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Despite being kids movies, Disney films have a reputation for including dark elements like
the death of a parent or villains hiding behind a pretty face. But the original stories many
Disney movies are based on are even darker and more gruesome than what makes it into
the final animated feature. We've already gone over the twisted tales behind Cinderella,
The Little Mermaid, and other popular animated films, but we've got even more dark stories
that inspired Disney movies. Stick around until the end for a link to our other video
about Dark Disney Stories!
Here is Screenrant's Dark Disney: 10 REAL Stories Behind Popular Disney Films Part 2.
Peter Pan
In addition to the 1953 Disney movie, the studio released a sequel in 2002 and spun
the story off into an entire franchise surrounding Peter Pan's pixie friend Tinkerbell. However,
the one question Disney's Peter Pan skips over is what happens to the Lost Boys when
they decide they want to grow up. Maybe Peter sends them home? According to the original
novel by J.M. Barrie, that isn't the case, instead, "when they seem to be growing up,
which is against the rules, Peter thins them out." It may not explicitly say Peter kills
the Lost Boys when they get too old, but the phrasing is too menacing for it to mean anything
else. So Neverland isn't just fun adventures and avoiding responsibilities, after all.
Pocahontas
Borrowing the basic story structure of star-crossed lovers from Romeo & Juliet, Disney's Pocahontas
tells the story of colonist John Smith and Native American Pocahontas who fall in love
despite their different beliefs and a language barrier. When Pocahontas' father captures
and plans to execute John Smith, Pocahontas saves him and manages to unite the Native
Americans and colonists. Of course, according to history, that's not how it actually went.
When John Smith arrived in America he was in his mid 30s while Pocahontas was around
10 or 12 and they never had a romantic relationship. Instead, Pocahontas was kidnapped and forced
to marry the Englishman John Rolfe as well as convert to Christianity and change her
name to Rebecca. She died in her 20s from unknown causes. We may like the version of
this story that includes learning to paint with all the colors of the wind, but history
wasn't as kind to Pocahontas.
Beauty and the Beast
The third film from the Disney Renaissance, Beauty and the Beast stays close to the original
text of the fairy tale about a beautiful and kind young woman who falls in love with a
prince that has been transformed into a beast. However, some changes were made from the original
story, like the inclusion of Gaston, and Belle's father being portrayed as an inventor rather
than a merchant. Another big change is the exclusion of Belle's two wicked sisters. In
the original story Beast allows Belle to return home to visit her family for a specific amount
of time, but when her sisters see that she's well-dressed and well-fed they ask her to
stay longer hoping the Beast will be so angry with Belle that he'll eat her alive. And you
thought Cinderella's stepsisters were wicked. Although the sisters are successful in keeping
The Fox and The Hound
Disney's film about a fox named Tod and a hound dog named Copper is a tale of friends
who grow up to be enemies because of their own natural animal instincts and the pressure
of their owners. This Disney movie doesn't necessarily have a happy ending, but it is
much less sad than in the original novel by Daniel P. Mannix. In Disney's version Tod
saves Copper from a bear, then when Copper's owner, a hunter, tries to kill an exhausted
Tod, Copper protects his old friend and the two live happily, if separately ever after.
In Mannix's book, the Hunter trains Copper to track Tod after the fox cased the death
of another of the Hunter's dogs. Copper ends up chasing Tod until the fox collapses from
exhaustion and dies. Then, when the Hunter moves into a nursing home a few years later,
he kills Copper with a shotgun. If you thought Disney's version of The Fox and The Hound
was sad, at least they changed the original ending of the story, which is so much worse.
The Jungle Book
Disney's The Jungle Book is the tale of an orphaned boy raised by the friendly bear Baloo
and panther Bagheera. After a series of trials in the jungle and being pursued by a man-eating
tiger, Mowgli returns to civilization in a nearby human village. However, in Rudyard
Kipling's original books that's not where the story ends. Mowgli is introduced in Kipling's
The Jungle Book, a collection of stories, but one short story in The Second Jungle Book
sees Mowgli banished from the village after he's accused of sorcery, with the villagers
planning to torture his animal family. To get revenge, Mowgli enlists the animals of
the jungle to destroy the village's fields and food supply before eventually setting
loose a herd of elephants that destroy all the village huts, sending the villagers fleeing.
He didn't even leave the bare necessities.
Mulan
The story of the Chinese heroine Mulan dates back centuries and each version follows roughly
the same storyline: when the army calls on a member of each family to serve, Mulan takes
her father's place because he is too old and her younger brother is child. Mulan fights
as a warrior for 12 years and only reveals herself as a woman to her comrades after being
welcomed home by her family. However, one tale features a different ending in which
Mulan returns home to find her father has died and her mother remarried. Although that's
bad enough, it gets even worse: Mulan is summoned by a foreign ruler to be his concubine and
instead of going, she commits suicide. Not the happiest ending for such a renowned warrior,
but fans will be happy to know this ending only appears in one version of the Mulan legend.
Tangled
The most famous version of this tale was written by the Brothers Grimm, which was violent enough
since it featured the Prince in the story going blind after falling into some thorn
bushes. However, the villain in this tale, Dame Gothel, gets a fairly tame comeuppance
compared to Basile’s 17th century telling of the story. In this version, the girl is
taken as retribution for her mother stealing parsley out of an ogress's garden. The rest
of the story is similar to the one we all know but in this telling, the girl - named
Parsley for the plant her mother stole - escapes using three enchanted gallnuts. As Parsley
and the Prince are running away, she throws each gallnut in an attempt to distract the
ogress and they transform into three animals. Though the ogress outsmarts the first two
beasts, the last one, a wolf, swallows her whole. So, by comparison, Mother Gothel had
a much more Disney-fied death scene - with no animal violence involved.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Disney's version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame isn't exactly known for being one of
the studio's lighter films since Quasimodo's mother is murdered by Frollo on the steps
of a cathedral and the minister of justice later sings about being damned to hellfire.
However, Victor Hugo's original story is notably darker, which shouldn't surprise anyone since
Hugo also wrote Les Misérables. In the original novel, Esmeralda is charged with the attempted
*** of Captain Phoebus and sentenced to death. Although Quasimodo is able to offer
her sanctuary in the cathedral for a time, Frollo eventually hands her over to the authorities.
When Frollo laughs while Esmeralda is hanged, Quasimodo pushes him off of Notre Dame, then
finds Esmeralda's body and stays with her until he dies of starvation. Again, this is
a Victor Hugo story so the fact that everyone is dead or miserable by the end shouldn't
be too surprising.
Hercules
Disney's take on the Greek mythological figure of Hercules focuses on the demi-god's transformation
from zero to hero (in no time flat). For his love interest, Disney adapted Hercules' first
wife Megara into a spunky but conflicted heroine who won't say she's in love. But, by the end
of the film, Hercules and Meg ride off into the sunset to live happily ever after. In
the original myth, though, Megara's love isn't won over by the hero, she's given to him as
a gift for saving Thebes. Plus, in an even darker turn to their story, Hercules kills
their children during a temporary god-induced madness and in some versions kills Megara
as well. In general, it's not the kind of material suitable for a Disney movie.
The Princess and the Frog
The Disney version of the classic tale of a princess and a frog is changed significantly
from the original to be set in 1920s New Orleans and instead of changing the prince back, a
kiss turns Tiana into a frog herself. Though true love's kiss does the trick in the end,
the original folktale of The Frog Prince sees a number of other methods used to turn the
frog back into a prince. In the Brother's Grimm version, the princess throws the frog
against a wall, while other tales see the princess chopping off the frog's head or burning
its skin, both of which trigger the prince's transformation. We don't want to tell the
storytellers how to do their job, but a kiss is definitely a much more kid-friendly way
to break a spell.
So what do you think of our list? Did we miss any other gruesome stories that inspired your
favorite Disney movies? Let us know in our comment section and don't forget to subscribe
to our channel for more videos like this one. If you want to watch part 1 of this video,
click on the link at the top right! Thanks!