Cartoon Corner- Mulan

Originally posted at the DL October 2015

Pre-viewing looking up of titles suggests there's fewer songs in this than average for Disney of the era, so we may have to intersperse singing with other analysis.  Let's find out!



Honor to Us All- Feels hardcore stereotypical.  That said ignoring the cultural notes I'm not wholly qualified to evaluate, to a large extent that's the intent anyway; the song gives you a good sense of how rigid and backwards her family's/society's expectations feel to Mulan.  Musically it doesn't really grab me, but as with the stereotypical nature of it that could be part of the intent.

Reflection- I'm a sucker for power vocals like this.  Otherwise fairly standard I Want song.  Much shorter in the movie than in my memory though!  Actually though in keeping with the lower song count, Mulan highly front-loads most of the content that's not War Stuff (although!  Songs concentrating sooner in the movie is common for Disney) so it's probably just mentally expanding the front to even things out.  Or mixing it up for the Pop Ballad Version.  That's always possible.

Unlike every other Disney-affiliated music covered so far, Mulan actually puts its most significant scene AFTER a song, not during one.  That being Mulan's decision to leave.  This hits just... every style note for how momentous, dangerous, and desperate the whole endeavor is, and also manages to give you the sense that in spite of it all, Mulan's actually.... what's the right word.  Comfortable?  No.  Confident.  This IS the right thing to do, and this IS who she is.  Everything's hidden in drapes, a storm builds, everything must be accomplished quickly and decisively, full of sudden sharp movements.  So perfect.

Okay, back to the movie.

I'll Make a Man Out of You- Montage!  The best word in storytelling!!  Okay this one is just kinda fun.  Not really super deep but it's here to advance the story and does that well.  And with weirdly large amounts of Donny Osmond.

So Hercules, Hunchback, and Mulan all have a very similar structure in terms of cast and plot progression.  Or maybe the similar horse designs is making me read too much into it.  Anyways the sidekicks are all built along the lines of Genie from Aladdin, but it doesn't... work as well.  That said, Mushu at least makes sense in the plot and there's a good reason for him to be here. But without that sorta Merlin-esque "I exist outside time and can make pop references from THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, what of it" it's still kinda distracting to see Mushu outright pull out a toothbrush.  Nothing major but distracting.

A Girl Worth Fighting For- I guess there's three main intents here.  a) demonstrate that Mulan isn't really that much more at home with men than treated as a woman (which was already accomplished in the previous bathing scene), b) because we need another song and hey, this makes sense as a marching song (uh... sure I guess?)  c) we are t minus length of song from the heavy bits of the story, better do something light and fluffy.  Because "I ain't biting no more butts" wasn't light and fluffy enough?  Yeah, this is pointless.  Or at least needed to be replaced by a BETTER marching song.  I may be biased because the male cast aren't any good at singing though.

Broadly though I think Mulan excels in the critical moments, but it's the in-between where you can see Disney had gotten comfortable and formulaic.  The elements of Aladdin that worked because Robin Williams, or of Lion King that worked because a segment of the movie stars children, are carried over here with an incomplete understanding of why they were working.  Eddie Murphy is fucking hilarious, but not because he's a living cartoon character who's unnaturally talented at impressions.  One plays off animators better than the other.  I do kinda wish I'd covered Hunchback before Mulan, because a lot of the strengths and weaknesses are the same, but extremely exaggerated.  Mushu is distracting but doesn't quite kick you out of the movie entirely.

Rating- 7/10.  But really that's the summary in general.  Mulan is a brilliant movie that has a lot of mediocre content in the center.  This feels right as the final score as a result.