Genie (Disney's Aladdin)

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Genie
First appearance	Aladdin
Created by	Roger Allers Ron Clements
Voiced by	Robin Williams Dan Castellaneta
Characteristics
Notable aliases	Genie of the Lamp

Genie is a fictional character from the Disney animated features canon movie Aladdin, as well as related series and sequels. For the original movie, his voice was provided by Robin Williams, though it was later taken over by Dan Castellaneta, after a contract dispute between Williams and the Walt Disney Company. Castellaneta continued to voice the Genie throughout Aladdin the Series, as well as the direct-to-video feature The Return of Jafar, before Williams reprised the role for the final installment of the franchise, Aladdin and the King of Thieves. Castellaneta also voiced Genie in the Kingdom Hearts series by Square Enix and Buena Vista Games. His Japanese voice actor in this series was Koichi Yamadera.

Like most popular depictions of genies, Disney's Genie was originally a slave. Though he possessed what he called "phenomenal cosmic powers", he was bound to a magic oil lamp and could only use his powers when the owner of the lamp (his master) made a wish. Each master had three such wishes. The lamp came into the possession of the character Aladdin during the course of the first movie, and remained in servitude until the end of the movie, when Aladdin used his third and final wish to grant Genie his freedom.

As well as largely driving the plot in the first movie, the Genie serves as a comic relief element in each of his appearances. He is shown to have incredible shape-shifting abilities, which allow for many and varied sight gags, and the Genie's supernatural disposition permits him to break the fourth wall, as well as parody real-life people and popular culture completely outside of the boundaries of the fictional universe in which he is contained. Robin Williams is responsible for most of these because he had a tendency to ad-lib the role and be so funny they had to add these jokes.

Along with the character of Iago the parrot, Genie is one of the most well recognised of characters from Disney's Aladdin franchise.

[edit] Reduction of Genie's Powers

After the first movie, Genie's Phenomenal Cosmic Powers were reduced to Semi-Phenomenal, Nearly-Cosmic Powers as he admitted in The Return of Jafar. Evidence of his power reduction can be observed by comparing the first Aladdin movie to the Aladdin TV series.

In the first movie, Genie's powers were a brand of magic that never fails. He was all-powerful and able to do anything except three forbidden things: murder, making one fall in love, and raising the dead (although he explained that he simply does not enjoy doing the third). A fourth limitation prevented his master from wishing for more wishes. He was considered the most powerful being on Earth, and was able to get out of the collapsed cave of wonders, lift the palace in to the sky with his bare hands, and undo the work, causes, and results of magics from other sources by mixing them with his magic.

However, Genie's magic fails very often in the TV series, he is too foolish to take full advantage of his powers while mortals who only temporary possessed some of them (such as Iago and Mozenrath) were able to take better advantage than him, and he appears to be somewhat clumsy in using his powers; becoming trapped inside of objects such as common bottles, failing to stop the palace from falling from the sky in one episode, and failing in mixing magics to undo the magic of other sources. His foolishness and clumsiness sometimes result in his defeat, humiliation, or even intimidation by a less powerful villain.

As a matter of fact, Genie was not just reduced in physical and mystical abilities, but even in wisdom, intelligence, and personality. In the first movie he has complete self-confidence, gives good advice, and shows no foolishness, unlike in TV series where he has very little self-confidence and is usually out-smarted and needs Aladdin's mortal wisdom to save him. The logic behind Genie's reduction was probably to make Aladdin's adventures more challenging by keeping Genie from making any problem irrelevant.

Ironically, this reduction is not obvious in Aladdin and the King of Thieves, since he never gets beaten, humiliated, or intimidated, and his magic never fails. He was able to defeat the Forty Thieves when the palace guards failed to do so, and multiply himself to countless soldiers of a modern-day military while using a Code Red Order. His wisdom, intelligence, and personality appeared to be similar to that in the first movie.

[edit] Trivia

• An earlier draft of the script for the original movie had the Genie becoming human at the end - becoming the shopkeeper/narrator at the beginning of the movie (also voiced by Robin Williams) - though this idea was cancelled when it became clear that potential sequels were more viable with the Genie character intact.
• The Genie's gold bracelets were used in the first movie as a symbol of his enslavement to the lamp, serving as his shackles which fell off upon his release (similarly, when Jafar is turned into a Genie it is the appearance of his own gold armbands that apparently bind him to his own lamp). Despite this, Genie is shown to be wearing his gold armbands (or similar ones) in every subsequent appearance, with the exception of the Return of Aladdin mini-series published by Disney Comics. However, in one episode of the Aladdin series, he commented that he only wears them for fashion.
• Throughout the three feature-length Aladdin movies, Genie transforms 13 times into another Disney character (not counting brief transformations into Jafar, Iago, and Aladdin in The Return of Jafar). These characters include Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket, the White Rabbit, Pumbaa, Pluto, Pocahontas and Mickey Mouse.
• The casting of Robin Williams as the Genie paved the way for the widespread casting of live-action celebrities in voice acting roles. In particular, Aladdin was the first time that a voice actor had been used in marketing as a means of attracting an audience.
• The Genie is the mascot of DisneyQuest, an "indoor interactive theme park" located in Downtown Disney at the Walt Disney World Resort.
• Although freed from his lamp, Genie now considers it his getaway place. If the lamp were destroyed, Genie would still remain with his powers because he's freed, unlike Jafar.
• In the dvd of the first movie, it shows where Genie went to at his vacation. Genie can be seen in a picture of the Mickey Mouse Club.
• In November 2006, when Alaska Airlines added another 737 to its fleet, it had the Spirit of Disneyland scheme with the Genie as the mascot.
• Voiced by Istvan Miko in the Hungarian version. He is also the regular voice for Robin Williams.
• Popular independent animator Bill Plympton was slated to design Genie, but he turned down the position.
• Genie is the only animated character ever to win an MTV movie award (for best comedic performance through Robin Williams)

Disney's Aladdin
Films, TV & game	Aladdin | The Return of Jafar | Aladdin and the King of Thieves | Aladdin (TV series) | Video game
Soundtrack	Soundtrack | A Whole New World
Main Characters	Aladdin | Princess Jasmine | Genie | Iago
Villains	Jafar | Abis Mal | Mozenrath | Mirage | Mechanicles | Saluk | Amin Damoola
Minor Characters	Arbutus | Chaos