My Final Question…

So this has really been cathartic. I’m serious. Writing this blog has given me a chance to get a lot of the crazy out of my head and release it into the world. Not sure the world is better for it but I know I am. When I started this blog a year ago I wasn’t sure how it would go. I was pleasantly surprised by the response. I want to thank everyone who took the time to read, like, comment or share my posts. I hope that they brought at least a little smile to your day and maybe made you think about these movies in a different light.

I definitely have not exhausted all of the questions about Disney that I have rattling around in my head. But, being a dad with young kids and having a full-time job, my free time is at a premium. I really enjoy writing this blog but am honestly ready for a new creative outlet. If that ends up being something online, I will definitely share with you all in case you are interested.

So I was thinking about what question I would write about for my final post. Lots of them came to mind like ‘why did Mother Gothel turn into dust when she fell out the window’ or ‘why doesn’t Mickey ever put on a shirt?’ But instead I thought, why not ask you? What are the burning questions you didn’t get addressed on my blog? Leave a comment and let’s keep chatting.

Thanks again.

Just a Dad with Disney Questions (aka @kmaxwell)

This is me with my two little ones watchin’ Disney…

Did Jasmine have an authority complex?

So I know in my last post I said I only had one more, but looking back I realized I had counted wrong. If I had only done one more post I would have finished my blog with 49 posts and that just wouldn’t do. Besides, Just a Dad with 50 Disney Questions sounds like a better name for my complete blog anyway. So here is a quickie.

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We all know that Jasmine liked to break the mold. An age old tradition of marrying for the good of the country is thrown out the window so that she can marry her true love. But I have to question why she falls in love with Aladdin. Sure, they both feel trapped in their current life situations and he saves her from getting her hand cut off, but is that the foundation of a long lasting romance? Eh…maybe. You can play the ‘they are meant to be’ card but that is the easy way out. I think one of the reasons Jasmine loves Aladdin has more to do with his station in life that she realizes.

Let’s look at the way Jasmine responds to authority. First, she consistently goes against her father’s wishes. I know he doesn’t seem to make the best choices, but I don’t remember her doing what he says once in the movie. Whether we think they are wrong or not, she does everything in her power to screw up the various courtships arranged by her dad and even chooses to run away instead of trying to make it work. I know it’s difficult, but look at it from the implications to the kingdom, not from the lens of America today. Her choices affect way more than just herself. And then there is Aladdin. When he is a street rat, she falls for him immediately but the minute he shows up as a Prince she won’t give him the time of day. Sure he is being a bit arrogant, but is it that or is his title getting in the way? I mean, she won’t even have a conversation with him until he offers, ‘You’re right.’ ceding the floor to her. Could it be that Jasmine chooses Aladdin as a way to both assert her independence from her father, as well as, create a situation in which she would be the one who would forever be in position of authority in the relationship?  Could it be that she didn’t finish her thought when she was talking to her dad in the opening palace scene of the film? Instead of just saying ‘Well, then maybe I don’t want to be a princess…’ maybe she wanted to also add…’maybe I want to be Sultan!’ That truly would have been a whole new world.

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image credit —> fanpop.com

We didn’t start the fire, but why did he? [Big Hero 6 Spoilers]

Can’t believe this is my second to last post…time flies. As I mentioned before my last post will be published on Monday, March 30!

[READER’S NOTE: If you haven’t seen Big Hero 6 and plan to, you probably want to stop reading this post because it contains some spoilers. Ok, you’ve been warned.] 

His motives seem to be understandable. He lost his daughter and his grief has moved him to seek revenge on the person he believes is ultimately responsible. Ok, sure. I get it. I’m a dad and I could definitely see having similar thoughts if I was in that situation. However, the way Professor Robert Callaghan goes about enacting his vengeance just doesn’t make much sense to me. The whole I’m gonna destroy everything you care about and am willing to kill any and everyone that gets in my way’ seems a little on the dramatic side but hey, points for creativity. But the biggest question I have is what was the point of starting the fire at the science exhibition? The official answer is he was doing that to create a distraction in order to steal Hiro’s microbots…but was that really necessary? He had already won the initial battle again Krei by getting Hiro to further develop them at his school instead of selling the technology. So why not just wait until Hiro was enrolled and steal them from the school when no one was around? Or better yet, why not just steal them later that night? I am sure he had a key to the science hall and Hiro had left them there anyway to head home to party with his friends and family. Callaghan had infinite opportunities in the very near future. And he hadn’t planned for the fire to get out of control and have to fake his death either so that isn’t a valid reason. But then again, he later dresses up in a Kabuki mask and takes long random walks across harbors so I guess you could chalk this one up to ‘one too many hits with the snake.’

And here is a bonus question, why wasn’t Callaghan more excited that his daughter was found alive? He thought she had died and his sole purpose in life was avenging her. Then, when he finds out she is alive and sees her for the first time, he hangs his head in shame?!? Huh? I get him being disappointed in himself but I know I would be out of my mind excited that she was alive instead of being sad about the bad choices I made. Surely he knows that he will have plenty of time in jail to think about those decisions later…

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image credit –> disney.wikia.com

Life’s Full of Tough Choices, innit?

The end goal is to get the Trident. That’s the most important thing to Ursula as it is her ticket out of the exile. To get the Trident she needs to get to Triton and the best way to him is through his daughter, Ariel. We have to surmise that this Trident won’t work if it is stolen and that it must be willingly given for its power to be accessed the bearer. For some reason, it appears that this mythical fork is bound by some kind of oceanic legal standard. (you can read more about that in my very first post on this blog!)

So she makes a deal with Ariel. This deal is pretty foolproof too and heavily weighted in her favor. Ariel has to get true love’s kiss from a dude she hasn’t technically met.  That means Eric has to know he is in love with her for the kiss to work…a regular smooch won’t cut it. It’s often tough to get guys to acknowledge they are in love after many years of dating let alone 3 days so Ursula should have been fine. However, she gets a little antsy and casts a spell on Eric. To me, this seems like overkill since she had Ariel’s voice already and apparently it’s the only thing Eric is in love with anyway. But this was her big moment and one can’t be too careful. So she plays a pointless charade which does help her complete her main objective, but also ends up contributing to her undoing. So I ask: why didn’t she just kill Eric instead of entrancing him? With him gone, there’s no kiss for Ariel and no one to pilot the ship into her gut. I mean, she had no problem having her cronies attempt to drown him once her plan was completed so we know she wasn’t against murder. And there couldn’t have been anything in the contract that would have legally inhibited her from it could there? Why would Ursula have put something like that in there in the first place knowing she would cheat if she needed too? But, we do have to hand it to Ursula, she was queen of the sea for the 5 minutes before she became calamari…or would it be a poor, unfortunate sushi roll?

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Image Credit — fanpop.com

Who’s running this place?

They were both so young when their parents died. I don’t think Elsa could have been more than 10 or 11. From that time until her coronation, Elsa was not running the country. Neither was Anna for that matter. While this character is never shown, there was most certainly a regent in charge of running the affairs of the Kingdom until Elsa was of age. This is all well and good and everything is copacetic with me until Elsa abdicates her recently coronated throne for a newly constructed fortress of solitude. It’s at this point that the throne would logically return to the regent until Anna became of age the same way it did for her sister. This is not the case. Anna, who is much more immature than her sister, somehow assumes control of the kingdom along with her random love interest from the Southern Isles. No one seems to be too upset about it either. Granted they are dealing with the realization their Queen is an ice witch, but still, that’s why they are paid the big bucks right? And then, when Anna decides to head out alone to find her AWOL sister, she hands over the throne, which wasn’t hers to give in the first place, to an unknown outsider. And again, no one bats an eye. So, are we to believe that if Elsa and Anna would have never returned to the castle, Hans would have been the new King? That doesn’t even make sense. But even he doesn’t even stick. He grabs some men and heads out but doesn’t publicly put anyone in charge. So while he is gone, who is running the show? That random group of guys that we later see fully accept that Han and Anna were secretly married before she died? An event in which they apparently don’t need a see a body to believe even occurred? You know, it seems to me that this ‘eternal winter’ is the least of this country’s problems.

BONUS QUESTION:
Here is a question that I had and also GlueStick Mum shared in the comments of my last post. I think when you watch the scene of Elsa’s imprisonment, we assume that the manacles that adorn her hands were created by Hans. But there just isn’t time for these to be made. So who made them? While I have defended her father in the past, I can’t help but think that he had these secretly made as a last resort. Actually, scratch that. It was probably the trolls…I really think this was still all their fault.

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Image Credit:  disney.wikia.com

Put ’em together and what have you got?

So this is my 45th post on this blog. When I came up with this idea a little over a year ago, I thought I might be able to come up with enough questions to last at least six months. I have had a lot of fun sharing my crazy and finding that there are a lot of other people out there that think the same way I do…not sure that is a good thing actually. That said, I believe that I am going to bring this blog close. I have a few more posts ready to go but plan to launch my last post on my 35th birthday, March 30. Ok, enough about that. On to today’s question…

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Do ends justify the means? I think in most scenarios we verbally disagree but when the outcome is favorable, we tend to overlook what it took to get us there. I think this is the case in Cinderella. We see Cinderella and the Prince living happily ever after and feel pretty darn good about it all. And I am sure that the Fairy Godmother would point to that fact and say that she had done her job properly. But did she? Did she really?

Cinderella’s life up to the point she encountered the lady in question had been anything but a fairy tale. She was already being raised by a single father when she is thrust into a less than happy mixed family. Shortly after she loses her father and becomes for all intents and purposes a slave to a tyrannical step-mother and step-sisters. While we don’t know how long this went on, it appears that this occurred for quite some time.  I’ll hazard a guess and say around 10 years.

And all this time Cinderella takes it in stride. It’s not like there is someone out there that could come in and take her out of this horrible situation. No one with magical powers that could magically free her from her captors or at least change some random objects into a means of escape. Oh, wait….there is! Enter the Fairy Godmother. I bet she will have a plan to save her charge. I mean, that’s what she is there for right? So, what’s the plan FG? What? Ok, let me get this straight. Your plan is to make her a pretty dress, horribly uncomfortable shoes and call her an Uber so she can get to a party? And then what? That’s it? That’s your contribution? And when a persistent prince and industrious mice save the day, you can smile and think ‘job well done?’ Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way for me. If I had my druthers, I would get her bibbity bobbity booted out of the Fairy Godmother Academy.

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Image Credit —> disney.wikia.com

Should Merryweather’s Name Have Been FairWeather?

In the past I have given King Stefan a pretty hard time about his decisions regarding his daughter. And while I still believe he made some less than desirable choices, there is another person who seems to get off scot-free when it comes to accountability for their actions: Merryweather the Blue Fairy.

I think we can all agree that Merryweather is probably the most cantankerous of the three fairies. She is abrasive and is often given to fits of complaining. When Flora first has the idea for them to sacrifice their powers in order to protect the princess, MW does everything in her power to not be a part of it. I don’t blame her though. With a personality like that, magic was probably the only thing that would make people want to be around her. But I digress.

Then, after nearly two decades of not using magic when they had almost beaten Maleficent’s curse Merryweather chooses to strike. It’s only one more day, but that is one day too long for the sprite. The day before the curse is moot, the three ladies all try to do their assigned duties: making a cake, creating a dress, etc without using magic. (I do question why these duties are assigned to these three instead of the King’s kitchen staff or tailors. And after 16 years, how these women couldn’t have figured out how to bake a cake…what did they do that whole time?)

Anyway, when they fail, while not overly excited about it, they all decide it will be ok…everyone except Merryweather. She cajoles the two other fairies to break out their wands to make everything better. This is bad enough, but she then proceeds to get into a magic battle because she wants the dress to be blue. Really? Is it that big a deal? Is it worth it after sacrificing for so long? This selfishness is what leads to the crow finding their location and everything going south. Now, should we let her off the hook because she helps solve the problem that she created by helping Prince Phillip save the day? I don’t think so. At minimum she should have her wand impounded and have a few years of community service…well, maybe just probation then with the 16 years of being an ordinary human being considered time served.

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Image Credit –> disney.wikia.com

What was Mother Gothel’s Post-Rapunzel Plans?

This question is not such an indictment as others have been but more of something for us all to ponder. Mother Gothel has been alive for hundreds of years. She survived a majority of those years by meticulously gardening a single magic flower. We have to assume that the magic within the flower did most of the heavy-lifting helping it bloom seeing as Gothel kept it under a wicker basket. However, that shouldn’t take anything away from her fortitude and endless watchfulness. But when the palace guards find this plant, ole MG must adapt. And boy does she ever. Her transition from caretaker of the flower to maternal figure of the flower child is nothing less than seamless. Yet, for all her determination, the flower now had something attached to it that could be overcome: a lifespan. As Rapunzel is a human, she will eventually die along with her magical gift and subsequently Mothel Gothel. So was this just something that Gothel accepted? Surely not. Maybe when she would leave for days at a time, she was out looking for another flower? That sounds logical…but what if….

[OK. Here comes the crazy]. We can assume that since the Queen passed on this gift to her daughter that it would be possible for Rapunzel to pass it on to her children, right? Well even if it didn’t turn out to work, it would have been a reasonable enough theory to test. And that being the case, did Mother Gothel miss an opportunity to extend her life indefinitely by pushing Flynn away? Would it have been better for her to try to have it ‘work out’ between Ryder & Rapunzel so that she could potentially harvest her future lifeline? Then she could do some sort of ‘future breeding arrangement’ with their family for generations to come. Well, that got a little dark. No more for tonight.

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Image Credit —-> disney.wikia.com

Who’s the Brightest of them All?

When the Queen finds out she is not Miss America anymore, she immediately hires some random hunter to off her rival, Snow White. She doesn’t want anyone in the castle to know that it was her who was responsible for killing the beautiful princess and one would assume that a dude with a name like, The Huntsman, would be good at killing. Good plan? Not really. It is a big leap to go from hunting a buck to killing a chick. And, how did she find that guy anyway? Did she ask the mirror? That would make sense as he is her go to for advice… ‘Mirror, Mirror on the wall, I find me someone to kill my step-daughter….y’all.’

Regardless of how he was procured, he obviously wasn’t the right man for the job. But his failure is actually the perfect opportunity for the Queen. With Snow White out of the castle, she could easily finish the job on her own. So does she venture out into the woods and kill the princess stealthily at night? Nope. She contrives an extremely complex plan that involves magic, disguises and poison and has a exponentially higher potential for failure than it does for success. But even with all her planning, she didn’t think of one of the most important parts…the getaway! And to top it all off, she leaves an out too for Snow White with the whole true love’s kiss thing. I really do feel bad for the queen. After this debacle she can’t even comfort herself anymore with the thought ‘Well, at least I am pretty.’

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Image Credit –> disney.wikia.com

Was Belle IN Love?

I’m sure I’m not the first person to ask this question. Probably tons of posts out there in the blogosphere with answers galore but honestly I am too lazy to go find them. Plus I have found that those of you that comment on my posts are way smarter than most of the people out there anyway.

So let’s first take a look at the curse. The enchantress states that he had to love someone and earn their love in return. What type of love was required for this curse to be broken? You would hope that if one was going to curse another for the rest of their lives for a small infraction, the least they could do is give some specifics?

Unfortunately she does not, but I am guessing that it wasn’t a family or friend type love that is necessary. Otherwise, why couldn’t he have just figured out how to love Mrs. Potts? Or Lumiere? Just because they are enchanted, did they lose the right to be loved? Of course not. Or maybe the issue here was that none of them loved the Prince? What does that say about the servants in this castle? Maybe they should have all been cursed after all.

And then there is Belle. When she arrives, everyone thinks that she could be the one to break the spell. I don’t think she is the first person there so what besides her beauty makes her more of a option than anyone other visitor? I mean, why couldn’t Maurice fill the role? When he arrived, the Beast didn’t even give him a shot. Locked him up right away. You would think that if you are trying to get someone to fall in love with a beast, someone with a nickname of ‘crazy, ole Maurice’ would be your best bet…but I digress.

The main question here though is not what is needed to break the curse, but what actually did. As Belle weeps over the Beast’s dying body she sobs ‘I love you.’ But what kind of love is it? I could understand the normal kind of brother/sister/friend love. Stockholm Syndrome aside, I could see a closeness forming between those two. And if that was all that was needed, then I should just stop typing. But I think we all agreed that it was something more. So, I ask you, was Belle IN LOVE with the Beast? I mean she kisses him 5 seconds after seeing him as a human…and this ain’t no friend smooch. And if she is, what does it say about a woman who falls in love with a giant monster?

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Image Credit: fanpop.com