The rags-to-riches story of a street urchin named Aladdin who asks a genie in a lamp to make him a prince is a work of fantasy. And yet, some scholars say the central character could be partly inspired by a real person.
The movie Aladdin is based loosely on a folk tale attributed to 1001 Arabian Nights, a collection of folk tales attributed to an author identified as Sheherazade. One of the stories is Aladdin and his Magic Lamp.
Aladdin is part of a centuries-old stories-within-a-story called The Thousand and One Nights (also called The Arabian Nights). The heroine, Scherherazade, is married to a murderous king, who kills his new wives one day after wedding them.
Disney's Aladdin (the 1992 animated version, not the 2019 live action remake) is set in a fictional city called Agrabah, which is based off Baghdad, Iraq (which was supposed to be the setting of the film, but was changed to Agrabah during production due to the Gulf War of 1990–91 which involved the Iraqi invasion of ...
Aladdin, a Disney live-action remake of the 1992 animated film, released in 2019. It stars Mena Massoud as the title character, Naomi Scott as Jasmine, Marwan Kenzari as Jafar, and Will Smith as the Genie.
While some claim Jasmine is Arab because the movie opens with a song called Arabian Nights, others believe that the architecture in Agrabah is clearly based on the Taj Mahal, making Jasmine Indian. It's a debate that has fueled speculation that in Hollywood, Indians and Arabs are interchangeable.
Universally accepted, the character's status as Disney's first Arabic princess "won over hearts" upon the film's 1992 release, according to Andre Tartar of Vulture.com.
So it may come as a surprise to many to learn that Aladdin and his princess might actually be Chinese. In the original story, Aladdin is born to a poor tailor in “the capital of one of China's vast and wealthy kingdoms”.
So, it is possible that in this film Jasmine is closer to Aladdin's age and that they are both around 18, or possibly a little older (Aladdin does make a few less rash decisions in the new adaptation, and Jasmine seems a bit more knowledgeable of the political world around her).
The Genie is a fictional character who appearing in Walt Disney Pictures' animated film Aladdin (1992), later appearing in other media of the Aladdin franchise as one of its main characters, as well as several other Disney media.
But still, that doesn't mean when you're watching a favorite like "Aladdin" you're actually conscious of the fact that Jasmine is actually only 15 years old, which would result in Aladdin getting arrested in just about every state in the Union.
However, the first literary version of Aladdin can be traced back to a French author, Antoine Galland, who claimed to have heard the tale from a Syrian storyteller while on his travels.
The stories are not just Arabic tales, but also have roots in Persian, Mesopotamian, Indian, Jewish and Egyptian folklore and literature. The story of “Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp” didn't even appear in the collection until French translator Antoine Galland added it in 1710.
The original Arabic folk tale of Aladdin was originally set in China, specifically an Islamic city in China (most likely an Uyghur kingdom in the Xinjiang region). As revealed in "Do the Rat Thing", the Sultan rarely leaves the palace.
The character of Aladdin originally taken from One Thousand and One Nights book, a famous collection of Middle Eastern folk tales between the 8th and 13th Century. The book was first translated into English over 400 years later and renamed the Arabian Nights. But, however, the story was actually set in China.
Background. Cassim is the father of Aladdin. Long before the events of the first film, he left his wife and young son in order to find a better life for the poverty-stricken family. While he was gone, Aladdin's mother died, leaving Aladdin as a presumed orphan.
Jasmine is a secular creation by a wealthy company. It is incidental that she is Arabic, and practically irrelevant that she is Muslim, as she has zero connection with Islam or actual Muslim women.
At 16 years old, Moana of Motunui has a slender yet muscular build that sets her apart from previous Disney princesses and heroines. She has brown eyes with thick eyebrows and eyelashes, full brownish-pink lips, and long, wavy, black hair.
According to production notes, Ariel is described as a "spirited 18-year-old" (via Yahoo!). This change of age is likely to avoid criticism surrounding Ariel's hasty marriage to Prince Eric in the animated version and make 23-year-old Halle Bailey more believable in the role.
In the original story, Aladdin is born to a poor tailor in “the capital of one of China's vast and wealthy kingdoms”. The Chinese setting of the story, however, has in most recent iterations, notably the Disney animated film of 1992, been almost entirely rewritten.
Agrabah is a fictional sultanate that serves as the setting for the Aladdin franchise. Aladdin was initially intended to be set in the Iraqi city of Baghdad, but after the Gulf War happened, the name Agrabah was chosen as an approximate anagram of the name of the city of Baghdad.
