In an interview, ‘Aladdin’ co-director John Musker revealed that a classic song was inspired by a superhero movie scene. Find it out!
32 years ago, Disney released “Aladdin”, an animation inspired by one of the tales from “Arabian Nights”, where a young and poor commoner ends up falling in love with the princess of Agrabbah, Jasmine, and, after finding a magic lamp, counts on the help of a 10,000-year-old Genius to conquer it.
Among his three requests, Aladdin asks the Genie to transform him into a prince, as this would be the only way to enter the castle and try to get closer to the princess. Changing his name to Ali, the protagonist manages to put his plan into practice and, at a certain point, to impress her even more, he invites her to take a trip on his flying carpet.
As the couple flies over some of the world’s main tourist attractions, they sing the song that became one of the film’s most popular, “A Whole New World”, or “Um Mundo Ideal”, in Portuguese.
Being an extremely romantic moment, the curious thing is that the scene was actually inspired by a remarkable moment in a superhero film: “Superman”, released in 1978 by the director Richard Donner.
Inspired by Superman?
The revelation was made by the co-director of “Aladdin”, John Musker, in an interview with Yahoo! Films (via Collider) in 2022, on animation’s 30th anniversary. At the time, the filmmaker stated that he was inspired by the scene in which Superman takes Lois Lane on a high-altitude meeting after she interviewed him for The Daily Planet, taking her to fly over different locations.
“We wanted a musicalized dream date scene where Aladdin takes Jasmine flying on his carpet. We were influenced by the Superman movie, where Christopher Reeve takes Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane on this incredible encounter,” said Musker.
Composed by Alan Menken It is Tim Riceand originally performed by Brad Kane It is Lea Salonga“A Whole New World” was responsible for giving “Aladdin” the “Best Original Song” award at the 1993 Oscars. Furthermore, in the same edition, the film was also the big winner in the “Best Soundtrack” category.
Source: Recreio
