Aladdin (character)
Encyclopedia
Aladdin is the main protagonist of Disney
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...

's Aladdin franchise. He first appeared in the theatrical animated film Aladdin (1992), then in the two direct-to-video sequels The Return of Jafar
The Return of Jafar
The Return of Jafar is a 1994 American animated film that is a direct-to-video sequel to the 1992 animated film Aladdin, both produced by The Walt Disney Company. The film was released on May 20, 1994 and serves as the origin of the Aladdin animated series...

 (1994) and Aladdin and the King of Thieves
Aladdin and the King of Thieves
Aladdin and the King of Thieves is a 1996 animated film that is the second direct-to-video sequel to the Disney animated feature Aladdin...

 (1996), and on television in Aladdin: the Animated Series
Aladdin (TV series)
Aladdin is an animated television series made by Walt Disney Television which aired from 1994 to 1995, based on the original 1992 feature. Coming on the heels of the direct-to-video sequel The Return of Jafar, the series picked up where that installment left off, with Aladdin now living in the...

, set between the two sequels. He is based on Aladdin
Aladdin
Aladdin is a Middle Eastern folk tale. It is one of the tales in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights , and one of the most famous, although it was actually added to the collection by Antoine Galland ....

 from the One Thousand and One Nights. He is voiced by Scott Weinger
Scott Weinger
Scott Eric Weinger is an American actor, television producer and writer, best known as the speaking voice of Aladdin in Walt Disney's eponymous feature film. Weinger would reprise the role in two direct-to-video sequels, for the Disney Channel television series, and the Kingdom Hearts Series. He...

 although his singing voice is provided by Brad Kane
Brad Kane
Bradley Caleb Kane is a singer, actor, and writer.-Career:Kane began to act when he was three years old, with a small role in the movie Six Weeks. At the age of eight, he obtained the role of one of the four chorus boys in the Broadway musical Evita...

.

Background

When Aladdin is introduced initially, he is 18 years old. He never received a formal education, and has only learned by being on the streets of Agrabah. He steals to survive, making him a sort of Robin Hood
Robin Hood
Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....

-type thief. Aladdin was born 18 years prior to the events in the first film. He was born to Cassim and his wife. When Aladdin was only an infant, his father left him and his mother in order to find a better life for his family. When Aladdin was two, his mother was captured by bandits and was presumed dead. Aladdin's parents were too poor to provide clothing for their son. When Aladdin was seven, he had his first encounter with Razoul, the new captain of the Sultan's guard. Aladdin had stolen an apple from a fruit stand. Initially, the boy managed to outmaneuver the guards. Eventually, he was apprehended and sentenced to detention within the palaced dungeon. However, he managed to escape by picking the locks to his chains. When he was twelve, he stole a vest
Vest
A vest is a garment covering the upper body. The term has different meanings around the world:Waistcoat :. This is called a waistcoat in the UK and many Commonwealth countries, or a vest in the US and Canada. It is often worn as part of formal attire, or as the third piece of a lounge...

, a pair of pants, and a fez from a clothes line. When he was sixteen he fell in with a group of circus performers, one of whom was the monkey Abu.

Physical appearance

Aladdin was drawn with large eyes, like those of a Disney heroes', to indicate innocence. The lineaments of his body are more free-flowing and more rounded than is usual for Disney heroes. He looks like a modern 18-year-old, except for his wardrobe. In the movie, they often describe him as a street rat
Street people
Street people are people who live a public life on the streets of a city. Street people are frequently homeless, sometimes mentally ill, and often have a bohemian lifestyle...

.

Wardrobe

As a street rat he wears a red fez on his head, a purple vest without a shirt, and white billowing pants. He is barefoot. Pretending to be Prince Ali Ababwa, he wears a white outfit with matching turban-style head wrap, adorned with a feather and jewel. At the beginning of the third film, Aladdin wears his original clothes with certain diffences to show his life in the palace; such as gold lining on his vest and pointed boots that cover his shins.

Personality

Aladdin is portrayed as clever, and ultimately a good-hearted person. Like most Disney male protagonists he is a brave young man who seeks to win the affection of many other characters, which demonstrates his insecurity. He is not above lying and stealing, though never with evil intentions, but in order to survive. The biggest difference from the norm is that, unlike most youthful Disney heroes, he is a doer rather than a passive character.

Development

One of the first issues that the animators faced during production of Aladdin was the depiction of Aladdin himself. Director and producer John Musker
John Musker
John Musker is an American animation director. Along with Ron Clements, he makes up the duo of one of the Disney animation studio's leading director teams.-Life and career:...

 explains: "In early screenings, we played with him being a little bit younger, and he had a mother in the story. [...] In design he became more athletic-looking, more filled out, more of a young leading man, more of a teen-hunk version than before." He was initially going to be as young as 13, but that eventually changed to eighteen.

Supervising Animator Glen Keane
Glen Keane
Glen Keane is an American animator, author, illustrator and director. Keane is best known for his character animation at Walt Disney Studios for feature films including The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan, and Tangled...

 used parts of teen idols and movie actors to build Aladdin's physique. The main inspiration for his appearance was originally Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox, OC is a Canadian American actor, author, producer, activist and voice-over artist. With a film and television career spanning from the late 1970s, Fox's roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy ; Alex P...

 in Back to the Future
Back to the Future
Back to the Future is a 1985 American science-fiction adventure film. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, produced by Steven Spielberg, and starred Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. The film tells the story of...

, but later changed to Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....

. Keane based the movement of Aladdin's loose pants on rapper MC Hammer
MC Hammer
Stanley Kirk Burrell , better known by his stage name MC Hammer , is an American rapper, entertainer, business entrepreneur, dancer and actor. He had his greatest commercial success and popularity from the late 1980s until the mid-1990s...

. Some have said this conception of the character makes him almost too contemporary for the setting of the film.

Aladdin

In the first film, street rat Aladdin meets a girl in the marketplace. He falls madly in love with her at first sight, but their meeting is interrupted by guards who arrest him. She reveals that she is actually Princess Jasmine
Princess Jasmine
Princess Jasmine is a fictional character and one of the main characters of the 1992 film Aladdin and its sequels, The Return of Jafar and Aladdin and the King of Thieves . She is voiced by Linda Larkin, with her singing voice performed by Lea Salonga in the first film and Disney Princess...

. She demands the guards to release Aladdin at once, but they tell her that she has to deal with Jafar first in order to let him go.

In prison, Aladdin meets an old man (who is actually Jafar in disguise) who mentions a cave filled with treasure and that he needs Aladdin to enter it. The old man reveals a secret exit, and Aladdin escapes with him and follows him in to the desert. He enters the Cave of Wonders, where he meets a sentient magic carpet and is commanded to only get a magic lamp. He gets it, but Abu's grabbing of a giant gem causes the cave to collapse. Aladdin, Abu, and the carpet are left in the cave. Abu delivers the lamp to Aladdin, and when he rubs it, a giant blue Genie appears, telling Aladdin he will fulfill three wishes. After leaving the collapsed cave with the Genie's help, he decides to become a prince in order to win Jasmine's heart.

The Return of Jafar

In the first direct-to-video
Direct-to-video
Direct-to-video is a term used to describe a film that has been released to the public on home video formats without being released in film theaters or broadcast on television...

 sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...

, The Return of Jafar
The Return of Jafar
The Return of Jafar is a 1994 American animated film that is a direct-to-video sequel to the 1992 animated film Aladdin, both produced by The Walt Disney Company. The film was released on May 20, 1994 and serves as the origin of the Aladdin animated series...

 (1994), Jasmine later begins to question her choice in Aladdin, wondering if he was trustworthy enough after he defends Iago, Jafar's former pet parrot who had terrorized her father. Meanwhile, Jafar is freed from his lamp by a clumsy bandit named Abis Mal, and immediately plots his revenge against Aladdin.

Aladdin and the King of Thieves

Finally, in the second direct-to-video
Direct-to-video
Direct-to-video is a term used to describe a film that has been released to the public on home video formats without being released in film theaters or broadcast on television...

/DVD movie and third film in the series, Aladdin and the King of Thieves
Aladdin and the King of Thieves
Aladdin and the King of Thieves is a 1996 animated film that is the second direct-to-video sequel to the Disney animated feature Aladdin...

, Aladdin discovers that his long-lost father, Cassim, is still alive, and sets out to find him. Cassim had left the family shortly after his son's birth. Aladdin's mother died when he was just a child. At the climax of the film, Jasmine and Aladdin are finally wed, and Aladdin makes peace with his father. The Return of Jafar and Aladdin and the King of Thieves together serve as bookends to the Aladdin (TV series)
Aladdin (TV series)
Aladdin is an animated television series made by Walt Disney Television which aired from 1994 to 1995, based on the original 1992 feature. Coming on the heels of the direct-to-video sequel The Return of Jafar, the series picked up where that installment left off, with Aladdin now living in the...

 as its prologue
Prologue
A prologue is an opening to a story that establishes the setting and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Greek prologos included the modern meaning of prologue, but was of wider significance...

 and epilogue
Epilogue
An epilogue, epilog or afterword is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature or drama, usually used to bring closure to the work...

, respectively, though the episode of the Disney's Hercules series Hercules and the Arabian Night
Hercules and the Arabian Night
"Hercules and the Arabian Night" is a crossover episode of Disney's Hercules: The Animated Series featuring characters from Aladdin.-Summary :...

 is clearly set after the end of "King of Thieves" as Jasmine refers to herself as married.

Aladdin: The Animated Series

An animated series was created for Disney Channel and Toon Disney which aired from 1994 to 1995, based on the original 1992 feature. The series picked up where The Return of Jafar left off, with Aladdin still living on the streets of Agrabah, engaged to Jasmine.

In the Aladdin
Aladdin (TV series)
Aladdin is an animated television series made by Walt Disney Television which aired from 1994 to 1995, based on the original 1992 feature. Coming on the heels of the direct-to-video sequel The Return of Jafar, the series picked up where that installment left off, with Aladdin now living in the...

 television episode The Lost Ones it is shown that he had a childhood friend named Hamahl. The episode Seems Like Old Crimes shows that when Aladdin was sixteen, he fell in with a group of circus performers where he met his pet monkey Abu.

Kingdom Hearts

Aside from a video game
Disney's Aladdin (video game)
Disney's Aladdin is a series of video games based on the 1992 motion picture of the same name. Unlike most cross-platform games, the five versions are each significantly different games rather than all being ports of a single source.-Mega Drive/Genesis version:The game from Virgin based on the 1992...

 that directly follows the plot of the first film, Aladdin has also appeared in the Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts
is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 video game console. The first game in the Kingdom Hearts series, it is the result of a collaboration between Square Enix and The Walt Disney Company. The game combines characters and settings from Disney...

 series of games.

In all his appearances in the series, is a playable character or one you can add to your party. He wields a scimitar
Scimitar
A scimitar is a backsword or sabre with a curved blade, originating in Southwest Asia .The Arabic term saif translates to "sword" in general, but is normally taken to refer to the scimitar type of curved backsword in particular.The curved sword or "scimitar" was widespread throughout the Muslim...

 as his primary weapon and can utilize Abu to solve puzzles when he is an active party member. In the first game, Princess Jasmine
Princess Jasmine
Princess Jasmine is a fictional character and one of the main characters of the 1992 film Aladdin and its sequels, The Return of Jafar and Aladdin and the King of Thieves . She is voiced by Linda Larkin, with her singing voice performed by Lea Salonga in the first film and Disney Princess...

 is kidnapped by Jafar and Maleficent
Maleficent
Maleficent is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Walt Disney's 1959 adaptation of Sleeping Beauty. She is the self-proclaimed "Mistress of All Evil" who, after not being invited to the baby's christening, curses the infant Princess Aurora to "prick her finger on the spindle of a...

. Aladdin teams up with Sora to save her. In Kingdom Hearts II
Kingdom Hearts II
is an action role-playing game developed by Square Enix and published by Buena Vista Games and Square Enix in 2005 for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console...

, Aladdin is exhibiting strange behavior due to his loneliness after Genie went to see the other worlds. When Genie comes back all is well again.

He appears in the sequel Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
is an action role-playing game developed by Square Enix and Japanese studio Jupiter and published by Square Enix in 2004 for the Game Boy Advance. The game serves as an intermediary between the two larger-scale PlayStation 2 games in the Kingdom Hearts series. It was one of the first GBA games to...

 for the Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Advance
The is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured, and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001; in North America on June 11, 2001; in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001; and in the People's Republic of China...

 and its PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...

 remake Re: Chain Of Memories. The world's story is similar to that of the first game, only this time, Jafar kidnaps Jasmine just so he can force her to marry him and become Sultan, with no involvement of Maleficent
Maleficent
Maleficent is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Walt Disney's 1959 adaptation of Sleeping Beauty. She is the self-proclaimed "Mistress of All Evil" who, after not being invited to the baby's christening, curses the infant Princess Aurora to "prick her finger on the spindle of a...

 nor any mention of the Princesses Of Heart.

In Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
is an action roleplaying game developed and published by Square Enix for the Nintendo DS with assistance from h.a.n.d. It is the fifth installment in the best-selling Kingdom Hearts series, and serves as an interquel beginning near the end of the first game, Kingdom Hearts, and covering the period...

, Agrabah is being tormented by sandstorms. Aladdin and the others try and repair the damage to the city, and to defend against Mother Nature.

Agrabah also appears in Kingdom Hearts coded
Kingdom Hearts coded
is an episodic puzzle video game developed and published by Square Enix, in collaboration with the Walt Disney Internet Group for mobile phones. It is the fourth installment in the Kingdom Hearts series and is set after the events of the Kingdom Hearts II. The story focuses on a message written in...

, where Data Sora meets and befriends Aladdin, the plot is very much like it was in Kingdom Hearts.

Theme Parks

Aladdin also appears at the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts is the segment of The Walt Disney Company that conceives, builds, and manages the company's theme parks and holiday resorts, as well as a variety of additional family-oriented leisure enterprises...

 as a meetable character. He is a frequently-seen character, and often accompanied by Jasmine, and occasionally Genie. Jasmine, Aladdin, Carpet, Abu and Genie make cameo appearances in the Hong Kong Disneyland
Hong Kong Disneyland
Hong Kong Disneyland is located on reclaimed land in Penny's Bay, Lantau Island. It is the first theme park located inside the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and is owned and managed by the Hong Kong International Theme Parks. The park opened to visitors on 12 September 2005...

 version of It's a Small World.

Disney's House of Mouse

He is featured as a guest in Disney's House of Mouse
Disney's House of Mouse
Disney's House of Mouse is an American animated television series, produced by Walt Disney Television, that originally aired from 2001 to 2003-Premise:...

, Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse
Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse
Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse is the first direct-to-video movie spin off from the Disney Channel animated television series Disney's House of Mouse.-Plot:...

 and Mickey's House of Villains
Mickey's House of Villains
Mickey's House of Villains is a direct-to-video film produced by The Walt Disney Company. It is a film adaptation of the Disney Channel animated television series Disney's House of Mouse, starring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, Daisy Duck and Disney Villains that have appeared in...

.

Lilo & Stitch trailer

Jasmine and Aladdin appear in a promotional interstitial for the film Lilo & Stitch
Lilo & Stitch
This article is about the movie. For the television series, see Lilo & Stitch: The Series.Lilo & Stitch is a 2002 American animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released on June 21, 2002...

. In it, they are interrupted in the middle of the 'Whole New World' sequence by the protagonist, Stitch. Stitch flirts with Jasmine and she drives off with him in his spaceship, leaving Aladdin sitting alone on the carpet, yelling at Stitch to 'get his own movie'.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK