Not being a big fan of how Disney screws up good stories, I try not to remember much of anything about that movie. ;)

But I do stand corrected.

Well since Lion King is clearly Hamlet sure why not :p

MysticCat how can you not like that movie!
Ooh de lally Ooh de lally golly what a day....

Do NOT get that song stuck in my head or I will fly back to IL and hurt you.:p

But Antigone or Hamlet with a happy ending, of course.

(My daughter loves Ariel. I still haven't had the heart to read her the real story.)

Just a philistine, I suppose. Did I mention that I hate Mickey Mouse and all his friends, too?

That movie came out when I was 7, and I remember making my grandpa watch that movie with me EVERY DAY for about 4 months.

Do you feel better?

Ahem:
Robin Hood and Little John walking through the forest
Laughin' back and forth at what the other 'un has to say
Reminiscing this and that and having such a good time
Ooh de lally ooh de lally golly what a day

(Bring it ;))
True, but it's not like Disney's the first to clean up fairy tales. Even the Grimms didn't always publish the most gruesome versions. I'm not a big Mickey fan either, but their movies are almost always good. (I did prefer Lion King, Mulan and even Aladdin to Mermaid, Snow White, etc.) I'm looking forward to this one as Disney's strength still lies in their animated classics, PotC aside.

PotC??? What is that?

Do you remember when Disney would come out with ONE movie a year or so, and then after it left the theatre, it'd be another year before it came out on video? Those were the glory days.

Now they churn them out like sitcom episodes. Blech.

Pirates of the Carribean

I agree and they've had some clunkers. Atlantis was boring. I liked Treasure Planet though no one else did. And Brother Bear was neat but... eh I feel like they let Pixar carry them for a while.

and yes, PotC=Pirates of the *JohnnyDeppisHOT* Caribbean

Thanks. My brain was still on Animation.

And I think I'd throw Narnia series in there too...I'm sure they'll end up doing the other six. (Sequels seem to be Disney's #1 right now anyway)

Very true, although it's not so much the cleaning up of the stories that bothers me as the changing the story to the point that it's not really the same story anymore. I really like Lion King (much better on stage, even) and Aladdin, and I think Sleeping Beauty is visually fantastic. Cinderella and a few others are okay. But The Little Mermaid with a happy ending? Peter Pan lite? Ugh.

Of course, I think the movie of "The Wizard of Oz" screwed up that story, too, so keep your grain of salt handy.

No, I agree with you about Oz. The sequel was more in keeping with the books. Although it's been so long since I've seen or read Peter Pan I have little opinion about the movie, I liked the live action version and Hook has always made me happy :p (Wasn't Disney but the animated Swan Lake (Swan Princess?) is worse IMO than the Little Mermaid)

I wonder if kids today are losing out on being able to accept a tragic ending. I mean, if you always have happily ever after until you get to Shakespeare, can you really appreciate the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth or Hamlet or Julius Caesar? Hans Christian Anderson could always make me cry when I was younger (and might still today) but there's a lot of meaning there.

/hijack
You just made me think of the episode of "Friends" when Phoebe finds out that her grandmother didn't let her know that Bambi's mother died or that Old Yeller gets shot in the end. On "The View" recently, Elisabeth Haselbeck announced that she tore out the page in "Babar" where the hunters kill his mother.

/end hijack

The Babar thing pissed me off. Seriously. Let kids deal with sad things. Better that their first experience be Bambi or Babar's mom than their own family members.

Lion King didn't shirk from this, and I'm liking Harry Potter's willingness to take it on. I suspect there's a good chance Harry's not making it out of the 7th book alive and neither Cedric, Sirius or Dumbledore deserved to die. (OMG SPOILERS)

I totally agree. Why not use this as a chance to talk with your child about the subject? Talk about how it feels to lose a loved one and how it's okay to be sad. I taught 1st and 2nd graders for 8 years. They think about things like this and just want to be assured that everything will be okay.