Attack of the Disney Sequels, Part II
IRONY~!!
written by Mike on April 11, 2025

A while ago, I got talked into joining the Disney Movie Club, or as I like to call it, the Get 5 DVDs for the Price of 2 & Then Here's A Crapload Of Junk Mail Club. You're more than likely familiar with the concept. It's been the butt of many stand-up routines by a host of D-list comedians trying to make names for themselves in the seven minutes of stage time they've been alotted. It comes right after the joke about how they live in Los Angeles now & boy, renting an apartment sure is hilariously expensive! So I don't need to rearrange any more jokes about it so that they're "in my own words."

Things were going fine, save for one time when I was [ ] that close to accidentally owning Herbie: Fully Loaded, & the fact that I was slowly starting to notice a pattern... a very familiar pattern...

They just. Won't. Quit. Like Meat Loaf. Disney is like Meat Loaf the singer. Or, depending on your reference & whether or not you see him, Jordan.

It's been four rather long years since I first noticed this new trend of sequel after sequel after occasional new movie after sequel, after Amazing 3-D Pixar Flick after sequel. It's not that I hate sequels with little necessity. No one with Mad Max 2 in their DVD collection can say that with a straight face. The problem here is twofold.

1. A lot of Disney's films are based on stories that end with a prince & princess living happily ever after. That's not exactly a cliffhanger ending. Adding extra detail to how their marriage is holding up takes away from the fairy tale image you were initially going for. What annoying psychology major was jonesing for a sequel to Cinderella? Yeah, Disney made a sequel to Cinderella. And I swear to Jesus there's rumors of a third movie about what would happen if the Fairy Godmother's magic never happened. Just what I wanted: Alternate 1985 Cinderella.

2. These sequels are being churned out at a rate of about three each year. Now, I'm no gerontologist, but I think it's starting to get old. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, like Disney has some kind of weird I-can't-let-stories-end addiction. They'd be like that T-shirt in the crappy white T-shirt store on the boardwalk that says "I'm not an alcoholic... alcoholics go to meetings!" if it weren't for the fact that people are still buying these movies. The worst part is, the animation in a lot of these sequels looks very thrown together & not as much like a perfected masterpiece. If professional athletes had that same work ethic, throwing together a team & just relying on fans being in the seats, then the New York Yankees would be in last place every year. Hey, wouldn't that be awesome? Well, alright, fourth place. Gotta give the Devil Rays some credit.

I already wrote about Cinderella II & its almost as equally unnecessary brethren four years ago, when I was still cutting my baby teeth on what B has euphemised as "internet journalism," & if you didn't already click on that big link at the top of the page that said Part 1, then you've probably already read it. Upon browsing the Disney Movie Club's catalog, I've discovered that enough sequels have been released since to come back to this & do it again. Then I'll follow it up with "Am I Punk Or Emo, Part II: Your MySpace Photo Is Stupid", & "Super Merchandising Bros., Part II: Here Is A Scan Of A Hot Topic Catalog."

As with all Disney creations, there are lessons to be learned in each of these sequels. There's always the obvious doyyy one that you can't escape, but then there's always the unintentional one that creeps its way into the consciousness of the type of person who thinks too much. Not in the English major sort of way where you see what T.S. Elliot did there, but in more of a way where you see the pattern of bad guys in video games blinking red when you hurt them & then try to explain it physiologically in your head. In the "I should not be hypothesizing about this while watching a children's movie" way. I'll be highlighting a few of these as I go.

But first, let's start with my official disqualification of from the list of Disney sequels of a character who's gotten so many, that it might as well be considered a series under the Land Before Time clause...

And what timing! Just this morning, Winnie-The-Pooh was given his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Yes, that Hollywood Walk of Fame. The real, actual walk; not some special one for cartoon characters or whatever. It's far from a first. Mickey's got one. Big Bird's got one. Pee-wee frigging Herman has a star, so it was only a matter of time before Disney's most popular non-original character made his way onto the Boulevard.

In Part 1, I touched on the first of Pooh's first sequel, in which Christopher Robin goes off to school, mostly so he can learn how to spell it correctly & not as "skul," which makes Pooh think he's going to Skull and, I don't know, getting crucified or something. Since that Grand Adventure, Pooh & his friends have had a Tigger movie, a Piglet movie, a Christmas movie, a New Year's movie, a Roo movie, and two movies where a heffalump gets title billing. Just as I predicted last time... no Owl. In fact, there's been no sign of him in the last three installments. They actually phased him out of the Hundred Acre Wood, banished him to the entrance to Main Street USA with Brer Fox & the cat from Pinocchio & other characters waiting to give their autographs to a seven-year-old who has no idea who they are. Do they even have an Owl costume? Why overlook the guy? Because he's distinguished & boring? We don't even know him, man. You barely gave him a chance. I'm surprised he wasn't waiting on a rooftop on Hollywood Boulevard with falling bird crap at the ready.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way & made you uncomfortable & worried about me, let's start with a sequel that I let slip through the cracks last time around. But only because I want to do this chronologically.

Beauty & The Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997)

Oh no someone has put another ugly spell on the Beast to try & ruin his Christmas!

I'm just kidding. This actually takes place before Belle confesses her love for our furry hero out loud so his magic flower can hear her, thereby breaking the spell on what actually turns out to be a studmuffinly prince. So it takes what the first movie summed up with a snowball fight & a song, & stretches it out into an hour & 12 minute Christmas special about Belle trying to cheer up the Beast & all his talking furniture by reminding them that Christmas is (a) coming, & (b) awesome.

Anybody who knows me knows how I feel about Christmas. I make a huge deal out of it, to the point where I even hijack the website & do all three posts the week before. Hell, I already know what I want to write about this year. While The Enchanted Christmas doesn't exactly ruin the holiday or make me want to throw it across the room & set it on fire, it didn't make my list of the greatest Christmas shows from two holidays ago for a reason... I've seen it, & it's mediocre at best.

The new sense of hope everyone starts getting that Belle might actually break the spell on them comes to the dismay of the Beast's pipe organ (Tim Curry) & piccolo (Pee-wee frigging Herman), who prefer their enchanted existence, as they feel it gives them more power. And also something about the organ getting jealous because he feels like warming the Beast's heart would mean less time playing him. Think about it. The pipe organ is the quintessential instrument for cold-hearted evil castle dwellers, & saving Christmas would leave poor 88-keys Curry very lonely. And when convincing the Beast that Belle doesn't really care about him & just wants presents or whatever doesn't work, the organ decides to play really loudly & make the castle walls crumble due to the sheer amount of noise. Is life as something not trapped inside a wall that terrible that you'd rather die than not be able to play Chopsticks when you're shivering cold? The Beast eventually saves everyone by destroying the organ, & everyone goes back to having a merry Christmas. The piccolo eventually grew up to be friends with Joanie Cunningham.

What we've learned: If Beauty & the Beast is a tale as old as time, & they're celebrating Christmas, then nothing important happened before the birth of Christ. What's that? Dinosaurs? Never happened. Just like in those little comic book tracts the homely looking prophet hands out at the train station. Would you like to know Beauty & the Beast personally?

Tarzan & Jane (2002)

Ever see the final episode of a popular sitcom from the '80s & '90s, where most of it is spent with the cast having flashbacks of moments from earlier episodes? The last episode of Full House is the example that comes to my mind, where Michelle falls off a horse & bangs her head, causing her to lose her memory, & her family spends about an hour telling her what happened in 4 or 5 episodes from the last 8 seasons. Tarzan & Jane is like that, only the flashbacks are episodes from the Legend of Tarzan TV show that ran on the Disney Channel. If you're like most people & have never seen the TV show, this compilation isn't quite as bad, because you don't get that "do you realize tarzan the show" vibe from it. Still, a movie full of flashbacks that are separated several times by the present-day scene & having everybody go "Oh & then hey remember this?" makes for a weak story.

Said story revolves around Tarzan's animal buddies trying to help Jane think of what to do for the couple's first wedding anniversary. First she suggests a party, but after remembering an episode where her friends fly in from London to meet the savage man who stole Jane away from them, & then Jane tries to prove that she's still civilized by trying to get Tarzan to wear proper clothes & attend a tea party only to get attacked by panthers & having ape man save day, she decides that Tarzan might not go for that. Her second idea, exchanging diamonds or something as gifts, gets thrown out when she remembers the last time Tarzan dealt with diamonds, by helping two greedy prospectors find a diamond mine in exchange for getting to keep one for Jane, only to have them try to off him when they find their treasure. The final suggestion is eliminated by somehow proving that a prior visit from Jane's old boyfriend turned double agent = dancing is a bad idea. Dancing. They remember a jealousy bout to negate dancing, & after this connection confuses the crap out of Jane & leaves her depressed on her anniversary because she's run out of ideas, in swings Tarzan with a surprise. The surprise... why, diamonds & a party with dancing, of course! Ape Boy really does understand your civilized culture... it's all about money & fancy events.

What we've learned: Having trouble finding your woman's G-spot? It's in your wallet. Buy her shiny things & take her out dancing. Yeah, I know it reminds her of a passionate fling with a former lover, but you're just going to have to bite the bullet. She loves you now, & those other 37 guys don't matter. But if you want to keep it that way, you'd better treat her like gold. Or diamonds, rather. She don't want no scrubs.

P.S. Not in a row.

101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure (2003)

wtf isn't that more like 1 dalmatian

Despite the fact that this about Patch getting left behind as the dalmatians move to a new home, & he eventually ends up in the big city...

 O RLY

this one is actually pretty decent. The difference here is that Patch goes to London voluntarily, as his being left behind gives him the perfect opportunity to relaunch his career after the cancellation of Growing Pains. Plus, they're auditioning for a new sidekick for the TV wonder dog Thunderbolt, so Patch, whom you may remember pressing himself up to the TV in the original movie, also get to meet his idol in real life. Meanwhile, Thunderbolt's current sidekick, Lightning (ho ho I get it), gets jealous & feeds T-bolt a story that they're planning on cancelling the series by killing off his character.

With the help of Patch's trekkie-esque knowledge of the show, Thunderbolt decides that the best way to save his career is by becoming a hero in real life, & the two botch several attempts at "rescuing" citizens who weren't actually in distress before managing to save Patch's entire family from the newly paroled Cruella de Vil, whose desire for dalmatian fur has been replaced with, of all stupid things, a shared obsession with her new beatnik artist boyfriend (Martin Short) of painting black spots. Which is like making a movie about Gargamel getting over his obsession for wanting to eat Smurfs by dating a woman whose favorite color is blue.

What we've learned: The cast of Grey's Anatomy should all learn how to actually perform complicated surgery... you know, just in case.

The Jungle Book 2 (2003)

The Jungle Book: Champion Edition. This movie has pretty much the same story, except now there's also the girl that Mowgli meets at the end of the first one. Mowgli psycho crush her.

The theatrical re-release of the Jungle Book in 1984 marked the first time I remember "going to the movies," so it quickly became one of my favorite Disney films. It has one of the best endings ever, too. Mowgli, an orphaned human boy raised in the jungle by a panther who makes friends with a bear & some elephants & vultures, spies a cute little human girl fetching water & does the G-rated version of huminahuminahumina. Or, as Mowgli's adoptive little brother puts it in this one, "Shanti blinked her big, beautiful, brown eyes at you, & you followed her into our village." Sometimes, that's all it takes. It takes the batting eyes of a sailor's work song.

Retelling his stories in the jungle in perfect English, the language of the animals, to his new village family & friends leaves Mowgli (the Kid who sees dead people) missing life in the wild, & when Baloo (John Goodman) comes calling him back to play in the jungle with him & sing the Bear Necessities like 80 times & almost get eaten by Shere Khan the tiger, he can't resist. Since all Shanti sees is her friend getting taken out of the village by a bear, she & Mowgli's little bro take it up themselves to brave the jungle & save him, nearly getting eaten by Kaa the snake several times in the process. It all comes to a dotted head when the three humans catch up with each other & Shere Khan catch up with the three humans. The tiger gets distracted by some vultures & eventually gets burned again. The only thing missing from this picture is the tragic absense of Louie, the monkey king. Oh, the rest of the monkeys are still here, but without their swingin' jive leader, they don't hold water. Or fire, like he wanted to in the first place.

What we've learned: Your friend is not being attacked by a wild animal. It's just visiting. Look, he's tickling him. It's ok. And for the love of God start looking for the bear necessities or we'll just keep singing it you son of a bitch.

Atlantis: Milo's Return (2003)

Since you're most likely one of the just about everybody who didn't bother seeing Atlantis: the Lost Empire, here's a summary: Milo, a linguist for the Smithsonian Institute, translates an old Viking guidebook to lead an assembled crew to the lost city of Atlantis, which although still inhabited by its millenia-old king & his daughter, Kida, lay in ruin, having lost the knowledge to power the city's defenses (big giant robots powered by a glowing gem). Despite attempts by greedy crewmembers who plan to steal the gem, Milo helps Kida decipher the lost Atlantean language & restore the city to full power. The rest of the crew are given an insanely handsome bribe by the Atlanteans king to keep his city a secret, while Milo stays behind to help rebuild the city & make out with the princess.

Now take that & put Milo, the princess, & his crew into the hypothetical Mystery Machine, make them as badly animated as the crew of the Mystery Machine, & send them to exotic locations above the surface, where myths that may or may not have anything to do with Atlantis originate. Three exotic locations, to be exact, as this movie was actually supposed to be episodes for a planned TV series that never got off the ground after the Lost Empire became a lost cause at the box office. It's an interesting albeit otherwise bland trifecta of adventures to defeat giant mythical monsters, which have always somewhat fascinated me in the same way that I love Batman because of his enemies. It's really a shame, because the synopsis, in & of itself, should make for the greatest movie ever. The Atlantis crew finds itself up against a giant octopus terrorizing a Nordic fishing village & its precious supply of exercise treadmills, then go on a heartwarming adventure through the American Southwest to rescue a beloved bicycle tame a group of coyotes made of sand, & finally head for Antarctica to find the Spear of Destiny before a giant ice monster & a giant fire monster. The Spear of Destiny not only has the power to raise Atlantis to the surface again, but it's also the same one that was used to cut Jesus Christ's side open. And it's in Antarctica. It was put there to hide it from the Nazis & is currently being saught after by monsters made of ice & fire. And Disney messed it up because they made it star the cast of one of their least successful movies.

What we've learned: Coyotes. Made. Of sand.

Stitch! The Movie (2003)

In this movie, pokemon the game

Rather than being a direct sequel to Lilo & Stitch, this acts more as the introduction to the TV show, in which the titular characters travel Hawaii to track down & tame 625 evil genetic experiments. Stitch was #626, & was tamed by Lilo in the original movie after crash landing near her house, and... you know what? It all makes a lot more sense if you just remember that in this movie, pokemon the game. Only with a lot more numbers.

You see, as a formerly evil concoction, Stitch considers the other experiments his "cousins," so he feels an obligation to tame them. Not for some kind of evangelical purpose, but because they're otherwise going to be kidnapped by a pissed off bipedal whale with beefy arms. That's the whole TV series in a very tiny nutshell. This movie starts off with said pissed off whale & his rodentlike boss searching for the experiments & their creator, the sluggish Dr. Jumba, who's been living with Lilo's family. Though he manages to catch Jumba & experiment #625, the others have been hidden in a small, dehydrated form, only to be found later by Lilo & Stitch, who hydrate one with electrical powers to try & power Jumba's rocket ship & use it to save him. It doesn't quite work, & now there's a runaway evil electric yellow thing on the loose. In this movie, pokemon the game.

The two eventually catch up with Not Pikachu (or as they've nicknamed him, Sparky) & with some trouble manage to instill a sense of belonging in him, which later proves useful when angry rodent space boss & his beefy-armed whale goon come back for the rest of the experiments. Sparky basically short circuits the entire evil guys' ship right before he's about to cut Stitch in half with a laser, Goldfinger style. The ship crash lands back on Hawaii... under a waterfall... and, well, those experiments don't have Gremlin-esque ears for nothin'.

What we've learned: Two things. 1) Your evil relatives are part of the family, too, & will learn to behave if you give them enough hugs, and 2) BUY ALL OF OUR TOYS OR YOUR CHILDREN WILL HATE YOU

The Lion King 1½ (2004)

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are dead. But since my knowledge of Shakespeare begins with Olivia Hussey's breasts & ends with Gwyneth Paltrow's, long live Timon & Pumbaa.

This self-proclaimed "in-between-quel" is actually another rare case where it's existence isn't really necessary, but it still makes for a good time. And it gets right into it from the beginning, where we see Timon & Pumbaa watching the original Lion King movie a la Mystery Science Theater 3000. Timon wants to skip to the parts about them, & it turns out that the story, as seen in their own perspective, are of greater importance to the big picture than the original movie suggests.

We then cut to Timon leaving his meerkat colony because he was tired of being ridiculed for being bad at digging... which is kind of what meerkats do, so you can't really fault the guy for wanting to get out of there. On his journey to find a new home, he meets Head-Baboon-In-Charge Rafiki, who tells the troubled Timon that he seeks "Hakuna Matata," & explains to him how to get to it. Not yet realizing that Rafiki is referring to a state of mind, Timon assumes that the "directions" he's been given lead to what is actually Pride Rock. He befriends Pumbaa along the way, & together they follow the herd of animals on their way to the presentation of baby Simba. Then Pumbaa farts & causes several animals in the back of the crowd to collapse. The animals in front of them think they're bowing & follow suit, & the tie-ins to the story we've already seen keep going from there, until eventually we get to the point where the two actually meet Simba, & they stretch out the part where we normally just see the cub growing up to witness some of their adventures in their lush jungle home.

By the end of the revised story, Timon realizes that Rafiki's problem-free philosophy isn't a search for a new home, but a state of mind among friends & loved ones, & he eventually ends up helping defeat the entire herd of hyenas in the process. Having finally felt like he's found his place in life, Timon decides to bring his old meerkat family to his physical place in life... the worry-free lush jungle home, where they don't have to dig anymore.

What we've learned: Timon's search for a home ended up being anywhere with his best friend by his side rather than a physical place. So I guess we've learned that home is where the fart is.

Mulan II (2005)

Through their animated movies, Disney has taught many valuable lessons of self-worth & friendship to generations. But save for a mention in Aladdin that was buried under the "be yourself" lesson, one crucial subject plaguing teens everywhere remained virtually untouched... arranged marriages.

That's the big picture of Mulan II. Not for our heroine, who has chosen General Shang as her husband all by her big girl self, but for the emperor's three daughters, whom Mulan (Ming-Na) & Shang have been instructed to escort to their betrothed husbands, princes of another kingdom, in an attempt to form a peaceful alliance between the two dynasties. The smaller picture is that Mulan's guardian dragon (Not Eddie Murphy) has realized that if Mulan gets married, he serves no purpose, & his status as a hero among her dead ancestors is in peril. So he spends the journey trying to break those two up, during which Mulan realizes that leading the girls into forced marriage to strangers is wrong, & begs Shang to turn back. The rest of the journey involves dealing with their differences while doing their best to look past them & maintain their love for each other, they do manage to slow down their trip a bit. The problem with this whole outdated statement is that three girls meet their princes & fall in love with them anyway. Sure, the arranged ceremony, itself, doesn't quite go as planned, but that's a pretty bold coincidence against Disney's own argument.

What we've learned: Arranged marriages say the darndest things~!

Tarzan II (2005)

Does that say "New songs by Phil Collins"? Joy & rapture! (Mostly rapture)

Tarzan II combines all the lessons of the Jungle Book, & just about every "you're not different you're special" after it for that matter, with the "in-between-quel" state of being of the Lion King 1½, & adds more gorillas. Here we see Tarzan as a young boy still struggling to fit in with his animal buddies, so he runs away from home to find himself. Why he bothers to look for himself in a place called DARK MOUNTAIN is a good question, but there he's confronted by some angry gorillas & is subsequently rescued by an even larger gorilla, Zugor (George Carlin) dubbed the "monster of the mountain." Reluctant to do anything to help Tarzan find himself & pretty much anything else besides sit on his mountain by himself, Zugor ends up teaching Tarzan the same "your differences make you stronger" lesson that his mother's been trying to get into his thick noggin the whole time. The difference is that Zugor points out all the awesome vine skateboardy stuff that Tarzan go do & how awesome it is, rather than just console him & tell him everything's going to be ok.

What we've learned: Well, I think we just learned why homeschooling our children doesn't really work out very well. Sometimes it takes a teacher & not a parent to instill the facts of life into us. And sometimes it takes a graphically depictive educational video.

Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has A Glitch (2005)

Not satisfied with the transition from tasmanian devil to lovable, family-oriented alien thing to pokemon the game, Disney decided to make a more direct sequel to the original movie that takes place before the events of the aforementioned Stitch! the Movie. How do they fill in the story of this one? By coming up with a story about how Stitch, as an experiment, was never quite finished, & will die if Jumba doesn't build some sort of device that'll expose Stitch to the remaining amount of radiation needed to "complete" him. Of course, it doesn't matter at this stage that he had Jumba at hello.

This is like taking the ending to Snow White & saying hey listen, about that kiss you gave her? Yeah, that only lasts for like a year. You need to find some radioactive chap stick or something & do it again, big guy. It just doesn't work.

What we've learned: Radioactive chap stick is the most awesome idea I've ever come up with.

I'll quit here. The only ones left are the very newly released Bambi II & Kronk's New Groove, & I haven't even seen the original Emperor's New Groove yet to be able to tell you what in the holy crap a sequel to it would be about. Meanwhile, it doesn't look like Disney's showing any signs of stopping the sequel machine any time soon, so I'll see you folks in 2010 & we can do this again. In the meantime, keep a look out for a fourth Lilo & Stitch movie in the next few months, a sequel to the Fox & the Hound, & of course, Alternate 1985 Cinderella. They're even planning on making The Little Mermaid into a trilogy. That should be interesting. In the first movie, a mermaid longs to discover the world on the land. In the second movie, her human daughter longs to discover the world under the sea. I guess in the third movie they all evolve into bird people & go protect the Earth Temple.

Dammit, I almost got all the way through.
What was that I was saying earlier about not being a gerontologist?