Ornament Review: Disney's Aladdin 25th Anniversary - 2017 Hallmark Ornament

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Fun ornament that captures the movie

Cons: Wrong sound clip; bad color on Aladdin’s clothes

The Bottom Line:

Anniversary

Celebrated with the wrong

Musical sound clip

An Odd Choice Mars This Anniversary Piece

In recent years, Hallmark has been releasing ornaments to celebrate milestone anniversaries for Disney films.  Most of these ornaments also have sound clips of a popular song from the movie.  I wasn’t surprised to see that last year, they released an ornament to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Aladdin.  Sadly, there was a surprise in store.

If I could have designed the ornament, it would have looked exactly like this.  It features Aladdin and Jasmin sitting on the magic carpet.  They are wearing their costumes from the majority of the movie, or at least Jasmin is, Aladdin is wearing his Prince Ali get up.  They are flying through the clouds on the Magic Carpet with the palace somewhere below them.

I love the design of this ornament, however I do have an issue with how it looks.  Aladdin’s outfit is a light yellow in the movie.  I get that.  But it looks too dark here.  They needed to tone that yellow down.

The other problem comes from the sound clip.  Yes, it is “A Whole New World.”  No surprise there.  The big surprise is that it isn’t the original version from the movie.  Disney ornaments almost always have the original voice, so this shocked me completely.  The voices don’t sound bad, but they aren’t the voices fans of the movie know and love.  I’ve heard that this is a clip from the Broadway soundtrack, but since I don’t have that soundtrack (yet), I can’t confirm it.  If the ornament were clearly advertised as a Broadway ornament, I would expect it, but for the movie’s silver anniversary, I would expect the sound clip to be from the movie.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t sound bad.  It just sounds different.  And in this case, different isn’t good.

To play the sound clip, you need to insert two button batteries, and your first set is included.  The clip lasts roughly 35 seconds.

Thanks in part to the battery and electronics needed for the sound clip, this ornament does have a nice, large base.  You can easily set this out to enjoy year-round since there isn’t anything really that Christmassy about it.  And if you want to hang it on your tree, you’ll find that it hangs straight.

I wanted to love this ornament.  I really truly did.  However, the wrong sound clip for an anniversary piece just seems wrong, and the color bothers me a little.  With as much as I love this movie, I wish the anniversary piece were better.

Original Price: $24.95