Alternate Pop Culture: Disney Animated Canon

[oshron]

for the most part, i'm looking at films that were made or could have been made IOTL, largely excluding teh Fantasia films since there's far more of those than IOTL

 

[oshron]

though not as much as before, i've done some more work on what TTL's Animated Canon could look like. one of the more significant ones i've devised is that it could be retroactively implied that Roger Radcliffe from One Hundred and One Dalmatians is a descendant of Ratcliff from Pocahontas (who may get a slight rename as a result). in that way, Pocahontas may be slightly more like the OTL film with Ratcliff as the actual villain, but otherwise retaining the other divergences i mentioned before

another that i came up with is that, for another bridging of the various films, the various dark spirits that Doctor Facilier summons in The Princess and the Frog are implied to be the ghosts/avatars of previous Disney villains, particularly including the Coachman from Pinocchio, Grimhilde from Snow White (specifically, her hag form from teh end of the film), Chernobog from the Night on Bald Mountain segment of Fantasia, the Headless Horseman from the Ichabod and Mr. Toad compilation film, Captain Hook, Maleficent (probably via her dragon form), Shere Khan, and Gaston (though i'm still deciding if Beauty and the Beast is actually a Disney film ITTL; due to butterflies, it may be made by Don Bluth with a separate company instead)


speaking of non-Disney films ITTL which are Disney films IOTL, i've also more or less decided that Aladdin isn't made ITTL; instead, it appears as an animated remake of The Thief of Baghdad, though is recognizably similar to the OTL film: Ahmed replaces Aladdin, the villain is more or less the same character as Jafar, etc.

 

[oshron]

hope it's okay to bump my own thread here. i came up with a couple of ideas for TTL's version of Pocahontas. while the casting and character design would be slightly different (Pocahontas herself being younger, as i mentioned before) the plot could still be recognizably similar to the OTL film with at least two big changes. namely, John Rolfe (the historical Pocahontas' husband, who appeared in the direct-to-video sequel) appears in altered form in the original movie, perhaps being a composite character of Thomas and John Smith from the OTL film, and the dynamics of John Smith himself and Ratcliff (who may be renamed Radcliffe for bridging purposes as i mentioned before) being altered into a Leo/Kefka thing with Smith (Leo) being the rational and officially-sanctioned representative of the Crown who is forced to leave (but from an injury rather than being recalled by the government) and allows Ratcliff (Kefka) to take over and commit atrocities (the Powhatan in this case standing in for Doma, though since this is Disney it would probably be something milder than poisoning the water source and actually KILLING everyone, though it COULD be the whole smallpox blanket thing, just without specifically labelling it smallpox)

 

[oshron]

and another bump for hopeful input

i started a large-scale rewrite of everything i've devised for my ASB ATL so far and in the past few days got back to rewriting/streamlining what i'd written for Disney ITTL. i'll try to restrain myself a bit for this infodump, but here's some of what i've come up with. first:

another that i came up with is that, for another bridging of the various films, the various dark spirits that Doctor Facilier summons in The Princess and the Frog are implied to be the ghosts/avatars of previous Disney villains, [...]

i came up with a definitive lineup for these just in the past few days. i decided to limit them to just seven, with each one meant to embody one of the Seven Deadly Sins: Frollo (lust), Monstro (gluttony), Regent Rotherwood (greed; he's TTL's Prince John in Robin Hood stories, and not just the Disney version--it has to do with other changes to the TL), Sykes (sloth; he appears anachronistically in this case and is merged with his dogs into a three-headed entity), the Headless Horseman (wrath), Gaston (envy), and Maleficent (pride). i used interpretations made by others for all of these.

some other Animated Canon decisions i've made, pertaining to actual films, is a definitive title for another Fantasia movie ITTL, though an atypical one: Fantasia: The Bremen Town Musicians, based on an unproduced Town Musicians of Bremen film from 1969 IOTL (though released in 1961 ITTL) which opens with Beethoven's 5th and includes Rhapsody in Blue and Invitation to the Dance, but unlike other Fantasia films has a single overarching narrative and character dialogue. my intention is that it'll also incorporate elements of an OTL Soviet film based on the fairy tale, which coincidentally was released in 1969

for an OTL film, i finally hammered out the Reynard references that i'd been meaning to include in TTL's version of Robin Hood, though it's all with character designs and a few names: the Sheriff is specifically named Isengrim after the wolf from the story, Little John is recast as a cat (but a really big cat) as a stand-in for Tibert, the Captain of the Guard is Bruin the bear instead of a crocodile, Friar Tuck is given the additional name or Grimbard after the badger from the story, and two unnamed Merry Men who appear during TTL's version of "The Phony King of England" are a hare and a ram as stand-ins for Kyward and Bellin. Panther the...um, panther...and Chanticleer the rooster are omitted, though Allan-a-Dale is still a rooster ITTL's film and King John (TTL's King Richard) is still a lion so he kinda-sorta stands-in for Noble from the Reynard story. other than these, there are two actual plot changes to the film: an alternate ending from OTL in which Robin is wounded at the climax and is found and nearly killed by Prince John, only to be saved by the timely arrival of King Richard, is used ITTL, and the Sheriff is shown to have been reformed at the end by appearing as a guest at Robin and Marian's wedding

now for an actual addition: i decided to take the earlier suggestion of One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing and reimagined it as a 1975 entry to the Animated Canon ITTL

most of what i've done has been for alternate Fantasia movies, ITTL being the longest film series Disney has ever done (by TTL's present-day, there are fourteen of them) with some extra thoughts for the redefined Hercules and Lion King, but not much has been done for those ones since i elaborated on them earlier in the thread. i DID come to a final decision on Pocahontas, though: Ratcliff remains as the true antagonist, but is renamed Radcliffe to retroactively tie-in with One Hundred and One Dalmations, John Smith is an anti-hero who is antagonistic to the Powhatan but not actively malicious and suffers his historical fate in TTL's version of teh movie, while the true protagonist on the colonists' side ITTL (and a real and true love interest for Pocahontas) is John Rolfe, designed as a composite of OTL's fictionalized John Smith, the character of Thomas (the one played by Christian Bale), AND the fictionalized John Rolfe from the direct-to-video sequel--this is also to makes the relationship between Pocahontas and John more realistic and less ITTL since it's not full-grown adult John Smith with young teenager Pocahontas (while that's how it was historically for Pocahontas and Rolfe IOTL, iirc, in TTL's version of the movie Pocahontas and Rolfe are the same age)

a small decision i came to just earlier today after finally looking into it: Lilo & Stitch retains its originally planned ending, which involved Stitch taking a 747 for a joyride and swerving around buildings. this was changed after 9/11 IOTL, but since the attacks don't take place ITTL...



i'm still making decisions for anything that isn't Fantasia after Lilo & Stitch ITTL, so i'm open to any and all suggestions. keep in mind that this is around the time that Disney starts transitioning to CGI films IOTL, though it could very well be that Disney doesn't go down that path ITTL. thoughts?

 

[oshron]

i thought i'd share this. i devised a full summary of the alternate Pocahontas and i'd appreciate some feedback. some things to keep in mind:

• Pocahontas herself is much younger ITTL, and is designed to resemble Tiger Lily from Peter Pan, just with some changes to her wardrobe and a more accurate (read: less racist) skin tone
• Pocahontas has only one animal companion ITTL, a talking turkey named Redfeather who is voiced by John Candy
• John Rolfe is a composite of three different characters from the OTL movie (Smith, Thomas, and himself from the sequel); his character also brings in reference to Pocahontas' Christian name, Rebecca, by him commenting that she looks more like a Rebecca after she introduces herself and gives her the pet name Becca
• for a canon connection, it's implied that Ratcliff is an ancestor of Roger from One Hundred and One Dalmatians by Roger and Anita (as well as Pongo and Perdita) appearing during "Mine, Mine, Mine!" as nobles in a deliberately paleo-future setting still coasting by on all the gold he expects to find
• there are a number of meta references to The Little Mermaid since that film isn't made ITTL, namely with Pocahontas' personality being a bit more similar to Ariel's (and Rolfe being Eric in analogy), in particular her fascination with trinkets, relics, and oddities (which may themselves include references to previous Disney movies, possibly including the now-inert Black Cauldron); another reference is a comedy sequence where Redfeather is chased by a cook similar to Sebastian being chased by the chef
• keeping these other changes in mind, Pocahontas as a whole bears more similarities to the historical events: Smith is an antihero rather than a direct protagonist, and Rolfe is the love interest instead of Smith

now for the plot summary:



In 1607, Captain John Smith leads a group of colonists from Britannia to a newly-claimed region of the New World called Virginia. He is accompanied by John Rolfe, a young prospective businessman interested in the new commodities to be found in Virginia; John Ratcliffe, the new Governor of Virginia hand-picked by King Henry IX, who plans to buy his way into the aristocracy with gold that he expects to dig up in the New World; and Ratcliffe’s assistant Wiggins, among others. The colonists brave a North Atlantic storm on their way to America, during which Rolfe nearly drowns but is saved by Smith.

As the Anglish approach the shores of North America, the Powhatan tribe celebrates the return of their warriors from a successful campaign against their enemies as well as a bountiful harvest of maize. The Powhatan shaman Kekata performs a ritual, and uncovers a message from the spirits that strange men with pale skin and weapons unlike any they’ve seen before are coming. Chief Powhatan is undaunted by this, confident that his warriors will be able to protect them. Meanwhile, the Powhatan princess Pocahontas explores the forest for relics and oddities to add to a collection of hers, accompanied by her friend, a talking turkey named Redfeather. They are nearly attacked by a bear, but outsmart it and get the bear stuck in a hollow log.

On her way back to the village, Pocahontas rows her canoe down a quiet stream to visit Grandmother Willow, a spirit inhabiting a tree, to tell her of a prophetic dream that she had recently about a spinning arrow, and confusion she has concerning where she is going in life. After receiving advice from the spirit, she heads back towards the village and sees the huge sails of the Anglish ship as it anchors offshore. Upon landing, Ratcliffe plants the Anglish flag on the shore and claims the entire continent for Britannia, naming their first settlement Henricus in honor of the king. Almost immediately, Ratcliffe and Smith get into an argument as to their first course of action in the new colony: Smith wants to build walled fortifications to protect them from whatever dangers may be hiding in the frontier while Ratcliffe wants to line his pockets as soon as possible.

While the two colonial leaders bicker, Rolfe goes exploring in the forest, writing about all the exotic plants and animals in his journal. He is examining a wild tobacco plant when he’s startled by the sudden appearance of Pocahontas. After some brief confusion due to the language barrier between them, Grandmother Willow uses magic to allow them to communicate. As Rolfe shows Pocahontas his musket, compass, wristwatch, and other common European items which seem like magic to her, Ratcliffe finally spurs the colonists into digging up the countryside for gold, arguing with Smith the whole time. As they dig, a pair of Powhatans spy on them, including Kocoum, one of the most capable warriors of all the Powhatan. When the Anglishmen notice them, they immediately open fire. Because of this, Chief Powhatan orders all of his people to be on high alert and avoid making contact with the interlopers while Ratcliffe and Smith give conflicting commands to shoot the natives on sight and avoid aggravating them any further.

Weeks pass as the Anglish and Powhatan spy on each other while Pocahontas and Rolfe continue to meet in secret out in the forest: Pocahontas teaches Rolfe about the spirits of the forest and her peoples’ harmonious lifestyle with the plants and animals while Rolfe tells her about Europe’s technological marvels and some of their great exploits of the past. Over a month later, the colonists have begun to grow mutinous towards Ratcliffe, who is more concerned with finding the clearly nonexistent gold than he is with feeding his own men. When Rolfe tells Pocahontas about this, she remarks that the only thing close gold anywhere in the area is all the maize that they recently harvested. Through Rolfe, Smith learns about the cache of food and decides to lead the Anglish in an attack on the village. Rolfe rushes to warn Pocahontas of the impending attack and she, in turn, tells Chief Powhatan, revealing that she has been meeting with one of the interlopers against his orders. Smith and the colonists arrive to find the maize unguarded and take as much as they can. On their way back to the Henricus settlement, Kocoum and his warriors ambush them. In the ensuing battle, a stray spark from a musket lands on a pile of gunpowder next to Smith, which explodes and injures him, while Kocoum is fatally shot.

With Smith incapacitated, Ratcliffe is the left as sole figure of authority in Henricus. He takes the opportunity rile up the colonists for another attack on the Powhatan, convinced that the natives are hoarding all the gold in their village. Without Smith’s level-headed leadership, the colonists are spurred into violence, marching towards the village fully-armed. At the same time, Chief Powhatan goads his own warriors into action as well, seeking revenge for the death of Kocoum and the destruction of the land. Pocahontas is confined to the longhouse for violating Chief Powhatan’s decree to avoid the Anglishmen, but escapes with the help of Redfeather. She goes back to Grandmother Willow for advice, and during their talk she notices Rolfe’s compass and realizes that the spinning arrow from her dream is the compass pointing her to her destiny. As the Anglish and Powhatan march towards each other, Pocahontas follows the compass to them. Just as both sides raise their weapons and prepare to fire, she runs inbetween them and calls for peace, heard and understood by all thanks to Grandmother Willow’s magic. Rolfe joins her in pleading for an end to the violence, saying that it’s not what Smith and Kocoum would want. Grandmother Willow’s magic allows them all to see the truth in their words, and both sides lower their weapons.

Ratcliffe, however, refuses to accept any peace agreement and levels his gun at Chief Powhatan. Rolfe jumps in to stop him, trying to twist the gun out of his hands, and his accidentally shot in the arm. Seeing for certain that Ratcliffe is dangerous, his own men turn on him, tying up the governor to be shipped back to Britannia in shame. In the following days, the Anglish and Powhatan establish peace between themselves, and the still-injured Smith even manages to stand and apologize to Chief Powhatan for both his and Ratcliffe’s actions in front of both sides. Away from the peace agreement, Pocahontas and Rolfe profess their love for each other and Rolfe asks if Pocahontas will return to Britannia with him to start his business. The film ends as Pocahontas considers his offer.

 

[oshron]

i hope it's okay to bump my thread. i've going over my listing for the alternate Disney Animated Canon recently and decided to revise a fair bit of it as well as make placeholder entries for other films based on the current and planned films IOTL, but obviously most of the list is lacking in actual content right now. among my revisions to the list is a specific entry for interconnections (i can't remember if i mentioned it before, but i've decided to try and establish that the Animated Canon is all one big shared universe ITTL) to try and keep the whole thing just a little less cluttered. once i'm satisfied with more of them, i'll share more of my ideas concerning this.

i also came to a few other decisions concerning some of the films ITTL: Walt himself apparently grew to resent Alice in Wonderland, so there's no official acknowledgment of it during his lifetime, particularly in later films (so possible references to it are left out of films up until The Fox and the Hound, which is the first film made after his death since he lives a bit longer ITTL) and it's even excluded from Kingdom Hearts years later; there's an alternating sequence of "better" and "worse" Disney films starting in about the 1990s and going for about a decade each--the 90s are "good", the 00s are "bad", and so on with the latest "good" period beginning in TTL's present-day of the early 2030s; after Sleeping Beauty (it's a classic now, but at the time it was a financial failure) there are almost no other princess movies for the rest of the 20th century, so some of those OTL movies are transferred to later entries in the Animated Canon; and in the 21st century Disney gets the perception that fairy tale movies don't sell well and therefore disguise the fact that some of their Animated Canon entries are fairy tale movies by giving them more deceptive names (OTL precedent being Tangled and Frozen instead of Rapunzel and The Snow Queen), hence the altered name for TTL's version of Mulan, though i'm not at all satisfied with the name i currently have so i'd appreciate some ideas on that in particular

i'll post the ones i've gotten full summaries for. sorry for the walls of text:



Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
++OTL: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
- Based on: Snow White (c. 18th century)
- The evil Queen Grimhilde learns from her Magic Mirror that a young girl named Snow White has become the fairest in the land instead of her. She orders her huntsman Humbert to take Snow White into the forest and murder her, but he cannot bring himself to do so and tells her to run away so that the Queen won’t find her. After a terrifying journey through the forest, Snow White comes upon a cottage in the deep woods which belongs to seven dwarfs: the spectacled Doc, the aggressive Grumpy, the cheerful Happy, the narcoleptic Sleepy, the shy Bashful, Sneezy who is allergic to everything, and the mute Dopey. Snow White befriends the diminutive miners and teaches them how to take proper care of themselves and their home with the help of the woodland animals. Meanwhile, the Queen learns that Snow White is still alive and disguises herself as a hag to trick the girl into eating a poisoned apple. When the dwarfs return and find their friend apparently dead, they chase after the Queen, who tries to roll a boulder down on them, but lightning strikes and causes her to fall to her death. Though the Queen is no more, the dwarfs cannot bring Snow White back and mourn her, placing her in a glass coffin so that all can look upon the beauty of the deceased young girl. Prince Florian arrives and, with true love’s kiss, revives Snow White and they live happily ever after.
- Notes: first animated feature-length film; Sleepy is voiced by Sterling Holloway and Mel Blanc records lines for Dopey, but they are left out of the final version
- Interconnections: none; no preceding works to link to



Pinocchio (1940)
++OTL: Pinocchio (1940)
- Based on: The Adventures of Pinocchio (1881)
- Jiminy Cricket narrates his meeting with Pinocchio, a wooden puppet carved by Geppetto and brought to life by the Blue Fairy, and that he has been charged with being Pinocchio’s conscience. Pinocchio is told to be good so that he may one day become a real boy, and is enchanted such that his nose grows every time he tells a lie. However, he is waylaid by a fox named Honest John and his mute sidekick Gideon the cat, who sell him to puppet show director Mangiafuoco. When Pinocchio and Jiminy find themselves unable to escape from a cage Mangiafuoco locked them in, the Blue Fairy appears to help them, but warns that this is the one and only time that she will. Shortly after escaping, Pinocchio runs into Honest John and Gideon again, who send him to Pleasure Island at the behest of a Coachman. En route to Pleasure Island, Pinocchio befriends juvenile delinquent Lampwick and they and the other boys delight in doing everything they’re forbidden to do in the outside world. Pinocchio learns just in time that the boys brought to Pleasure Island are turned into donkeys and sold by the Coachman for their bad behavior, and watches in horror as Lampwick transforms into one right in front of him. After Pinocchio and Jiminy escape, they learn that Geppetto was swallowed by Monstro the whale while looking for them and they go out to sea to rescue him. Forcing the whale to sneeze, Pinocchio rescues them all and is transformed into a real boy by the Blue Fairy as a reward.
- Notes: the character of Stromboli retains his name from the original book; the Blue Fairy’s hair is turquoise instead of blond as a nod to the original character
- Interconnections: …



Fantasia (1941)
++OTL: Fantasia (1940)
- Based on: original; inspired by classical music
- Leopold Stokowski conducts for eight animated segments set to classical music:
o Toccata and Fugue in D Minor: set to abstract patterns of light and musical instruments in the sky
o Nutcracker Suite: fairies, fish, flowers, leaves, and mushrooms dance to the changing seasons
o The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Morty Mouse is cast as the apprentice of the wizard Yen Sid, and uses his teacher’s magical hat to cast spells which quickly run out of control
o Rite of Spring: the geological history of Earth is shown, prominently featuring dinosaurs
o Cydalise et le Chèvre-pied: a festival for centaurs, cherubs, fauns, and pegasi is held by Bacchus, which is interrupted by Jupiter
o Dance of the Hours: ostriches, hippos, elephants, and alligators dance to the times of day
o Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria: the demonic Chernobog summons hordes of evil before being driven off by church bells and monks at the crack of dawn
- Notes: Cydalise et le Chèvre-pied is used instead of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, which was used against Stokowski’s suggestion in the OTL film
- Interconnections: …



Bambi (1942)
++OTL: Bambi (1942)
- Based on: Bambi, A Life in the Woods (1923)
- Bambi the deer is born in the forest, son of the Great Prince of the Forest. He finds friends in a rabbit named Thumper, a skunk named Flower, and a doe named Faline. During his first winter, Bambi’s mother is shot and killed by a hunter. As Bambi grows up over the years, he courts Faline and spars with another buck named Ronno for the right. When the hunters return, using dogs and fire to try and trap the animals, Bambi leads the woodland creatures to safety.
- Notes: [i admit i'm not fully satisfied with this summary, but what else can i do? there's not as much to Bambi as there is to some of the Disney movies]
- Interconnections: …



The Tales of Hans Christian Andersen (1947)
++OTL: not applicable
- Based on: fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen (1837-1845)
- An anthology film of fairy tales written by Hans Christian Andersen, also incorporating the Silly Symphonies rendition of The Ugly Duckling as an introductory segment:
o The Ugly Duckling: a swan egg gets mixed in with a different clutch of eggs and, after hatching, the “ugly duckling” is mocked by his “siblings” and goes searching for a place where he belongs
o The Little Mermaid: a young mermaid, pining for a man that she has seen from afar, makes a deal with the Sea Witch to receive legs, which will allow her to meet her love, but at the cost of her voice; without this, she cannot identify herself to the prince—who has fallen in love with her voice—and he becomes engaged to another woman instead, but at the wedding the mermaid manages to regain her voice, plead her love to the prince, and they live happily ever after
o The Steadfast Tin Soldier: a set of toy soldiers are cast from a tin pot for a child, but the last of them cast is missing a leg because there wasn’t enough tin, meaning he is slower but no less brave than the others; he becomes smitten with ballerina in a music box, but a goblin in the form of a jack-in-the-box threatens him, sending the tin soldier out the window and he lands on a piece of wreckage which floats into a sewer and then the ocean, where he is swallowed by a fish; by chance, the fish is caught and sold to the parent of his owner and he faces the goblin in battle for the heart of the ballerina and sends him flying into the fireplace, and the tin soldier and the ballerina live happily ever after
o The Little Match Girl: on a cold New Year’s Eve, a little girl who sells matches is afraid to return home to her father and uses some of the matches to keep warm, seeing a vision of her deceased grandmother in the flames and, after several heartwarming scenes, is reunited with her
o The Snow Queen: [this is the only one that i haven't gotten a summary for yet, but it'll be a compressed version of either the 1957 or 2013 film]
- Notes: replaces Fun and Fancy Free; The Little Mermaid is not its own film as a consequence of this one being made, and as a result is more compressed than the OTL film but still has a happy ending, and Frozen is also omitted from the Animated Canon and The Steadfast Tin Soldier segment is excluded from the Fantasia series; the order shown here is the original ordering ITTL, based on the order of release for the OTL inspirations, while later releases—for some reason—have the ordering based on the publication dates of the original stories, with the exception of The Ugly Duckling, which is always placed first
- Interconnections: …



The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
++OTL: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
- Based on: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820); The Wind in the Willows (1908)
- The film is divided into two segments, each following a different story and different characters:
o Happy-go-lucky J. Thaddeus Toad, Esq., lives in turn of the century Britannia as an eccentric but well-liked adventurer, the wealthy proprietor of Toad Hall. One day, he happens to see a motor car for the first time and, enraptured by a mania of excitement, resolves to get his hands on one by any means necessary. Soon, Toad is framed for car theft—in actuality, he had bought the car from a gang of weasels, who had actually stolen it—and he is sentenced to twenty years in the Tower of Vortigern. His friends Ratty, Moley, and Angus MacBadger break him out of prison and they infiltrate Toad Hall, which has been taken over by the weasels, in search of a document that will prove Toad’s innocence and oust the weasels. After all has been righted, Toad sees a Chanute flyer pass by and goes into another mania.
o Ichabod Crane is a gluttonous and superstitious yet charming schoolmaster in Sleepy Hollow, New York. He meets Katrina van Tassel, daughter of the richest man in the village, and tries courting her. He comes into competition with Brom Bones, the roguish town hero who begins to bully him. At a Halloween party, Brom tells the legend of a Hessian mercenary fighting for Britannia during the American Revolution whose head was taken clean off by a cannonball and now haunts Sleepy Hollow and the surrounding areas as the Headless Horseman. While everyone else at the party is amused by this, superstitious Ichabod is terrified and becomes more and more frightened and paranoid as he rides home in the dark. He laughs off what turns out to be cattails bumping on a log after mistaking it for hoof beats until, to his horror, the real Headless Horseman suddenly appears and begins chasing him. Ichabod flees across a covered bridge where the ghost cannot follow, but turns to see the Horseman throwing his head—actually a flaming jack-o-lantern—at him. Ichabod is never seen again.
- Notes: …
- Interconnections: …



Cinderella (1950)
++OTL: Cinderella (1950)
- Based on: Cinderella (c. 17th century)
- Cinderella is the daughter of a widowed aristocrat, who remarries to Lady Tremaine because he believes she needs a mother. After Cinderella’s father dies, her wicked stepmother forces her into servitude, running her ragged while giving everything to her ugly and untalented daughters Drizella and Anastasia. Cinderella bears it thanks to the friendship given to her by animals living on the estate, especially mice such as Jacques and Augustus, who cause trouble for Lucifer the cat on Cinderella’s behalf. When Prince Charming returns from a campaign, his father the King declares a ball with all eligible maidens in the land invited because he wants to have grandchildren. Cinderella is prevented from attending by Tremaine’s scheming, but is visited by a Fairy Godmother who uses magic so that she can attend in secret, giving her a ball gown and glass slippers. The Prince instantly falls in love with her, but she runs away at the stroke of midnight because the spell is starting to wear off, though the slippers remain as a gift. One of the slippers is lost in her flight from the ball, and the King decides to use this to identify the nameless mystery woman that his son fell in love with. Though Tremaine tries to keep Cinderella from being recognized by locking her in her room, she manages to escape just in time to identify herself as the mystery woman. She marries Prince Charming and they live happily ever after.
- Notes: …
- Interconnections: …



Alice in Wonderland (1951)
++OTL: Alice in Wonderland (1952)
- Based on: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865); Through the Looking Glass (1871)
- A young girl named Alice grows bored with listening to her older sister reading a history book aloud while they sit on a Britannian riverbank. She sees a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat run past, exclaiming that he is “late for a very important date,” and decides to follow him, tumbling down a hole into the fantastically ridiculous Wonderland. After using mysterious foods labeled “Drink Me” and “Eat Me” to change her size and get past a door in her search for the White Rabbit, she encounters many strange characters: the Dodo who leads a “caucus race” on a beach, the identical twins Tweedledee and Tweedledum distract her for a time, a Caterpillar smoking a hookah tells her about how things work in Wonderland, the enigmatic Cheshire Cat who speaks in riddles and the frightening Jabberwocky, and the Mad Hatter and the March Hare invite her to a tea party that makes no sense whatsoever. Alice becomes fed up with all the nonsense in Wonderland and decides to leave, but can’t find the way out. She wanders into the realm of the Queen of Hearts and, thanks to the Cheshire Cat, is sentenced to death. She flees from the Queen and her playing card soldiers as the world around her becomes more and more chaotic by the second until she suddenly wakes up—it was all a dream.
- Notes: the Jabberwocky was planned for the film IOTL and some art of it exists, but it was removed because it was deemed too scary; as a result of the altered history ITTL, the book that Alice’s sister is reading is about Harold II instead of William I
- Interconnections: …



Peter Pan (1953)
++OTL: Peter Pan (1953)
- Based on: Peter and Wendy (1904)
- In turn of the century Britannia, George Darling becomes fed up with his children’s disruptive playing and decides to take his eldest child Wendy out of the nursery as he feels it’s time for her to grow up, much to the dismay of both Wendy and her brothers John and Michael. That night, Wendy is visited by Peter Pan, a character she told stories of to her brothers. After helping him reclaim his shadow, Peter decides to take all three of them to Neverland, a place where they will never grow up, flying there with the help of magical dust unwilling donated by Tinkerbell, a fairy. They meet the Lost Boys, Peter’s band of runaways and decide to have some adventures: John and Michael join the Lost Boys on a trek around the island, but are captured by a local tribe of Indians who suspect them of having kidnapped their princess, Tiger Lily. Peter, meanwhile, takes Wendy to see the local mermaids but they find that the fiendish Captain Hook, Peter’s sworn enemy, is rowing to Marooners’ Rock with a captive Tiger Lily. Peter rescues her and brings both her and Wendy to the Indian village where a celebration is held, but Wendy becomes tired of Peter’s immaturity and decides to go home. While she tries to depart with her brothers, they and the Lost Boys are captured by Hook and Peter goes to rescue them. After a daring duel with the pirate, Peter throws him to a crocodile, which chases Hook off into the sunrise. Peter takes the Darling children back to London, where Wendy finally agrees with her father that it’s time to grow up.
- Notes: …
- Interconnections: one of the mermaids in Mermaid Lagoon is implied to be the Little Mermaid from The Tales of Hans Christian Andersen



Lady and the Tramp (1956)
++OTL: Lady and the Tramp (1955)
- Based on: Happy Dan, the Whistling Dog (c. 1940s)
- Lady the cocker spaniel lives in a nice neighborhood with her friends Jock the Aberdeen terrier and Trusty the bloodhound. Meanwhile, a terrier mutt known as the Tramp lives a rough-and-tumble life on the streets, liked by many but pursued by the local dogcatcher. One day, Lady notices that her owners are paying less attention to her; soon, she learns that they are going to have a baby. Not long after their son is born, Lady’s owners leave to go on a trip and call Aunt Sarah to watch the baby, who brings her twin Siamese cats with her. After Lady gets into a fight with the cats in defense of the baby, she is thrown out of the house by Sarah. The Tramp takes her on a tour of the city, but she is caught by the dogcatcher and taken to the pound, where she learns that the Tramp isn’t the most respectable dog. After she is freed thanks to her collar, proving she is someone’s pet rather than a stray, she breaks off her relationship with the Tramp in annoyance at all the trouble he caused her. As he leaves, however, Lady notices a rat sneaking into the baby’s room and calls on the Tramp for help, who kills the rat but is mistaken for the aggressor by Sarah, who calls the pound to have him euthanized. Jock and Trusty, who thought the Tramp was no good, run to his rescue when they learn that he saved the baby and arrive just in time. The Tramp is adopted by Lady’s owners and they live happily ever after.
- Notes: …
- Interconnections: some of the Christmas presents for the baby shown in the final scene are the tin soldiers, music box ballerina, and the jack-in-the-box from the Steadfast Tin Soldier segment of The Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, therefore implying that this story takes place sometime after Lady and the Tramp



Sleeping Beauty (1959)
++OTL: Sleeping Beauty (1959)
- Based on: The Beauty sleeping in the Wood (c. 14th century); Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty (1890)
- Princess Aurora is born and her parents hold an enormous celebration for her, and a trio of fairies—red Candor, yellow Canary, and blue Lilac—arrive to bestow three gifts upon Aurora. After Candor grants her beauty and honesty and Canary the sweetest singing voice in the land, they are interrupted by the evil fairy Maleficent, who is upset that she was not invited and curses Aurora to one day prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die. After Maleficent leaves, Lilac grants a blessing so that she will instead fall into a death-like sleep and be awakened by true love’s kiss. Years later, Aurora happens to meet Prince [Philip] at a fair and they fall in love, but the Prince is kidnapped by Maleficent and Aurora is hypnotized into pricking her finger, falling into her death-like sleep. To protect Aurora until she can be reawakened, the fairies put her in a tower and begin the search for her true love. Freeing the Prince from Maleficent’s castle, they help him fight his way through Maleficent’s minions and a tangle of magical thorn that the witch creates around Aurora’s tower. When the Prince proves able to get past even these obstacles, Maleficent transforms herself into a ferocious dragon and attacks him, but is slain. The Prince revives Aurora, breaking the curse, and they live happily ever after.
- Notes: Aurora meets the Prince at a fair instead of in the forest; King Stephan and Prince Philip are renamed after the Britannian Emperor and heir-apparent at the time the film is made, and the fairies Flora, Fauna, and Merriweather are renamed after three of the fairies from Tchaikovsky’s ballet and colored slightly differently because of this; Diablo is a vulture instead of a raven; in the broadest terms, Sleeping Beauty is considered the first Disney entry to the Dark Age of Animation [the summary is technically incomplete since it requires devising something else in the TL, just the Prince's name]
- Interconnections: Lilac is implied to be a younger version of the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella in part because Sleeping Beauty is clearly set in an earlier time period than Cinderella



One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1962)
++OTL: One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
- Based on: The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956)
- Pongo, the pet Dalmatian of songwriter Roger Radcliffe in London, decides to find a partner for both himself and his owner, and successfully introduces them both to Anita and her Dalmatian, Perdita. Soon, Perdita has a litter of fifteen, but the family is visited by the materialistic Cruella de Vil, who offers to buy the puppies but is denied. Not to be refused, she hires a pair of crooks to steal the puppies and take them to her dilapidated estate where she has more than eighty other Dalmatian pups, planning to have them all skinned and made into fur coats The puppies are saved by the timely arrival of Pongo, Perdita, and several other animals, who lead the puppies through the countryside and into London with Cruella and her goons in pursuit. Roger and Anita are happy to see their dogs again and buy a large house in the countryside to house all 101 of the dogs.
- Notes: …
- Interconnections: …



The Sword in the Stone (1963)
++OTL: The Sword in the Stone (1963)
- Based on: The Sword in the Stone (1938); Arthurian legend (c. 5th century)
- The Sword in the Stone stands in a churchyard in London, waiting for the Once and Future King to return and pull it from its resting place—all others cannot budge it. Meanwhile, a boy named Arthur is sent to the wizard Merlin to be educated, learning many things from him that will not be discovered for centuries because Merlin travels backwards through time instead of forwards. Merlin takes him on several misadventures, turning both himself and Arthur into fish to teach him physics, squirrels to teach him gravity and caution, and birds during a history lesson. In a moment of confusion, they become separated and run into the trickster witch Madam Mim and Merlin is forced into a wizards’ duel to protect Arthur, but wins. One day, Arthur decides to attend a jousting tournament in London instead of his lessons, which angers Merlin and causes him to leave. While in London, Arthur happens to draw the Sword in the Stone from its resting place and is crowned King of the Anglish. Merlin returns and resolves to help Arthur become the great king he has been foretold to be.
- Notes: …
- Interconnections: …



The Jungle Book (1967)
++OTL: The Jungle Book (1967)
- Based on: The Jungle Book (1894); The Second Jungle Book (1895)
- A young boy named Mowgli is found by the mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi in the jungles of the Mughal Empire, who goes to the panther Bagheera for advice. They take him to be raised by a pack of wolves, and Rikki stays with them as Mowgli’s friend and companion. When the wolves learn that the misanthropic tiger Shere Khan has returned to the jungle, Bagheera decides to take the man-cub through the jungle to a village where he will be safe, though Rikki thinks that Mowgli would be happier in the jungle. On the way, they meet the strict elephant commander Hathi, the sleepy bear Baloo, and are waylaid by the mad orangutan King Louie and the python Kaa. After Rikki finally agrees with Bagheera on taking Mowgli to the village, Mowgli becomes upset and runs away, finally encountering Shere Khan. Just as the tiger is about to kill him, Rikki returns and distracts Shere Khan with the help of a group of vultures, but is seriously injured. Lightning strikes nearby and ignites a dead tree, giving Mowgli the one thing that Shere Khan is afraid of: fire. After he drives off the tiger and, to his relief, finds that Rikki is alive, he reluctantly approaches the village, where he finally decides to join his own people after meeting a young girl, Gunga Din.
- Notes: Baloo is more similar to his original character, his role in the story being more in passing similar to some characters from Alice in Wonderland rather than a fun-loving jungle bum as a major character, with Rikki-Tikki-Tavi filling the role as Mowgli’s more constant and sillier companion (and later receives his own direct-to-video movie years later, telling his own story); for a possible revision, King Louie may be omitted and replaced by Baloo, who is the lazy and carefree king of the monkeys despite being a bear
- Interconnections: …



The Aristocats (1970)
++OTL: The Aristocats (1970)
- Based on: original
- In Paris in 1910, a mother cat named Duchess and her kittens Marie, Berlioz, and Toulouse are named the heirs to their wealthy owner’s estate and fortune, much to the dismay of their butler Edgar. He decides to get rid of the cats so that the inheritance will go to him instead. After Edgar fails to throw them into a river, Duchess and the kittens are found by Thomas O’Malley the alley cat, who offers to lead them back home, stopping en route to have a party with Satchmo Cat and his band. They return home but are recaptured by Edgar, who decides to take no further chances and locks them in a trunk to ship the cats to Timbuktu. O’Malley and Satchmo Cat come to the rescue, freeing Duchess and the kittens and attacking Edgar until he trips into the trunk to be shipped off himself. O’Malley is adopted by Duchess’ owner and she rewrites her will to start a charity foundation, providing her home as a sanctuary for all the stray cats of Paris.
- Notes: Scat Cat is played by Louis Armstrong ITTL and is therefore renamed Satchmo Cat; the film is better-remembered as Disney’s first original story
- Interconnections: …



One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing (1975)
++OTL: One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (1975)
- Based on: The Great Dinosaur Robbery (1970)
- In 1920s New York, an apparent spy named Lord Southmere escapes from China with the formula for the mysterious “Lotus X” and hides it in a Brontosaurus skeleton in the American Museum of Natural History as Chinese spies close in on him. By chance, he encounters his former nanny Hettie and asks her to retrieve the microfilm for him at a later time. They search the museum, but are captured by the Chinese spies, who steal the entire skeleton so that they can search it properly. Hettie, in turn, manages to steal the truck that the spies loaded the skeleton onto and escapes with it, but try as they might, they cannot find the microfilm. They realize that the spies took the wrong skeleton, of a Seismosaurus, and return to the museum to search the correct skeleton and find the microfilm. Hettie takes the microfilm to a restaurant that the spies are using as their bae to trade it for Southmere, but disaster ensues as the stolen dinosaur skeleton falls apart on top of them. In the end, Southmere explains that he is not a spy at all: he is a businessman, and that “Lotus X” is actually a wonton soup recipe that he is hoping to market. With the misunderstanding cleared up, they all make peace with each other.
- Notes: this was a live-action film IOTL; Atlantosaurus is incorrectly referred to as Brontosaurus
- Interconnections: …



The Rescuers (1976)
++OTL: The Rescuers (1977)
- Based on: The Rescuers (1959); Miss Bianca (1962)
- An orphan named Penny sends a message in a bottle asking for help. The bottle is recovered by the Rescue Aid Society, an organization of mice who help those in need, and is brought to their headquarters in the League of Nations building in Zürich. The RAS deploys Miss Bianca of Norway to help Penny, and reluctantly send their janitor Bernard to escort her at Bianca’s request. The mice go to the orphanage where Penny was last seen and learn from the resident cat Rufus that she has been taken by “the Diamond Duchess.” Upon investigation, they learn that the Diamond Duchess is actually Cruella de Vil and that she has sent Penny to Devil’s Bayou, used by pirates to hide treasure long ago. An albatross named August flies them to Devil’s Bayou, where they are aided by the local swamp animals, who hate Cruella for disturbing their homes in search of the Devil’s Eye, the largest diamond in the world. After making contact with Penny, they agree to help her retrieve the diamond from a steadily flooding cave so that Cruella will no longer have any reason to hold her prisoner. Once she has the diamond, though, she prepares to kill all witnesses but is interrupted by the arrival of the swamp animals, who help Bianca and Bernard not only save Penny but also take back the Devil’s Eye and escape. Sometime later, Penny is adopted by a nice family, the Devil’s Eye has been donated to a museum, and Bernard becomes a full member of the Rescue Aid Society, set to accompany Bianca on another mission soon.
- Notes: various characters retain their original names from the book (Snoopers is Mandrake, Brutus and Nero are Tyrant and Torment, and Cruella—replacing Madame Medusa—uses “the Diamond Duchess” as an alias); Bianca retains her original Norwegian nationality instead of being changed to Austrian (but still has a Hungarian accent due to being voiced by the same actress)
- Interconnections: Cruella de Vil returns from One Hundred and One Dalmatians as the villain of the story; there are portraits of the major mouse characters from Cinderella at the Rescue Aid Society headquarters, implying that they were an early incarnation of the RAS



The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)
++OTL: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)
- Based on: Winnie-the-Pooh (1926); The House at Pooh Corner (1928)
- A compilation re-release of three previous Winnie-the-Pooh stories animated by Disney, following Winnie the Pooh, a loveable bear who lives in the Hundred Acre Wood with his friends. Pooh tries to steal honey from a beehive by pretending to be a raincloud, is blown about on a particularly blustery day with his friend Piglet, and meets a fun-loving, bouncing tiger named Tigger. In the end, Pooh’s best friend Christopher Robin has to leave the Hundred Acre Wood so that he can go to school, but promised to remember Pooh and all the fun times they had together.
- Notes: …
- Interconnections: …



The Fox and the Hound (1981)
++OTL: The Fox and the Hound (1981)
- Based on: The Fox and the Hound (1967)
- A young red fox is orphaned when his mother is shot by a hunter, but is taken in by kindly old Widow Tweed, who names him Tod. Meanwhile, Tweed’s neighbor Amos Slade brings home a bloodhound mix puppy named Copper who he plans to train into a hunting dog for his next hunting trip with an older wolfhound, Chief. Tod and Copper meet and become fast friends, though Copper is leashed for his misbehavior and, when Tod inadvertently causes trouble, Slade warns Tweed that he’ll kill Tod if he sees him on his property again. Months later, after Slade returns from his winter hunting trip, both Tod and Copper have grown up, and while Tod still thinks of Copper as his friend, things are different now from Copper’s point of view. Making good on his threat, Slade tries to kill Tod when he goes to see Copper and chases him to a railroad. Copper tries to lead Slade in the wrong direction as a last favor to his old friend, but Chief picks up the scent and, in pursuit of the fox, is nearly hit by a train. Copper declares Tod his enemy for injuring his friend and mentor while Tweed, worried for Tod’s safety, takes him to a protected forest and abandons him, hoping that Slade will simply forget about him. While Tod starts courting a female fox named Vixey, Slade plots his next hunting trip specifically to kill Tod as revenge for Chief. While trying to flush out Tod, they attract the ire of a gigantic bear and Copper defends Slade when he becomes snared in one of his own traps. In spite of everything, Tod goes back to help his former friend by leading the bear up a waterfall and causing both of them to fall into the river below. Out of gratitude, Copper stands by Tod as Slade tries to kill him one last time before finally relenting. Now at peace with his friend, Copper reminisces about when he and Tod first met as the foxes look on from a distance.
- Notes: this film, instead of Robin Hood, is the first Disney film made following Walt’s death ITTL
- Interconnections: it is implied that the protected forest that Tod is taken to is the forest from Bambi



The Black Cauldron (1986)
++OTL: The Black Cauldron (1985)
- Based on: The Book of Three (1964); The Black Cauldron (1965)
- The evil Horned King is searching for a mystical relic known as the Black Cauldron, which is capable of creating an invincible undead army. Dallben the Enchanter fears that the Horned King may try to steal his prized pig Hen Wen and use her oracular powers to locate the Cauldron, so he instructs his “assistant pig-keeper” Taran to take the pig to safety, but Taran loses her to the Horned King’s minions. With the help of a bizarre creature named Gurgi, Taran infiltrates the Horned King’s stronghold of Spiral Castle and, with the help of fellow captives Eilonwy and Fflewddur Fflam, they escape. They encounter the witches Orddu, Orgoch, and Orwen, who trade the Cauldron for Taran’s sword and tell him that the indestructible Cauldron can be rendered useless if someone climbs into it willingly, but that they would die as a result. Shortly thereafter, they are recaptured by the Horned King, with only Gurgi escaping his clutches, and the sorcerer begins using the Cauldron to create his undead army. Gurgi frees them and, after they struggle hopelessly against the Horne King and his minions, sacrifices him by jumping into the Cauldron: the undead army collapses, Spiral Castle crumbles, and the Horned King himself is consumed by the Cauldron. When the witches arrive to take back the now inert Cauldron, Taran convinces them to revive Gurgi instead of giving back his sword for the Cauldron and they return to Dallben as heroes.
- Notes: replaces The Great Mouse Detective; visually, the film is closer to the original novels
- Interconnections: the Horned King mentions an apprentice who could turn into a dragon, implying Maleficent, and that the first part of his plan involves using the Cauldron Born to destroy rival sorcerer Yen Sid, connecting the film to both Fantasia and Sleeping Beauty



Oliver & Company (1988)
++OTL: Oliver & Company (1987)
- Based on: Oliver Twist (1838)
- In New York City, orphaned Aegean kitten Oliver is tricked into helping Dodger, an artful Russell terrier, steal from a hot dog vendor. Angry at being used, Oliver follows Dodger to a derelict barge where he lives with a homeless pickpocket named Fagin and a gang of dogs. Though hostile at first, the dogs quickly warm up to Oliver and welcome him into their gang. Meanwhile, Fagin is threatened by a loan shark named Sykes, who he owes money to. The next day, as Fagin and his pets—now including Oliver—try to earn some money to pay him back, Oliver gets stuck in a limousine and is brought to the Foxworth home, where he is immediately adopted by Penny Foxworth, the wealthy family’s daughter. When the dogs come to bring Oliver back to the barge, he refuses to give up his new home, but Fagin devises a plan to “steal” Oliver and ransom him. Fagin is shocked when Penny herself shows up to claim the kitten and can’t bring himself to demand money from a little girl. Sykes, however, has no such reservations and decides to kidnap Penny to ransom her instead, counting this as payment for Fagin’s debt. Dodger, Oliver, and the other dogs rush to the rescue, and are saved by Fagin on a motorcycle after Sykes corners them. Refusing to give up his hostage, Sykes chases them with his car through the subway tunnels until the come out onto the Brooklyn Bridge; while Fagin drives them out of the way of an oncoming train, Sykes runs headlong into it and is killed. Later on, Penny celebrates her birthday with Oliver and company in attendance. Oliver decides to stay with Penny, but promises to remain friends with Dodger and the gang.
- Notes: some characters may be named more directly after ones from the original book
- Interconnections: Penny from The Rescuers replaces Jenny, and alludes to the events of The Rescuers twice by comparing Oliver to Rufus and trying to find some way to contact Bernard and Bianca for help



Pocahontas (1995)
++OTL: Pocahontas (1995)
- Based on: historical figures of Pocahontas and the settlement of Henricus (c. 1607)
- Captain John Smith leads Anglish colonists to a newly-claimed region of the New World—Virginia—to establish a colony called Henricus, accompanied by Governor Ratcliffe. Unbeknownst to them, Virginia is already inhabited by a Native American tribe called the Powhatan, whose shaman warns that pale-skinned men are coming from across the sea. The young Powhatan princess Pocahontas sees the sails of the Anglish ships and watches from afar as Ratcliffe claims the entire continent for King Henry IX and has the colonists start digging up the countryside in search of gold, arguing with Smith the whole time. Meanwhile, a young man named John Rolfe goes exploring in the forest and encounters Pocahontas, showing her common European items which seem like magic to her. Meanwhile, the Anglish shoot at a pair of Powhatans spying on them, signaling the start of several weeks of conflict between the two groups while Pocahontas and Rolfe continue to meet in secret. The colonists become fed up with Ratcliffe as it becomes more and more apparent that there’s no gold, and Smith leads them in a raid on the Powhatan village for food, but is injured as they make their escape. With Smith incapacitated, Ratcliffe leads the colonists in an attack on the village, convinced that the Powhatan are hoarding all the gold. Pocahontas and Rolfe stop them at the last minute and Ratcliffe is arrested and sent back to Britannia in shame. As the colonists and Powhatan establish peace, both Pocahontas and Rolfe proclaim their love for each other.
- Notes: Pocahontas is much younger, (and designed to resemble Tiger Lily from Peter Pan, bit with a more accurate wardrobe and skin tone) her companion is a talking turkey named Redfeather instead of a raccoon, and the story as a whole bears more similarities to historical events; John Smith is an antihero who essentially leaves the story at the end of the second act; John Rolfe is a composite character of Smith and Thomas from the OTL film and himself from the direct-to-video sequel; Pocahontas’ Christian name, Rebecca Rolfe, is acknowledged by Rolfe remarking that she looked more like a Rebecca when she introduces herself and refers to her with the pet name Becca thereafter
- Interconnections: …



The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
++OTL: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
- Based on: Notre Dame de Paris (1831)
- When Judge Claude Frollo accidentally kills a Gypsy woman on the steps of Notre-Dame Cathedral, the archdeacon insists that he take in her malformed baby to atone for his sin. Twenty years later, the child has grown up in the isolation of the bell towers to become a hunchbacked young man named Quasimodo who has only a trio of imaginary gargoyles for company. Against Frollo’s advice, he leaves the tower to attend the Festival of Fools, where he meets a beautiful Gypsy woman named Esmeralda. Because everyone is wearing costumes, no one suspects that Quasimodo is who he is until they try to take off his “mask.” Quasimodo is ridiculed, much to the anger of Esmeralda, who calls out Frollo for not helping him. In the ensuing chaos, Esmeralda is accused of witchcraft and nearly arrested, but she escapes to Notre-Dame and claims sanctuary with the help of Pierre Gringoire, an amateur poet and captain of Frollo’s guard. While Quasimodo is touched by Esmeralda’s kindness, Frollo becomes completely enamored with her and decides that he will force her to be his or else be executed. In his search for her, Frollo begins arresting innocent civilians; the final straw for Gringoire is when he tries to burn down a house with people in it. Seeking help from the Gypsies, Quasimodo and Gringoire search for their secret hiding place, the Court of Miracles, but accidentally lead Frollo right to them. As Esmeralda is about to be burned at the stake, Quasimodo saves her and turns Notre-Dame into a stronghold against Frollo’s soldiers while Gringoire spurs the Parisians into action against the wicked judge. Frollo manages to reach the top of the tower, where he tries to kill Quasimodo and Esmeralda while proclaiming his own righteousness, but falls to his death when the statue he is standing on springs to life in an act of God. Quasimodo is left to accept that Esmeralda and Gringoire have fallen in love and gives them his blessing while he is hailed as a hero by the people of Paris.
- Notes: it is more heavily implied that the gargoyles are all in Quasimodo’s mind than in the OTL film, (e.g., they don’t participate in the climax) and the female gargoyle is named Adèle after Victor Hugo’s wife instead of Laverne; Phoebus is replaced by Gringoire, as Disney’s Phoebus IOTL roughly occupies Gringoire’s role from the original book
- Interconnections: …



Hercules (1997)
++OTL: Hercules (1997)
- Based on: mythological figure of Hercules and Greco-Roman mythology (Antiquity)
- Jupiter and his latest wife on Mount Olympus are overjoyed at the birth of their son Hercules while his first wife, Juno, is angry and jealous. She plans to overthrow Jupiter, but learns from the Oracle that she’ll only succeed if Hercules doesn’t join the battle against her and sends her son Mars to render the baby mortal and kill him, but he fails to take away Hercules’ godlike strength and cannot do the deed. Years later, Hercules is hated by mortals as a freak, unaware of his divine heritage. Hercules goes to the Temple of Jupiter for guidance and learns that he is actually a god. He is charged with finding his relatives Ceres, Pluto, Mercury, and Vulcan so that they can train him to become a hero and regain his godhood. Over time, Hercules becomes the most famous man in Greece, but it isn’t enough to win back his place on Olympus and he becomes depressed. A woman named Vesta cheers him up, but she is used as leverage by Juno to take away his strength so that she can attack Olympus unhindered. When Mars attacks Hercules again, he accidentally injures Vesta and breaks Juno’s deal with Hercules, who turns the tide of the battle at Olympus and defeats Juno. However, Hercules returns to Vesta too late and finds that she has died. He travels to the underworld and leaps into the River Styx to save her, earning him back his immortality by saving her from death itself. Hercules decides to remain mortal so that he can stay with Vesta and they live happily ever after.
- Notes: Juno replaces Hades, but they are essentially the same except for Juno being more serious; the Titans are replaced by monsters, etc., associated with Hera in mythology; as a meta shout-out, the Muses are all expys (in both appearance and personality) of the Amamizukan residents from Princess Jellyfish (despite this making no goddamn sense whatsoever )
- Interconnections: in addition to reusing some character appearances from the Cydalise et le Chèvre-pied segment of Fantasia, Hercules is shown interacting with some events of the segment as well; Maleficent is retroactively implied to be an avatar of Juno, and in a meta sense they are played by the same actor when Angelina Jolie later plays Maleficent in the live-action remake of Sleeping Beauty; the “Far West” is identical to Virginia as shown in Pocahontas, and Ceres is shown tending to a sapling version of Grandmother Willow when Hercules first meets her



Dinosaur (2000)
++OTL: Dinosaur (2000)
- Based on: original
- An egg is taken from a Monoclonius nest and ends up on an island populated by lemurs. Years later, the Monoclonius has grown into an adult named Noah, and he and his adoptive family of lemurs are forced onto the mainland when a meteor strike destroys the island. They wander through the desert until they come across other dinosaurs for the first time: a pack of vicious Ceratosaurus which try to eat them. They are chased into a sandstorm where the ceratosaurs are forced to give up pursuit when Noah and his family collide with a herd of plant-eating dinosaurs who are migrating to their nesting grounds, the last spot of fertile land around for miles, under the leadership of Kron, another Monoclonius. Noah falls in with and an aged Brachiosaurus named Baylenes, and old Corythosaurus named Eema, and her pet Dimetrodon Url, wary of the trailing ceratosaurs which are quickly replaced by a pair of ferocious Manospondylus. After crossing a massive stretch of wastelands where several of the herd collapse from exhaustion to be picked off by the scavengers, they find that the watering hole they were planning to refresh themselves at has dried up. In a moment of insight, Noah discovers that the water is trapped underground and saves the herd. While Noah becomes smitten with Neera, Kron’s younger sister, the herd’s second-in-command Bruton, a Triceratops, returns from patrol injured and bleeding: the Manospondylus have caught up to them and Kron moves the herd out. When Noah and his friends and family become separated from the herd, they take refuge in a cave with Bruton, who has fallen behind. In the middle of the night, they are attacked by the Manospondylus pair and Bruton sacrifices himself to cause a cave-in which kills one of the predators and causes the other to retreat. Noah and company discover another way to the nesting grounds through the caves, ecstatic to have arrived at this paradise on Earth, but see that the path that the rest of the herd is following has been blocked by a rockslide, trapping them between it and the remaining Manospondylus. Noah returns to the herd to tell them of the other path, but they are attacked by the Manospondylus. At the top of the barrier, Noah fights the dryptosaur, sending it over the edge to fall to its death. The herd returns to the nesting grounds and survive to the next season, saving their species.
- Notes: replaces The Emperor’s New Groove; this was the first CGI entry to the Animated Canon, and is widely considered the first original feature-length film instead of The Lion King (though this isn’t accurate—The Aristocats is the first original film); it is directed by Paul Verhoeven ITTL and bears some similarities to Prehistoric Beast, hence the use of Monoclonius as the protagonist instead of Iguanodon
- Interconnections: it is altogether a reimagining of the Rite of Spring segment from Fantasia, featuring up-to-date versions of all the species featured in Fantasia with the implication that the events of Dinosaur are set during or after the extinction event at the end of the Rite of Spring segment



Lilo & Stitch (2000)
++OTL: Lilo & Stitch (2002)
- Based on: original
- At Galactic Federation headquarters far off in space, Jumba Jookiba is put on trial for genetically-engineering Experiment 626, a creature of mass destruction. Jumba is imprisoned while 626 is sentenced to exile, but escapes and crashes on a backwater planet called Earth. Seeing that the planet is mostly water, which 626 cannot swim in due to his very high molecular density, the Galactic Federation is at first relieved, only to see him land on a tiny speck of rock in the middle of the planet’s ocean: Kaua’i in the Hawaiian islands. Meanwhile, an eccentric girl named Lilo gets into a fight with her older sister Nani, who is at risk of losing Lilo to Child Protective Services agent Cobra Bubbles if she can’t hold down a job. 626 is mistaken for a stray dog and adopted by Lilo from the local animal shelter, and is named “Stitch” by her. Lilo tries to reform Stitch’s bad behavior so that she can keep him and, over time, Stitch’s destructive tendencies simmer down. Just as he starts to become better-behaved, Jumba arrives to recapture him on behalf of the Galactic Federation in exchange for his sentence being commuted, followed by the much more competent Captain Gantu. Lilo is mistakenly captured by Gantu instead and Stitch joins forces with Jumba to save her. After rescuing Lilo, the leader of the Galactic Federation arrives and is about to take Stitch away when—at the suggestion of Mr. Bubbles, who turns out to be a former CULPR agent who was present at First Contact with the aliens—Lilo shows the adoption papers from the shelter, proving that Stitch is her pet and that taking him would be theft. The Federation’s leader settles for Stitch serving out his exile on Earth, leaving Jumba behind as well, and Lilo gets to stay with Nani.
- Notes: replaces The Emperor’s New Groove; the originally-planned ending where Stitch steals a 747 and swerves around buildings with it, which was cut from the OTL film because of the 9/11 attacks, is retained ITTL but the scene is otherwise unchanged
- Interconnections: …



John Carter of Mars (2002)
++OTL: John Carter (2012)
- Based on: A Princess of Mars (1917)
- A young Edgar Rice Burroughs attends the funeral of his uncle John Carter, who has died very suddenly under mysterious circumstances, and is bequeathed Carter’s journal. He reads that his uncle came under attack by Apache warriors in the Colorado Territory years before and, exhausted, collapsed in a cave only to suddenly find himself on Mars, known locally as Barsoom. Forced to leap and jump everywhere in order to move because of the lower gravity, Carter encounters a group of Green Martians belonging to the Thark clan who take him captive. Carter is given a strange liquid by Sola, the rebellious daughter of the chieftain Tars Tarkas, which allows him to understand the local languages. After Tarkas learns of Carter’s jumping abilities and demands a demonstration, a strange flying machine manned by Red Martians approaches and Carter leaps up to rescue a beautiful woman, Dejah Thoris of Solarium, that he sees on the airship and is accepted into the Tharks as “Dotar Sojat” for this incredible feat. Carter and Dejah leave the Green Martian camp in search of a way for Carter to return home, bringing Sola with them, but come under threat by another Green Martian clan called the Warhoon. Just when it seems that they are about to be killed, a small army of Red Martians led by Sab Than, the prince of Zodanga who plans to marry Dejah Thoris as part of his plan to conquer all of Barsoom. After escaping from Zodanga, Carter and Sola return to the Tharks only to find that a rival has usurped Tars Tarkas, forcing them and the ex-chieftain to fight a pair of ferocious white apes in an arena, but they successfully defeat the monsters and Carter usurps leadership of the Tharks himself, leading them in an assault on Zodanga alongside the armies of Solarium, defeating Sab Than, and he marries Dejah Thoris. Years later, they learn that the Martian atmosphere is thinning and Carter searches for the legendary “atmosphere factory” so that he can reactivate it and save all of Barsoom, but collapses before he can confirm his success and wakes up back on Earth. Burroughs reads at the end of the journal that Carter has not died at all: his consciousness has returned to Mars, back to his beloved wife the princess of Mars after years of searching for another way to the Red Planet.
- Notes: replaces Treasure Planet; this was a live-action film IOTL; the art style bears many resemblances to the Marvel Comics adaptation of the original books; while the plot is mostly the same as the 2012 film, the Therns are omitted and the final scenes are instead based more closely on the original book; both Tal Hajus and Sab Than are killed with more discretion than the live-action version—Tal Hajus is struck by Carter and falls off-screen and his motionless body is seen moments later, and Sab Than is treated to a falling death like many Disney villains; Lorquas Ptomel is omitted
- Interconnections: Woola the calot bears some visual and behavioral similarities to Stitch, implying the Jumba used calots in engineering Stitch’s genetic code



Dress-Up (2010)
++OTL: Mulan (1998)
- Based on: legendary figure of Hua Mulan
- The Huns led by Shan Yu invade China, causing the men of various families to be conscripted to defend king and country. Meanwhile, tomboyish Fa Mulan is taken to the local matchmaker so that she can be set up with a successful man in accordance with China’s rigid gender roles, but completely botches the meeting. When conscription notices reach her village, Mulan becomes worried about her father, a veteran who now requires a cane to walk because of his age, and decides to take the conscription notice herself and impersonate a man in her father’s place under the alias of Fa Ping despite the penalty for this being death. Distressed over Mulan potentially dishonoring her family beyond all repair, the spirits of her ancestors send Mushu, a tiny dragon, to bring her back; he is accompanied by Cri-Kee, a lucky cricket meant to help Mulan. After a rough training under Captain Li Shang with the other soldiers, who loathe “Ping” at first but eventually warm up to “him,” they receive orders from Shang’s father the General (actually a hoax by Mushu to try and earn glory for Mulan) which call them to the mountains to join the main body of soldiers. Once there, they learn that the main army has been slaughtered by the Huns and they are now the only thing standing between Shan Yu and the Emperor in the capital city. High in the mountains, they are attacked by the Huns; Mulan uses a rocket to cause an avalanche which wipes out the horde, but she is injured in the process. When the division’s medic mends her wound, she is outed as a woman; Shang spares her life because of her heroism, but leaves her behind in shame. Staying behind in misery, Mulan sees that Shan Yu and several other Huns have survived and goes to the capital to warn her friends, who don’t believe her until Shan Yu takes the Emperor hostage. Using what they learned in their training and Mulan’s mastery of disguise, she leads her friends into the palace and they successfully rescue the Emperor, and Mulan herself defeats Shan Yu by sending him into a huge pile of fireworks as they ignite. Mulan returns home to her family as a hero.
- Notes: replaces Tangled; the first instance of a phase where Disney films based on fairy tales try to disconnect themselves from their origins with different titles; this is a CGI film instead of 2D-animated
- Interconnections: …



now that done, i'd like to specifically ask for some help developing ideas for Animated Canon entries for 1945, 1989-1991, a second entry for 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003-2005, 2007-2009, 2011-2018, and any future entries (what i plan to do is work out a pattern for future releases and base it on that).

an idea also occurred to me for something different to do for some post-present-day Disney movie ITTL: simply put, a Disneyfied horror movie i just thought it would be interesting to try and come up with how Disney would handle classic/gothic horror to make it lighter and softer

 

[oshron]

i came up with an idea for which film replaces The Little Mermaid in the Animated Canon. since i realized that three different films in the Animated Canon with the same directors (Musker and Clements) all involve deals with the devil-type scenarios--one of them being The Little Mermaid--i decided to use a classic fairy tale with a similar idea: Bearskin. i'm still working on the summary (and it may well be a while before i can actually post it since i'll be going out of town soon) but i'm liking what i've written so far and how i'm interconnecting it to the rest of teh canon: simply put, it's implied that a friend of the main character becomes the Headless Horseman (i decided to set it around the time of the American Revolution based on how i dated the actual story for a different project) and that the villain, who i've decided is the demon Mephisto from German folklore, is a minion of Chernobog (the demon from Fantasia); in a meta sense, i'm also envisioning it as using character designs from both OTL's The Little Mermaid (which Bearskin replaces--Bearskin himself may resemble Eric, for example) and Beauty and the Beast (which is reimagined as a Don Bluth film ITTL--in particular, i'm thinking that the old man from the story would look like Maurice) and i've decided, if i ever get around to writing a fake script for this or at least writing a more detailed summary, that there's a reference to The Bear That Wasn't where Bearskin's love interest in their first meeting remarks that he's a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat

 

[MattII]

A lot of these suggestions seem to be based on existing canon with not much new. Imagine Disney versions of classics like Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe and some of Verne's works.

Also, might it be possible to see some early direct-to-TV stuff, like for example something based around a Disneyfied "Reynard the Fox"?

 

[oshron]

it may well be that i replace some of them later on, but what i'm mainly using for inspiration for most of them is what was planned or could have been done in real life, or slightly altering the existing ones (ex: Juno being the villain of Hercules instead of Hades), and especially if something was planned for a particular film IOTL but was never carried out for whatever reason (ex: Pocahontas having a talking turkey sidekick instead of a mute raccoon and hummingbird). a couple that i added since posting most of what i had before are an adaptation of Mr. Popper's Penguins which really WAS planned for 2005 and a 2011 entry called Newt which is basically TTL's Rio since such a film WAS planned for 2010 but was bumped back to 2012 and then they learned about the OTL film, which coincidentally had a very similar plot but with parrots and Newt was dropped. the other main thing as far as alternate versions of the OTL films, where it comes up, is if the rest of the TL requires it--i'm not bringing it up much since i don't want to derail the thread, but some details include slightly altered settings and names such as the villain of Robin Hood (as i had originally planned it, at least--i may well be replacing it with something else, maybe Ivanhoe) being Regent Rotherwood instead of Prince John since John I of England doesn't exist ITTL and therefore TTL's version of the Robin Hood legends has a different main villain (in addition to the Sheriff, that is)

though one thing i'm trying to do now is find a common link between an OTL film and a possible alternate and using that for the inspiration. i've decided to replace Frozen, for instance, with a different film called Antonio which is also based on a work by Hans Christian Andersen, but a novel instead of a fairy tale. another example is something i came up with for a meta-relation between a true replacement for Tarzan and the Treasure Planet replacement based on the A Princess of Mars: since Tarzan and Barsoom are both series created by Edgar Rice Burroughs and John Carter replaces the film based on Treasure Island here, i decided it would be fitting for the true replacement for Tarzan should be based on a different story by Robert Louis Stevenson, and decided on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde because of that

above all else, though, the not-too-alternate parts of the Animated Canon here kinda reflects my intention with the TL as a whole: both familiar and strange, and i personally find it very interesting to take a look at what some of the OTL movies could be rather than necessarily making something else for every single entry. the other part of my more or less leaving some films alone is sentimentality on my part--i love most of these films and have seen lots of them many, many times (and in the cases i haven't it's mostly because they're kinda hard to find, particularly The Black Cauldron) and want to preserve them in my TL to an extent

as a final note, i decided to drop the "disconnect from fairy tales" thing that i think i mentioned before because, frankly, i couldn't think of a good title for Mulan otherwise, so it's in there pretty much as IOTL but as a CGI film from 2010 instead of a 1998 2D film. i also came up with the idea of there being more "all animal" films in the vein of The Lion King which are thinly-veiled adaptations of Shakespeare since, apparently, Brother Bear was originally going to be an adaptation of King Lear

 

[oshron]

i asked about this and was told it's okay to bump my own thread even more than a year later

i finally got a good development for one of the alternate Disney movies ITTL. it's for one the alternate Fantasia sequel that i've mentioned, Fantasia: The Bremen Town Musicians. i actually came up with characters names and the start of a plot! it's divided into nine segments (which had been my intention to begin with), and this even made me decide on another interconnection for the films: the titular musicians are Chanticleer the rooster (borrowed from a scrapped Disney film IOTL), the cat is named Julia (based on Julius, one of the very earliest Disney characters, who featured in the Alice Comedies), the dog is Wilby (borrowed from The Shaggy Dog; i've also decided to drop The Hound of Florence Inspector Bones from the alternate Animated Canon since i just couldn't come up with anything for it), and--finally, the interconnection--the donkey is Lampwick from Pinocchio. not named after Lampwick, he is Lampwick. the basic idea is that the Coachman sold him to some German farmer and that's how he got into the events of this film.

unfortunately, i haven't figured out what music would be used in the movie and i've only got 1/3 of the plot down so far. the first segment has the four main characters ejected from their respective farms and they all meet up on the road, where they decide to travel to Bremen and become musicians; as night falls, they find a cottage where there's a bunch of robbers enjoying the spoils of theft and dress themselves up as a monster to scare them off and take the house for themselves; later that night, the bandits' leader returns to investigate the cottage and the musicians manage to beat him up in their sleep entirely by accident. like i said, i'm missing the rest of the plot so far, but i may bring in more direct references to OTL's Soviet film for part of this, and i have determined the villain: as another reference to the scrapped film i mentioned before, the leader of the robbers and main antagonist is Reynard the fox (his presence in the world is more like Gideon from Pinocchio in that most of this world's inhabitants and humans and he just happens to be an anthropomorphic fox, in contrast to the all-anthro-animal settings that Robin Hood or Br'er Fox live in


aside from this, i've come up with some changes to earlier Disney films as well:

• quite a few changes to the Seven Dwarfs, who even have some name and characterization changes: ITTL, they're Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Baldy, Jumpy, and Dopey. Grumpy is basically a realization of an earlier concept for one of the dwarfs named Awful, as a seemingly irredeemable and self-loathing character who's blamed for everything by the other dwarfs; Happy is composited with an unused dwarf named Deafy, who tries to be clever but keeps misreading people because he has extremely selective hearing; Bashful is replaced by Baldy (another early concept, he seems to have basically been a proto-Bashful); Sneezy is completely replaced by Jumpy, the most excitable of the dwarfs; and Dopey is composited with another dropped dwarf named Wheezy, and he actually speaks ITTL--he's voiced by Mel Blanc, who actually DID record some lines for him IOTL but they were left out of the final version of the film. apparently, Disney came up with literally dozens of possible names for the dwarfs before deciding on the seven they had IOTL, and all of these are borrowed from some of those early concepts
• i learned a while back that part of the reason Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros even exist IOTL is because World War II broke out and, to make up for the loss of the European market to Nazi censorship, Walt decided to establish a new market in Latin America. the situation is basically reversed ITTL since a Third Spanish-American War takes place so Disney makes two alternate films (ideally, they're direct parallels to the OTL films) which are based on then-contemporary European culture instead. to that end, i came up with Guten Tag Freunde and The Three Herren, the former introducing alternate character Josef Kerper the eagle as a parallel to OTL's Jose Carioca the parrot. unfortunately, i haven't come up with as much for them.
• i don't remember if i mentioned it before, but in the alternate Alice in Wonderland, the caucus race scene from the beach has most/all of the generic characters seen there replaced by ones from the original book that otherwise don't feature in the movie, and specifically includes the Mock Turtle (a minor character conspicuously absent from almost all adaptations of the book)
• i decided to redo the lineup of segments from the fictional "Fantasia 3" movie and based them on Disney short films that adapted American folklore, even anachronistically, (the latest one comes from 2000, while this film is supposed to be from 1955) with the exception of two segments borrowed from Melody Time (which this film is supposed to replace ITTL) and exactly one original segment based on Molly Pitcher. the segments adapt, in this order, the stories of Windwagon Smith, John Henry (featuring blues music), Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, Casey Jones, Molly Pitcher, and finally Pecos Bill. part of this is because i figure Disney in 1955 probably wouldn't realistically adapt as many Native American stories as i;d originally written just given values dissonance; with that in mind, this is probably one of the Disney films that's either heavily edited for future releases or essentially banned because, again considering values dissonance, the John Henry segment probably uses some caricatures of African-Americans even considering that they're supposed to be positive portrayals
• i'm still conflicted on how to handle The Jungle Book, particularly Baloo. i'd decided to add in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi as Mowgli's fun-loving companion, basically a proxy of Baloo, and have it that Baloo himself is a sleepy grump more like how he was in the original book. but then, is there even any reason to include Baloo, and should he be omitted? 'cuz in this way he'd be more like one of the minor characters from Alice in Wonderland who plays no real part in the larger plot. that also brings up a bit of a conflict with Louie, who i currently have as an antagonist like IOTL, but i'm a bit inclined to actually change it to Baloo being the king of the monkeys despite being a bear and therefore an antagonist. thoughts? should Baloo be more like the original book and therefore less important in the movie, or should TTL's Jungle Book be more like IOTL? and if it's the latter, should Rikki be retained?
• i also came up with a minor interconnection: linking Peter Pan to The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, the Darlings mentions that Mr. Toad will be at the same party they're going to at the beginning of the movie

 

[HonestAbe1809]

@oshron
Is Kaa more like the friendly snake that featured in the book than the henchman who hypnotized and tried to eat Mowgli? If Baloo is more like his book counterpart then Kaa should be too.

 

[oshron]

yeah, that's part of the conflict because i want to have Baloo as more like the original and less of a "jungle bum" but everyone else more or less the same, even acknowledging the huge differences between them and especially with Kaa. part of it is because, the way i see it, there's not much point in having two fun-loving companions so i can either keep Rikki and change Baloo or just have this as fundamentally identical to OTL (which, honestly, i want to avoid as much as i can in an effort to differentiate this alternate Disney from OTL, and Jungle Book unfortunately just doesn't have as many known production changes as some others)

 

[HonestAbe1809]

yeah, that's part of the conflict because i want to have Baloo as more like the original and less of a "jungle bum" but everyone else more or less the same, even acknowledging the huge differences between them and especially with Kaa. part of it is because, the way i see it, there's not much point in having two fun-loving companions so i can either keep Rikki and change Baloo or just have this as fundamentally identical to OTL (which, honestly, i want to avoid as much as i can in an effort to differentiate this alternate Disney from OTL, and Jungle Book unfortunately just doesn't have as many known production changes as some others)

Maybe Rikki is the fun-loving friend and Kaa is the wise friend who doles out sage advice. He is, after all, said to be 100 years old in the book.

 

[oshron]

Maybe Rikki is the fun-loving friend and Kaa is the wise friend who doles out sage advice. He is, after all, said to be 100 years old in the book.

that's certainly a possibility. though i have to wonder if Disney would want to use a traditionally evil animal as a protagonist and mentor? (remember, in addition to my own likes here, i'm trying to consider things Disney would/could realistically do in-universe)

separately from The Jungle Book, does anyone have any ideas as to what i could have in place of The Great Mouse Detective? i'm considering replacing it entirely mainly because i'm having trouble deciding on if Sherlock Holmes even exists ITTL (it's complicated and would derail the thread if i went into detail). i want it to be an adaptation of something, but i can't decide on what.

 

[oshron]

i came up with, hopefully, a better version of the fictional Bearskin movie, which actually details some of the climax where, before, i'd essentially been struggling trying to decide how it goes. this is just the short summary rather than a full one (which i'll probably write up later on)



Johan Schicksal, a neat-freak Hessian, returns home from the American Revolution to find that his parents have died and his brothers have lost the house to a severe rise in taxes.

He’s approached by a man named Mephisto who offers him a deal: if Johan can go one year without removing a fur coat, bathing, or trimming his hair, he’ll be rewarded with fabulous riches that he can buy back the family home with.

Johan agrees, learning too late that Mephisto is a demon who will take his soul away if he breaks the deal, and is left to wander the countryside with the coat, which is made from an enchanted bear pelt; without bathing, “Bearskin” quickly becomes so revolting that no one will even speak to him.

He meets an old man named Winkle who is about to lose his house just like the Schicksals did, and Johan gives him the last of his money out of pity so that he can keep his house at least until the end of the deal, when he’ll be able to save them both.

Grateful, Winkle introduces him to his daughter Judith, who is amused with him rather than disgusted, and Johan starts living in an abandoned cottage near Winkle’s house.

Over time, Johan and Judith take a liking to each other while Mephisto becomes more and more anxious about Johan upholding the deal.

One day to the year before the deal will be completed, Mephisto makes an offer to Judith: if she can get Johan to take off the bearskin coat—he is himself forbidden to touch it because of the enchantment on it—he’ll save her home.

After Judith tries desperately to remove the bearskin coat, she spills it as to why and Johan convinces her that Mephisto can’t be trusted, only for the demon to appear and try to claim Judith’s soul for violating their agreement, but Johan manages to defeat him when, at the stroke of midnight, he throws the bearskin coat over the Mephisto.

With his deal completed, Johan receives his reward and uses it to save both his and Winkle’s homes, then gives the rest of his newfound wealth to the poor who have also been struggling.

When Judith asks why, he says that her love is reward enough for him and they live happily ever after.



and some notes to keep in mind about this alternate movie (which i've probably mentioned before): it borrows many character appearances from Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid (Winkle is Maurice, Judith is Belle, Johan is Eric, Mephisto is Grimsby, and extras are based on villagers from both films) as well as some plot elements, specifically the romance subplot between Johan and Judith paralleling Belle and the Beast; Mephisto's characterization is essentially that of Hades from OTL's Hercules, though is a bit more serious, while his true form as a demon is based on the villain from the Disney short film The Goddess of Spring; a friend of Johan's named Heinrich is implied to become the Headless Horseman from Ichabod and Mr. Toad since he's killed very early in the movie (in a scene implied to be from one of the Fantasia movies) when a cannonball decapitates him, and it's also implied that the cottage Johan starts living in is from Fantasia: The Bremen Town Musicians (i'm still working on the full summary for that one); for some non-Disney references, Judith quotes The Bear That Wasn't in relation to Johan and the climax is partly borrowed from Filmation's Happily Ever After (making the bearskin coat more important and playing more of a role in the story; when i get to writing a full summary, i plan to imply that its enchantment prevents it from just falling off Johan as part of the deal (he or someone else has to deliberately remove it) but also that Mephisto himself can't touch it