“‘I don’t like it when kids die’ ‘Woke King’” that line fucking broke me lmao

Aladdin: Make me a prince Genie: you are now Jasmines brother Aladdin: wait no

Even though it wasn't the intention, I like the idea that the genie grants wishes based on the wisher's understanding. Alladin understood royalty as someone who makes grand displays, so that's what the genie gave him, while Jafar understood Sultanhood as recognized authority, so that's what it gave him. That's my attempt to massage that plot hole.

its always funny to see jasmin talking about children hungry and mitigate that by stealing a poor proletarian then the vendor is the bad guy because he is mad at some rando stealing his merchandise which he sells to maintain his income. A literal princess with all the power money and authority in the world of aladin going around people hungry in her kingdom by stealing poor or middle class blokes and then giving out aura of morality. She is literally anti robinhood

It feels like Disney can't write female characters with an arc, because that would mean presenting them as flawed at the beginning, which is such a misrepresentation of what writing good female characters means. It's so insulting that a call for better female characters is met with the same 1-dimensional GirlBoss character.

Jasmine's stealing makes the vendor out to be guilty of following a society that her family are responsible for creating.

A major problem Ive noticed with these disney remakes that was particularly noticeable in this one is that Disney seems to interpret 'strong female characters' as women who stand up for themselves and are abrasive and autonomous in a way that often betrays their original characterisation. In doing so they undermine qualities such as empathy and kindness snd love which I think are just as 'strong'. They also forget that many of these disney ingenue characters' naivete is a product of their age and environment. Additionally, if u start with this strong feminist independent women type princess it doesnt give them much opportunity for character growth. One time they did this right in my opinion is Tangled. They managed to balance Rapunzel's naivete and ignorance to the ways of the world and her willingness to see the good in people with her more feisty side and how shes able to fight for herself. But Rapunzels charm still lies in her creativity, sweetness and sociable nature. Sorry this was long lol

I love that Joel goes into extensive detail of the Jeff Bezos scenario, forcing us to imagine it, and then asks: "Could you imagine that?"

How can Jasmine be so sure she'd be a great sultan if she doesn't even know the economic structure of the state????

It's kinda striking how in the live-action Jasmine has a very generalized, american-sounding accent, but the vendor decidedly does not??? Lol yikes

My theory is that as an immortal inter-dimensional cosmic being with unfathomable power, the genie does not grok all this socially-constructed sultan-and-prince stuff, and literally thinks it's just about giving people a really cool hat.

That point at the end there is really interesting. Because in the 1992 version, in the Prince Ali Reprise that Jafar sings, he says "So Ali turns out to be merely Aladdin. Just a con, need I go on, take it from me." Like he's admitting he's also completely not genuine and only got his power through the same means. "Take it from me." Like it was so smart and it absolutely slapped. Then they just completely play it straight with no irony in the live action. Wah-wahhhh.

Big Joel holds the microphone like it's expensive wine.

Big Joel thinks he’s soo smart just because he adequately interpreted a film meant for children. Please, I should do what he does, and he should clean my bawls.

I always understood it that Aladdin said he wanted to be a prince and he was one in a way, but it falls apart because there is no country in existence for him to rule, making his authority unrecognizable. Jafar said make him sultan OF AGRABAH. The genie's spell actually had a real place to put him into. This isn't a perfect solution, but that's how I understood it anyway.

"Those children were hungry!" Bitch, feed your kingdom 😭😭😭

aladdin saw power as a social role, and he was granted princehood as a social role. jafar saw power as an innate quality, and he was given sultanhood as an innate quality. so in a way, they both got exactly what they asked for

Yo Aladdin became an actual prince after marrying Jasmine, right? Does that count as granting the wish in the original sense?

"Poverty is just a prop." Very good quote man.

This just made me realize how liberal (as in opposed to leftism) jasmine is. She uses progressive lamgauge such as those children were starving yet rules as an undemocratic monarch. they did the meme. More female billioniares/monarchs.

Did anybody else think "Jasmine could've payed for that apple with her jewelry" when they were kids?

I love how he holds the mic like a wineglass and the paintings who are seemingly hung at random heights below eyelevel.

It's more than a year later, but I feel that it's very important to mention that you missed the best explanation for why Jafar's and Aladdin's transformations were different, which is that the genie grants what is in your heart. As a poor peasant, Aladdin's idea of a prince is limited to the spectacle of princliness. Jafar, on the other hand, has a very pragmatic concept of power and defines Sultan-hood by what he lacks - the acknowledgment of power. He has been wielding power behind the scene successfully for years, but his wish to be the sultan is more about a desire to be seen by others as powerful and important. While this reading undermines some of your conclusion, I think it raises another interesting frame that we can use to see reflections of the real world in this film. It provides a window into the concept that the lower class's ideas of success are often dominated by the trappings of success rather than any real understanding of the power structures that exist to keep the social hierarchy in place, while at the same time giving a thoughtful examination of people like Elon Musk, who, despite his undeniable power, craves acknowledgment. It is not enough for him to have wealth and power. Like Jafar, his deepest wish is to be seen as valid and deserving of that wealth and power. I find tragedy in the idea that in both cases the characters are limited not only by circumstance, but also by their fundamental inability to change those constructions that have created that circumstance. If they could look more deeply at the situation, I think that there is a world in which Jafar and Aladding come to the same conclusion - that the real villain of the story is the Sultan, who wields supreme authority for no good reason and who has no appreciation for his own privilege, and feels little to no responsibility to use that privilege on behalf of others.

I do appreciate the fact that the genie didn't just make him like a distant middle child of a nearby king, but rather fundamentally changed the language of everyone around him to redefine Aladdin as a prince. That's probably my favorite weird way of a genie granting a wish.

I feel like he gave this 23 times more thought than the creators of the film

I'm just gonna get this off my chest before it kills me: I find it endlessly funny that in the movie Jasmine has a line like "The people make the kingdom beautiful, and they deserve a sultan who knows that," refering to herself, when earlier in the film, with very little evidence, she accused the first poor boy she spends any time with of stealing her bracelet. Just MWAH, delicioso. I hate this movie so much.

About the prince wish thing, I like the idea that the genie technically makes that wish come true by manipulating the circumstances surrounding Aladdin, creating an image, in order for him to get married to Jasmine, which would then end up making him a prince, thus fulfilling the wish. Convoluted but I like it.

When he went into the bit about how the other person should wash his balls, I was legitimately surprised that it didn't lead into a sponsored ad for a product that washes your balls or something.

Can't get over how Jafar just looks like a regular guy. Just nothing villainous-looking about him at all, they just slapped a black turban on him and called it a day.

everybody gangsta until big joel says "but, here's the thing"

The "clean my balls rant" really made my day, Joel.

It was the chaotic energy and randomness from Robin Williams that made me love the original Aladdin. Like when he plays chess with the carpet and says 'I can't believe it, I'm loosing to a rug.' Those little moments are my favourite. Will played a friendly, very likable genie but the chaotic energy just wasn't there. The thing I did enjoy about the remake was the fact that there were more scenes and time for Aladdin and Jasmine's relationship to develop. I also liked that the genie found love too.

It's called "lean-in corporate feminism" and it falls apart when you think about its implications for 5 seconds.

Remake Jasmin: “HOW DARE YOU NOT GIVE KIDS FREE FOOD” while she holds the position of privilege and the guy has to survive as well Twisted jasmin: “LETS MAKE EVERYONE A PRINCESS!”

there was a scene in the original movie where aladdin tries to set a plank for jasmine to walk across to get to his hideout, but jasmine chooses instead to vault over like he does. it shows that she is daring, excited to try new things and not a dainty and fearful princess and then in the live action movie they instead have her take the plank because she is afraid. why?

You know how you fix the scene with Jasmine and the shopkeeper? Have her pay him too much. Like he says "you have to pay for that" and she gives him like jewels or something that she has on her. It communicates what its supposed to (she's ignorant, doesn't get how money works, but wants to help the kids) without making the shopkeeper look like a dick. You could even have Aladdin ask her "what'd you give him?" and she says "just what I had in my pocket." Aladdin wouldn't assume that means jewels, and you could maintain the secret that she's a princess

One of the things that bothered me about the remake was Jasmine's new thirst for power. How is her desire to rule Agrabah(sp?) any different than Jafar's? They both desire to rule out of egoism and a complete certainty in their own capability ("Only I know what is truly best for these people!"). In the original, Jafar's desire for power was recognized as a serious character flaw that rendered him inappropriate for leadership. Now, what really differentiates Jasmine from him other than her birthright?

It's a silly take away, but I can't help but appreciate that when the genie is pointing to/reading out the contract he correctly goes right to left.

9:44 or to quote Pratchett "where Nobby went wrong was sidling into rooms and stealing small things. If he sidled into continents and stole whole cities slaughtering many of the inhabitants he would be regarded as a pillar of the community."

I’m sure someone already pointed this out but the genie is pretty explicit about how all this works. “That’s how genie magic works, people see what they are told to see.” “Genie magic is really only a facade.” He’s probably overgeneralizing but I think it’s pretty clear the genie enchants peoples minds to change how they view you. He enchanted Aladdin so that people would view him as a prince. He enchants Jaffar so people view him as a sultan. There’s no implication of divine right. The nature of power is clearly in perception according to this movie.

joel holding the xlr mic like a wine glass, im living

thought the mic was a drink for far too long

I vaguely remember an episode in the Aladdin series where she got turned into a rat and somehow ended up in the house of a poor starving family. Later when she got turned back the episode ended with her telling her father they need to do something about poverty. I think the 90s merchandise vehicle gave Jasmine more meaningful actions/storylines than this modern movie

I'm not very far in but I think the jasmine stealing scene is the biggest problem with most Disney remakes. Since they're trying to make basically the same film but modern they have this need to change certain things that were perfectly fine in a way to make the film feel more new but most times this ends up completely breaking subtle character moments that the writers just didn't notice

I can't stop laughing at the line "Clean my balls Jeff Bezos!" 😂😂

Speaking of genuinely wild, it's amazing how the remake doesn't work on so many levels, like how a cartoon tiger gave you a sweet sense of huggable cuddliness, while a live tiger naturally sets off all kinds of alarms.

My headcanon has always been that the Genie magically created a city that doesn't exist but still does in a legal sense, like maybe one house is somehow declared to be Ababwa and that's how Aladdin became a prince.

The idea that "pageantry is power" is pretty critical for studying later medieval history, both for Christian and Islamic courts

With their live action remakes, Disney tries to "fix" "plot holes" in their original stories that don't really matter to the narrative because these are fables, parables, and the nitty-gritty of the system and rules of their universes aren't really important, what matters is the message. By overexplaining stuff, they actually just raise more questions and therefore make their worlds more broken.

If the third Disney Aladdin movie is canonical I would like to think that his father becomes the "King of Thieves" at the moment of Aladdin's wish, making Aladdin the "Prince of Thieves" technically a type of prince which is a very genie way of granting wishes.

Once I saw a high school put on a performance of a show parodying Aladdin, and focusing on Jafar. In it, they portrayed Jasmine like a "and yet you live in a society" activist, where she wants the best for people but has no understanding of how these things actually happen. In the show, a servant gives her a scarf, and she turns it down because it was made in a factory. When the servant admits that they work in one of those factories, jasmine tells her she's part of the problem. In her perfect world she wants to make everyone a princess so they all have the same power as her instead of actually finding a way to fix poverty and inequality. This was a funny gag for a spoof or satire musical, but with the context of this interpretation it makes more sense as well.

One thing that might add a layer to your interpretation is that in Arabian folklore, genies are jinn. They are evil and manipulative spirits. Given, Disney changes that and tones down how evil they are. I'm sure they didn't mean to imply that genie was lying to everyone, but that is something a genie would do.

This film just really Europeanized the Royal court of the Muslim world. Its like what someone would imagine a French Royal Court with Persian aesthetics

Big Joel I love this Mr. Robot-esque shot framing and you should never change it

I like the "How it should have ended" take on it, where genie just literally makes him royalty and all the things stated in the "prince Ali" song including the strength of 10 regular men, because it's magic.

I think what confirms the legitimacy of the titles "prince" and "sultan" in the movie is the fact that the genie bestowed those powers upon them. The fact that the genie is present when both Aladdin and Jafar proclaim their status before a group of people is a key element in my opinion. Seeing that the genie is backing someone in some way, makes everyone around them believe they are legit. This is why I think when the Genie comes to be under Jafar's rule that the title of prince bestowed upon Aladdin is automatically nullified, because the Genie is no longer backing Aladdin up in that moment.

This reminds me of when I saw the Aladdin show at Disneyland and the clothes change effect failed when the Genie turned Jafar into the sultan. So he just stood there awkwardly for a few seconds while nothing happened until the Genie ad-libbed "Ta-da! You're the sultan!"

The ways that these live-action remakes drastically overthink some aspects of the original films, while also drastically underthinking the consequences of the changes they've made is just so fascinating. I could watch you break down these things all day Joel, lol. I think my favorite example from Aladdin 2019 is that big GirlBoss™ song they gave Jasmine that the film screeches to a halt to show. She screams "I won't be silent!" into the time-stopped nether-void she popped into. And then 5 minutes later is captured and rendered totally silent by Jafar. Did no one in this multi-million dollar production really not look at those two sequences and go "Maybe there's some tonal dissonance here?"

I love video essays like this because they make me think about what a story that was similar but actually considered and interrogated these thematic flaws would look like

This is the first video of yours that I watched and for the first full minute, I was wracking my brain to figure out why I recognized your voice. It's because you played the voice of Hussy in Sarah Z's follow-up video about the legal threats from the Homestuck creators! Very glad I figured that out. That would've kept me up all night.

The live action merchant wasn't nearly as threatening as the original. He calmly approached Jasmin and explained that what she did was stealing. After being denied his money, he grabbed her by the wrist with no real plan before alladin immediately intervenes. He then explains again that Jasmin stole from him, but in a petty tone and is told off by everyone for being rightfully upset.

I love this setup, I'm at a Houseparty full of people I barely know and I'm stuck in a room with this weird man holding his mic like a wine glass and at this point he's too far into a very weird rant for me to leave without being impolite.

I love that you opened with comparing Jasmine's interactions with the vendor because that is THE SCENE I use to explain to other people why this movie did Jasmine so raw. Before, as you said, Jasmine's ignorance was the natural result of her being caged up in the palace all her life with 0 control over OR desire for political influences. She's essentially there for show, something to be pampered and led about in whatever way the Sultan sees fit- just like his pet birds. On the other hand, 2019 Jasmine has still been trapped in the palace all her life- *but she is striving for political power.* She reads tons of books and maps to learn about her kingdom and neighboring territories, has a policy of "putting the people first" (as she describes to Aladdin in one scene)-- So how the fuck does she not know how the economy works by taking that vendor's wares and assuming there'd be no consequences? How does she not know how poverty works by assuming that everyone who's hungry should get free food? How does she not know that she is currently under a fucking monarchy and not a socialist state where such a phenomenon is possible? And *SHE* thinks she has what it takes, to rule a kingdom that she doesn't even understand the bare basics of??? Aladdin 2019 turns Jasmine into a fucking Karen and NEVER addresses this character flaw, because she still becomes Sultan at the end of the movie with no real arc where she learns better present. She's... _SHE'S THE PRINCESS FROM STARKIDS TWISTED!_ *I--*

Jasmine not apologizing for stealing and actually being defiant brings to my mind a phrase I like to use to criticize people like her: Nothing is Impossible for the Guy Who Doesn't Have to Do it. That store keeper is to her what the homeless kids are to him. He's struggling to make ends meet and she feeds the kids at his cost not hers and she takes on an attitude of superiority for it. She's in reality no more suited for Sultan than Jafar.

Prince Philip actually was from a monarch family- his grandfather was a king of Greece, and his greatgrandfather was a king of Denmark. He was also related to queen victoria- in short, classical example of royal inbreeding

Large Joseph is framed like he's in the Les mis movie adaptation

I think the main factor Genie used to grant the wishes for power is intention. Aladdin doesn't want to run a society but rather be with Jasmine, having power in this case is a tool to get to that goal. Compare that to Jafar who wants to rule the nation he sees fit (possibly the world lol). If the metaphysical forced mentioned in your video is the element Jafar saw Aladdin was missing, I think it's fair to say that Aladdin was just given enough influence or power to be a prince without actually running a civilization, which Jafar can see through.

"Language Games" Pounces on the reference to Wittgenstein!

Forget the analysis. Give me more imaginary union leaders yelling things at Jeff Bezos and everyone going "oooooh sick burn."

Not to defend the movie, but like, Jafar's wish was explicitly to "become the sultan of agrabah" not just any sultan. Aladdin just said "prince", the country he's apparently from was improvised, it wasn't part of the deal.

I believe one of the original themes were also “be careful what you wish for” so that’s why the wishes are never solid

11:30 fascinating insight into big joels psyche

I assume they're going with "prince" in the Mediterranean city state sense. So a Prince is basically like a hereditary mayor, and Jasmine is actually a Sultana, the daughter of the national or provincial monarch. If we consider her a princess in context, and not just in that she's a disney princess, then presumably she is princess of Agrabah, presumably because her father was elevated to Sultan by whatever weird religious oligarchy rules wherever Aladdin happens and as his daughter she is entrusted to run the city proper. HOWEVER, because a prince's brothers and sisters are also princes and princesses, and they can't all run a city, the renaissance was actually full of princes who just farted around being rich. So yeah, giving Aladdin a ton of cash and a fancy title really is sufficient.

I have an interpretation of why the movie thinks there's a distinction between Aladdin's princeyness and Jafar's sultanyness. Jafar, at the beginning of the movie, is far more privileged than Aladdin - when Jafar wishes to be made Sultan, that makes everyone (like the captain of the guard) perceive him as Sultan, and Jafar's self-confidence does the rest. But Aladdin (despite "riff-raff, street trash, I don't buy that") lacks the confidence to perceive HIMSELF as a Prince, so even if people are made to believe he is, that reality will be fragile at best, and short-lived at worst. TL;DR the reason Aladdin's wish is less effective than Jafar's is because Aladdin suffers from Imposter Syndrome and Jafar doesn't

Well, technically, Jafar didn't wish to become "a Sultan" but "the Sultan of Agrabah". His wish is way more specific (and less subject to missinterpretations) than Aladdin's "make me a prince".

I do have to point out the Genie claims several limitations to his magic. Namely in reference to magically obtained power or status, he says "The original always shines through". So al/jafar look the part, but their true selves come through, sooner or later, rendering the magic moot

So basically everyone needs to watch “Twisted” by Team Starkid.

The Existential Crisis comic, especially the bit at the end about how the genie tailored his "lovable rascal" personality specifically to make Aladdin like him and therefore want to release him, blew my mind. After all - this is a supernatural being of immense power and intelligence. He's been trapped in the lamp longer than humans have lived in cities (which is a bit odd when you think about it). Clearly, when dealing with such a being, we can take nothing at face value.

honestly it is a lot more compelling to reread that vendor scene as a monarch with actual power financially punishing a citizen with very little power for systemic failures that she does not strive to fix nor recieve any punishment herself for ignoring.

your videos are genuinely some of my favorite content on this platform, it’s such a calming and enjoyable way of learning more about things that i find really interesting. tysm for making the stuff you do :)

I like how Big Joel just overthinks things in a way that it still makes sense.

The only Aladdin remake I choose to acknowledge is the Team Starkid musical, Twisted. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it, it's free on KZfaq.

I think, to me, the difference between Aladdin's and Jafar's wishes is this: Aladdin wished for being a prince - he was alone with the genie and he did not wish to be a prince of a specific place, to actually rule somewhere - he truly wished "just" for being perceived as one, to have the privileges of a prince. This HAD to go away once people found out, because, as you stated in the video, it was just about being called a prince and once no one had a reason to, he was no longer one. Jafar, on the other hand, wished to be specifically the sultan of THAT place, to rule over THESE people. He wished for the power. And he didn't wish for it in secrecy, but in front of his sultan, in front of people. If they believed he used a genie who could grant you any wish, Jafar getting a cool hat was enough for them to think a real exchange of power has happened - and Jafar became a sultan, just like that.

I think it works if genieman grants the wisher's conception of the wish. aladin's concept of a prince is a fancy-boy who can marry the princess, jafar has spent time in the circle and has a much better idea of 'being a sultan' . But i also just really like the idea that the genie just has stuff conjuring powers and is running a grift by telling people who wouldn't know better he can just grant wishes.

I mentioned my issues with this movie before in a comment on another video, but I’ll copy paste what I said there. Honestly, the biggest problem I have with this film comes down to how they changed the characters to try and make them more ‘fleshed out’, when it really didn’t fit the plot. Jasmine now wanting to be the Sultan over her original desire to just be free from the restraints of the palace now makes her relationship with Aladdin just an afterthought. In the original, they both talked about how they felt trapped, and the connection they share over their mutuality. It was beautiful, because you saw how being rich didn’t make Jasmine any more happy than Aladdin. There’s no real reason for her and him to fall in love in this movie outside of ‘because that’s what the story is about’. It also takes away from a Whole New World. The whole reason this scene is great is because Aladdin essentially gives Jasmine what she wants. A chance to see the world, and experience what she never could. It’s what made him different than the other suitors, who could only offer her what she already had. Again, this film is more concerned with making Jasmine’s motivations about being sultan, so this scene comes off as utterly pointless. Or, hell, even the scene that led to them meeting in the first place doesn’t work. Jasmine gives a boy an apple from a cart and doesn’t know you have to pay for them. In the original movie, this was understandable since she had never left the castle walls before, so it made sense. Here, you’re telling me she’s snuck out of the palace before, AND claims to know/care about Agrabah’s people than anyone else, yet she doesn’t know basic things about how their system works? How is she qualified to be Sultan, again? Or Jafar. In the original, he was a twisted man that was well-trusted in the palace by everyone. But here, he’s an insecure little bitch that isn’t intimidating in the least. The head of the guard doesn’t trust him, the Sultan barely seems to trust him, and Aladdin as Prince Ali knows Jafar was the one that betrayed him, yet they do nothing and allow him to be in such a high position of leadership in the palace. None of the guards questioned Jafar ordering them to kill Prince Ali, yet they supposedly already know he’s not exactly trustworthy. In the original, them just blindly following his orders made sense. They had no reason to be suspicious of him. It made him so much more mysterious and vicious, whereas now he’s just some insecure guy that no one trusts anyway. It makes everyone in the palace seem stupid. And lastly, Aladdin. The movie spends so much more time trying and failing to flesh out other characters like Jasmine’s handmaiden or the royal guard that they forget to give the protagonist of the film any character. If anything, they instead take away from what they had on him. Him stealing bread in the beginning, for example, was important because he only steals the bare essentials. We see he only does it to survive, which also shows us, based on the guards’ reactions, that the very law that’s supposed to be protecting them is strict and more harmful than helpful. In this film, however, they’re way more justified, since he’s stealing possessions, rather than necessities. So he goes from being a clever and likeable street rat that just wants to survive, to a bland thief that the movie keeps insisting has more to him. They throw the entire point of the movie, that the only differences between Aladdin and Jasmine is essentially just a flawed class system, away for the sake of elements that don’t even end up servicing the movie well. Those are my two cents, at least.

I have to disagree with you that the genie did anything more to Jafar than he did to Aladdin. It seems like all he did was give him a big hat. Everyone just believed that the genie did more and were therefore willing to accept that Jafar was the real sultan. Power can only exist where people believe it exists. If everyone in the room just said no and proceeded to stab Jafar than he wouldn't be much of a sultan. The fact that they all believe he has power makes that power real.

Big Joel: a prince is someone that we call a prince Prince: hold my Ƭ̵̬̊

To be fair - Aladdin just asks to be a prince. Which is ultimately just a title. So he get the title, but none of the associated land, power, or inheritance. Jafar asks to be the sultan of the specific city they are in. So he gets the title, and everything associated with it.

I wonder if it could be related to how they phrase their wishes: Aladdin wants to be "a prince", to him an abstract concept (maybe even a performance like you mentioned), to Aladdin a princehood does not imply much more than a means to an end, and the way the Genie grants him the wish is to facilitate that end, but Jafar wants to be "the Sultan of Agrabah", his wish is specific because he has observed what being the Sultan of Agrabah means--control of the state and the monopoly on violence; to Jafar being the sultan means he is able to seize the control of the military and become the owner of the resources of Agrabah. I think maybe the genie grants the wish based on the perception of that wish that the person who makes that wish would have--what they would imagine that wish to entail and what they hope to gain from it. So for Aladdin it's a shift in the perception of his social class, for Jafar it's legitimate state power.

Plothole, Aladdin could have wished for a classless utopia to hook up with Jasmine

A prince is also a fearie-tale archetype, meaning a set of characteristics and trappings as well as the story arc that belongs with the role. Might be a bit meta, considering that it happens within a work of fiction. Incidentally, the story arc of alladin, where he is adventurous and proud but good natured but needs to learn humility and overcome a villain, fits that archetype. He was a prince all along ;)

There are things I prefer in this over the original. Main one being Will Smith as the Genie. Yes, the original Genie was made specifically for Robin Williams, but much of Robin's lines were references, either to movies or celebrities. Will Smith's Genie is far more focused and as such, the plot is more focused. Jasmine was... okay, but that random music video-like song came out of nowhere and I felt like it didn't amount to much. Not sure how I feel about Jafar, though. But I think I love Prince Ali and Friend Like Me more than the original. Well, some parts I really liked, which elevated the new songs over the original.

As Varys says in GoT “…If it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, why do we pretend our kings hold the power? Why should a strong man with a sword ever obey a child king like Joffrey, or a wine-sodden oaf like his father?” “Because these child kings and drunken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords.” “Then these other swordsmen have the true power. Or do they?” Varys smiled. “Some say knowledge is power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say it derives from law. Yet that day on the steps of Baelor’s Sept, our godly High Septon and the lawful Queen Regent and your ever-so-knowledgeable servant were as powerless as any cobbler or cooper in the crowd. Who truly killed Eddard Stark, do you think? Joffrey, who gave the command? Ser Ilyn Payne, who swung the sword? Or… another?Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.” “So power is a mummer’s trick?” “A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”

Omg, the Jeff Bezos bit broke me

So here is my take: Alladin and Jafar wish are not fundamentally the same wish. First off, Alladin just says "A prince" were as Jafar includes the qualifier "Of Agrabah." Second, prince and sultan aren't the same role, they're a whole different class of roles all together. Prince, as you pointed out, is a pretty nebulous term. And at its core its just a social status and a prince can do all kinds of things, including not rule. But sultan is a job as well, its the head of state. The term sultan is tied to certain duties and responsibilities that the term prince just isn't. At their core, addalins wish is a kin to "I wish I was rich" while Jafar wish was like "I wish I was president."

Hey I just found your channel, loving the videos. Good job and thanks!

15:30 maybe Jafar is “really” a sultan because he has an actual nation to draw power from and the authority to do so, but “prince” Aladdin only has power/authority relative to a non-existent nation?

Counterpoint on the Jasmine live action moment: Disney wanted to make her seem "empowered," because they know that has draw, but are Disney so engage the trope carelessly because they're Disney.

I would have assumed a different position: - That either Jafars confidence kept the charade up making it difficult for others to see through. And Aladdin was not confident, which is why it was questioned so much. - Or Jafar being a wizard was able to see through the Genies magic as the illusion it was. -Or more likely, they were scared of the Genie and obeyed Jafar regardless of his position.

I admire you're deep understanding of screenwriting Big Joel. I'd love to see you write a movie one day if that is something that would ever interest you.