Disney 30 Day Challenge - Favorite Castle

For my third day of my challenge, the TM selected “Favorite Castle” for me to write about...

I guess I've never really thought about it much, and it's certainly vague...

Do they mean my favorite Disney Parks Castle, which is pretty limiting. There's Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland (which I've just seen in person for the first time), and there's Cinderella's castle at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World. You can also find Sleeping Beauty's castle in Paris and Hong Kong, and Cinderella's in Tokyo.

I suppose I could expand the park castles to include the new ones featured in the Fantasyland expansion, but they are hardly official.

I think they MUST mean just in general, from the Disney Universe “Favorite Castle”, because otherwise, you're either a fan of tradition (Sleeping Beauty) or scale (Cinderella).

So let's think about the candidates... Obviously the ones we've already discussed exist in the movies as well..

Other possible castle choices are
Prince Adam's(The Beast) castle in Beauty and the Beast
Prince Eric's castle in The Little Mermaid
The Sultan's Palace in Aladdin
Rapunzel's parents' castle in Tangled
Castle from The Sword in the Stone
Castle from Snow White
and...
I'm sure there are others I'm not thinking of, but really... how many of them played major roles in the stories?

So, I guess my criteria is two-fold...

1) Which of the castles played a major part, or was even a major setting in the movie it's set in?
The clear answer and front runner to this is The Beast's Castle from Beauty and the Beast. That castle was amazing! It was vast, and had crazy rooms and dungeons, and a huge amount of the action takes place there, AND! It was enchanted.

2) Which is the most architecturally interesting? 

For me, it's a toss-up. First, we have Eric's castle from The Little Mermaid:

 

Eric's castle is a pretty darn different. It doesn't rely on the height and the impressive spires and towers of many of the other castles. It's still got the size you look for in a castle, but it's a castle built on a cliff by the ocean, and I feel like it's one of the few castles I always wanted to explore when I watched as a kid. It just seems cool. By the way.. does anyone know where The Little Mermaid takes place? Eric has an American accent. There are British accents elsewhere. Sebastian the crab has a Crab accent. Ursula sounds like a drag queen..

The other candidate is The Sultan's Palace in Aladdin:

 

I admit that I'm a sucker for this style of architecture. In fact, if I had all the money in the world, I'd probably build a mansion with a lot of Middle-Eastern accent to it. I love tile, I love the minarets, I love the fountains. It just seems awesome. I love how so much of it is open air. I love the amazingly high ceilings. It's pretty tough to beat...

So... The winner for me, provides the best combination of story and style, and... for that, I have to go with:

 

The Beast's Castle. It's got that sort of cool, woodland feel to it. I love how it just seems totally endless. Like there are whole sections of the castle where people (or Candelabras) forgot they existed at all. The towers are impossibly tall, and the spans connecting them are really cool.  When you factor in the huge role it plays in the story... It's gotta be the Beast.

 

Disney 30 Day Challenge - Favorite Romantic Moment

A friend on Facebook posted this (originally found on Pinterest):

I haven't been able to blog much for the past few months, since I was in the process of moving to a new side of the country, seeking a job, and just generally being crazed.

So, here I go... I'm going to write about one of these each day... I may miss a day, but I promise I will hit ALL of these.

I couldn't decide which to do first, so I had the Tofu Muchacha decide by picking a number between 1 and 30.  She chose #15, so...

#15.. My Favorite Romantic Moment

I'm sure that some other people have a whole slew of romantic Disney moments they've always loved, but "romance" hasn't ever really been a focus for me in my Disney viewing.

That said, there are definitely some great moment, and often underscored by great songs. I think I'd have a tough time thinking of a great romantic moment without one of the classic songs attached. There's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" from The Lion King.  "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid. "I See the Light" from Tangled (I could write a whole blog about how I love Tangled, and how I believe it'll grow in popularity). Sure, you can also reference some of the classics... Prince Phillip waking Aurora with a kiss, or the prince waking Snow White, or Bambi... chewing cud. (The Tofu Muchacha picked Lady and Tramp eating the spaghetti... also valid).

All of those moments are fantastic, but really is there any greater romantic moment in Disney history than this sequence from 'Up'?


I mean... right?

The romance of Ellie and Carl is one of the greatest sequences in the history of animation. It's almost impossible to think about 'Up' without thinking about this scene, which takes us through the entire lives of Ellie and Carl, where we see their love and their losses, and their dreams. We even see the pain Carl has when he loses his love to sickness and death. It doesn't sound all that romantic when I describe it, but there's such beauty and love in this sequence... it's pretty much perfect.

Best of all? The scene perfectly sets up how the audience views Carl throughout the rest of the movie. When he's cranky and bitter and holds on to his home too hard, we don't think "man... that old dude is cranky as heck." We think "if only they knew! he can't let go of his Ellieeeeee!!!" And then we all cry and become messes in the dark movie theaters.

It's possible that happened to me.

Don't even get me started with what happened when Carl gave Russell the "Grape Soda" badge at the end. I mean, good lord.

All of those moments, and that whole journey and growth for Carl... they are all set up by this sequence. It's incredibly romantic, yes, but integral to the plot, too... So it wins for me.

Tomorrow? Who knows. The Muchacha hasn't given me a number yet.