4. WALL-E (2008)
There’s just so much to love in this movie and it’s a movie that takes bold moves for Pixar giving us not just a kids movie but a smart kids movie with good messages behind it. And it’s just a fun movie as well.
The story follows a robot named WALL-E, who is designed to clean up a waste-covered Earth far in the future. He falls in love with another robot named EVE, who also has a programmed task, and follows her into outer space on an adventure that changes the destiny of both his kind and humanity. Both robots exhibit an appearance of free will and emotions similar to humans, which develop further as the film progresses.
One of the strongest highlights of the film is the fact that there’s very little dialogue in the film. The first 20 minutes of the movie have no dialogue at all but at the same time, you never get bored because you’re so invested in what Wall-E and EVE do. Even when we get to the human characters near the second act, there’s much more dialogue but not as much as you’d think. It’s not a dialogue-heavy movie but the stuff that’s going on in film keeps you invested. It’s about as much as my #1 favorite movie has but I’m not going to say what that movie is yet.
It’s amazing that Disney even let them make this movie because of all the social issues that they tackle, a lot of them were things that Disney had done in the past and Pixar is pretty much saying that all of these things are leading to what could be the downfall of the world. Is it any wonder why Disney stopped partnering up with McDonalds and went on a whole healthy food initiative?
The movie also worked well because you really fall in love with these characters. The relationship that both Wall-E & EVE have is played out so well that you really stick with these characters, even with the little dialogue they both share.
I also really liked the storyline about whether or not the world is stable enough to support life again. There’s a major plot point involving a plant that develops towards the end of the first act that becomes the main focus of the rest of the film and the captain of the ship believes that this is a sign that Earth can be livable again while the navigation has to live by strict orders to never return to Earth again no matter what and does whatever it takes to get rid of the plant. It leads into good questions about who’s right in the situation. Is the navigation right to listen to orders or is it finally time to head back to Earth after 800 years? Of course, we get the answer at the end but before then, we wonder who’s right in this situation?
The animation in this is spectacular, this is Pixar at its’ best. The space scenes in this movie, in particular, are so beautifully done.
For a movie that has very little dialogue, WALL-E manages to be a great film by putting in memorable characters, a great love story, a good message, some great action, beautiful animation, and just an overall fun adventure film.
It’s a great animated movie and Pixar’s best film to date, in my opinion, and one of my all-time favorites.
3. Cinderella (1950)
I was one of those kids that grew up on Disney and Cinderella is one of those movies that I used to watch a lot when I was a kid. I don’t know what it was but something kept bringing me back to this movie.
In fact, I’ve watched it so many times, we still have a discrepancy in my family that this is my favorite movie of all time because of how many times I watched it as a kid.
There’s really no point in telling you what the story is about but I will just to move things along…
In a far away, long ago kingdom, Cinderella is living happily with her mother and father until her mother dies. Cinderella’s father remarries a cold, cruel woman who has two daughters, Drizella and Anastasia. When the father dies, Cinderella’s wicked stepmother turns her into a virtual servant in her own house. Meanwhile, across town in the castle, the King determines that his son the Prince should find a suitable bride and provide him with a required number of grandchildren. So the King invites every eligible maiden in the kingdom to a fancy dress ball, where his son will be able to choose his bride. Cinderella has no suitable party dress for a ball, but her friends the mice, led by Jaq and Gus, and the birds lend a hand in making her one, a dress the evil stepsisters immediately tear apart on the evening of the ball. At this point, enter the Fairy Godmother, the pumpkin carriage, the royal ball, the stroke of midnight, the glass slipper, and the rest, as they say, is a fairy tale.
So what makes this one of my favorite movies? Why does this one still have a lasting impact on me?
Well, there are a lot of reasons.
First off, the animation is gorgeous, this is the classic Disney animation that we’ve come to know and love and one of the last highlights of the original golden age of animation between 1940 and 1950.
You also have a lot of good comedy, mainly focused on the mice and Lucifer, that all works surprisingly well.
The movie follows the original story very well and the new elements that they had brought into it actually do play well and don’t feel forced in.
Of course, the characters in this are very memorable, like with most great Disney movies.
But my favorite thing about the movie, and the reason I think it has a lasting impact on my part is that I really loved Cinderella herself.
I think when I look at the previous Disney princesses, she’s definitely up there with Tiana from The Princess and The Frog, Elsa from Frozen, and Belle from Beauty & The Beast in terms of the characters I really liked.
And I think it’s mostly because Cinderella does all this hard work and is consistently bullied by her stepfamily that when you see her get the prince at the end, it makes it all rewarding because you’ve seen her get pushed around and bossed around throughout the entire movie that when they put the glass slipper on her foot and it’s revealed that she’s the right fit, it makes the happy ending more rewarding.
That’s not to say that the other Disney Princess characters are bad but most of them like Snow White, Jasmine, and Aurora don’t really do all that much to make them stand out like the three I mentioned. The only main focus is for them to just meet their prince charming and live happily ever after. Even though Aladdin tried to do it differently with Jasmine having her actually leave her responsibilities in the first half of the film, she still came across as the similar princess we saw with others when she returns back to her responsibilities and just forgets about leaving them again.
But when you look at Cinderella, you can see somebody who had to work really hard and had to take so much abuse for better things to happen and it does at the end.
It also should be noted that Walt Disney himself considered Cinderella his favorite fairy tale mostly because he felt like Cinderella just working as hard as he could until the right circumstances come together to make a dream come true. I mean, the main song that starts the movie, ‘A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes’, is a great song that perfectly sums up how Disney felt about not only Cinderella but I think it also sums up himself.
There’s a lot of good morals in Cinderella and I think the movie has a lot of heart and charm to it.
It’s one of Disney’s stronger princess based animated movies in my opinion mostly because of its’ great animation, a good story, memorable characters, and a main character that a lot of us can relate to.
Cinderella, proving that a tough life can lead to a happy ending.
And next week comes the ultimate Christmas gift, my top 2 favorite Disney movies of all time so stay tuned for that on Christmas Eve.
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