Aladdin Trilogy

The Aladdin trilogy was Disney's attempt to create a franchise outside of their main animated characters from a movie. The movies worked so well with their target audience that an animated series was done for television, but my focus here is on the three movies and those alone.
Aladdin - The use of CGI effects for different aspects of the story helped this movie by giving it a little bit of a realistic feel. The voice acting is very well done but everyone is overshadowed by Robin Williams as the Genie. With Williams' flamboyance for improv the Genie character took on a life of it's own, and some of the things that he did was so original and funny, the animators had to draw them into the scenes. Jafar as the villain is just perfect, even years later you can still see why he became a classic from the moment he comes on the screen.
The Return of Jafar - Bringing back Jafar for the sequel was a natural, with him being the most evil Genie that you could imagine. Seeing the dark side of the magic world does have its advantages, the things that you could come up with are boundless. Here they give you the complete opposite of the good Genie from the e first film and it works. The story is strong and it ends up being a worthy sequel, only down fall here is that Williams did not return as the good Genie and the character suffers for the loss. The change in animation is enough to be noticed but the change doesn't take away the magic of the story.
King of Thieves - Out of the three movies this by far is the worst, the story is weak from the very beginning and the fact that Aladdin and Jasmine are just getting married is a little odd, weren't they getting married at the end of the first movie. The return of Robin Williams as the Genie isn't enough to save this film; it should have been thrown into the trash heap and left for dead. As in the second movie the animation was changed again, and this time it actually looks like something from twenty years prior to it's release.
This series could have been better but when the first movie is such a huge hit, it's hard to follow up with a film that's as good or better. Disney should learn from their mistakes, when working towards a franchise they need to keep to the original formula and not waver one iota. After watching these films I can honestly say that the first movie is the best and I don't think that I will ever watch the other two for any reason. I'm sure that the kids will love them, but since I don't have any, Return of Jafar and King of Thieves won't be making it into my library.