disney - Aladdin: Why Did Wishes Get Revoked?

In the 1992 Disney adaptation of Aladdin, by my count, at least two wishes get revoked without explanation.

Aladdin becoming a prince gets revoked. Somehow. The answer here suggests that Jafar zapped him back to being a peasant, but I'm not sure that makes sense. It looked like Jafar was just revealing Aladdin to be a peasant--not transforming him back. Keep in mind, at this point, Jafar is still less powerful than the genie, and it took the genie several minutes to do the forward transformation.

Jafar's wish of being Sultan gets revoked. And, in this case, there isn't any explanation I can think of. After Jafar wishes to become Sultan, he wishes to become the most powerful sorcerer. He never gives up being Sultan. Yet, somehow at the end of the movie, the real Sultan has his clothes back (how did that happen, anyway?), and he's Sultan again!

The question is: what justifies these?

Answer

The script is very clear on the first point. Jafar doesn't just remove his Aladdin's fancy clothes, he fully reverts him to being a peasant: He literally zaps [Prince] ALI back to [commoner] ALADDIN:

Yes, meet a blast from your past
Whose lies were too good to last
Say hello to your precious Prince Ali!

(JAFAR zaps ALI back to ALADDIN.) - _{^{Aladdin Disney Script}}

In the second case, Jafar doesn't just wish to become the most powerful sorcerer in the world (which he already is, courtesy of wish #2) but to literally become a genie. Now, I appreciate that there's no logical reason why you couldn't be both a sultan and a genie but the phrasing of the wish suggests he no longer wishes to be merely the sultan, he now wants to be a genie instead

JAFAR: Slave, I make my third wish! I wish to be an all powerful genie!

GENIE: (Reluctantly) All right, your wish is my command. Way to go, Al.

If we assume that Jafar stops being the Sultan, then the rightful Sultan would then resume his title and position (and because people need to see this visual change, get his clothes back too).

Comments

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