The Disney Villain by Frank Thomas

The Disney Villain Reviews

• 
  Ashley Marie

  I had an hour to kill and this was staring at me on the library shelf this afternoon. Talk about flying through a book! Beautiful pictures and some great insights into our favorite villains. It could stand to be updated; I think the last film covered was Aladdin.
• 
  Coos Burton

  Como suelo hacer a veces en los momentos que lo amerita, acompaño mi reseña con una breve historia personal que considere apropiada para cada libro. En este caso, haré mención sobre la forma en la que llegó este mi libro a mi biblioteca. Lo vengo buscando hace bastante, ya que soy gran entusiasta en todo lo que respecta a Disney, especialmente con sus villanos, que son mi parte favorita de cada película. Había encontrado este libro en una página a razón de $200, y luego de dudarlo un poquito, me decidí a adquirirlo. Llegué tarde, alguien más lo había reclamado. Volví a ver este libro, con la diferencia de que ahora costaba $600, y no estaba dentro de mis planes adquirirlo porque en su momento, era un poco excedido (aunque el libro sea una verdadera joya vintage para los coleccionistas, sigue siendo poco accesible). Por cosas de la vida, lo volví a buscar en el mismo sitio que las dos veces anteriores, y lo encontré a $60. La persona que me lo vendía realmente no sabía bien qué me vendía, puesto que me insistía que en realidad, era un libro para colorear, un libro para aprender a dibujar a los villanos Disney, cuando la realidad era que iba más allá de todo eso. Obviamente no discutí aquél concepto con la vendedora, y calladita y contenta me llevé mi anhelado libro a casa, cual niña con juguete nuevo. Supongo que fue de esos libros que están destinados a ser parte de uno, ¿no?
  
  En cuanto al libro en sí, desde luego, no se trata de un libro para aprender a dibujar ni mucho menos. Este es un libro que habla sobre el arte de los villanos Disney. El mismo habla del proceso creativo de los mismos, sobre la forma en la que se adaptaron las personalidades de cada personaje, sobre cuál fue la inspiración en cada caso, las voces detrás de las animaciones, los artistas que le dieron vida y movimiento con su talento, y mucho más. Es un libro sumamente completo lleno de anécdotas, ilustraciones, bosquejos, obras finalizadas y fotos. Es ideal para todo aquél que desee saber sobre la vieja escuela de Disney, pero específicamente del lado de los villanos, estos personajes atroces y llenos de gracia que le dan un por qué a los protagonistas, una razón para aventurarse y alcanzar sus sueños, el amor de sus vidas y también su libertad.
  
  Es sorprendente leer sobre todo el trabajo que hay detrás de tan coloridas imágenes, cómo todo lleva tanto tiempo y dedicación de una cantidad increíble de personas. Realmente creo que es un libro que vale mucho la pena tener, principalmente a quienes amen el mundo de Disney.
• 
  Rachel

  I give this 3 stars because it could be updated.
  
  This was a great little collection of the Disney Villains. It only goes up to Aladdin/Jafar. It is full of fascinating sketches from the creative process. The images alone are worth a flip through. I'd like to see a newer version of this with the more modern villians. For it's time it's a nice little afternoon read/flip.
• 
  Christina

  I came across this book by way of an Amazon review for The Disney Press book on Villains. The reviewer found that book lacking in insight into character development, more focused on pictures and half of it devoted to Pixar. He recommended this one instead.
  
  The one downside is this book was published in the mid ‘90s and only includes films up to Aladdin. The upside is it is written by two of the “Nine Old Men” who worked directly with Walt Disney from the earliest days of the studio. The book explains the nickname came from Roosevelt’s reference to the Supreme Court in the late 1930s; he called them “his nine old men, all too aged to recognize a new idea” when they declared his ideas for ending the Depression unconstitutional. Walt used the nickname to provoke the nine members of his animation board, even though they were in their early thirties.
  
  The movies (and book) are divided into four eras: The Shorts prior to Snow White, The Golden Age when Walt Disney was highly involved ( to The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad), The Nine Old Men when Walt began to step back from movies and focused on Disneyland (Cinderella through The Fox and the Hound), and The New Era after Walt’s passing when the next generation of animators took full control, starting with The Black Cauldron up to Aladdin. I would guess there’s been another era or two since.
  
  The book has a good balance, about equal in terms of illustrations and text, and there is good insider insight. For example, the authors are rather critical of Alice in Wonderland, describing it as “a very interesting, disjointed film with moments of high entertainment and other sections that seemed mild or puzzling.” It goes on to elaborate on that theme, pointing out that without a sidekick to work with, Alice lacks personality and is unsympathetic, and the Queen was too underdeveloped to be either genuinely funny or threatening. They don’t pull punches when it comes to criticizing other films, either. But in the quotes from Jeffrey Katzenberg, you see the shift in this to a polished, positive, company line that is reflected in many similar Disney books now, making them feel more like propaganda than information.
  
  Faithful to the theme, the book is brief on movies that lacked a central villain character like Dumbo and Bambi. While the the ringmaster and the hunter in these movies respectively are antagonists, the authors don’t consider them villains as their actions aren’t calculated with the intent to harm Dumbo or Bambi; the harm is passive as they work to achieve their own goals. (Interestingly, the book includes a sketch of a scene that shows the dead Hunter which was cut from Bambi.) The authors are keen on clear distinctions of good and evil. The standout challenge to this is Beauty and the Beast where the characters break stereotype. They are not critical of the characters or movies, but note that some of the animators felt the movie was too like live action film rather than animation. This does seem to a reflect the approach of many subsequent movies, Frozen coming to mind in particular.
  
  I hadn’t realized that a character is assigned to one specific lead animator, and animators have specialties. Marc Davis was the animator for both Maleficent and Cruella DeVil. Bill Tytla proved his skill with very large characters with the giant in The Brave Little Tailor and later animated Chernobog in Fantasia. In some cases, multiple animators will draw the same character in different attitudes. For example, Captain Hook’s comic scenes dodging the crocodile were drawn by a different artist than his more serious scenes. The advent of computer animation seems to have added another “animator” to the mix. The authors seem neutral on computer animation; they don’t praise it, but do note that in the first Disney film to use it, The Rescuers Down Under, the most ominous “character” is the villains Jeep, which could not have been hand-drawn—I assume due to the complexity and precise straight lines.
  
  The authors do a great job of digging into character development and its impact on story, staying on theme. This seems a beneficial read for anyone who crafts stories, whether a novelist or, even more so, a screenwriter. Granted, the animation process means they are working with a team that includes story people, physical actors and voice actors, and the characters are often simple in terms of motivation, but it shows how to think about characters and how they function. The movies, if not already familiar, are also easily accessible as examples. This book made me want to rewatch several, as well as miss the days when animation was hand drawn. I’m aware of another book by these authors that seems broader in scope that I’ll need to track down.
• 
  Luly

  It took me a while to get a copy of this one where I live but the wait and search paid off!
  
  Frank & Ollie did an outstanding job walking through the history of Disney animated features and their villains, in a book that is more fulfilling than its successor, Disney Villains: Delightfully Evil, which I wish had the substance this one does.
  
  I own a good amount of Disney books, so for this one in particular I was more interested in the text than in the art, although there are some good gems in here that I didn't have before, especially from some movies and characters that got lost in history after their movies didn't quite stick around as much as their contemporaries (Rescuers Down Under concept art? yes, thank you). Not all of the art is as well credited and properly cited as it is in later Disney books, such as the one I mentioned before or the current Disney Publishing ones (let alone the Taschen ones), but the reproduction is really good and some spreads are breathtaking.
  
  I think my only issue with it is that I honestly hope it would have ended in The Fox and the Hound. As much as I love the Disney Renaissance and is my childhood, Frank & Ollie weren't involved in it and it clearly shows in the way they talk about it in comparison to how they discuss the films they were in.
  
  A huge part of the Renaissance, a determining factor actually, is the music, and not mentioning Howard Ashman or Alan Menken in the building of the movies they were involved in, or in the success of them, is really not accurate. I believe this is a sort of byproduct of several factors: the fact that Frank & Ollie centered themselves in the animation aspect alone because that's what they know, the fact that the way in which music was used before and how it was used in the Renaissance was very different, and the fact that they primarily based their recollections for the movies in the testimonies of Roy Disney and Jeffrey Katzenberg (that one didn't age very well).
  
  When they talk about the movies they were involved in, it's the best source you can get. They describe working with voice actors and live action reference performers, they talk about Walt's input, about the problems in production and even how they saw their own work, most often very critically, even when the movies became iconic despite their concerns.
  
  I think this book stands more in the animation side than in the production side of things, because of that. It's not the perspective you would get from a book by Christopher Finch, Charles Solomon or Mindy Johnson, to put it in a way. But it's also something I wish Disney did more today.
  
  Looking at it now, as Disney Animation is having a very different line of antagonists, seeing how villains were developed as cinema and animation evolved is super interesting.
  
  I think that, despite my issues, it's a must have for any Disney book collector or animator enthusiast.
• 
  Ellisnoblebooks

  Disney è lo studio dei film per famiglie per eccellenza, eppure è riuscito (e continua) a traumatizzare generazioni di bambini attraverso i suoi memorabili antagonisti. Questo libro, scritto da due dei Nine Old Men, gli animatori storici, analizza ciascuno di questi villain in termini di animazione e di capacità a svolgere il proprio ruolo all'interno della storia, con l'aggiunta di aneddoti riguardanti la loro creazione: purtroppo si ferma a Jafar perché è stato scritto nel '92, ma anche se leggermente datato, è una lettura obbligata per ogni appassionato/a/i della Disney!
• 
  H.G. Howell

  fascinating read, though in some areas felt rushed and sparse.
• 
  Andrea

  All of us are potential villains!
  
  That first line in Chapter 1 gives the reader a taste of what type of material they can expect to find and boy does it live up to its promise! As someone who has long been intrigued by villains in film and literature (the good ones anyway) as well as being a big Disney fangirl, I was looking for something that would satisfy my thrilling enthusiasm for some of the best baddies that have ever graced the silver screen under the Mouse's banner and this book was an easy contender. The reason why I chose this book over
  Disney Villains: Delightfully Evil: The Creation • The Inspiration • The Fascination was because, although the latter was up to date in terms of content and subject matter, it seemed more style over substance for lack of a better description. I wanted something more...substantial than what seemed to be merely an encyclopedic picture book with bits of trivia sprinkled in. What really gives this book more value to me is the fact that it is penned by Ollie Johnson and Frank Thomas, two veteran animators who worked at the Disney Animation Studio from the very beginning and who were part of the famous "Nine Old Men" team that worked directly under Walt Disney himself. Thus not only can the reader be blown away by the stunning concept art, original sketches and illustrations that have given birth to decades-long work of timeless animation and story-telling but can also read the authors' anecdotes of how they approached each project, what they hoped to achieve in terms of reaching and touching their audience and how various artists, creators and directors contributed to the first stages of development all the way to the final results. The villains spotlighted in this book show how far the studio has come in its development; you have characters like Peg Le Pete and the Big Bad Wolf who appeared in the cartoon shorts between 1927 and 1933, to Snow White's evil Queen(1937) and Fantasia's Chernabog(1940) to the more popular and well-known ones like Cruella De Vill, Captain Hook, Maleficient , Ursula, Jafar and countless others that cannot be mentioned all here. All of them are provided with a background history from their film creators' point of view , highlighting various challenges they faced in collaborating to make these characters as engaging as possible to the audience. What's unfortunate (as other reviewers have already pointed out) is that this book is outdated; having been published in 1993 which means that amazing fan-favourites like Scar from The Lion King(1994) and Judge Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) do not make the cut. No doubt their entries would've been spectacular had this book been published a few years later. This is a minor hindrance however, what really prompted me to give this a 4-star rating instead of a 5, is the lack of a detailed bibliography. Since the authors made countless references to newspaper articles, critic reviews and attributed quotes to various creative team members (from Walt Disney to Jeffery Katzenberg) it is baffling to me that no list of references and authors' notes was complied which could help the reader locate the original sources of these findings for further research. Nevertheless I still highly recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of art, animation, film history, Disney and pop culture in general and I am sure that I will be re-visiting it whenever I am in need of inspiration.
• 
  Gijs Grob

  Disney-animators Ollie Johnson en Frank Thomas keren terug als schrijvers na hun onvolprezen '
  The ILLUSION OF LIFE: DISNEY ANIMATION', dit keer om te vertellen over Disneyschurken.
  
  Het boek is duidelijk een gelegenheidsproduct, en erg diepgaand gaan beide auteurs niet, al wordt al snel duidelijk hoe divers de verschillende schurken eigenlijk zijn.
  
  Het pluspunt van dit boek zit echter vooral in de bespreking van de Disneyfilms van ná Johnsons en Thomas' pensioen: die uit de jaren tachtig en begin jaren negentig (met Aladdin als laatste). Het is prettig om over deze nogal onderbelichte periode de meningen te lezen van veteranen die zelf nog mee hebben gewerkt aan Snow White.
• 
  Carrie

  I remember finding a new copy of this in a used book store when I was younger and wanting it so badly, but never getting it. I rediscovered it several years later and found a brand new edition on Amazon. Given who the authors are, I thought it would have a lot more animation art in it, but it's still an interesting book.
• 
  Stef

  An interesting look at the villains in Disney feature films up to "Aladdin." An updated version would be welcome. The summaries that go along with each film are short and the images are just a handful--I would have enjoyed a more in-depth look at this, but it was engaging to have the villains so richly described, and the trip down memory lane was nice.
• 
  Jess

  This is more than just a book with animation stills. Authors Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, animation legends, make you think as you read about the classic villains we all love to hate. A real "character" piece :)
• 
  Amanda Kay

  This was a far cry from "The Illusion of Life." Unfortunately, this book feels forced and only touches the surface.
• 
  Joanie

  An interesting book that takes the reader into the minds of the animators as they sought to create the perfect villain for each Disney Classic.
• 
  τλιϓλ

  Although I hate evil characters but the book is one of the must have ones for Disney fans :-)
• 
  Darrell

  Sometimes, a movie is only as good as its villain. This book is full of some of the best. Enjoy.
• 
  Vincent

  Never knew that Cruella De Vil was the leading villan for decades!!! Great insight and look into the work that went in to making some of the most iconic figures in American History.
• 
  Curmudgeon

  There's some interesting concept art and some interesting insight from animators into what goes into creating an effective villain, but the book on the whole is pretty light on content.