The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)

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♥ This article is dedicated to Tony Jay (1933-2006), the voice actor of Judge Claude Frollo, and Mary Wickes (1910-1995), voice actress of Laverne. May may they rest in peace.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Disney Renaissance at its darkest (in a good way).
Genre: Musical
Drama
Dark fantasy
Action
Thriller
Directed by: Gary Trousdale
Kirk Wise
Based on: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo
Starring: Tom Hulce
Demi Moore
Tony Jay
Kevin Kline
Paul Kandel
Jason Alexander
Charles Kimbrough
Mary Wickes
David Ogden Stiers
Production company: Walt Disney Animation Studios
Release date: June 21, 1996
Country: United States
Budget: $70 million
Box office: $325.3 million
Sequel: The Hunchback of Notre Dame II


The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a 1996 animated musical drama film released during the Disney Renaissance. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo.

Plot

A deformed Hunchback named Quasimodo lives in the French bell tower of Notre Dame under the watch of the city's cruel, ruthless, and deeply religious judge Claude Frollo. And all Quasimodo wants is to go out into the world and be accepted like normal people. With the help of his three gargoyle friends, Hugo, Victor, and Laverne, a beautiful gypsy woman named Esmeralda, and Frollo's kind-hearted captain of the guard Phoebus, Quasimodo can break free and help others to look past his deformities.

Why It Awakes To The Bells Of Notre Dame

  1. The animation is outstanding, akin to many of Disney's other animated films. It's on the same tier as Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. The flow to it is amazing and the color palette is beautiful.
  2. Excellent character development, especially for the extremely sympathetic protagonist Quasimodo as he goes through not one, but two strong character arcs throughout the film.
    • First of all, he starts as extremely passive to his oppressive guardian but gradually becomes more assertive and willing to oppose Frollo for the sake of his new friends.
      • To give a more specific example, he's tied up twice. The first time, it's with rope, he's completely helpless, begging Frollo to help him, until Esmeralda comes to his rescue; the second time, it's with chains, which he breaks with his willpower, in an act of defiance against Frollo, so that he can rescue Esmeralda.
    • And for the second one, due to him being raised by the bigoted Frollo, Quasimodo grew up with stereotypical views of Romani people. But his friendship with Esmeralda and trials have him gradually lose these prejudices.
  3. The climax is very thrilling and entertaining to watch through.
  4. Great songs, especially Frollo's villain song "Hellfire". This shows how hypocritical Frollo is that he complains about Esmeralda and the gypsies being evil and vile yet wants to commit sinful acts such as murder, unlawful execution, and lust (which will be discussed in further detail in WIATTBOND #10).
  5. It takes risks and tries its absolute best to adapt a source material that is difficult to pull off for a Disney movie.
  6. Great voice acting as to be expected from an animated Disney movie, but the phenomenal vocal performances help the already amazing events of the movie and the incredible characters, along with the songs they sing, pop a lot more.
  7. Numerous enjoyable and memorable characters.
    • Quasimodo is Notre Dame Cathedral's 20-year-old hunchbacked bell ringer who dreams of seeing life outside the bell tower. Even though Quasimodo is constantly told by his guardian Judge Claude Frollo that he is a "hideous monster", but learns to accept himself near the end, and society does the same.
    • Frollo serves as a great, complex villain, as well as one of the darkest villains in Disney history (next to the Horned King from The Black Cauldron, Shan Yu from Mulan, and Sikes from Oliver & Company). He is a ruthless, self-righteous and religiously pious Minister of Justice of Paris who is Quasimodo's reluctant guardian. Due to his god complex, he believes that he is above everyone else and can do no wrong and that the world around him is full of corruption except within himself. This is shown by his intense hatred of the gypsy population and his desire to wipe out their entire race (similar to how Governor Ratcliff from Pocahontas is to Native Americans). He's primarily fueled by his sadistic and (ironically) obsessive sexual urges towards Esmeralda.
    • Captain Phoebus, a soldier who is Frollo's captain of the guard. He does not approve of Frollo's methods and saves people whenever they are in danger, including his love interest Esmeralda, whom he falls in love with and later marries.
    • Esmeralda is a beautiful, streetwise gypsy woman who befriends Quasimodo and shows him that his soul is truly beautiful, even if his exterior is not. Highly independent and strong-minded, she abhors Frollo's prejudice and cruel treatment of gypsies and other outcasts in Paris and seeks justice for them throughout the film. She falls in love with (and later marries) Captain Phoebus.
    • Dajli, Esmeralda's pet goat, is a very cute and sassy animal character and is, in fact, one of the best, most entertaining animal companions in Disney history.
    • The gargoyles, despite feeling out of place given the primary themes of the movie (see BQ# 1), can still be entertaining in their rights (when they aren't messing with the tone).
  8. Phoebus and Esmerelda’s relationship shows that the protagonist doesn’t always have to get the girl.
    • Thought to be fair, Quasimodo does eventually get a love interest, Madellaine, in The Hunchback of Notre Dame II (despite it being one of the worst direct-to-video Disney sequels).
  9. Amazing soundtrack. Along with the film's having (as aforementioned) amazing songs like "Out There" (which has Quasimodo sing about his dreams of leaving the bell tower and leading a normal life among the people he saw every day), the aforementioned "Hellfire" (which showcases Frollo's internal conflict between his feelings of lust for Esmeralda and his piety and hatred of the gypsies), "God Help the Outcasts" (which takes place after Esmeralda witnesses how cruelly society treats Quasimodo and asks God to help him and the other people who are treated as such), and "Someday" (the final and closing song of the film that plays over the ending credits), the score for the film is also amazing and fits every single scene. Even aside from the songs, the background music is also beautiful and, like the score, perfect for the scenes that they're present in.
  10. It's, without a doubt, one of (if not the) biggest risk Disney has ever taken with their films. It explores themes such as lust and religion. And it handles such topics with as much dignity and respect as possible.
  11. Frollo's memorable quotes: "And he shall smite the wicked, and plunge them into the fiery pit!" and "A baby? A monster!" (the latter of which spawned a meme).
    • Laverne's "Fly! Fly my pretties! Fly! Fly!" line that was also used from The Wizard of Oz
    • And even apart from those three quotes, the film still has a large amount of unforgettable and powerful quotes, including:
      • "What Frollo doesn’t know can’t hurt you!"
      • "How could such a cruel man have raised someone like you?"
      • "Such a clever witch. So typical of your kind to twist the truth; to cloud the mind with unholy thoughts!"
      • "No, YOU LISTEN! All my life you've told me that the world is a dark, cruel place! But now I see that the only thing dark and cruel about it is PEOPLE LIKE YOU!"
      • "I ask for nothing, I can get by. But I know so many less lucky than I."
      • "Oh, my dear Quasimodo, you don’t know what it’s like out there. I do. I do…"
      • "If I picked a day to fly, this would be it!"
      • "You've chosen a magnificent prison, but it is a prison nonetheless. Set one foot outside, and you're mine."
      • "You can lie to yourself and your minions! You can claim that you haven’t a qualm! But you never can run from, nor hide what you’ve done from the eyes! [points to church statues] The very eyes of Notre Dame!"
  12. The film, unsurprisingly, does not contain the dark ending of the original where Quasimodo dies. Instead, it opts for a much happier ending where Quasimodo is finally accepted by society.
  13. Good moral: It shows to use religion for selfless and good reasons and not use it for power and selfishness.

Bad Qualities

  1. There are dark, adult-oriented themes like infanticide (albeit attempted) and an infamous sexual harassment scene that are WAY too out of place for a family-friendly film.
    • The gargoyles, while they can be entertaining in their own right, are also extremely out of place for a dark-toned film as the two genres don't mesh well together.
  2. The film can get very mean-spirited and soulless towards Quasimodo, especially the scene where the town assaults and humiliates him.
    • Fortunately, as mentioned above, the townsfolk eventually accepted him in the end.
  3. Judge Claude Frollo, while he is a convincing and excellent villain, may be one of the most vile Disney villains (next to Governor Ratcliff from Pocahontas, Sikes from Oliver & Company, Shan Yu from Mulan, Lady Tremaine from Cinderella, and especially Mother Gothel from Tangled) due to his cruelty and hypocrisy (typical from the Church back in the age the movie takes place).

Trivia

  • Due to what's mentioned above, many Disney fans have considered The Hunchback of Notre Dame as the darkest, most mature-toned Disney movie ever made so far despite having a G rating (perhaps even more so than Pocahontas and The Black Cauldron).
  • One of the voice actors, Demi Moore (who played Esmeralda), also starred in the abysmal Striptease that also came out a week later in the same year.

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