The Hunchback of Notre Dame/Hercules

Today’s entry of “Disney Month” will be a novel adaptation on a book I have never read, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” released in 1996, a gorgeous but dark movie, which is not the usual Disney movie.

Audiences will find a lot to like about this movie, but they probably won’t walk around humming or singing the soundtrack to this film, like they do with other classics like “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Lion King,” or “Aladdin.”

Still, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” has a similar feeling to watching a Broadway show, with songs composed by Alan Menken and lyricist Stephen Schwartz.

The story is about the malformed, orphaned gypsy named Quasimodo (Tom Hulce), and his completely evil master Frollo (Tony Jay), taking place in a strange-looking medieval Paris. As I stated in the beginning of the review, the film is loosely adapted from Victor Hugo’s novel “Notre Dame de Paris.”

“The Hunchback of Notre Dame” is beautiful. This is one of Disney’s richest visual musicals. Peter Stack said in his review, “The film is given to dark, stony blues and grays set off by the sharp green eyes of Gypsy heroine Esmeralda (the gorgeous Demi Moore) and the stunning color effects of the cathedral's stained- glass windows.”

Stack goes on to say that, “An enchanting three-dimensional quality lends the illusion of live action as the physically adroit hunchback climbs columns or spires, or clings precariously to the gargoyle gutters of the great church.”

Using the cathedral as the main place, the animators casted a changeable eye on the events with Quasimodo, the evil Frollo, the vivacious Esmeralda and captain of the guard, Phoebus, voiced by Kevin Kline. In Quasimodo’s isolated bell tower, where he has a burning desire to get out and see the world, three unfinished stone gargoyles are there as comic reliefs. They are a wiseacre Hugo (comedian Jason Alexander, who you might remember as George Costanza from the hit television sitcom “Seinfeld”), a stuffy gentleman Victor (Charles Kimbrough) and a mother-like figure named Laverne (the late Mary Wickes).

The story is completely played out with considerable depth. When you look at it, it’s the basic good-versus-evil love story. However, the really good guy, Quasimodo, doesn’t get a real reward for his brave humanity and his ultimate, crush that he has on Esmeralda but knows that he cannot be with her.

I will admit I didn’t see this in a long time since I saw it in the theaters, but I saw it again, and I did like it, but if you think this is too dark for kids, I get it. Then again, I can’t say how close it follows the book, since I never read it. Check it out if you want, but if you don’t, that’s fine.

Now the next Disney movie I will look at is what I consider to be the weakest in the Disney Renaissance era, “Hercules,” released in 1997. As I stated in one of my previous reviews, I minored in Classical Mythology when I was in college, so this one I will talk about every mythological mistake they made in this movie. I did something similar to that in my English class back in 9th Grade, which was fun.

First off, since when were sunglasses invented during Ancient Greek times? Is that something that Disney made just for kids to go around looking cool? Granted, it does look cool when you see a kid wearing shades, but it doesn’t fit here. Reason why I mention this is because the Messenger God, Hermes, voiced by Late Show musical director, band leader and sidekick Paul Shaffer, is wearing sunglasses. Another flaw is that Narcissus is seen up in Mount Olympus looking in the mirror and kissing it. Ok, it’s true that Narcissus did find out who he was and fell in love with himself, but when he realized it was his own reflection, he was sad, collapsed in the forest, transfigured into a yellow flower with white petals and is sent to the underworld where he looks into his reflection in the River Styx. Also, when Rome took over Greece and made their own mythologies by changing the names, Hercules was the Roman name. His Greek name is Heracles. 

It’s true that Zeus (Rip Torn) was the father, but Hera (Samantha Eggar) wasn’t the mother, as she is portrayed in this movie. Also, Zeus and Hera look like a happily married couple, which isn’t true. Zeus and Hera always had differences since Hera was constantly jealous of Zeus cheating on her with other goddesses, nymphs or mortal women. Hades, voiced by James Woods, is seen a lot in this movie, when he never played a huge part in any of the myths. Also, why does he have fire as hair? Since when was that in any of the myths? That doesn’t make any sense. His servants in the movie are Pain and Panic, voiced by comedian Bobcat Goldthwait and Matt Frewer. Hades “never” had any flipping servants working for him! Since when did Hades have hatred towards Hercules, voiced by Josh Keaton as a teenager and Tate Donovan as an adult? That’s his nephew, what is this? It’s Hera who had hatred towards him. When Hercules was a baby, she sent two serpents to his crib to kill him, but he strangled the two serpents. In this movie, he does this in the street when Pain and Panic turn into snakes. And he wasn’t born on Mount Olympus with Pain and Panic kidnapping him. Also, since when does Hades have to go to the Fates, voiced by Amanda Plummer, Carole Shelley and Paddi Edwards, about killing Heracles? Wouldn’t he know since he rules the Underworld? Since when does he want to have world domination by overthrowing Zeus to rule Olympus? He was fine in the Underworld. Also, the Fates weren’t the ones who would exchange an eye between one another and didn’t look hideous. Those were the Grey Sisters.

His adopted parents, Amphitryon and Alcmene, voiced by Hal Holbrook and Barbara Barrie, are shown as poor farmers who find Hercules stranded in the middle of the street. They were both a king and queen of a kingdom. Alcmene is the real mother of Hercules, since Amphitryon was off on a war; Zeus came in at night and slept with Alcmene, giving birth to Heracles. Pegasus, voiced by Frank Welker, was not made from some clouds and never was ridden by Heracles. In his myth, Pegasus was never involved. Pegasus sprung from Medusa’s neck when Perseus turned her into stone by having her look into his shield because he was protecting his eyes. If you look into a Gorgon’s eyes, you turn into stone. After Perseus decapitated Medusa, Pegasus sprung out of her neck. Perseus was the archetypal Greek hero who came before Heracles, but he’s shown as a business man in this movie. Also, Heracles went with Jason on his journey to retrieve the Golden Fleece, but was left stranded and found his way back to where he needed to be.

Now Hercules is trained by Philoctetes, voiced by Danny DeVito, in this movie which never happened. Heracles had plenty of teachers, and Philoctetes didn’t train all of these heroes. Remember, Perseus was the only hero that came before Heracles, the rest came after. They also made Philoctetes into a satyr in this movie. First off, Philoctetes was a Greek hero, famously an archer, and participated in the Trojan War. The famous satyr in Greek Mythology is Pan. Also, Philoctetes says that he trained every Greek Hero, which never happened. They also show Hercules fighting the Minotaur, a Gorgon, and the Chimera. Theseus fought the Minotaur, Perseus took on a gorgon, and Bellerophon is the hero that slew the Chimera, with the help of Pegasus, who tried to fly Pegasus up to Mount Olympus, but Pegasus threw him off and died. Heracles did take on the Hydra, but the Hydra was from Lerna not Thebes, and only had 9 heads, not multiple. There was no crab that came and bit Heracles on the foot, and the Hydra had one immortal head, the rest were mortal. Whenever one of the Hydra’s heads was chopped off, two more grew in its place. Heracles had help from Iolaus to kill the Hydra since Iolaus made a torch that would burn the Hydra’s neck before the heads regenerated. Also, the movie showed Hercules blinding a Cyclops, voiced by Patrick Pinney, when Odysseus did that in Homer's The Odyssey, which is the famous part of that epic hero's tale.

Hades had a pawn named Megara, voiced by Susan Egan, which never happened since Hades never had any flipping servants or pawns. Megara was one of Heracles’ wives that he gave to Iolaus because Hera made Heracles think that his children were his enemies. Also, Heracles had to go to King Eurystheus to go on 12 labors to gain immortality, but he’s nowhere in the movie. Nessus the Centaur, voiced by Jim Cummings, tries to seduce Megara, when that actually happened to Heracles’ second wife, Deianeria. Hades makes Hercules give up his strength to free Megara, and he releases the Titans, who are elemental, to unleash an all out war on Olympus. That didn’t happen. Mother Earth, Gaea, gave birth to Cyclops that went to war on Olympus, and the Gods called Heracles for help. Hercules goes down to the Underworld to save Megara, which he never did to anyone, and drives Cerberus through a wall. Eruystheus made Heracles bring Cerberus up to the mortal world for his last labor. Finally, Hercules asked not to join the Gods but remain a mortal so that he can be with Megara forever. That didn’t happen. Like I said, Heracles was married to Megara, but gave her to Iolaus. Deianeria was next, but she hung herself after Nessus fooled her by giving her a love potion. In actuality, it was poison, which killed Heracles mortal part, and he joined the Gods, Hera accepted him as a son by giving him Hebe as his wife. One more thing: Penelope is a donkey in this movie when she was a real mortal.

Phew, that was a lot. Now that I did all that, “Hercules” does have good animation, good music, and nice voice acting, despite the fact that it’s not following the myth completely. In my opinion, this is worse than “Pocahontas.” Still, check it out if you have small kids, they won’t care for the myth since they don’t know it. They’ll love it; it’s really lighthearted for them. Check in tomorrow for more “Disney Month.”