Ah, the Disney animated sequel. The attempt by the company to squeeze every penny possible from the beloved characters they created. Over the past decade or so, it seems Disney has created even more of these suckers than before, with mixed results. Most are pretty mediocre, but palatable and range usually follow in these three categories: the pilot, the edit-undo and the cutting room floor story. A pilot is usually some rather meaningless event which brings together all the favorite characters from the original movie, where one character usually tells three independent stories throughout the span of the movie. I call it this because these sequels usually are 3 episodes of a television show slammed together to make a movie. These movies are like 'Tarzan and Jane' and 'Hercules: Zero to Hero'. Edit-undos are plots that basically unravel everything that happened in the first movie. In Little Mermaid Ariel goes from the sea to the land, in Little Mermaid II Melody goes from land to sea. Or in Lady and the Tramp II Tramp goes from a stray to a pet, and Scamp goes from a pet to a stray. The cutting room floor story is usually called 'fill-in-the-blank' II and not actually a sequel, but is really an event that theoretically happened during the first movie, but isn't actually mentioned in the movie. This category is the one that's been popping up the most with stories like Tarzan II and Fox and the Hound II. However, while none of the sequels have ever been on par with the original movie, Disney has actually produced some genuinely good sequels amongst the 'meh' stories, and these are the ones I think are best.

Follow up:

Pocahontas II: Journal to New World

The music is mostly forgettable, but Pocahontas II has a pretty good story, some really nice animation and some genuinely good writing. Disney's attempt to be slightly more historically accurate, Pocahontas goes to England as a sort of ambassador and stays with John Rolf (her real husband). Ratcliffe somehow gets back into good graces with the English Court and John Smith becomes a fugitive. I really loved the scene when Pocahontas goes to the ball dressed as a Western woman and dances with Ratcliffe.

Ratcliffe: "Dressed like that you almost look human."
Pocahontas: "Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you."

The relationship develops nicely between Pocahontas and John Rolf, and even though John Smith loses out, the ending works out that you don't get mad that they don't end up together.

The Rescuers Down Under

A theatrical release as opposed to a direct-to-video release, Rescuers Down Under is a sequel released 20 years after the original. In terms of storytelling, the original Rescuers was better, but the animation, backgrounds and villain are far superior. McGeech is easily one of Disney's best villains. He's greedy beyond heartlessness, cruel to even his allies and downright sadistic. Madam Medusa was mean and greedy, but she treated her pet gators like children and gets freaked out by mice. McGeech's monitor lizard Joanna was super creepy on her own, but you actually felt sorry for her when she was kicked. And when he finally goes down, you really get a sense of satisfaction

Aladdin and the King of Thieves

Aladdin and the King of Thieves is an amazing exception. Not only is it a direct-to-video sequel, it's the second direct-to-video sequel produced for Aladdin. I don't know the story, but release of King of Thieves got delayed by almost two years. Normally, that's a sign of big trouble and low quality, but it's not the case with King of Thieves. They got all the original voice actors, the music is memorable and the storyline pretty good. The villain isn't as good as Jafar, but he has his moments and when the movie ends you really get a sense of closure that says 'the story of Aladdin is truly done and I don't need anything more'. So Disney, please, please don't release another Aladdin movie, you already got lucky twice.

Beauty and the Beast Enchanted Christmas

Yes, this is a cutting room floor story, but it has several things going for it. One is that it is a Christmas special, and normally Christmas specials, especially by Disney are all warm and fluffiness, but Enchanted Christmas has some downright menacing parts to it. Second is that the villain is played by Tim Curry, that alone gives it about 400 awesome points. Add in really nice music, and a lot of character development on the Beast's part, as well as insight as to really how much of a jerk he was when he was human and why he was cursed make for a really enjoyable Christmas movie.

Lion King II: Simba's Pride

Avoiding all the controversy that exists in Otakudom, Lion King was a really great movie, and pretty much any sequel of it would never be in the same ball park, but Lion King II is still a pretty enjoyable movie. There are times with the music montages where it tries just a little too hard to be like the first movie, but when it stops trying it comes out pretty great. For those who never saw it, it's about Simba's daughter Kira, but more accurately it's about Kovu and can be broken down more simply into a political story about the Pride Landers and the Outsiders. The Outsiders, former followers of Scar and still loyal to him had been banished after Simba came back. The Outsiders hate the Pridelanders and see Kovu, a lion cub son of the leader who had accidentally ended up playing with Kira, as their ticket back into power. While most of the music is rather 'meh' the song 'You will be a king' is really really good.

The Return of Jafar

Aladdin is a gem among Disney franchises. Not only was it an excellent movie in itself, it spawned one of the greatest SNES/Genesis games, had an amazing television series and not one but two awesome direct-to-video sequels. While King of Thieves is very good, personally I think Return of Jafar is just a little bit better. The music isn't as good, but the storyline is great and Jafar ends up being more sinister as a subservient genie than he ever was as a mere sorcerer. The scene at the execution block had my heart racing and I ended up liking Iago (who'da thunk?) You can see they were genuinely trying to make an enjoyable movie as opposed to just selling more Jasmine dolls.

Honorable Mention

102 Dalmations

This movie doesn't technically count because it's live action and was a theatrical release, but it's listed because it was actually better than the original. 101 Dalmatians was a remake of the animated movie, but to me it just didn't have the same heart. Glenn Close was awesome, but there was too much focus on the humans than the animals. 102 Dalmatians nicely balanced out the two, with giving more personality to the dogs that were in the movie.

Worst Disney Sequel I've seen

As I've said before, most of the sequels released weren't good, but few were genuinely painful to watch and brought up so much anger. However, there is one movie made that is so bad that it essentially spits on everything that made its original so beautiful, unique and awesome.

Where to even begin with why this movie is just so bad? The villain is a joke, the plot is stupid, the songs are bland and the new character is forgettable. Well, that's a good start at least. The Hunchback of Notre Dame took a book that was dark, violent and depressing, and even after cute-a-fying it with talking gargoyles and not killing off the girl and still came out pretty damn sinister. Frollo is considered by many as one of the best Disney villain of all time. So when you compare a murderous, lusting man-who-thinks-he's right to a lame French dude who only wants to steal a bell--well, you're beginning to see my point.