I thank you for the complement, and I acknowledge that I put very little convincing annotation into by post, perhaps in time.

So... he's just like you?

I believe that those who can't at least imagine the two positions in this argument are too caught up in their own ego to be able to put themselves in the shoes of a 1930's movie goer.

Empathy is a very undervalued ability that few have bothered to cultivate in our society.

Groucho touches on it in this quote:


Snow White was the first Hollywood full-length animated feature film - - it was the birth of a whole new genre of film. It became the national and international number one box office film of all-time in 1938 - - it made 4x as much as any other film that year. It was beloved. For decades.

too lazy to check on bom, but I think it's Shrek 2.

So because Snow White sold more tickets in the 30's, that means it is more popular than The Lion King?

Ugh.

Fun fact, more people went to the movies than to church in the 1930s, now it is the other way around.

You mean church is on the rebound? I would have never thought. Perhaps the rise in football the last few years has helped

Fuck yes. Is that a porno version? I gotta see that.

So cinema-going is declining at a faster rate than church-going??! Pretty crazy.

But then, I suppose it makes sense. People are watching more at home and on their devices, and their faith is also changing from religious to spiritual/athiest.

But remember, those are adjusted church-goers that DIB is referring to - - one 2014 Christian equals thirty-six 1939 Christians.

There has been a porno version for quite some time now. That was the first porno movie that was circulating in my elementary school LOL.

There is probably more than one Snow White porno. It's perfect porno material.

Take a survey of movie watchers from all ages(im talking about from 5 to 80 year olds) and im sure more have watched Snow white than TLK.
TLK is modern Disney's most popular film but Snow White is on that Original King Kong and Wizard of Oz level type of Popularity around the world.

Well, of course, it's been around for longer.

If you wait until TLK is 80 years old, then do the same -theoretical- test, I think the results would surprise you.

As an older guy, I appreciated Lion King and think it's a great film, but I wonder how many of you are overly impressed by it because it hit you at a time when you were younger and things like that overly impressed you.

There is a saying that whatever you liked when you were 12 will always be great to you. When I was 12, I liked The Monkees (which was showing in reruns) and I had all their albums and learned to play guitar and always wanted to be in a band because of it. As I grew older, I realized that their music wasn't the greatest in the world, but I still have a lot of their songs on my mp3 player and was happy to meet Micky Dolenz a while ago and such...

OK, sorry for the threadjack, but the point is that "Disney's greatest film" may be clouded by personal judgment.

Well, obviously.

Words of wisdom dude

The Lion King is the greatest animated film ever.

Is this the "convincing annotation" you spoke of at the top of this page?

no, that's an opinion.


yr asking an unanswerable question dude, there isn't gonna be a 'most popular' Disney film 'ever, among all audiences' because...well for all the reasons posted already. it's just not something that can be laid out on a graph. so you can't really complain when people let their opinions into the mix.

that said, yr probably right, if for no other reason than exposure...even our parents, people in their fifties and sixties that took us to the lion king when we were lil kids would probably say they prefer Snow White, because it is the classic, it's what /they/ saw with family as little kids...the only people who are really gonna think Lion King is better (therefore, with whom it is more popular) are people born from like, 1980 onwards, and even those will have plenty of kids that saw Snow White first or otherwise prefer it.

You bring up a couple of good points here.

First, what is the definition of the term "popular" in the context of this thread? I define it as the number of individuals who've enjoyed a film, not necessarily those who think it's better relative to other films. Therefore the most popular Disney animated film is the one enjoyed by the most individuals.

That is the reason I thought this was an interesting question to discuss here at KJ - - because it is "something that can be laid out on a graph", rather than an opinion based question such as the "best" or "greatest".

I do realize that the concept of "adjusted box office" is anathema to many at the WOKJ, but this question goes further than a simple adjustment for inflation. It looks at such factors as the enormous popularity of movies before the age of television, the vast number of copies of it's classic library that Disney has sold across various media, the number of viewings the films have had on commercial television over the years, and it's about thinking outside of the tiny box of our own generation to the broader question of popularity among all audiences, spatially and temporally.

For example, as neo_wolf brought up earlier:

Think about the people who were 80 years old in 1937 when Snow White was first released. Seeing the first full length animated film with their grandkids over Christmas 1937 before the war must have been quite a treat for many of them. And there are millions of others who enjoyed Snow White and then died long before The Lion King was ever conceived.

"Ever" is a long time.

It's an unanswerable question. There are far more people in the world than in 1937. Movies reach a far bigger audience now than they used to. It's impossible to know how many people saw an indiviual film by any mean, whether it be cinema/tv/online/video/dvd/etc.

TL;DR

bu ofc it's The Lion King

I watched The Lion King for the first time when I was 12 and think it's pretty average.