Before I start, just know I am going to pretty
much spoil this entire movie. But its 18 years old and old enough to vote now so... Either youâve seen it and you know or youâre not going to see it , And don't care about spoilers. Okay? ok. [Furious Freak by Kevin MacLeod plays] There are a lot of movies that impacted me
as a kid. Movies that terrified and astounded me. Movies that crawled into my little child brain
and made a home there. But what is there to say that hasnât already
been said about movies like Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, or Toy Story. No. Today I want to talk about the beautiful, raddest gem in the Disney canon, That kinda tanked on arrival, And blew my mind at the age of
11 or so... I want to talk about Atlantis: The Lost Empire. ["The King Dies/Going After Rourke"
by James Newton Howard plays] And I want to talk about this But weâll get there in a bit. [Parc de Princes by Molife plays] Atlantis: The Lost Empire was released
by Disney in 2001. Directed by Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale,
whose previous works included: "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." A fairly uneven output to say the least, Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film to ever be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. And Hunchback of Notre Dame had some of the best music in a Disney movie ever ["The Bells of Notre Dame" plays] And scarred an entire
generation of children for life. Thatâs the team that would make this movie: ["Atlantis" by James Newton Howard plays] Now there was a lot going on in the time when
Atlantis was first going into production. Namely, Jeffrey Katzenburgâs contentious
exit from Disney in 1994 to start Dreamworks and Michael Eisner stepping in as head of
the studio. And the two had wildly different approaches
as executives. According to one Disney animator, quoted in
a 2001 Observer article: The article goes on to say: Weâll unpack that more later, but to give
some context, Disney just beginning to see But to give some context, Disney just beginning to see diminishing returns, On the large financial investment that was an animated film by the mid 90s, and the Disney Renaissance was starting
to get tired. And in that atmosphere, The Hunchback of Notre Dame was released in 1996 to mixed reviews. Puzzling audiences with the tonal dissonance
of Jason Alexanderâs "Alright, alright! Pour the wine and cut the cheese!"
[Fart sounds] And this [Frollo singing Hellfire]
"This burning desire..." But Trousdale and Wise, along with producer Don Hahn and writer Tab Murphy enjoyed working together And for reasons that I find a little
mystifying, Disney let them do it. Perhaps it was coasting on good will from
Beauty and the Beastâs Oscar nomination, Or perhaps in the turmoil of changing studio
heads this little movie slipped through the cracks. I donât know. But somehow this idea, based in part on Juleâs
Verneâs journey to the Center of the Earth, And pitched as a pivot from âfantasy land
to adventure land,â Was greenlit and put into production. [Long by Molife plays] In many ways Atlantis was a reaction to that
early Disney Renaissance exhaustion. Trousdale and Wise had learned something from the mistakes of Hunchback. Namely that showtunes didnât always put
butts in seats, And that casting a popular comedian as a wacky sidekick could backfire. With this movie they wanted to make something of an anti Disney movie. No cute animal sidekicks and No Singing. Allegedly the crew even wore T-shirts during
production which read "ATLANTISâ Fewer songs, more explosions" Disney still got their attempt at a Top 40
song with the credits number âWhere the Dream Take Youâ by Mya, which no offense to Mya is a Not a Memorable Song, And it deeply clashes with the entire incredibly kickass score composed by James Newton Howard ["Where the Dream Takes" You by Mya plays]
"They'll try to hold you back..." ["The Crystal Chamber" by
James Newton Howard plays]
[It sounds nothing like the Mya song] But thatâs only where the oddities of this
movie start. The movie is set in 1914, right around the
beginning of World War 1. This allowed the team to bring in a lot of
that steampunk aesthetic? With growling boiler rooms and Mauser pistols. They had the film presented in Cinemascope widescreen like Raiders of the Lost Ark or the works of David Lean and Akira Kurosawa. That widescreen meant Disney might have had to pay for different desks and animation equipment to accommodate the wider format. but instead, the production team found a solution by drawing within a smaller frame on the same paper And equipment used for standard aspect ratios. The movie would also be notable for its integration of CGI and animation, Which was fairly novel at the time. Other movies of this era, like Treasure Planet, would also utilize this blend of animation styles Before Disney moved completely away
from hand drawn animation. And the production was so involved and intensive that at its peak, 350 animators, artists and technicians were working on the film at all
three Disney animation studios in Burbank, California Orlando, Florida, and France. The original script for this movie was 155
pages. A usual Disney movie script from that time
period was around 90. Also the general rule for screenwriting is
that 1 page = 1 minute of screentime. I can only imagine what was in those 155 pages... [Kirk Wise] "They were attacked immediately by Squid Bats..." [Ellen Keneshea-Editor] "The Landbeast" [Kirk Wise] "The hot springs were actually the blowholes of these giant Lava Whales." [Tab Murphy] "I never really bought off on the Lava Whales." ...Oh...well I guess I can imagine? Anyways... They wanted to avoid the common depiction
of Atlantis as "crumbled Greek columns underwater", They took inspiration from Mayan, Tibetan,
Cambodian, and Egyptian architecture. There was also a lot of inspiration taken
from the writings of Plato. His quote "in a single day and night of misfortune, the island of Atlantis disappeared into the depths of the sea" is what opens the movie. And then they also took some notes from the writings of a guy named Edgar Cayce, Who was a spiritualist and clairvoyant. His clients included people like Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Edison, Irving Berlin, and George Gershwin. He had some ideas about the therapeutic uses of food and an acid/alkaline diet? Which was considered notable at the time. And Iâm literally pulling all this from
Wikipedia, but a biographer gave him the nickname, The Sleeping Prophet. A nonprofit organization, the Association
for Research and Enlightenment, was founded to facilitate the study of Cayce's work. Some consider him a founder and principal
source of the New Age movement. And he believed in Atlantis and aliens and
that there were five human races And that there were five human races: white, black, red, brown, and yellow - yikes And that all came from one âmaster raceâ
oh boy... And "the red race developed in Atlantis and its development was rapid." Um He also believed "soul-entities" on Earth could intermingle with animals to produce 12 foot tall giants. And that a giant solar
âmotherâ crystal, activated by the sun was used to harness energy and provide power on Atlantis. He also predicted that in 1958, the United
States would rediscover a death ray that had been used in Atlantis. ...wow⌠Clearly the writers did take a lot of inspiration from this weirdo. From the crystals that power atlantis, to
the giants, to the...death ray?? Its probably best not to dwell too much on
Cayce because the more I read about him the more I wonder what the writers were on when they read his stuff and went âneat.â They also hired Marc Okrand, the guy who properly developed the Klingon language for the Star Trek movies. "You have not experienced Shakespeare until you've read it in the original Klingon." "taH pagh taHbe!"
[Laughter] And he developed an Atlantean language
for the movie. A special feature on the DVD even taught little 11 year old me such helpful phrases as: "Where is the toilet please?â or âFrom where
is the best place to view the Lava Whales?â [Mark Okrand saying "From where is the best place to view the Lava Whales"in Atlantean] And they took inspiration from the works of
Mike Mignola, creator of the Hellboy comics series. He was hired as one of four production designers
for the film and provided style guides Character designs, and story ideas. Kirk Wise cites his style as a major influence for the look of the film. Mignola was surprised when Disney first reached out and is quoted as saying the following, upon first seeing a rough cut of the film: So to sum it up... I canât sum it up...this movie
had a lot of disparate pieces going into it And somehow all those parts came together
to make this movie. And the 4 year production was a mixed bag. With the writers often changing sections of
the movie on the fly, Some of which had already been animated. Most notably the original prologue of the
movie, Where some vikings got eaten by a robot leviathan. Its a cool opening but the one they went with was a much better way to open the story⌠Speaking ofâŚ. [Finding Your Feet by Sage Oursler plays] So lets see, the movie opens with this wild
prologue where we see Atlantis Right before its destruction. A little girl named Kida is separated from
her mother and then we flash forward to 1914 where a young linguist and archaeologist works in the boiler room of the Smithsonian And wants funding for an expedition to find
âThe Shepherdâs Journalâ Which reportedly tells of the location of the lost city of Atlantis. Naturally the people at the museum think heâs a little bit bonkers And ignore his requests for funding. He goes home to his cat Fluffy and finds a
woman in his apartment on behalf of her employer. Preston Whitmore, a rich eccentric and friend to Miloâs dead grandfather, Who already has the shepherds journal and is ready to fund Miloâs expedition to Atlantis So Milo and a team of diverse and wacky compatriots go down to find Atlantis. And eventually they do! And a whole lot of other stuff happens. Iâm not actually going to summarize the whole movie, just the set up. So lets dive in to the characters "Dive! Dive! Five degrees down level!" And so lets start with our protagonist. Media has no shortage of nerdy sadboys with tragic backstories And in many ways Milo is very much of a piece with other DIsney heroes. Except for...well⌠If you put him in a lineup with other male
Disney protagonists You start to notice the difference. Disney heroes tend to be beefy strongjawed
guys, Not scrawny little dudes with Doonsbury noses. Itâs an interesting delineation in the time
period, and again its probably mostly due to this anti Disney approach that the entire
team was taking. This project was meant to experiment and innovate and they started at the ground up with this little cinnamon roll and then they did us
one better and cast Michael J. Fox to voice him. [Milo] "Thus enabling the kidnap and or murder of the royal family." [Michael J. Fox] "Not to mention personally delivering the most powerful force known to man," "Into the hands of a mercenary nutcase, whose probably gonna sell it to the Kaiser!" "Have I left anything out!" And yeah Milo as a character does fall into
a few of those Nice Guy tropes That we now know all too well. [Milo] "Oh I swim pretty girl--pretty good!" And there are some other problems with how he functions in the story, But right now I just want to take a minute and focus on this absolute nerd, because I find him to be delightful. On tv in this time period I feel like we had
a lot of versions of this kind of character A lot of them written by Joss Whedon But Milo might be my favorite of the batch... Okay, it's probably a tie between him and Daniel Jackson. And sidebar they are weirdly similar in a
way that I think is entirely accidental but both characters are linguists and archaeologists who are shunned by the intellectual Community for their wacky ideas they were raised by
their grandfather after the death of their parents. I could go on. When it comes to Milo he's just so good hearted. He goes on this perilous journey just for
the joy of exploration and learning. When faced with profiting off it to some peopleâs detriment, he never hesitates to say no. And when it comes to his romance with Kida, the most we ever get is a really good hug Aw And speaking of Kida⌠[Kida] "My name is Kidagakash," So Kida, voiced by Cree Summers, is rad right? And there is something to be said for the
fact that her goals have nothing to do with a man. Even my beloved Fa Mulan went off to war to save her dad, But Kida is trying to save her entire civilization, and her relationship with Milo is mostly platonic. In fact more of her growth seems to come from accepting the loss of her mother than anything with her father. And its just nice and unusual, especially
in the 90s and the aughts, For a Disney movie to allow its heroine to focus on something other than fixing the men in her life. I mean this movie might not be some groundbreaking piece of feminist media but For a Disney movie released in 2001, this is pretty great! Although again, her character has some inherent problems, sheâs 8000 years old and yet extremely naive about this entire very well armed team
who just Kool-Aid man their way into her city. [Kool-Aid Man Voice]"Oh yeah!" Her entire design along with that of all the
Atlanteans leads to some #problematicelements. Which Iâm not really qualified to dissect
that stuff but Iâll try in a bit. Right now letâs just meet everybody. Along with our main two heroes we also have our pair of villains. The pragmatic Helga Sinclair voiced by Claudia Christian who is in my opinion, one of the more interesting female Disney villains weâve gotten to date besides maybe Mother Gothel. She cares just enough to point out the damage they might cause to an entire civilization, but at the end of the day Helgaâs out for
Helga. And then Commander Rourke voiced by James Garner. Heâs just a big bad guy isnât he? In fact, when you put him next to other Disney villains do you notice a slight difference? [Hades]"For the Trojans, hey they bet on the wrong horse okay?" [Gaston singing]"I use antlers in all of my decorating!" [Ursula]"And don't underestimate the importance of...body language!" Most Disney villains tend to be kinda funny
right? Or at the very least, have a comic sidekick of the animal... [Iago]"Oh that hurt!" Or human variety. [Le Fou singing]"...Tell you whose team they prefer to be on..." Or possibly both.
[Ding sound] [Radcliffe]"Why do you think those insolent heathens attacked us?" [Wiggins]"Because we invaded their land, cut down their trees, and dug of their earth?"
[Ding sound] Because its Disney, and for kids, so the bad
guy canât be too scary, It has to be tempered with humor, But Rourke is never funny and
he is bad. And one of the only other Disney villains
that really compares to him from this time period is well... [Frollo singing] "Destroy Esmeralda and let her taste the fires of hell!" Huh... funny that. But with Atlantis, the movie lets you know
about Rourke right away if your paying attention. [Rourke]"Yes this should be enriching for all of us." [Kirk Wise] "You'll notice that only half of Rourke's face is visible...who will turn out to have a uh...
. [Gary Trousdale]"A hidden side."
. And even if youâre not paying attention,
by about here, you know somethings up. [Rourke] "This changes nothing." When the turn happens and he goes full bad
guy, its shocking just how cold and callous he is. And then he just turns into an absolutely
terrifying rage monster by the end of this movie like... Damn Disney...you didnât hold back. Then after our villains we have a big cast
of memorable characters that I love. Theyâre all kind of silly and Iâve seen
a lot of complaints about these characters basically being a bunch of thinly written
stereotypes. I personally find that they tend to function
more like sitcom archetypes, Moliere is weird, Vinnie blows stuff up, Audrey is grumpy, Sweet is kind
[Kida] "Oh heâs kindly," And Packerd says: "Weâre all gonna die." Theyâre often funny, because theyâre predictable. To compare them to a modern sitcom like Brooklyn Nine Nine, we know that in 90% of situations, Rosa will be badass, Holt will be stoic, Amy will be over enthusiastic and Jake is goofy. Put them in any situation and we know how
theyâll generally react. The comedy often comes from meeting our expectations, or subverting them, or both. [Rosa] "Oh my god Captain. She is magnificent." [Captain Holt] ....VINDICATIIIIOOOON! And the same holds true for Atlantis where
we meet a pretty big cast of characters, And the movie is very quick to establish their
somewhat simple traits. [Moliere whispers]"You have disturbed the dirt." [Sweet]"Moliere, now what have I told you about playing nice with the other kids." [Vinnie]"Fuses, wicks, GLUE, eh...paper clips...big ones..." [Audrey]"Geez, I used to take lunch money from guys like this." But again, this movie has that third act turn
and it happens for everybody. Although that too is foreshadowed pretty openly if youâre paying attention [Milo] "Unless, maybe you're just in it for the money..." [Audre]"Money."
[Packerd]"Money." [Sweet]"Money."
[Moliere]"Money." [Vinnie]"I'mma gonna say...money." Because yes their characterization might be
mostly simplistic, this is a kids movie after all. But the movie takes time to build their
relationships with Milo and each other, And by the time they reach Atlantis it feels like theyâve grown closer and built some real friendships. Which makes this moment:
[Rourke]"You have a nice swim?" Such a punch in the stomach. And this...
[Vinnie]"Knock, knock." And This. Until we get to this moment. [Car door sound] And now I need to talk about Audrey for a
minute. Yes I love Vinnie and fun fact, most of his
dialogue was improvised because Don Novelloâs tangents were so funny the writers just started handing him notes like âVinnie talks about his childhoodâ and just let him go. I could talk about Moliere and how initially
he was pitched as some uptight snooty dude, but somebody drew him like this weird little
mole kinda guy and the idea just stuck. I could talk about Packerd [Packerd]"I have to call you back...No no Iâll call you." Or Sweet [Sweet] "One day I'm studying gross anatomy in the classroom. The next I'm sewing up rough riders on San Juan Hill." But itâs Audrey who really got to me. 18 year old Audrey Ramirez. When we first see her, sheâs tough, [Audrey]"Two for flinching." No nonsense.
"I used to take lunch money from guys like these." And incredibly good at what she does. "20 minutes if the bunkhead holds." [Booming sound]
"Better make that five." Then over the course of their journey we learn more about her "Anyway, I'm saving up so my Papi and I can open another shop." We see her grow attached to Milo, And her wonder at Atlantis. "It's beautiful." But she told us that sheâs in it for the
money, and she wants to build that shop with her dad. And so in spite of all that, she still does
this. But then we can see it all begin to pile on And it all adds up to the moment she shuts the door to the van and sits, And makes this face. Because she knows what she has to do and she doesnât want to do it. In fact it would be so easy not to do the
right thing here, To just drive away with Rourke and the rest
of them and have millions of dollars. But its the right thing to do and so she does
it anyway. "This is wrong and you know it!" And the movie doesnât make this out as some glowing redemption As Vinnie says: [Vinnie]"We done a lot of things we're not proud of. Robbing graves, eh plundering tombs, double parking..." "But nobody got hurt...Well maybe sombody got hurt but...nobody we Knew." And yet itâs this 18 year old girl who makes
everyone else finally realize, 'Oh yeah maybe we shouldnât do this.' And I love the way each character
reacts to this moment. Its small, and almost entirely without dialogue
but it says so much about each of them. How they decide one by one to do the right
thing. [Packerd]"We're all gonna die." Except Sweet, because heâs been a good dude, pretty much from the start and he checked out of the bad shenanigans from the moment this happened. But itâs this moment, This right here, That burrowed into my brain at age 11 and has stuck with me ever since. Man I love this movie. [Super by Cospe plays] So I got very positive on this movie, I mean,
itâs awesome right? Just look at it⌠[The Crystal Chamber by James Newton Howard plays] Yeeeaaah good shit But this movie does have flaws. Like why does Atlantis flooding cause an entire civilization to lose the ability to read their own language? Especially when they still speak it. Why does it take a white guy coming in, to
save this whole civilization of ethnic people? How very Avatar of you Disney (or Dances with Wolves or Ferngully or Pocahontas-WAIT A SECOND). Also...okay I said I would try to dissect
the problems of the Atlanteans design. As in they're generic magical brown people with white hair and well...I do not have a say in this discussion and my research skills arenât
fantastic but between 300 page essays and various blog posts it seems that there is
a general disagreement among people of color over how they should be portrayed in works
of fantasy. Some seem to be more on the side of... just put somebody not white in it. While other people think that there can be
some real harm in treating other races so generically by importing aspects of their
culture without acknowledging their origin. To slightly paraphrase a post from the blog
âWriting with colorâ "For Kida, cast a black actress most famous for voicing black animated charactersâ and [her design includes] âbrown skin, full lips, broad nose... Basically the issue of race in Fantasy is
fraught but its hard to deny that Kida was another in a long line of darker skinned Disney princesses who are drawn much more sexually than their white counterparts which is...yâknow...not
good. If I can find some links to better people discussing this I'll put them in the info below. Then thereâs the fact that our awesome and
proactive female lead spends most of the climax incapacitated as a weird crystal person who
explicitly needs to be rescued by our male hero. [King Kakeshim] "Save my daughter," [Milo]"We're gonna rescue the princess and we're gonna save Atlantis! Or we're gonna die trying!" Also the Atlanteans can magically speak all
languages, And that chalk on Milos sweater should be backwards. What Iâm saying is this story, maybe does
not stand up to close scrutiny, Critics at the time were mixed, some hailing
it as a high energy experiment while others called it listless and boring. Also I have to point this out. A lot of the negative reviews reference Shrek for comparison. Like Todd McCarthyâs review in Variety which said. âthe lack of imagination will seem all the
more dramatic to audiences in comparison to the winningly sophisticated "Shrek."â The Winningly. Sophisticated. Shrek. [Fart noise] 2001 was a very different time you guys And at the box office it underperformed next
to the bigger animated films of that time like Monsters Inc or⌠Shrek. Hell Hunchback of Notre Dame made for than this movie with a box office gross of $325.3 million Maybe Atlantis didnât land with quite the
same thud that Treasure Planet did? (I'm not dunking on Treasure Planet you guys, Iâm just saying it was a failure at the box office with a budget of $140 million and a box office gross around $110 million and it helped to kill hand drawn animation at Disney Studios). But at the time Atlantis did not do well. Critically or with audiences who wanted to
take their kids to a cute animated movie, not an intense, scary, pulpy sci fi flick,
with a dense mythology. Honestly its hard for me to step back and
consider the flaws of this movie because I can still watch it as an adult and be transported to that first time I saw it and went... Hell yeah. And I hate being told to just turn my brain
off to enjoy something, And I hate telling people that. And yet, I canât really defend any of those
things I just mentioned. Yeah, this movie has some elements that are
bad. Parts of it donât make sense. They based a chunk of their lore off the nutty ramblings of some dude from the 1900s. And yet, for me it just...works⌠And to try and explain why this works for
me, letâs take a minute to talk about Pacific Rim [Pacific Rim Theme by Ramin Djawadi plays] The first Pacific Rim came out in 2013 and
man its kinda dumb when you think about it. That all the countries in the world saw giant
monsters attacking and went, 'Lets build big, expensive punchy robots.' Critic Richard Roeper called the movie: And Screen junkies called it: Because yeah, if you think about it. This is dumb Like really dumb And yet.... Man I loved this movie too. People like to debate whether art is subjective
or not. Some teachers in film school will tell
you that its not. Mostly so they can say that something is definitively say bad or good. Personally, I land mostly on the side of subjectivity. Because I donât think Suicide Squad was
a good movie, but I know a kid who does and she loves Harley Quinn. And who am I to tell her sheâs wrong? What works for some people wonât work for
others. And while Iâm not sure the term "Emotional
Storytelling" is one being used in your standard screenplay analysis class (When I tried to do some research I mostly came up with marketing articles On how to get people to feel things
about Doritos or whatever which... Okay... But I think the term applies here. Because logically maybe, these movies arenât
exactly firing on all cylinders. But on an emotional level? A visceral level? A human level? Yeah. [Gone & Found by Sum Wave plays] Thereâs more fun facts about this movie. Like the toilet seat that flies past the camera in this scene. [Ding sound] Or how bad some of the marketing for this
movie. Like this trailer seems fine right? [Intense drumming music plays] How about this one? [Come Sail Away by the Styx plays] Oh my god. [Kida]"You do swim do you not?
[Milo]"Oh I swim pretty girl--pretty good!" Who made this?! Or I could talk about the PC Game Demo that they put in cereal boxes and attached to copies of the Emperorâs New Groove DVD which is
how I got it and played it obsessively even as it scared the crap out of me. Or how about this last curtain call shot which the directors said was one the one of the most complicated shots in Disney history starting at a 16 inch piece of paper for Kida and Milo and then pulling out to roughly the equivalent
of an 150 foot piece of paper made up of lots of little pieces, Each, with careful hand-drawn animations which were combined with computer generated vehicles flying across the scene. I could talk about how This Scene should be
a ride at Disneyland yesterday, Or about the fact that we still havenât gotten an Atlantis level in the Kingdom Hearts series which is: A Crime. I could talk about how Leonard Freaking Nimoy voiced the King of Atlantis and the gravity he brings to this character, who probably gets about ten minutes of screen time, which is incredible, Or I could talk about the fact that they created this diverse cast of characters, because they thought Preston Whitmore would only want the best in the business and wouldnât care about age, race, or sex which I think is neat. Some animator back in the day said this movie lacked the care and detail for storytelling and characters that some other Disney movies got, But look at the effort and artistry that went into making this movie. An entire meeting devoted to how to draw hands like Mike Mignola, 350 animators at three studios working on one movie, And a 150 foot piece
of paper to make this scene. I canât claim this movie is perfect but
I can tell you that it was perfect for me. Both then and now. Because of this... And this... But most of all...This. [Audrey kicking the car door open] Hello all and welcome to the credits of my
second video. Everybody needs a hobby right? Also all the feedback from the Adventure Zone
video was lovely and I really appreciated it. Also I hope this doesnât become an ongoing
thing where all of my videos reference Shrek? And because SOMEBODY REQUESTED ITâŚ.Shrek
is good Jewish representation...youâre welcome. You know who you are. Lets see what else can I say, I actually wrote
a whole thing using Sense8 as a counterpoint instead of Pacific Rim? I would love to say that Iâll do a video
on Sense8 but all I can think to say is that itâs very good. I am trying to get my thoughts in order about
Russian Doll? And for all those who were pumped at the idea
of me doing a Prince of Egypt video? Um happy pesach, weâll see if that ever
materializes. Maybe donât listen to these credits. Iâll probably abandon all previously mentioned
ideas for whatever the next thing is that strikes my fancy. So uh...yeah...Thanks for watching!
The speaker here really does seem to have spent a lot of time on this, which is commendable, but it also makes it worse when you notice the stuff she's intentionally ignoring.
near the end she pokes fun at a critique of the movie, which says that it doesn't really compare to the "winningly sophisticated shrek." She pokes fun by cutting to a clip of shrek farting, which obviously totally ignores the really emotional scenes and multiple endearing layers of humor that allow any audience to enjoy it.
She also mentions that non-white princesses are typically more sexualized than white ones, and puts up Pocahontas, Jasmine, and Esmerelda as examples. Ignoring the first two for a moment, I don't know what she expected of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Even in the original work, the character "attracts men with her seductive dances" and is supposed to be of french romani descent, so it's not like they could've just made her white (without raising hell in the process).
Esmerelda being sexually appealing is literally the driving force of the movie, too. There wouldn't be any conflict from the villain if he hadn't found her attractive because he wouldn't have tried to kill her.
As for Jasmine, the scene displayed is less defensible than Esmerelda's case, but it was a scene that was supposed to go against her normal character. You could say that the scene shouldn't have been included at all, but it's not like the essence of Jasmine's character is sexual just because of the one scene.
No idea what she's talking about with Pocahontas, except that I guess it's more convincing to the audience if the romantic interest (female lead) for the male lead is actually, well, attractive.
I loved Atlantis. When my parents first got a DVD player that was one of the first DVDs that we had so naturally I watched it a ton haha