Animated The King and I

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 7/20/12 at 7:41pm

I know it got awful reviews, but I just realized Christiane Noll was the singing voice for Anna and she's pretty good. They changed the plot drastically - the king doesn't die, of course, but what do you guys think of it? I saw it when I was very little and loved it, not sure what I would think of it now.

[jamiekennywicked]

Posted: 7/20/12 at 7:50pm

As a kid, I liked it. But now, having become much more familiar with the original The King and I (so much so, it's become one of my all time favorite musicals next to Side Show and Ragtime) I'm not so crazy about it. I remember reading due to the failure of the movie, the R&H organization no longer allow animated versions of any of their shows.

[Playbilly]

Posted: 7/20/12 at 11:04pm

You two must be young.. I saw it as an full bodied adult. It is a horrible, horrible film. The R&H estate executor stated in a radio interview that his approval of this project was his biggest mistake. Agreed.

Could have been a nice movie if they stuck to the original story a little closer, but this is not a children's story anyway for heaven's sake.

Updated On: 7/20/12 at 11:04 PM

Posted: 7/20/12 at 11:08pm

It was so bad it made the non-singing Jodie Foster version look good.

[jamiekennywicked]

Posted: 7/21/12 at 5:22am

^ I quite like the Jodie Foster film.

[Princeton Returns]

Posted: 7/21/12 at 10:17am

Whilst changing the story was a bad idea I was more shocked by the shoddy standard of the animation.

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 7/21/12 at 10:36am

I enjoyed the animated film and the Jodie Foster version. Of course neither top the original movie though.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 7/22/12 at 5:46pm

I saw this in the theatres as a young teen. I was obsessed at the time with any attempt to do a non Disney animated film, and pretty leniant with unfair support just because I knew what they were up against--I mean I saw Don Bluth's Thumbelina three times, something I'm not sure how I managed now. But it truly was an awful film. Richard Rich who was in charge of it, started at Disney and did the musical Swan Lake adaptation, Swan Princess a few years before--a film that got a few good reviews. But this was just such a WTF film in every sense, and as Princeton mentioned the actual execution of the crap story was just badm, ragrdless. I believe Rich finally found success doing animated bible DVDs (which fit his extreme Christian right view--he actually spoke out against Don Bluth calling Bluth's one real masterpiece, Secret of NIMH "satanic").

[winston89]

Posted: 7/22/12 at 6:36pm

I was under the impression that the Jodie Foster movie was a remake of the film Anna and the King, another movie about the same story with a tad more historical accuracy than The King and I. However, I could be mistaken.

In any event, I felt that there could have been lush animations and have this be a great way to introduce a classic musical to younger audiences. But, instead, despite not being a disney film, they still took the classic Disney formula for an animated picture by adding in a villain. One, that might I add, never really needed to be there in the first place. That was one thing that just bugged me about the whole thing. Also, another page taken from the Disney animated playbook, was that the bad guy's side kick was stupid. Not to mention that in the King and I, the sidekick spoke in a horrifically offensive Asian accent, pronouncing all his L's as R's.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 7/22/12 at 6:56pm

The fact that the animated film was unquestionably more racist than the original 50 some year old piece, says it all. Yes, they took the Disney formula as mentioned, but handled it particularly badly (as did Rich's previous The Swan Princess).

[PattiLover]

Posted: 7/22/12 at 11:06pm

I've never gotten around to seeing this movie or hearing the soundtrack.

What exactly was the point of making this an animated film anyway? Because it's a story that happens to feature children?

You know, just because kids are in it doesn't make it a kids show.
Nancy gets beaten to death in Oliver!, and community theatres all over America get nasty letters from parents about their children being traumatized.

[RainbowJude]

Posted: 7/22/12 at 11:36pm

The biggest disappointment in regard to this adaptation of THE KING AND I is that it panders to the idea that animation is a medium exclusively for the consumption of children.

It makes me sad to see that this attitude seems to be prevalent on these boards too, but somehow makes me less surprised that THE KING AND I turned out the way it did.