00:00 Up there, high, high in the dark bell tower, lives the mysterious Bellringer.
00:06 The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a Disney film from 1996 and it tells the story of Quasimodo,
00:12 the hunchback who lives in Notre Dame, lives/has been isolated there for his whole life,
00:18 but he starts to want more. So Josh, you picked this one, so tell us a bit about why you picked it.
00:23 Yes, why I picked this one because I think it's underseen and underrated. What I mean is I don't
00:29 think it's grouped together with the big Disney classics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it's really even
00:34 on this one, it's one of the most even ones we've done. On Rotten Tomatoes, the audience give it 71%,
00:38 the critics on Rotten Tomatoes give it 70%, and the IMDb score is 7 out of 10,
00:43 so it's more or less bang on 70% or 7 out of 10 across the board. Had you seen this one before?
00:49 I hadn't seen this one, which is a bit strange for me because I had seen a lot of Disney films
00:54 when I was a kid. I do think there was a lot to like in there, but I probably don't like it as
00:58 much as you did. I really enjoyed some of the themes that are explored in this film. I think
01:03 visually it looks really impressive as well, but the main thing that I loved about this film was
01:08 Esmeralda as a character. She is a completely different type of Disney princess. She's so
01:14 confident, so sure of herself, so charismatic, and a little bit sensual as well. And all these
01:19 strengths in her femininity that she showed off during the film just aren't really things that
01:23 we've explored in Disney films before. So I really enjoyed her as a character, and I'd love to see
01:28 more Disney princesses like her. Come back here, Gypsy! What a woman. I think it's got a really
01:36 good look and sound to this film. I think what Disney does really well, and we touched on this
01:39 when we did Hercules, is they take... Obviously it's a historical story based on a historical
01:44 fictional story by Victor Hugo, and they take ideas of the time, you know, the art and the way
01:49 things looked, and they incorporate that into the look and the sound of the film. So this is...
01:53 It's very big, it's very bold, it's very dramatic, it's very emotive in the way it looks and the way
01:57 it sounds. So is there anything that you didn't like about it or that you'd change?
02:01 So the main issue for me with this film is that the songs just didn't hit me where I wanted them
02:06 to. They all kind of felt a bit clunky and a bit clumsy, and that they weren't really ones that you
02:11 could sing along to after one listen, like you would get in The Lion King or in Frozen, for
02:15 example. And I think this left me unable to really emotionally connect with the film. So by the end
02:21 of it, I just didn't feel a great deal, which isn't like me at all when watching Disney films,
02:26 so that was a bit of a shame. I mean, I'm the complete opposite with the music, it really
02:29 pulls at my heartstrings. So what do you think then, seven out of ten overall, is it underrated
02:33 and is it underseen based on the argument I put forward? So I definitely think you made some valid
02:38 points about why this film would be underseen, and I do agree with you in that regard. In terms
02:42 of underrated, for me it isn't really. In fact, it might just be a little bit overrated, but I do
02:48 think that if I'd seen this when I was a kid, when I was the age of the target audience, that I might
02:54 be saying something completely different now. Yeah, I would say it is underseen or underrated
02:57 in the sense that I think people should revisit it, but we'll see. I think it might get a new
03:02 lease of life in the next ten years or so.
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