand-new experience. And in my opinion, it’s more insulting to the original films, because as these are remakes, it’s like they’re saying, “animation is old hat, this is the REAL version done in the REAL style”. So as Disney’s live-action remakes seem to be on an endless course as of now, let’s look back on this era’s predecessor.

But as always with my content, we’ll begin with a little backstory. During his lifetime, Walt Disney was famous for many things, but for today’s topic, he was famously not big on doing sequels. Not that the prospect of a sequel was never brought up, but he was always quick to turn it down. The only real exception was Son of Flubber, a sequel to The Absent-Minded Professor. When it comes to doing the sequels, the closest they got was The Three Caballeros, as many see it as a sequel to Saludos Amigos. You can certainly make an argument for it, but it was really doing the same thing as the other WWII era package films of the time, and you don’t see anyone calling Melody Time a sequel to Make Mine Music. The only reason they feature the similarities that could technically classify them as sequels is because they were literally products of their time. After Walt’s death, while the team he left behind began almost immediately working on sequels to the studio’s live-action films, they were mostly committed to staying true to Walt’s wishes with their animated films. Oh they still tried, like when they attempted to make Cruella De Vil the main villain of The Rescuers, but backed out of it and created Madame Medusa in her place. So if you ever wondered why Medusa felt so eerily similar to Cruella, there’s your answer.

However, in an ironic twist of fate, The Rescuers would end up giving them their first true animated sequel in the form of The Rescuers Down Under. While the film did garner generally positive reviews, sadly, the box office was a different story. Due to poor marketing and severe competition from Home Alone, Rocky V, and Edward Scissorhands, it was a financial flop. Cut to two years later in 1992, Disney releases Aladdin, and it becomes a huge hit. At the same time, Disney was making new waves on the television scene. As their new channel block, The Disney Afternoon, was the hottest piece of tv animation at this time, with DuckTales, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Adventures of the Gummi Bears, to name a few, being some of the most popular cartoons of the early 90s. After Aladdin released, someone said, “hey, why don’t we make a tv show based on that?” Disney loved the idea, and it was already proven to work with The Little Mermaid tv series. I’ll go more into when I cover Return of Jafar, but the short explanation is, Disney wanted to start the series off with a big tv special that would transition the story from the movie to the show. The conceived hour-long television special was then packaged together on home media. Seeing a golden opportunity, Disney decided to market it as a brand-new sequel to Aladdin, and The Return of Jafar was born. Turns out, branding it as a true sequel rather than a tv pilot proved to be a winning move, as the film sold like hotcakes on VHS, selling up to 15 million copies, and grossing up $300 million. And when they released a follow-up, and subsequent finale to the tv series, in 1996, Aladdin and the King of Thieves, which also was a huge hit on the home media market, Disney once again saw a golden opportunity. The rest, as they say, is history.

In charge of making these sequels was Disneytoon Studios, originally known as Disney Video Premieres, Under the supervision of Sharon Morrill, who was quickly placed in charge of Disney’s ENTIRE direct-to-video unit, and the main person of spearheading this whole operation, up until 2007. After the Aladdin films took off, direct-to-video sequels became their primary subject throughout the late 90s and most of the 2000s. In early 2003, they would be merged with another division, Disney MovieToons, whose initial job was to make theatrical animated movies that Disney Animation didn’t wanna do themselves, like DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, and more famously, A Goofy Movie. To put their direct-to-video divisions under one roof, Disney put 2 and 2 together to create what we now know as Disneytoon. This is why some of the sequels would then get theatrical releases, but we’ll get to that later. They basically stopped making them after Home on the Range had flopped. With 2D/hand drawn animation in movies being considered dead, Disney almost completely shelved their direct-to-video market. Morrill was given the boot, and Alan Bergman, Ed Catmull, and John Lasseter took over and steered Disneytoon away from sequels and instead to making spinoffs. Only for them to backpedal, and only make sequels to said spinoffs. Ultimately, the journey would end in 2018. I don’t think I need to go into detail about the whole Lasseter fiasco, you already know that story, but with him out of the picture, and Jennifer Lee and Pete Docter taking over his positions at Disney Animation and Pixar, things almost immediately began to shift. No more than 3 weeks after Disney announced Lasseter’s leave, they had then announced that Disneytoon was getting the axe, resulting in the layoff of 75 workers. To be fair, this was kind of a “put out of its misery” kind of thing, as Disneytoon hadn’t released a single film since 2015. With their final movie being Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast.

But now, I’m gonna take a look back and see if their efforts were actually worth anything. But, before we get to the films themselves, as always, I’m gonna set a couple of ground rules. Because I know this kind of thing could be confusing for some.

• Rule #1: While this will cover many infamous direct-to-video sequels, I am only covering the sequels that were made by Disneytoon Studios. So stuff like Rescuers Down Under, Fantasia 2000, Ralph Breaks the Internet, or Frozen II won’t be here. While that may seem obvious, this also means no Hercules: Zero to Hero, Tarzan & Jane, or the other two Lilo & Stitch sequels.

• Rule #2: With the exception of The Tigger Movie, I won’t be covering any of the Winnie the Pooh movies. Because it’s difficult to classify them as true sequels to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Hell, Pooh's Heffalump Movie got its own direct sequel with Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie, so there you go. So I’m limiting myself to just the first one they did.

• And Rule #3: I’m only covering the sequels to films from Walt Disney Animation Studios. So if you’re wondering why An Extremely Goofy Movie, Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams, Planes: Fire & Rescue, or any of their Mickey Mouse and Tinker Bell movies aren’t on here, there’s your answer.

Many of these I have already seen, but there’s also quite a few I’m seeing for the first time. Some of these I haven’t seen in years, others I still go back to every once in a while. Like I said, I have a lot of nostalgia for this era, either for the movies themselves or seeing the trailers on different DVDs released around this time. Even if I didn’t see the movie until years later, or even until now, a lot of these old trailers I can still quote almost word for word.

Not much else to say. We’ve got a lot of movies to get through, and our journey begins with…

The Return of Jafar-1994-Directed by Tad Stones, Toby Shelton, and Alan Zaslove

I’ve talked about this movie before, and I’ll admit, I feel like I was a bit harsh to it. It’s not very good, but I don’t think it’s Top 10 Worst Animated Sequels worthy anymore. As I said earlier, the initial idea was to create an hour-long tv special that would serve as a pilot to the upcoming Aladdin tv series, which is a great show. It was actually director Tad Stones, better known as the creator of Darkwing Duck, who was already working as one of the main developers of the tv series, who suggested that they release the pilot as a “movie” on home media. This was done by taking the first five episodes and packaging them together into one. Nowadays, those of us in online animation circles call this a “Compilation Movie”. Where they just packed the first few episodes together and called it a movie to draw in more viewers, and make it easier to market on home media. You see it with shows like Superman: The Animated Series, Samurai Jack, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Transformers: Animated, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It’s not as common of a practice nowadays, but this was especially prevalent in the 80s and 90s, and Disney themselves kinda thrived on it for a while. To varying degrees of success.

After much digging, Iago manages to get both himself and Jafar’s lamp out of the Cave of Wonders. Naturally, Jafar wants immediate revenge, but Iago, having grown tired of Jafar’s mistreatment and taking him for granted, decides to abandon his former boss, and goes back to Agrabah. Wanting to get back to living in the palace, he tries to play sympathy to Aladdin to gain his favor, and ends up saving his life from a group of bandits, lead by their incompetent leader, Abis Mal (yes, that’s actually his name). However, Abis Mal ends up finding Jafar’s lamp, and not only frees him, but becomes his new sidekick. With Jafar planning his big comeback, and intimidating Iago in working for him again, our favorite loud-mouthed parrot must now choose between helping Jafar once more, or helping Aladdin and the rest of his friends, who he’s actually grown to like.

Now I love the first Aladdin. It’s a strong contender for my favorite Disney movie, and I also love the tv series. It’s one of my favorite Disney shows of all-time. And in rewatching The Return of Jafar for this list, I tried to look at it from a different perspective. As a marketed “sequel” to the Aladdin, it is pretty disappointing. The film’s biggest problem is that it is just pretty boring. Aladdin is one of the most exciting, grand, and spectacular films Disney’s ever made. It’s a rousing adventure film with big set pieces and thrilling action. Despite the film’s seemingly epic title, it’s pretty low stakes. Most of the story is just set in or around the palace, the set pieces are pretty basic, the most exciting ones we get are a chase over a waterfall and the final battle over a pit of lava, and for an all-powerful Genie, Jafar doesn’t get very creative with his powers. He should’ve won fairly easily, but only lost because of plot. The animation is obviously on a much lower budget, so it doesn’t look nearly as polished as the first movie. Outside of Iago, the characters don't do much in terms of their own arcs, they're mostly just doing the same things they did in the first movie. The biggest difference of course is that Robin Williams did not come back to play the Genie. I’m not gonna go into the full story. Robin had a falling out with Disney after the first movie, and refused to reprise his role, and in his place, we have Dan Castellaneta, who’s of course best known for The Simpsons, but personally, I’ll always remember him as Grandpa Phil on Hey Arnold. Genie sadly isn’t nearly as funny as he was in the first movie, and it’s not Dan’s fault by any means. Because this was a character written specifically for Robin Williams when they cast him, it means that without Robin’s sheer natural talent from improv, the writers have to come up with lines and jokes that they think Robin would say. To Dan’s credit, he’s an incredibly talented voice actor, who by then already had years of experience, and the performance is good, it’s just that (again, no fault of his own) no one can be Robin Williams except for Robin Williams. That also means the Genie doesn’t have much to do in this, and that goes back to this being a pretty boring movie. For most of the film, I was just kinda staring at it blank-faced. The only thing about it that annoyed me is the forced conflict between Aladdin and Jasmine in the beginning. They try to shoehorn tension by having Aladdin keep Iago a secret, and then when shenanigans happen that expose Iago, Jasmine gets mad at him for lying to her, and it’s just so forced into it, but then it’s resolved a few minutes later. You can definitely tell this was three episodes stitched together.

BUT…with that having been said, if I look at this from a different lens, and view as the tv pilot it was originally meant to be, it’s…pretty ok. This does a good job at setting up the status quo of the series. Early on in the movie, Aladdin is offered Jafar’s old job as the Sultan’s Vizier, and by the end of the movie, Aladdin turns him down in favor of exploring the world and going on grand adventures, with Jasmine, Genie, Abu, and now Iago, by his side. Which is what the show is mostly about. Our gang of characters exploring far off lands and going on daring Arabian adventures. So the movie does its job pretty well. The animation obviously isn’t up to the same standard as the first movie. By 90s television standards, it’s perfectly serviceable. The only thing about it that’s off-putting is that the characters do go noticeably off-model at multiple points, and the lip-syncing sometimes looks really wonky. I do kinda love Iago’s character animation. It’s very exaggerated, but it perfectly matches Gilbert’s voice acting. Like that just is Gilbert Gottfried as a parrot in an alternate timeline.

Going back to what I said about this being a means of transition between the first movie and the tv series, this mainly meant two things. One, explaining why Genie was back despite leaving to enjoy freedom (and that’s quickly explained by him just wanting to come back and hang out with friends), and two, and most importantly, what Iago’s doing here. In the first movie, Iago served as Jafar’s villainous henchmen, but Stones loved the character and wanted him as part of the main cast, but story-wise, they had to explain the “why” of it all. While this may be an Aladdin sequel, and Jafar’s name may be in the title, make no mistake, this is mostly an Iago movie. Which can be a good or bad thing depending on who you ask. Again, viewing this as just a tv pilot, I don’t mind seeing Iago in the spotlight, especially  Iago is one of my favorite Disney characters, and I can never say no to Gilbert Gottfried. Iago is still his fun, sarcastic, and Gilbert-y self in this. A lot of people knark on the fact that they gave Gilbert Gotffried two songs in this, and I remember really not liking it when I first saw this movie years ago, but I’m not really bothered by it anymore. Your mileage may vary, but to steal a point from Schaffrillas, as a Phineas and Ferb fan who’s listened to Dr. Doofnehsmirtz sing so many times, I guess I’ve built up a tolerance for hearing a loud gravely voice perform a musical number. As a musical, it’s mostly mediocre, but I still really enjoy Jafar’s number, “You're Only Second Rate”. I will gladly take this over the Prince Ali Reprise any day. While Jafar may not be as threatening as he was in the first movie, Jonathan Freeman is once again given an A+ vocal performance.

I give 6/10. As a sequel, it is mostly just boring and not very exciting compared to the first movie. As a tv pilot, it’s ok, it does its job fine, but there are so many episodes of the show that are way better than this.

Aladdin and the King of Thieves-1996-Directed by Tad Stones

Even if most people didn’t like Return of Jafar, it still made a shit ton of money, so a sequel was inevitable. While Return of Jafar served as a pilot to Aladdin: The Series, Disneytoon’s next sequel, Aladdin and the King of Thieves would act as a series finale. Now right out the gate, I’ll say that you don’t need to have watched the show to understand this movie. It’s pretty self-contained, and you could jump right into it after seeing the first two films. For a while, it was said that Mozenrath, one of the main villains of tv series, was going to be in this and be revealed as Aladdin’s twin brother, but this was later debunked by Tad Stones on Twitter. The most we ended up getting was a scene at the end where many of the characters we met in the series have cameos at Aladdin and Jasmine’s wedding. Which is more than can be said for How to Train Your Dragon.

At long last, Aladdin and Jasmine are finally getting officially married. However, their wedding day is postponed due to a raid from the infamous group of bandits, the Forty Thieves. However, instead of Ali Baba, they’re led by the mysterious King of Thieves. They manage to drive off the thieves, but Aladdin and company learn that they were trying to steal a relic containing a magical Oracle, who reveals to Aladdin that his father is still alive. The problem? Aladdin’s father happens to be the King of Thieves, Cassim. Cassim wanted the Oracle so they could find the “ultimate treasure”, that being the Hand of Mitas. A relic that literally has the Mitas Touch, and can turn anything into gold. Aladdin is now caught between getting wrapped up in his long-lost father’s thieving escapades, and maintaining the life he’s built with Jasmine and his friends in Agrabah. To make matters worse, one of the Forty Thieves, a claw-handed brute named Sa'luk, doesn’t care for the way Cassim is running things, and plans to do away with both father and son, and take the treasure for himself.

Most people seem to agree that this is easily the better of the two sequels, and…

…They’re absolutely correct. King of Thieves may not stack up to the first Aladdin, and it’s still a damn good time. The movie is just fun. It’s a rousing adventure film that harkens to something like Indiana Jones. The plot actually feels worthy of being marketed as a movie. I never once felt like I was watching just an extended TV special. We explore the greater world outside of Agrabah, meet way more new characters, and there’s far more action. The animation is still obviously low budget compared to the first film, but it’s a noticeable improvement from both Return of Jafar and the tv series. The characters are much more consistently on-model, the coloring is much more visually striking, and it’s overall much nicer to look at than the second film, and part of that I think is due to the lighting. Good lighting can do a lot to help flat animation, and this film has a lot of great use of it. A big standout is the big duel between Aladdin and Sa'luk. There’s a much more cinematic approach to the presentation and I think on the film’s limited budget, they succeeded to the best of their ability. This is also a much better musical. Nothing really stacks up to “Friend Like Me” or “A Whole New World”, and at times they do feel like they come right out of nowhere, but I really like the songs in this one. In particular, the two villain songs, "Welcome to the Forty Thieves" and “Are You In or Out?”. The villain, Sa'luk, may not be as powerful as Jafar, but he manages to be more intimidating than he was in the second film.

The voice acting is once again great. The always great John Rhys Davies joins the cast as Alddin’s father, Cassim, and even the late Jerry Orbach, aka Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast, voices Sa'luk. But of course, the biggest selling point of the film was that, after burying the hatchet with Disney, Robin Williams makes his grand return as the voice of the Genie. Dan Castellaneta had actually recorded all of his dialogue for the film, but axed him once Robin agreed to come back. All respect to Dan, but it feels great to have Robin in the booth once again. And, for the most part, I’d say he’s just as entertaining as he was before. Some of his bits go on a bit too long, but his jokes and improv here feel much more natural since it’s actually Robin himself this time. Admittedly, I kinda rolled my eyes at how a lot of his references this time were to other Disney movies. Like he turns into Mickey, Pluto, Pumbaa, and at one point he’s even dressing Jasmine up as other Disney princesses. The Genie is once again not given a ton to do in the story outside of comic relief, but I appreciate that he actually does have some heartwarming moments with Aladdin and Jasmine. It makes him feel like an actual supporting character, and it isn’t just standing in the back the whole movie to then occasionally tell a joke. It’s not a lot, but there’s a bit more substance to him here compared to Return of Jafar. He feels a bit more in line with how he was in that first movie.

Aladdin and Jasmine also feel more in line with the first movie. At one point, it seems like they were gonna do another moment of Jasmine getting mad at Aladdin for freeing his father from prison, but they go in a different direction very quickly, and the two actually reach an understanding. Aladdin goes back to face judgement for his crimes, but Jasmine and Sultan forgive him because they know the kind of person he is. That’s the kind of consistency in character writing I love. This movie just cements why Aladdin and Jasmine are one of my favorite fictional couples. They’re relationship in this movie is written really well, and feels in line with what we’ve come to expect from them. I found myself actually really invested in their romance again. And that "Out of Thin Air" song was kinda cheesy, but in a really adorable and endearing kind of way.

Cassim is also a great addition, and is probably my favorite character in the movie. I even like that he ends up forming a kinship with Iago, who’s given less screentime here, but is still funny. I’m used to the trope of the long-lost parent who turns out to be some kind of criminal or a villain, but unlike someone like Martin Mertins from Adventure Time, Cassim isn’t made out to be some kind of manipulative asshole. He left his wife and son to find the ultimate treasure so he could give them a better life, but after years of failing to find it, he felt he could never face them again, and eventually thought them both dead. Cassim wants to make amends with Aladdin, but isn’t just using him and doesn’t play up sympathy for walking out on his family. He feels like he’s spent so much time as the King of Thieves that he doesn’t believe he could walk away from it, even if he wants to for Aladdin’s sake. And by the end of the movie, Aladdin and Cassim realize that they both live different lifestyles, but that doesn’t change their love for each other. As an ending to Disney’s Aladdin franchise, it's pretty damn solid. It even ends with a reprise of Arabian Nights that was originally written for the first film, and it just makes me feel good about the whole experience.

I give it an 8/10. It may not reach the heights of the first film, but it’s a fun time overall that leaves me smiling. Now, with Disney planning a sequel to the 2019 remake, the question remains: will they pull from either of these sequels? Or even the tv series? Personally, I highly doubt it. That also being said, I wouldn’t mind some of the characters from the sequels and the show being brought back. Especially Cassim, or if we’re lucky, Eden, Genie’s original girlfriend from the tv series. But only time will tell.

Now that we’ve heard the tales of the Arabian Nights, let’s take a look into a different tale. One as old as time.

Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas-1997-Directed by Andy Knight

Ok, now we’re getting into the films I haven’t seen until doing this. Beauty and the Beast is another one of my favorite Disney films. Captivating story, loveable characters, truly gorgeous animation, great songs, and one of the best Disney couples of all-time. And it was the only animated film in history to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars until Pixar’s Up got one in 2009 when they extended it to ten nominees. So it’s not surprising that it’d be one of the first films to get a direct-to-video sequel. Sort of. This is the first “midquel” of these, taking place in between the events of the first film. With the idea being that these are set during notable timeskips in the original movies. This will not be the last case we see of this. Obviously, this was done because a lot of the original movies ended with the characters losing their iconic, or rather, “marketable”, looks by the end. It’s hard to promote a sequel when the main character doesn’t look like what they were originally marketed as. Or at least that’s what Disney thinks. The original plan for this one was to make a direct sequel, in which Gaston’s brother, Avenant, would seek revenge for his death by using sorcery to transform the prince back into a Beast. Ultimately, those ideas were scrapped in favor of what we have now.

We pick up right after the Beast saved Belle from the wolves, but before their love truly blossomed during the ballroom dance. Basically, just imagine that an entire separate adventure happened in the time shown during the song “Something There”. The castle servants are eager to try and make romance happen now that they’ve seen that the Beast truly does care for Belle, and since Christmas is approaching, they see that as the perfect opportunity. However, while Belle is all for celebrating Christmas, the Beast forbids the celebration, as we soon learn that Christmas is also the anniversary of his curse, and he is content to drown in his holiday depression. Not helping is that of his enchanted pipe organ, Maestro Forte, who is obsessed with keeping Beast sad and lonely as he plays his dreary music.

I had heard that one of the Beauty and the Beast sequels was some of the worst of the bunch, and honestly, for this first outing, it’s…ok. Like Return of Jafar, its biggest problem is that it’s just really boring. Because this takes place smack dab in the middle of the “Beauty and the Beast” story, a lot of the actually interesting stuff happens either before or after these events. Belle and Beasts’ relationship isn’t really given any extra merit that it didn’t already have with just the first movie alone, in fact it kind of hurts their relationship if anything else. Beast acts a bit too much like a dick in this one, to the point where it makes it a lot harder for me to believe they’d find romance after. He repeatedly chastises her for the idea of celebrating Christmas, he wrecks her Christmas dinner, and at one point, he straight up locks her away in a dungeon after he thinks she’s tried to leave. The retcon that the Beast got cursed on Christmas feels honestly kinda forced, but it’s not “Return to Zombie Island” levels of egregious, it’s just kinda perplexing. None of the returning characters really have an arc in this. They all feel pretty static. Belle especially is given very little characterization beyond being happy, cheerful, and peppy. I also thought it was weird how Chip didn’t know what Christmas was, despite the fact that he was already around when the castle got cursed. I guess you could say he was too young to have any early lasting memories of Christmas, but still, you’d think he’d already understand or someone would’ve explained it to him by now.

Also, there’s a talking axe in the movie, voiced by Jeff Bennett, who’s whole character is that he’s Jewish. Doesn’t really have anything to do with the story, I just thought it was weird and couldn’t think of a good place to mention it.

Bar none, the best thing about this movie is the villain, Forte. Primarily because he is voiced magnificently by the one and only Tim Curry. While I can confidently say the rest of the movie is a snore, every scene with Forte is a delight, thanks to Tim being his always wonderfully hammy and theatrical self. Complete with an equally hammy villain song. Admittedly, I do kinda hate the message the film gives off using this character. His thing is that the Beast didn’t care for his music back when they were still human, but ever since getting cursed, the now depressed and lonely Beast welcomes his down and dreary melodies as he sits in a stew of his own self-pity, and because of that, Forte actually enjoys being a pipe organ, and sees Belle as a threat to that. It kinda sends the message that all sad music is automatically bad and evil, but sad music can be a great comfort when you’re going through hard times. But on the other hand, he does kind of represent the type of musician who’s head is up their own ass, and only wants their audience to listen to their favorite music and nothing else. Think like a smug DJ who refuses to take requests. And I also think it’s interesting to have a villain in this universe who actually likes being turned into an object, and rejects the idea of becoming human again. And given that he's an entirely CGI character, for late 90s CG, it’s pretty impressive. It never really took me out of the movie, and honestly adds to his creepy presence.

Speaking of which, the animation, by direct-to-video standards also isn’t bad. Again, not on the same level as the first movie, but I never noticed anyone going off-model, which is more than I can say for the Aladdin sequels. The colors look really nice, it effectively captures the winter and Christmas atmosphere, and there are actually some cool really cool looking shots in this. As a musical, it’s once again just ok. None of the songs are terrible, but again, nothing quite hits like the songs from the first movie. The best song is of course the villain song, “Don't Fall in Love”, since…well it’s a Tim Curry villain song? What else do I need to say? The worst song, by far, is “A Cut Above the Rest”, sung by Lumiere and Cogsworth. Again, it’s not even that bad of a song, but it comes right the fuck out of nowhere, and it’s so ridiculously short and goes by so quickly that I was left wondering why they even included it. It’s so oddly placed in the movie, like you’d think it’d come early on in the film to reestablish Lumiere and Cogsworth’s relationship, but it’s one of the last songs in the film, and happens right after the big emotional climax of the film, so it’s too late in the game.

I know this is one a lot of people have some nostalgic attachment to, and I can kinda see the charm you’d might find it, but me personally, I give it a 5/10. I originally ranked it the same as Return of Jafar, but after thinking it over, I knocked it down a score because Return of Jafar felt slightly more ambitious in terms of story. But I will give it this much: As far as Christmas-themed direct-to-video sequels go, at least it’s better than An All Dogs Christmas Carol.

So, that actually wasn’t horrible. Wasn’t great, but I didn’t hate it. What’s the third movie like?

Belle's Magical World-1998-Directed by Cullen Blaine, Dale Case, Daniel de la Vega, etc.

Oh…wow.

So this is a similar situation to what happened with Return of Jafar. For a while, there were plans for a Beauty and the Beast tv series, but unlike Aladdin: The Series, those plans ended up falling through for budget reasons, and what few episodes they actually made were compiled together…into this.

The first segment, “The Perfect Word”, is about Belle and Beast getting into an argument and the two have to learn how to forgive each other. And three of the enchanted objects, Webster, Crane, and Le Plume try to forge an apology letter to help them make up. “Fifi's Folly” has Lumiere trying to celebrate the anniversary of his first date with Fifi the feather duster, but the two have a misunderstanding that leads to Fifi thinking Lumiere is cheating on her with Belle. “Mrs. Potts' Party”, which just straight up wasn’t in the Disney+ version for some reason, but you can find it on YouTube. For whatever reason it got cut, presumably for length, but anyway, it’s about Mrs. Potts being sad that it’s a dark cloudy day, and Belle and the others decide to throw a party to cheer her up, but everyone is disagreeing on how to get it done. And “Broken Wing” has Belle trying to nurse an injured bird back to health, but Beast hates animals for some reason (despite owning a dog that’s currently a footstool) and wants her to get rid of it.

I’m gonna be completely honest: this movie fucking sucked! Even if I looked at each segment as just individual episodes, they’re all boring as sin and offer nothing exciting. I know I said Enchanted Christmas didn’t have a very ambitious story, but at least they tried! This lacked any ambition whatsoever. Each episode feels exactly the same with the characters getting into some annoyingly forced misunderstandings or disagreements, and it’s an absolute drag. If this is a glimpse as to what the tv series was like, then thank God this didn’t get picked up. There’s only so much you can do with a show that sets in a very short timeframe in the movie’s second act, and you have to make sure that nothing you do contradicts what happens in the movie’s third act. I mean compare this to their previous animated tv shows that aired on the Disney Afternoon. Aladdin: The Series, DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, Rescue Rangers, Talespin, even Goof Troop was more interesting and engaging than this. At least Enchanted Christmas had a giant magical pipe organ, so I felt at least some level of stakes. Here, we don’t have any kind of villain, so the most drama we have are Belle and the Beast getting into petty lovers quarrels. Like Beast eating too loudly while Belle’s reading a book, or Belle tries to take care of a bird and Beast doesn’t like that. Riveting, I know.

Because this is another midquel, the Beast is an even bigger asshole than he was in Enchanted Christmas. They really set out to make him the most unlikeable prick possible. The whole time I was watching this, I was wishing I was just watching the first film, back when I actually liked Belle and the Beasts’ relationship. This only makes me more glad the tv show never happened, because this really only emphasizes the even bigger inherent problems with that concept. When you have to stretch out the time Belle spent with the Beast, it makes it a lot harder to believe that Belle would ever fall in love with this passive aggressive maniac. Because we’re before the point in the timeline where Beast reaches the peak of his character development, we’re stuck with this jaded stubborn douche bag the whole time, who repeatedly rudely yells at Belle, and abuses his staff, and it’s straight up painful to sit through. And they really try to convince us that Belle’s the one who needs to apologize even though the Beast is the one who yelled at her, and strikes one of his staff members in front of her.

The animation took a significant drop. Enchanted Christmas, while it may not reach the majesty of the first movie’s animation, for a direct-to-video movie, it looked pretty good. This movie has a clearly much lower budget, and it feels like we’ve gone right back to Return of Jafar’s animation. But this might be even worse. The frame rate is not nearly as smooth as either of the previous movies, the colors are kindly ugly, and there are way more moments of the characters going off-model, leading to some comedically bad shots of Belle’s face.

The only positives I can give are a couple of mildly funny lines here and there, I like the bathtub voiced by Jim Cummings ‘cus of the funny voice he gives him, and the voice acting as a whole was still pretty decent, although it is one of the only two times where Angela Lansbury didn’t voice Mrs. Potts and is instead voiced by Anne Rogers.

This movie was so boring to sit through that I really don’t have anything else to say. Maybe I would if I had seen that missing segment, but c’est la vie. 3/10. For kids, I guess it’s fine, but I’ve seen much more nostalgic appreciation for Enchanted Christmas than I ever have for this, so that should tell you something.

I don’t really have a great transition for the next one. I really need a palette cleanser. So let’s just move on.

Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World-1998-Directed by Tom Ellery and Bradley Raymond

Oh boy, Pocahontas. Consensus on the first film seems to be pretty mixed. From what I can tell, people love it for the animation and songs, but in terms of story and historical accuracy, it’s considered by many to be the weakest film of the Disney Renaissance. The film was basically an apology for the Native American depictions in Peter Pan, and I’ve seen a lot of different views on how well they succeeded. On one hand, the film is based more on the legend and folklore of Pocahontas rather than a historical account, but it also tries to paint both sides in the conflict as in the wrong in this story about Native Americans being pitted against white colonialism. I still think “Savages” is a great song in a vacuum, but the premise behind it is kind of offensive when you think about it. But even ignoring that, the movie is painfully boring to me, both when I was a kid, and still today. So I avoided the sequel for a long time because I didn’t even like the first movie that much. And I don’t remember caring too much for this one either.

And yet…rewatching it for this ranking…I weirdly liked this more?

No joke, I was surprised how much I actually enjoyed it. I mean, at most, it’s still just “pretty decent”, and you can definitely still argue that it throws any and all historical accuracy out the window, but judging it as a movie, and comparing it to the first film, I honestly found this significantly more engaging.

After the events of the first movie, Governor Ratcliffe has managed to regain favor with the monarchy by framing John Smith as the traitor, and then seemingly sending him to a watery grave. He now plots to once again wage war on the New World by wiping out the Native American people and stealing the land’s gold that he still believes is there. In order to prevent a war from breaking out, Pocahontas decides to go to London to meet with the king, escorted by a diplomat by the name of John Rolfe. But as he helps her get accustomed to his culture, Pocahontas starts to form a brand new romance. While at the same time, deciding between fitting in with this more “civilized” new world, and standing up for what she believes in.

While I couldn’t give two shits about Pocahontas and John Smith’s romance in the first movie, I actually kinda like the chemistry between her and John Rolfe, who, yes, is the guy she married in real life (again, judging it as a movie, not for accuracy). It’s not the most compelling Disney romance of all-time, but I bought these two falling in love way more than I did her and the other white dude named John. Rolfe is no Aladdin or Hercules as far as Disney male leads go, but I found him more charming and likable than Smith, who I thought was pretty generic and bland, all things considered. And adding Billy Zane to anything is always a “yes” in my book. Not to mention, while the first movie is still a better musical, there is like a ridiculously good love song between Pocahontas and Rolfe that plays over the end credits. The song is called “Between Two Worlds”, and I was shocked by how much I liked it. To hell with “If I Never Knew You”, this was way better in my opinion. And I say this as someone who usually doesn’t care for love songs in musicals (and I’ll get more into that with the next movie.)

And I also really like Pocahontas’ characterization in this. I liked seeing her try to be respectful of other people’s cultures, but she also rejects their ways when she sees their cruelty, and I liked seeing her embrace her old self again. I could see it being an inspiring moment for kids. She had a surprisingly emotional goodbye with Nakoma, and it’s cool that she actually gets to go to England and be out of her element for a little while, because that’s actually interesting. And even as a kid, I thought it was a cool moment where she saved that bear from being tortured.

The comedic moments also work better in this film, I felt. The animal sidekicks still don’t contribute much (although it was kinda sweet that Pocahontas adopted Percy the dog after the first film), but it’s far less annoyingly clashing than the first film, because this sequel isn’t entirely devoid of any humor or personality. John Rolfe’s got a bit of a wit to him, and Pocahontas has this hilariously serious bodyguard who gets into some weird shenanigans. He was probably my favorite character in this. Ratcliffe still isn’t a great villain, but he was also improved from the first. He actually gets to interact with Pocahontas, and feels much more genuinely sinister this time, while not losing his theatricality. I actually buy him as a threat this time. It’s not great, but it’s better. The animation does its best to replicate the look of the first film, but it also makes some improvements since there’s a lot more expression and actual emotion on the character’s face going in this time. The colors aren’t nearly as breath-taking though, so I guess it’s a trade-off there.

It’s still far from being a masterpiece. The film tries really hard to convince us that John Smith is dead, even though we know damn well he isn’t. The king, voiced by Jim Cummings, changes his mind about Pocahontas and committing genocide pretty damn quickly and easily. Pocahontas has very little to do in the film’s big action climax, and Ratcliffe’s defeat is once again pretty underwhelming. And while I like the romance between Pocahontas and John Rolfe in this, for a story that’s supposedly “based on the legend of Pocahontas", that kinda gets thrown by the wayside when this sequel decides to be more accurate to history by having her get the actual British guy she married, despite the first guy still being alive and he clearly still has feelings for her. And overall, it’s far from the most exciting Disney film out there, and when it tries to be an action piece, it fails spectacularly.

So yeah, it’s still not great, or even that good, but genuinely, this offered me more than the first film did. I actually don’t regret rewatching it. I think that shows how your perspective can change on a film over time. Sometimes you can find merit in even a mediocre film if you actually bother to look instead of just labeling it all immediately as garbage just because it’s a direct-to-video sequel. 6.5/10. I kinda liked Pocahontas 2, sue me.

Y’know, it’s kinda funny how the first Pocahontas was supposed to be the original big world changing smash hit of the Disney Renaissance, but then that ended up going to their more traditional cartoon animal musical that the artists didn’t even have faith in. Ironic, isn’t it…?

The Lion King II: Simba's Pride-1998-Darrell Rooney and Rob LaDuca

Really, what can be said about The Lion King? It’s arguably the most iconic animated movie ever made. The story, the characters, the score, the songs, the animation, the romance, the villain, the sidekicks, yada-yada-yada. You love it, I love it, it’s The Lion King, nuff said. So it’s not surprising at all that it too would receive its own direct-to-video sequel.

Ok, so I have quite the history with this one. As a kid, I remember seeing the trailer for this movie over and over again on a VHS or DVD I owned (I can't for the life of me remember which one) BEFORE I even knew of the original Lion King’s existence. I remember begging my grandma for it, I remember scouring every video and DVD rental store I went to, and I just knew I had to see it, because…well, I was a little kid and I loved talking cartoon animals. What do you want from me? For the longest time, the most I could work with was just seeing the first film on VHS (along with another film that I’ll get to in Part 2), which was probably for the better since it was a sequel I was looking for. But luckily, fate smiled upon me, and I did eventually get my hands on a copy of this sequel that eluded me for so long. While the previous films I’ve talked about so far I don’t have much, or any, nostalgic attachment for, both this and the first Lion King are way close to my heart. So I do have a little nostalgic bias going into this? Yeah. But I’m still gonna try to judge it fairly.

As we saw at the end of the first movie, the circle of life has begun anew, and Simba and Kiara are now king and queen of the pridelands, and have themselves a daughter named Kiara. However, Simba warns her to be wary of the Outlands, which is home to their enemies, a rogue pride of lions called the Outsiders, led by their sadistic lioness leader, Zira. Apparently, the Outsiders were the few lions who actually liked the way Scar ran things, Zira in particular, and her son, Kovu, being personally chosen by Scar to become his heir and carry on his legacy. Zira then hatches a plan to send Kovu to infiltrate Simba’s pride, gain his trust, and then assassinate him when he’s alone. However, as Simba and Zira plan to go to war, Kiara and Kovu soon begin to fall in love, and that may just be what it takes to bring peace between their prides.

I’m happy to say that we have a sequel that actually held up on a rewatch. This is pretty much just as good as I remember it being, and just about all of my thoughts on it have already been covered by other, more talented, and more popular reviewers on the internet. Yes, it’s definitely one of the better Disney direct-to-video sequels, even though it’s not on par with the original. They knew the kind of film they were making a sequel for, and did their best to stack up against it. Yes, it was a brilliant choice to have this movie’s story be based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, much like how the first movie was loosely based on Hamlet. Yes, the songs, while, again, not to the same level as the original, are still great on their own, and I still consider My Lullaby to be one of the greatest animated villain songs of all-time. And it was great that they included “He Lives in You” for the film’s opening. Yes, Zira is a great villain. She’s wonderfully sadistic and bloodthirsty, which helps set her apart from Scar, who was driven more so by power and bitterness. Yes, the main issue holding the film back is that the story, at times, does feel rather, for lack of a better word, “fanfick-y”, with the conflict centering around a banished pride of lions who were never even hinted at in the first film, who apparently huge Scar fans, and Scar himself supposedly hand picked Kovu to be his heir. Yeah, it’s kinda hard to believe, and even as a kid I remember being pretty confused and felt like I had missed something, but to be fair to the film, it still makes for an engaging story. All of this I agree with.

With all that being said, I do have at least one major hot take with this film. I always hear people say that Upendi is the worst song in the film. And honestly…I disagree. In fact, I kinda love this song. Here’s the thing with me: Outside of animation, I am not the most musical savvy person in the world, but love songs are usually my least favorite songs in musicals. Both as a kid, and as an adult. I find most of them to be pretty boring and a drag to sit through, because so many of them sound exactly the same to me. I don’t mind slower and more intimate moments in film, hell I’m a big advocator for that kind of stuff, but a lot of the times, when love songs are used to do it, that’s when I just completely zone out altogether. I understand I’m in the minority here, but whenever I rewatch a movie musical, the love songs are the ones I usually fast forward through so I can get back to the more interesting stuff. And Disney might just be the biggest offender of them all for me. Because my god, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” might just be the most generic, sappy, lovey dubby love song ever put to an animated film. It remains my least favorite song in The Lion King. Genuinely, I can’t stand that song! And in my opinion, Upendi is a huge step-up, because it actually has a fucking personality! With interesting visuals and set pieces (It also manages to be both our "Hakuna Matata" and "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" stand-in that sense), a catchy rhythm that I’ll actually remember, and best of all, my boi Rafiki, my favorite Lion King character, finally gets his own musical number! The song is fun, it’s got lots of energy, and Robert Guillaume is a great singer. So of course this had to be the one everyone but me hates. So yeah, I say “fuck the haters”, Upendi is a bop and deserves more recognition. (And yes, this also means I consider “Love Will Find a Way” to be the worst song in the movie, but I have less to say on that. Although even that I still think is better than “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”.)

There were also some new things I noticed in rewatching it for this ranking. A small thing that kinda bugged me was how abrupt the time jump moment was in this film. The transition in the first of Simba growing from a cub to a full grown lion felt a lot smoother and more natural. We get two songs of Simba and Zira singing to their respective children of their destinies, and then a scene of Mufasa’s ghost telling Rafiki to bring Kovu and Kiara together, and then it hard jump cuts to Zira overlooking Kovu as an adult having completed his training. It just felt really abrupt to me. I also noticed on rewatch that the climax is also a better version of the climax of Pocahontas. With the two opposing clans going to war, and then our leads rushing off the put a stop to it, and Kiara gives a speech about hatred, but it’s far more subtle, and makes a lot more sense in context with their story of they’re adapting. And I also love that line Kiara gives at the end, “Them? Us? Look at them. They are us. What differences do you see?” I always thought that was really powerful, and hits me a lot harder than any of the lines from Pocahontas.

And as an adult, I’m also realizing they real reason they specified that Kovu is not Scar’s son, just his chosen heir, and they never outright confirm that Zira’s loyalty towards Scar was ever romantic, because there were already enough people talking about the potential incestual implications of Simba and Nala, and probably wanted to avoid that with their next romantic leads. And the other thing I have to say that I don't see too many people talk about is that Timon and Pumbaa are pretty useless in this movie. They’re not nearly as funny as they were in the first film, nor do they have as much actual plot relevance going on besides giving Kiara someone to play off of. They’re really only here because it’s a sequel and we have to acknowledge them on some level. On a similar note, the only new character I didn’t like was Kovu's brother, Nuka, voiced by real life piece of shit, Andy Dick. He’s just annoying to me, although I will give the film credit for giving him a surprisingly well done death scene.

This is also one of the better animated direct-to-video sequels. It sort of does what Pocahontas 2 did, and captures enough of the spirit of the first film’s animation even with its lower budget, Simba’s Pride does an even better job at it I find. The choices in colors and lighting are really beautiful and striking in a lot of scenes. Like I said, they knew what kind of shoes they had to fill with this, and made a pretty solid attempt with the budget they had. Well, except for the CGI fire, that kind of looked like shit. The voice acting’s also great. With the exceptions of Rowan Atkinson, Jeremy Irons, and Madge Sinclair, all of the original cast is back for this, and the new cast members do just as well of a job. Neve Campbell captures the youthful rebellious spunk of Kiara without making her annoying, Jason Marsden gives, in my opinion, his second best performance as Kovu, next to Max from A Goofy Movie, and I love Suzanne Pleshette as Zira! Her delivery with a lot of her lines is just so wonderfully sinister. She perfectly captures the kind of pure evil and sadism they were going for with Zira.

I’d say The Lion King is another one of Disney's most solid franchises, and of all the direct-to-video sequels, this is the one that’s probably gotten the most acknowledgement from Disney themselves since its release. I haven’t seen The Lion Guard, but I’ve heard good things about it, and I have seen reviews of it, so I know it carries a lot over from Simba’s Pride. And more recently, “Mufasa: The Lion King” referenced both the sequel and the show by including both Kiara and her brother Kion. I haven’t actually seen that movie, and I don’t really plan to for the time being, but at the very least, that kind of commitment to continuity is something that makes me smile. I don’t know if they have plans to make a direct sequel to Lion King (2019), but if they do, and they include further elements of Simba’s Pride, I doubt it would make the movie any better, but this fan would at least appreciate it.

I had a lot more to say on this movie than I thought, so I’ll wrap up with this:

Bottom line, Lion King 2 is really good and one the few direct-to-video sequels that I would actually go out of my way to recommend to those who like the first Lion King, as long as you temper your expectations. I give it a 7.5/10. I was tempted to give it an 8, but that might just be my nostalgic bias talking. As is, it may not quite live up to the first film’s legacy, but I’d still say it’s worthy of the throne.

And that ends Part 1. Join me next time as we enter the new millennium of Disney Sequels. Have a great night, be safe, and take care.