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The First Aladdin Teaser Trailer Is Here and People Are Mad

Not everyone is here for Prince Ali

By Oct 12th, 2018, 11:27 am

The first teaser trailer for Aladdin hit the internet last night and everyone had something to say about it. As they should.

A lot of what they had to say was … not happy.

This is a treasured movie from our childhoods and there is already a lot of controversy surrounding the Guy Ritchie-directed film. The biggest being that the film’s Princess Jasmine is not being played by an actress of Middle Eastern descent.

Naomi Scott will take on Princess Jasmine and she is of Indian descent. Being that Aladdin is set in what would be real life Baghdad, we were obviously put off by the fact that Disney just cast someone that they believed looked like they can fit the part rather than casting with an eye on representation. Mena Massoud, who plays Aladdin, was born in Egypt and raised in Canada. Will Smith plays the Genie.

Whether the concerns were about the actors or the aesthetic choices, the new trailer brought a lot of anger out of fans of the original film.

People have a lot of Thoughts about the trailer. Comparing the animated to the live-action, it is clear there were some artistic takes on the design of it.

From the casting on, Aladdin has many issues, but apparently, Disney is also using a rhyme that Terry Rossio wrote without any acknowledgment that Terry and their writing partner wrote it.

Obviously people were complaining about the lack of other characters. The response?

For just a teaser, people are already up in arms about the changes Disney is making in the live-action version. For instance, the fact that the cave is a completely different animal.

They even changed Aladdin’s costume. Why? Who knows.

Aladdin comes out in May of 2019 and if these initial reactions are anything, it is going to be a long journey to those Arabian nights.

They had better make Rajah perfect.

(image: Disney)

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Rachel Leishman (She/Her) is an Assistant Editor at the Mary Sue. A writer her whole life but professionally starting back in 2016 who loves all things movies, TV, and classic rock. Resident Spider-Man expert, official Leslie Knope, actually Yelena Belova. Wanda Maximoff has never done anything wrong in her life. Star Wars makes her very happy. New York writer with a passion for all things nerdy. Yes, she has a Pedro Pascal podcast. And also a Harrison Ford one.