Disney's version of Pocahontas centers John Smith, the man Pocahontas supposedly fell in love with. In reality, John Smith came to her town when she was only 9 or 10 years old, while he was 27 years old. Despite Disney's narrative, the two were never romantically involved.
Supervising animator Glen Keane was inspired by various teen idols and movie actors in designing Aladdin's physique. The main inspiration for his appearance was originally Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future, but later changed to Tom Cruise.
Princess Jasmine, a fictional character from Disney's animated film "Aladdin," is not explicitly identified as Indian in the movie. Instead, she is depicted as a resident of the fictional city of Agrabah, which is often seen as a blend of Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures and influences.
Created by screenwriters and directors Ron Clements and John Musker with co-screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, Jasmine is based on Badroulbadour, a princess who appears in the One Thousand and One Nights folktale "Aladdin and the Magical Lamp."
1. The original Aladdin was actually Chinese. While the true origins of the tale of Aladdin cannot be completely verified, the story is often attributed to French writer Antoine Galland, who claimed a Syrian told him about a boy and a genie in China.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame's tragic original ending
When he laughs as Esmeralda is hung, Quasimodo kills Frollo and visits the cemetery where he mourns Esmeralda, eventually dying of starvation on her grave.
Scholarly consensus is that Mulan is a fictional character, probably developed in Northern China in response to the greater independence women enjoyed there, whose legend was then revised in succeeding eras to reflect the values and challenges of the times.
In 1937, Walt Disney Animation Studios released its first fully animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, pioneering a new form of family entertainment.
Mickey Mouse was created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an earlier cartoon character created by Walt Disney for Universal Studios. Disney is said to have had the inspiration for his anthropomorphic character from an old pet mouse he had on his farm.
The main complication in both versions is that Mulan has to disguise herself as a man so that she can join the army and save her father from conscription.
His Disney roles include portraying Ed Wood in the 1994 Touchstone Pictures film of the same name, Captain Jack Sparrow, the protagonist of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, J.M. Barrie in the 2004 Miramax film Finding Neverland (the latter two of which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination), Tarrant Hightopp ...
When creating The Little Mermaid, animators based Ariel's appearance on a young Alyssa Milano...and she didn't even know until a year after the movie was released.
The character lineup includes Woody, Buzz Lightyear and Bo Peep from "Toy Story;" "Mike, Sully and Boo from "Monsters, Inc;" Joy and Sadness from "Inside Out;" Dug and Russell from "Up;" Miguel from "Coco;" Remy from "Ratatouille;" and Mr. and Mrs. Incredible and Frozone from "The Incredibles."
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs came out in 1937, debuting the very first Disney princess with Snow White herself. Voiced by Adriana Caselotti, she's incredibly of her time (i.e. dated af).
Although Moana is from the fictional island Motunui some 3,000 years ago, the story and culture of Moana is based on the very real heritage and history of Polynesian islands such as Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, and Tahiti.
The original Aladdin story was actually set in China. Aladdin is one of the stories compiled in The Thousand and One Nights — a collection of Middle Eastern and Indian folk tales, however, it did not appear in the original Arabic text.
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.
BuzzFeed views Snow White as a German woman, and suggests that a "historically accurate" Snow White would have been raised within the "austere and religious" culture of the Holy Roman Empire in the 16th century.
