I saw the first Aladdin show 11 times on the Fantasy over the years, and recently saw the new one, so let me offer my thoughts on how they compared. I knew that they had updated it to be more in line with the recent movie. I also expected it to be "plussed" in terms of effects. What I didn't expect is that it was a complete redo of the show from start to finish. As far as I could tell, they just threw out the old show and created a new one from scratch. Of course, they were very similar superficially, in terms of plot, characters, and the songs, as they are both based on the movie.
That they could have just done what I expected them to do: updated/plussed the original, but they didn't. As far as I could tell, all of the set pieces and choreography were completely replaced and written from scratch for this new version. Having seen the original one so many times, I noticed this constantly as the show progressed. I tried hard to not be "one of those" Disney fans that gets upset whenever anything changes. I understand why they wanted to update the plot to be more in line with the new movie, but I still don't understand why they threw out the whole show and recreated every aspect of it.
The revised plot to be closer to the new movie was obvious. Instead of the princess falling in love with the prince that comes in and saves the day (i.e. the traditional Disney princess plot line, including the original Aladdin movie), the princess takes the lead role and changes things up by taking charge and breaking past the traditional gender roles that she was facing. I understand why Disney took that stance in the recent movie, as they do get some amount of grief about what they teach kids in their traditional princess movies and how it's a somewhat-outdated outlook on life. I thought they took it a bit far in this revised Fantasy production. At times, it seems that they were really pushing that aspect of it, and although it was a noticeable change in the recent movie as compared to the original, it just didn't seem as forced to me in the new movie. One way I think they took it too far is that they seemed to de-emphasize the romance between Aladdin and Jasmine. Obviously, we can't just have the princess swoon and fall in love with the prince anymore just because he's charming, but they also seemed to de-emphasize the romantic aspects of Aladdin and how he felt toward Jasmine. That's the part where I think they went a bit too far.
As far as run time, they kept it tight. One of the complaints about the original Aladdin show on the Fantasy was that it was "too long" (maybe 45 minutes instead of closer to 35?), especially for some of the younger audience members' attention span. So, at some point a few years ago, they cut a scene from it to reduce the run time by a few minutes. The thing is, they didn't alter anything else in the show, and the scene they had cut was the one where the Genie explains to Aladdin that he gets 3 wishes (and only 3) and where he uses one to get out of the cave. That's a pretty crucial part of the plot, and a lot of the rest of the show doesn't make sense without it, but that's what they cut and didn't bother altering a nearby scene to put in that plot element. I guess they figured that everyone already knows the story and the lamp's rules, so it wouldn't be that big of a deal to just omit it. In any event, the new version was as short as the revised old version, but in this case, the show was written with that in mind, so there was no discontinuity in the plot. What's ironic about this is that it's now quite a short show because of guest feedback about the original being "too long," yet the new Frozen show is right around an hour, if not a bit longer, and is so long in fact as compared to the other shows on board that they have to adjust the start time by 15 minutes in order to accommodate it. Go figure.
Another difference is the Genie. The old show had the Genie do a lot of improv, much of it based on current events and often quite fresh. The jokes would vary a lot, depending on who was playing the Genie that week, and sometimes even the style of jokes would be different. I got the sense that it was an opportunity for each Genie to bring their own personal style to the role, and they were encouraged to make up new material based on current events in order to keep it fresh. Each time I saw it, that part of the show was noticeably different. One time, the Genie went into a string of jokes that lasted a couple of minutes, with Aladdin just standing still on the stage looking off in space as if in a state of suspended animation. The actors had obviously worked this out ahead of time. With the new production, the Genie's humor was toned down quite a bit. There were the obligatory references to
DCL and the ship, as well as some "evergreen" jokes about pop culture like Lady Gaga and Kardashian references, but nothing that seemed close to improv. I got the sense that it had all been scripted by the show writers and would be exactly the same each time.
So, that's how the two Aladdin productions on the Fantasy compare with each other, at least as I see it.
