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3,000 words about, uhm, Aladdin. ^^;
So this entry is a rambling that is the result of having watched Return of Jafar and King of Thieves in the Japanese dub over three days, which is more Aladdin than I have watched in a long time. Oh, and it's also the result of it being three in the morning (although it was a mere eleven-thirty when I started, ohoho). And believe me, I completely understand if you don't want to read it, so no worries there.
Okay. So. I am rather fond of Disney movies. When I was in middle school, I was watching through all of my tapes of Disney movies. And in October of seventh grade, I got to Aladdin. And though I had never had any particular love for this movie before, when I watched it this time, I thought it was fantastic. I watched it two and a quarter times in a row before my mother made me stop. XD; Probably you could say I was pretty well obsessed with the whole Aladdinverse up until ninth grade, which is when Athena introduced me to Escaflowne. And though I doubt I'll ever be as into Aladdin as I was during those two years, I still really enjoy the series a lot. Well, Hercules is decidedly funnier, but never mind that now.
So, having recently watched RoJ, what do I want to say about it ... In my opinion, it's certainly the worst of the three movies. Well, it actually wasn't as bad as I remembered it being. The animation is not really any worse than KoT (though Jasmine seems unusually thin throughout - oh, and Al's outfit magically changes between shots), and though the story is a little less interesting it's not awful or anything. My main problem with RoJ is that a lot of it seems so awkward. As if the writers weren't quite sure how to write the characters after the end of the first movie. I guess you could argue that it suits the story - all of the characters themselves are getting used to their new lives after the end of the first movie. But it's just so weird.
(If I was trying to be clever, I would say the major flaw of RoJ is allowing Gilbert Gottfried to sing not just one, but two songs. OH GET IT HE HAS A FUNNY VOICE OH HA HA HA HA YOU'RE SO CLEVER SARAH.)
My main problem is with Jasmine. It's not unusual for Jasmine to be a little bit off-character. (And even when she's in-character she always gets the dorkiest lines.) In the series episode "Sneeze the Day," she pretty well spends a full twenty minutes running around screaming, which is really bizarre when you compare it to such episodes as "Garden of Evil," "Web of Fear," "Raiders of the Lost Shark," "A Sultan Worth His Salt," and especially "The Secret of Dagger Rock," which many consider to be her best episode. I mean, sure, she's allowed to scream or whatever, but at least let her do something. In both "Forget Me Lots" and "The Wind Jackals of Mozenrath" it's made pretty clear she's at least as strong as Al is. Yet in RoJ she's reduced to a role in which she alternates between anger and sappiness in a very one-dimensional manner. I guess the problem isn't helped by the fact that she's really only a secondary character in both of the sequels. There's a handful of series episodes in which she doesn't even appear. The way Jasmine is treated as a character is sometimes a little weird.
Actually, I guess Jasmine is the most out-of-character in RoJ, though Al has his moments too. Man, it'd been so long since I saw this movie that when it got to the scene where the sultan asks Al to be his new royal vizier, I was all "!!?? Why is this never mentioned again??!!" Well, it's still weird that it's never mentioned again, even if he does refuse the position.
Man. Genie and Abu are probably the two Aladdin characters who are written the most consistently throughout. I think that is brilliant.
Okay. But RoJ. The basic story is that Jafar has returned and wants to take over Agrabah. Not so exciting there. We have the introduction of Abis Mal, though he's missing his sarcastic sidekick. I would say though that most of the movie focuses on Iago and his wavering loyalties. He is a bit of an odd Disney character, in that respect. He starts the series firmly on the side of the antagonist and passes through the side of the protagonist - sometimes reverting, as in "The Day the Bird Stood Still" - only to end in gray. He is the opposite of Aladdin in that the person he cares most about is himself. In RoJ, he starts on Jafar's side but quickly decides to go off alone. When he sees an opportunity, he takes it, and in the process he saves Aladdin's life, almost inadvertently. So he's still on his own side here. When he agrees to help Jafar, it's only to save his own skin. Only when he helps Genie escape can we see he can be trusted - and then he's the hero of the movie, after he manages to push Jafar's lamp into the lava. There is actually a lot more about Iago throughout the series than I realized before! You wouldn't think he'd be such a main character, but I guess if Abu and Carpet get their own episodes, he can have his too ...
I had something to say about RoJ that was going to tie into this, but I forgot it. Something about some parts of the Aladdin series being the weirdest things ever. But I'll say this anyway -- why was "Poor Iago" ever written? Why? What on earth were they thinking? It's just ... so weird! What the heck!
Something that's weird about RoJ is that it has a part in the middle that's like a trillion times more serious than the rest of it, even more serious than the big battle at the end. I mean, dude, Aladdin is accused of murdering the sultan and he's going to be executed! That's a big thing! And it seems like it's not given enough attention and it's over way too fast. I think maybe I would prefer it if Jasmine actually thinks he killed her father -- I mean, if it's not Jafar acting as Jasmine (as cool as that "Good bye ... street rat" part is). But I guess that would make the whole thing even more serious. Actually, I guess that would be pretty heavy for a Disney movie. But ugh, this movie, I don't know ...
I think it's interesting to compare the execution scene in RoJ to the execution scene in "Armoured and Dangerous," where it's Jasmine who's to be executed for betraying her father (who is possessed by demon armour, but never mind that part!!). If I'm remembering the episode correctly, in both cases the executioner is Rasoul. The scene in "Armoured" is pretty interesting because in it Rasoul saves her and it's pretty cool. I get a kick out of Rasoul, another character who's not always written consistently. I just think it's interesting that even though in the first movie he's eager to throw Al in jail and in RoJ he's eager to kill him, there are episodes where the audience is expected to accept him as not all that bad a guy. "Destiny on Fire" is the most obvious example -- he is shown as an intelligent man who is loyal to his job and to his sultan, he just lacks patience and has a different way of going about things than Al does. He is strangely absent in "Night of the Living Mud," unless I am misremembering, but then again in "The Return of Malcho" he admits that when the time comes, he'll be glad to call Al his sultan. Yet there are episodes such as "Air Feather Friends" -- when he takes Abu away -- where he's a full-out antagonist. Well, okay, so that's the first episode of the series and as such not the best example, but there are plenty of episodes after that where he's none too pleased to have to be putting up with Al. I guess you could argue that for most of KoT the reason Rasoul dislikes Aladdin is because he's discovered that he's the "Prince of Thieves," but what about the beginning then? Rasoul is written just as inconsistently as the sultan, who goes back and forth between stupidity and brilliance, is. It's more obvious with these two than with Jasmine, I think, just because they're easier to classify.
Man, it weirds me out that there are two execution scenes in this series. Dude. Oh, and that time Jasmine dies, which is ridiculous, but anyway.
Another thing about RoJ is that it was originally intended to be the first few episodes of the series, as evidenced by the fact that clips from RoJ appear in the series' opening credits. When watching the movie, the spots where commercials would be inserted are actually really obvious. But that doesn't bother me as much as it bothers me that they used the first movie's "The Battle" for not only the scene where Al's trying to rescue the sultan, but for the end as well. Watching that, it just seems really obvious that that BGM was written to fit especially with the end of the first movie, and it's distracting when it's used for something else. Well, it's interesting that when it ends for the first time, Al is starting his journey back to Agrabah -- that's sort of parallel to the first movie, only ... backwards ... well, never mind.
Moving onto KoT. I honestly like this movie. I mean, I really do. It is not as strong as the first movie and it could never stand on its own, but I really like it for what it is. I really like themes of loyalty and betrayal -- themes that run lightly through most of the series but which are strongest in the movies, in KoT especially. Al discovers his father is alive only to be disgusted at the reasons why he left. He is frustrated that the desire to be rich turns out to be more important to Cassim than the chance to see his son's wedding (I love that moment when Cassim sees he's defeated and he throws the sword down -- it's just good). By rescuing his father, Al rejects him. I find their relationship a really interesting one, probably for the same general reasons that my favourite part of Escaflowne is the interplay between Van and Folken.
As I recall it, most of the promotion for this movie revolved around the wedding aspect of it. And though there are a grand total of three wedding scenes in this movie (the second one being completely free of guests? what??), I don't think that's really what the movie is about. I mean, there's no conflict with the wedding -- everyone in the audience knows it's going to happen eventually, and so the only question is when. I was watching this video late at night and so I had the volume pretty low and could barely hear it enough to understand the Japanese, and so as a result I was thinking a lot about what the real plot of this movie might be. One aspect is a man's fall from power, although that's rather small. One is certainly a man's struggle to come to terms with himself -- ah, how similar it is to the heart of the first movie! (Slightly related note: over three movies and 70+ episodes, Aladdin still hasn't learned to quit lying. Although the confidence complex seems to have worn away a bit -- none of the "ihatemyselfandiwanttodie" issues from the first movie, "Mudder's Day," or "My Fair Aladdin" (I love that episode) seem to be present in KoT. Ah, hilarious though~) But I think the biggest plot-theme-thing of this movie is the struggle of a man and his son to understand each other. ((Well, hopefully it's actually there and I'm not just saying this because it's something that's exploded in my own life recently.))
(((Admittedly my favourite part of "My Fair Aladdin" is how Daru says Al's name wrong. I like to say it that way on purpose but no one ever seems to notice.)))
This theme runs throughout the movie, pretty prevalently. From the first time Aladdin and Cassim meet, they're fighting each other. Al is disgusted that Cassim left his family to chase after a myth, frustrated that Cassim left Al to live the same life Cassim himself couldn't stand. And Cassim barely seems to understand any of that. I may sometimes criticize the series for being dorky and sappy and soft and all that, but still one of my favourite exchanges of the series is in this movie -- Cassim says, "You don't know what it's like to have nothing, to look up at the palace and know you deserve more . . . to be called 'street rat.'" Al turns away and says, "Yes. I do." For Al, who grew up alone (and had the bad luck of losing his pal Ahmall to a well, ahaha~ shut up that's a good episode!!), the idea of leaving one's family to go off on some treasure hunt is ridiculous. (I am, uh, sort of ignoring "Raiders of the Lost Shark," here. Uh. Well, he didn't leave anyone, anyway!) But Cassim, like Iago, has become accustomed to looking out for no one but himself.
I really like the sequence where Al gets Cassim out of the dungeon. First we have him rejecting the man he's been wanting to meet for as long as he can remember -- a really strong scene, one that I don't think has any comparison within the series. Rasoul discovers it's Al disguised as the King of Thieves, which means that he's sure to be in trouble when he goes back. The scene away from Agrabah, where Al and Cassim are arguing about whether or not Al should return, is definitely an important scene in the push-and-pull between the two characters. They both know Cassim has to get out of there. Aladdin has rescued him knowing full well the consequences of it should he be discovered, being ready to accept those consequences. But Cassim can't understand how Al's reasons for returning could be stronger than any reason to avoid being punished. It's a really good scene because the audience may know how it's going to end from the moment it starts, but Cassim still has to learn it. An interesting moment -- after Al rejects Cassim, Cassim apparently rejects Al, referring to the Thieves as his family.
But what about Jasmine? As in RoJ, her role is reduced to that of a secondary character. It doesn't bother me that much, because at least this time she's in-character. :P But my main reason for bringing her up is to point out a line I find extremely interesting -- after Al has left to find Cassim, when she's on the balcony and Genie comes to see if she's okay, and she asks -- if Aladdin were in trouble, would Genie know? I love this line. Nowhere else in the series is there any hint that Genie can tell what's going on with Aladdin when they're apart. You could look at Jasmine's line as adding a new layer to the Aladdinverse, or you could look at it as a fluke by the writers, if you wanted. But I like to look at it through Jasmine's perspective.
Throughout the series, Jasmine is never as close to Genie as Al is. She does not form friendships as quickly and as easily as Al does -- in "Witch Way Did She Go?" it seems apparent that it's taking a while for her and Sadira to really become comfortable around each other, although I guess you could argue that that's because of what Sadira did prior to that. Though she is quick to act motherly -- see "Bad Mood Rising" or "Scare Necessities" (I don't actually like that episode all that much, but the banana parfaits are funny xD;; ) --, friendship is more difficult for her. I think you could go so far as to say there's less space between her and Iago than there is between her and Genie, and although I believe that, I'm not exactly sure why it is. (After-effects of "The Flawed Couple"? Hahaha~ what an amusing thought.) I can only think of a couple of times where Jasmine and Genie are together without Al being there, too (but then, it's been a while since I've seen the series -- the most recent episode I saw being "When Chaos Comes Calling," a cute episode but sort of useless in the grand scheme of things), and they're never seen joking around like Al and Genie are. Jasmine is never asked to risk her life for Genie's sake and I wonder if she would do it as readily as Al does in, for example, "Genie Hunt." (This has nothing to do with anything, but -- an episode that always used to freak me out is "The Citadel." I'm not sure why that episode would freak me out more than any of the others, but ... it did.)
So. Considering the distance between Jasmine and Genie, and considering how the idea is never mentioned before, could her line maybe not be revealing anything new about the world but, instead, showing us how little she really knows about him? About the magic that ties a genie to his (former) masters? I mean, we can't tell if she's right or not by Genie's answer, because he doesn't really give one. I'm thinking here, and the only scene I can think of that would relate to this line is in "Some Enchanted Genie" when the genie Eden has to rush away to help her master -- but that was because she rubbed the bottle, I'm pretty sure Eden didn't just suddenly know she was needed. If Genie always knew when Al was in trouble, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have taken so long to figure out what was going on in "Two to Tangle." (That's another episode I watched relatively recently -- and the whole time I was like "Dude, I thought they caught on faster than this.") And so ... I find Jasmine's line really interesting. She really isn't as close to Genie as you might think, it seems.
But this line made me think -- it must be relatively easy to write fanfiction for the Aladdinverse, just in the sense that you're free to add whatever you like. I mean, because practically every canon episode adds something new to the world, so why can't you? ... Yeah.
Two more dumb things -- this site helped me greatly with the episode titles (I used to know them! hahaha~), and the Backstreet Boys song "The Call" really reminds me of Cassim. Why? I ... don't know.
Also, from my brother, while stopping by to watch a minute of KoT:
"Poor Aladdin. He never gets any of Genie's jokes."
XDXDXDXDXDXDXDXD;;;;;;;;;;;;
Here is the pain of my life: staying up late analyzing Aladdin = awesome. Staying up late analyzing anything that needs to be analyzed for class = most decidedly not awesome. Well, I did enjoy reading Murasaki Shikibu, but not at three in the morning, honestly.
Okay. So. I am rather fond of Disney movies. When I was in middle school, I was watching through all of my tapes of Disney movies. And in October of seventh grade, I got to Aladdin. And though I had never had any particular love for this movie before, when I watched it this time, I thought it was fantastic. I watched it two and a quarter times in a row before my mother made me stop. XD; Probably you could say I was pretty well obsessed with the whole Aladdinverse up until ninth grade, which is when Athena introduced me to Escaflowne. And though I doubt I'll ever be as into Aladdin as I was during those two years, I still really enjoy the series a lot. Well, Hercules is decidedly funnier, but never mind that now.
So, having recently watched RoJ, what do I want to say about it ... In my opinion, it's certainly the worst of the three movies. Well, it actually wasn't as bad as I remembered it being. The animation is not really any worse than KoT (though Jasmine seems unusually thin throughout - oh, and Al's outfit magically changes between shots), and though the story is a little less interesting it's not awful or anything. My main problem with RoJ is that a lot of it seems so awkward. As if the writers weren't quite sure how to write the characters after the end of the first movie. I guess you could argue that it suits the story - all of the characters themselves are getting used to their new lives after the end of the first movie. But it's just so weird.
(If I was trying to be clever, I would say the major flaw of RoJ is allowing Gilbert Gottfried to sing not just one, but two songs. OH GET IT HE HAS A FUNNY VOICE OH HA HA HA HA YOU'RE SO CLEVER SARAH.)
My main problem is with Jasmine. It's not unusual for Jasmine to be a little bit off-character. (And even when she's in-character she always gets the dorkiest lines.) In the series episode "Sneeze the Day," she pretty well spends a full twenty minutes running around screaming, which is really bizarre when you compare it to such episodes as "Garden of Evil," "Web of Fear," "Raiders of the Lost Shark," "A Sultan Worth His Salt," and especially "The Secret of Dagger Rock," which many consider to be her best episode. I mean, sure, she's allowed to scream or whatever, but at least let her do something. In both "Forget Me Lots" and "The Wind Jackals of Mozenrath" it's made pretty clear she's at least as strong as Al is. Yet in RoJ she's reduced to a role in which she alternates between anger and sappiness in a very one-dimensional manner. I guess the problem isn't helped by the fact that she's really only a secondary character in both of the sequels. There's a handful of series episodes in which she doesn't even appear. The way Jasmine is treated as a character is sometimes a little weird.
Actually, I guess Jasmine is the most out-of-character in RoJ, though Al has his moments too. Man, it'd been so long since I saw this movie that when it got to the scene where the sultan asks Al to be his new royal vizier, I was all "!!?? Why is this never mentioned again??!!" Well, it's still weird that it's never mentioned again, even if he does refuse the position.
Man. Genie and Abu are probably the two Aladdin characters who are written the most consistently throughout. I think that is brilliant.
Okay. But RoJ. The basic story is that Jafar has returned and wants to take over Agrabah. Not so exciting there. We have the introduction of Abis Mal, though he's missing his sarcastic sidekick. I would say though that most of the movie focuses on Iago and his wavering loyalties. He is a bit of an odd Disney character, in that respect. He starts the series firmly on the side of the antagonist and passes through the side of the protagonist - sometimes reverting, as in "The Day the Bird Stood Still" - only to end in gray. He is the opposite of Aladdin in that the person he cares most about is himself. In RoJ, he starts on Jafar's side but quickly decides to go off alone. When he sees an opportunity, he takes it, and in the process he saves Aladdin's life, almost inadvertently. So he's still on his own side here. When he agrees to help Jafar, it's only to save his own skin. Only when he helps Genie escape can we see he can be trusted - and then he's the hero of the movie, after he manages to push Jafar's lamp into the lava. There is actually a lot more about Iago throughout the series than I realized before! You wouldn't think he'd be such a main character, but I guess if Abu and Carpet get their own episodes, he can have his too ...
I had something to say about RoJ that was going to tie into this, but I forgot it. Something about some parts of the Aladdin series being the weirdest things ever. But I'll say this anyway -- why was "Poor Iago" ever written? Why? What on earth were they thinking? It's just ... so weird! What the heck!
Something that's weird about RoJ is that it has a part in the middle that's like a trillion times more serious than the rest of it, even more serious than the big battle at the end. I mean, dude, Aladdin is accused of murdering the sultan and he's going to be executed! That's a big thing! And it seems like it's not given enough attention and it's over way too fast. I think maybe I would prefer it if Jasmine actually thinks he killed her father -- I mean, if it's not Jafar acting as Jasmine (as cool as that "Good bye ... street rat" part is). But I guess that would make the whole thing even more serious. Actually, I guess that would be pretty heavy for a Disney movie. But ugh, this movie, I don't know ...
I think it's interesting to compare the execution scene in RoJ to the execution scene in "Armoured and Dangerous," where it's Jasmine who's to be executed for betraying her father (who is possessed by demon armour, but never mind that part!!). If I'm remembering the episode correctly, in both cases the executioner is Rasoul. The scene in "Armoured" is pretty interesting because in it Rasoul saves her and it's pretty cool. I get a kick out of Rasoul, another character who's not always written consistently. I just think it's interesting that even though in the first movie he's eager to throw Al in jail and in RoJ he's eager to kill him, there are episodes where the audience is expected to accept him as not all that bad a guy. "Destiny on Fire" is the most obvious example -- he is shown as an intelligent man who is loyal to his job and to his sultan, he just lacks patience and has a different way of going about things than Al does. He is strangely absent in "Night of the Living Mud," unless I am misremembering, but then again in "The Return of Malcho" he admits that when the time comes, he'll be glad to call Al his sultan. Yet there are episodes such as "Air Feather Friends" -- when he takes Abu away -- where he's a full-out antagonist. Well, okay, so that's the first episode of the series and as such not the best example, but there are plenty of episodes after that where he's none too pleased to have to be putting up with Al. I guess you could argue that for most of KoT the reason Rasoul dislikes Aladdin is because he's discovered that he's the "Prince of Thieves," but what about the beginning then? Rasoul is written just as inconsistently as the sultan, who goes back and forth between stupidity and brilliance, is. It's more obvious with these two than with Jasmine, I think, just because they're easier to classify.
Man, it weirds me out that there are two execution scenes in this series. Dude. Oh, and that time Jasmine dies, which is ridiculous, but anyway.
Another thing about RoJ is that it was originally intended to be the first few episodes of the series, as evidenced by the fact that clips from RoJ appear in the series' opening credits. When watching the movie, the spots where commercials would be inserted are actually really obvious. But that doesn't bother me as much as it bothers me that they used the first movie's "The Battle" for not only the scene where Al's trying to rescue the sultan, but for the end as well. Watching that, it just seems really obvious that that BGM was written to fit especially with the end of the first movie, and it's distracting when it's used for something else. Well, it's interesting that when it ends for the first time, Al is starting his journey back to Agrabah -- that's sort of parallel to the first movie, only ... backwards ... well, never mind.
Moving onto KoT. I honestly like this movie. I mean, I really do. It is not as strong as the first movie and it could never stand on its own, but I really like it for what it is. I really like themes of loyalty and betrayal -- themes that run lightly through most of the series but which are strongest in the movies, in KoT especially. Al discovers his father is alive only to be disgusted at the reasons why he left. He is frustrated that the desire to be rich turns out to be more important to Cassim than the chance to see his son's wedding (I love that moment when Cassim sees he's defeated and he throws the sword down -- it's just good). By rescuing his father, Al rejects him. I find their relationship a really interesting one, probably for the same general reasons that my favourite part of Escaflowne is the interplay between Van and Folken.
As I recall it, most of the promotion for this movie revolved around the wedding aspect of it. And though there are a grand total of three wedding scenes in this movie (the second one being completely free of guests? what??), I don't think that's really what the movie is about. I mean, there's no conflict with the wedding -- everyone in the audience knows it's going to happen eventually, and so the only question is when. I was watching this video late at night and so I had the volume pretty low and could barely hear it enough to understand the Japanese, and so as a result I was thinking a lot about what the real plot of this movie might be. One aspect is a man's fall from power, although that's rather small. One is certainly a man's struggle to come to terms with himself -- ah, how similar it is to the heart of the first movie! (Slightly related note: over three movies and 70+ episodes, Aladdin still hasn't learned to quit lying. Although the confidence complex seems to have worn away a bit -- none of the "ihatemyselfandiwanttodie" issues from the first movie, "Mudder's Day," or "My Fair Aladdin" (I love that episode) seem to be present in KoT. Ah, hilarious though~) But I think the biggest plot-theme-thing of this movie is the struggle of a man and his son to understand each other. ((Well, hopefully it's actually there and I'm not just saying this because it's something that's exploded in my own life recently.))
(((Admittedly my favourite part of "My Fair Aladdin" is how Daru says Al's name wrong. I like to say it that way on purpose but no one ever seems to notice.)))
This theme runs throughout the movie, pretty prevalently. From the first time Aladdin and Cassim meet, they're fighting each other. Al is disgusted that Cassim left his family to chase after a myth, frustrated that Cassim left Al to live the same life Cassim himself couldn't stand. And Cassim barely seems to understand any of that. I may sometimes criticize the series for being dorky and sappy and soft and all that, but still one of my favourite exchanges of the series is in this movie -- Cassim says, "You don't know what it's like to have nothing, to look up at the palace and know you deserve more . . . to be called 'street rat.'" Al turns away and says, "Yes. I do." For Al, who grew up alone (and had the bad luck of losing his pal Ahmall to a well, ahaha~ shut up that's a good episode!!), the idea of leaving one's family to go off on some treasure hunt is ridiculous. (I am, uh, sort of ignoring "Raiders of the Lost Shark," here. Uh. Well, he didn't leave anyone, anyway!) But Cassim, like Iago, has become accustomed to looking out for no one but himself.
I really like the sequence where Al gets Cassim out of the dungeon. First we have him rejecting the man he's been wanting to meet for as long as he can remember -- a really strong scene, one that I don't think has any comparison within the series. Rasoul discovers it's Al disguised as the King of Thieves, which means that he's sure to be in trouble when he goes back. The scene away from Agrabah, where Al and Cassim are arguing about whether or not Al should return, is definitely an important scene in the push-and-pull between the two characters. They both know Cassim has to get out of there. Aladdin has rescued him knowing full well the consequences of it should he be discovered, being ready to accept those consequences. But Cassim can't understand how Al's reasons for returning could be stronger than any reason to avoid being punished. It's a really good scene because the audience may know how it's going to end from the moment it starts, but Cassim still has to learn it. An interesting moment -- after Al rejects Cassim, Cassim apparently rejects Al, referring to the Thieves as his family.
But what about Jasmine? As in RoJ, her role is reduced to that of a secondary character. It doesn't bother me that much, because at least this time she's in-character. :P But my main reason for bringing her up is to point out a line I find extremely interesting -- after Al has left to find Cassim, when she's on the balcony and Genie comes to see if she's okay, and she asks -- if Aladdin were in trouble, would Genie know? I love this line. Nowhere else in the series is there any hint that Genie can tell what's going on with Aladdin when they're apart. You could look at Jasmine's line as adding a new layer to the Aladdinverse, or you could look at it as a fluke by the writers, if you wanted. But I like to look at it through Jasmine's perspective.
Throughout the series, Jasmine is never as close to Genie as Al is. She does not form friendships as quickly and as easily as Al does -- in "Witch Way Did She Go?" it seems apparent that it's taking a while for her and Sadira to really become comfortable around each other, although I guess you could argue that that's because of what Sadira did prior to that. Though she is quick to act motherly -- see "Bad Mood Rising" or "Scare Necessities" (I don't actually like that episode all that much, but the banana parfaits are funny xD;; ) --, friendship is more difficult for her. I think you could go so far as to say there's less space between her and Iago than there is between her and Genie, and although I believe that, I'm not exactly sure why it is. (After-effects of "The Flawed Couple"? Hahaha~ what an amusing thought.) I can only think of a couple of times where Jasmine and Genie are together without Al being there, too (but then, it's been a while since I've seen the series -- the most recent episode I saw being "When Chaos Comes Calling," a cute episode but sort of useless in the grand scheme of things), and they're never seen joking around like Al and Genie are. Jasmine is never asked to risk her life for Genie's sake and I wonder if she would do it as readily as Al does in, for example, "Genie Hunt." (This has nothing to do with anything, but -- an episode that always used to freak me out is "The Citadel." I'm not sure why that episode would freak me out more than any of the others, but ... it did.)
So. Considering the distance between Jasmine and Genie, and considering how the idea is never mentioned before, could her line maybe not be revealing anything new about the world but, instead, showing us how little she really knows about him? About the magic that ties a genie to his (former) masters? I mean, we can't tell if she's right or not by Genie's answer, because he doesn't really give one. I'm thinking here, and the only scene I can think of that would relate to this line is in "Some Enchanted Genie" when the genie Eden has to rush away to help her master -- but that was because she rubbed the bottle, I'm pretty sure Eden didn't just suddenly know she was needed. If Genie always knew when Al was in trouble, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have taken so long to figure out what was going on in "Two to Tangle." (That's another episode I watched relatively recently -- and the whole time I was like "Dude, I thought they caught on faster than this.") And so ... I find Jasmine's line really interesting. She really isn't as close to Genie as you might think, it seems.
But this line made me think -- it must be relatively easy to write fanfiction for the Aladdinverse, just in the sense that you're free to add whatever you like. I mean, because practically every canon episode adds something new to the world, so why can't you? ... Yeah.
Two more dumb things -- this site helped me greatly with the episode titles (I used to know them! hahaha~), and the Backstreet Boys song "The Call" really reminds me of Cassim. Why? I ... don't know.
Also, from my brother, while stopping by to watch a minute of KoT:
"Poor Aladdin. He never gets any of Genie's jokes."
XDXDXDXDXDXDXDXD;;;;;;;;;;;;
Here is the pain of my life: staying up late analyzing Aladdin = awesome. Staying up late analyzing anything that needs to be analyzed for class = most decidedly not awesome. Well, I did enjoy reading Murasaki Shikibu, but not at three in the morning, honestly.