Typically, heroes have a number of admirable qualities. Maybe it's their selfless devotion, their endless perseverance, or their courage in the face of danger that eventually helps them achieve greatness. Sometimes, a great hero may not even be that extraordinary and is just a regular person, but they achieve greatness or have greatness thrust upon them. However, Aladdin was neither one of these cases. Aladdin literally killed his father by his inability to do anything and eventually had greatness thrust upon him because he was so dumb. I'm not really sure what the message of this story was, because Aladdin was actually just a selfish, materialistic idiot but for some reason was extremely successful despite his deception and poor qualities. Among the bad things he does, he literally summons the princess to his place and sleeps with her while she's deathly frightened because he couldn't have her in marriage. He's also incredibly shallow and materialistic, always indulging in wealthy pleasures. I understand he comes from poverty, so it makes sense that wealth is appealing. However, it's not like he uses it for good, he just keeps accumulating wealth and using it for himself. A nice parallel I thought of was Jean Valjean from Lés Miserable who similarly acquires a newfound wealth through silver (including silver plates), but the difference is that Valjean learns his lesson immediately after stealing the silver and uses it to make a better life for himself and those around him.
The actual story of Aladdin is nothing at all like I expected and, quite honestly, sends a terrible message. "Be an idle, selfish, materialistic, deceiving person and you'll get the money, the girl, and the whole kingdom too" is kind of what I took away from it, so it's pretty strange that this is the story Disney chose to make into a movie. Disney's story selection and alterations are really interesting, when you consider how messed up all the original stories were. There were some obvious moments that I recognized from the Disney version, such as the cave scene and Aladdin marching into the city with his slaves, but most of the story and even those parts were fairly different. Also, where did the whole "genies only grant 3 wishes" thing come from? And why were there two genies? I just think the whole thing was really absurd. Also the 40 black and 40 white slaves... I mean, I guess I'm glad Disney changed that part up. One major change that I think was fairly interesting was that in Disney's version, the magician is Jafar, the Grand Vizier, but in the original story, they're two separate entities. Hence, in the original story, there are 3 conflict drivers, whereas, in the Disney version, there's only Jafar. All 3 conflicts in the original story are resolved with nearly no trouble because Aladdin pretty much just wishes them away, or comes up with a slightly cunning plan. Once again, don't get the message there... ask and you shall receive maybe? Yeah, no. Aladdin used to be one of my favorite Disney stories, now I just don't know how to feel. I mean, if I recall, the Disney version was just so different that it's probably fine, but I definitely have to give it another watch.
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