We love Wall-E and, sure, his collection of trinkets left behind on Earth by the near-extinct human race is quite touching. However, it is, ultimately, just trash. Trash trash trash! There’s room here on this list for sentiment, so he makes it in by the skin of his robotic chompers, but we draw the line at mushiness, so that’s why he’s staying at the very bottom of the pile. Dirrrrr-ect-tivvve?

#9 – El Corazón
Romancing The Stone

What’s better than an emerald? A big fat shiny emerald, that’s what! Welcome to Romancing The Stone, in which Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas find themselves on a dangerous quest to uncover the coveted El Corazon from the depths of badtown Columbia. As Douglas quips, “one hell of a morning has turned into a bitch of a day!” They find the stone, they find love and then they find themselves in even bigger trouble than before. I guess this one makes us think about worth over value, or some such blah blah…

#8 – The Ark of the Covenant
Indiana Jones: Raiders Of The Lost Ark

Indiana Jones has a noser for adventure, as we all well know, so when he hears of a biblical artefact which can hold the key to humanly existence (or, you know, assist the Nazis in taking over the ENTIRE WORLD), he has to venture to farflung places like Nepal and Egypt in order to uncover its secrets. But “death has always surrounded it. It is not of this earth.” Probably best not to open that pretty golden box then…

#7 – Cursed Aztec Gold
Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl

Pirates are completely obsessed with treasure which is why we just knew that the trove in Pirates Of The Caribbean was bound to have a good haul in it somewhere. Look at all the lovely lovely gold. Wouldn’t you like to get your grubby thieving hands all over that? Actually, you wouldn’t, because it’s cursed: “For too long I’ve been parched of thirst and unable to quench it. Too long I’ve been starving to death and haven’t died. I feel nothing. Not the wind on my face nor the spray of the sea. Nor the warmth of a woman’s flesh.” Rubbish. Looks good but renders you soulless. A little like a smoking hot gold-digging wife, eh?

#6 – One Eyed Willie’s Treasure
The Goonies

The Goonies went off in search of One Eyed Willie’s ship, just to keep themselves occupied one rainy day, and found themselves navigating a labyrinth of tunnels underneath their home town. Eventually they arrived at a large underground lagoon where Willie’s ship, The Inferno, lay waiting and , whaddaya know, it was filled to bursting with doubloon on doubloon on doubloon! Just enough to save their town from the expanding Astoria Country Club. Thank Chunk for that!

#5 – Ariel’s 20 Thingamabobs
The Little Mermaid

Ariel’s treasure is, sure, collected for sentimental value and so probably isn’t worth very much at all. Except, if you look at the painting she has nestled amongst all her odds and ends, you’ll discover that it’s Magdalene With the Smoking Flame by 17th-century artist Georges de La Tour. Add that to the fact we have a genuine mermaid knocking about and, if we were to organise a deep-sea raid, we could fetch a couple of million quid at auction at least…

#4 – Old School Pornography
Titanic

Most people opt for The Heart Of The Ocean (that big blue eyesore draped around Kate Winslet’s neck?) when discussing the treasures of Titanic. Not I. I say, if you want to fetch the big bucks, you need to ditch the glamped-up glass pendant and make for Leonardo Di Caprio’s nude sketch of our favourite fire-braving actress. Old-school pornography salvaged from the bottom of the sea? Amazing. Just amazing.

#3 – Captain Flint’s Treasure
Muppet Treasure Island

Tim Curry. Muppets. Treasure. It’s just too much goodness to take in, isn’t it? There’s even a pirate with a talking parrot. “First pirates, now talking parrots, what’s next – a singing, dancing mouse with his own amusement park?” Obviously not then. Either way, there’s an excellent haul of treasure at the heart of this excellent Muppet caper and it comes complete with the obligatory moral lesson as well. What more could you ask?

#2 – The Magic Lamp
Aladdin

Aladdin was sent down into the Cave of Wonders by the mysteriously evil Jafar… idiot. Obviously that guy was BOUND to try and kill him. Luckily for our diamond in the rough, the cave entrance collapses and he’s locked inside with nothing but an old lamp for company. He notices it’s dirty, gives it a rub-a-dub-dub and BOOM! He bags himself his very own Genie and three whole wishes. Awesomeness levels are OFF THE SCALE!

#1 – Evie
The Mummy

Jonathan: Well, I guess we go home empty handed. Again.
Rick: I wouldn’t say that.
[Kisses Evie]

Oh yeah, they went looking for the treasure of High Priest Imhotep and, instead, Evie (Rachel Weisz) and Rick (Brendan Fraser) fell madly in love. Who would’ve thunk it, huh? She was a librarian, he was an explorer; together, they were cinematic magic. If we landed a hotty like her we’d count ourselves very lucky indeed, which is why this treasure trumps ALL the treasures before it. Plus, unbeknownst to them, she came complete with a camel laden down with GOLD! Win win all round. God, we love Evie.

Do you like treasure? Do you know where we can FIND treasure? And, if not, what’s your favourite film treasure trove?

1. They Love Subliminal Messages

If you thought Tyler Durden splicing in a frame of an erect penis into a children’s animated movie was far-fetched, think again. There has been so much sexual imagery weaved into Disney’s back catalogue from The Little Mermaid’s “dildo” under-the-sea tower; to Sex written in the stars above Simba in The Lion King; to Jessica Rabbit’s lady garden being Marilyn Monroe’d; it could be argued that most of the Disney animators, or perhaps at least a select few, really are a bunch of dirty old pervs. There is also the subliminal messages woven into their films that suggest Disney’s leanings towards Satanic iconography and certain, shall we say, racial stereotypes and prejudices towards black people and Jews, most recently parodied by Family Guy. See Dumbo’s backwards speaking crows as an example of the worst kind of stereotyping and Donald Duck in a cartoon where he so sweetly portrays life as a Nazi.

2. They Want To Take Over The (Whole New) World

Disney is one of the largest corporations in the world, generating billions of dollars in revenue every year from their surplus of television programming, cinematic ventures, merchandising, music, board games, toys, food brands, clothing lines and promotions. Mickey Mouse’s face stares out at you from every conceivable dark corner on this planet, and their team of lawyers are famous for coming after anyone – and we include Florida Day Care Centres on this list – who they think might mess with their globe-crushingly-powerful brand. Endlessly plowing the public domain for ideas before building iron-clad fences around characters that were originally free for anyone to enjoy (Pocahonus, Peter Pan, Hercules, the list goes on…), Disney send out their message loud and clear – Do Not Mess With The Mouse. With their entire net worth, Disney could be easily classified as its own small country. I dread the day they decide to start developing their own nuclear weapons program. Mickey M’s logo along the side of a missile. Trust me, it’ll happen.

3. They Decide Who Gets Famous

Entire careers originated and were moulded in The Mickey Mouse Mafia – sorry, Club – from Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Kerri Russell, Justin Bieber and most bizarrely of all, Ryan Gosling. Add the honorary Disney movie débuts of Lindsay Lohan, Zac Efron, Miley Cyrus, and it becomes clear; they’re creating an army of celebrities with ties to their organisation. It’s like the Mafia. Only worse. These celebrities are initially praised and worshipped as excellent role models that instil a sense of virginal Christian values into their public personas. But of course, they are just personas perpetuated by a need to make money. Lots of it. And that pressure inevitably drives these Mickey Mouse club idols to go off the rails in an orgy of drugs, scandal, sex and self-destruction. They can’t all turn out like Kurt Russell now can they?

4. Making Money From Films Isn’t Enough For Them

Ah, Disneyland . I was forced to go there when I was seven years old and I hated every terrifying, plastic minute of it. Yet families flock to this artificial, dreadful excuse for a Magical Experience every year, simply so that Disney merchandise can be flogged to maximum potential. It’s like taking a visit to a Pagan festival that somehow got some serious funding behind it. Only significantly less fun than that.

5. A rival company? They’ll eat you.

Disney found the future of the box office in the talents of a studio called Pixar, and decided that they wanted it. And what the mouse wants, he get. Partnering for the Toy Story trilogy in 1995 under assurances that the small studio would still stand alone, ten years on we were hearing the inevitable news that Disney had bought Pixar out completely. Not only did this underline that fact that Disney have no partners -only victims, it meant that we experienced the steady decline of traditional 2D animation, in almost all mediums. Some say it was a revolution, others say it was the permanent abandonment of true hand-drawn artistry; whatever your POV, it’s fair to say that whatever developments come along next, Disney will make damn sure they’ve got a solid grip round its neck.

6. High School Musical 1, 2 and 3.

To some, it’s a “family friendly trilogy”, to others it’s “proof that there cannot be a God.”

7. They traumatised us forever with their damn beautiful tragedies

Bambi’s Mum! Dumbo’s Mum! Simba’s Dad! The terrifying donkey-boy! Why hurt us so, Disney? Why? Do the tears of innocent children continue to keep Walt’s body in cryogenic stasis?

8. They pretend we don’t have to be beautiful even though that’s a lie

Let us recall Beauty and the Beast. Sure, Belle falls in love with a massive… bear? Wolf bear? Some sort of creature, anyway, and hooray, it doesn’t matter what he looks like, spell is broken! Except then he turns into a prince. And that’s, quite obviously, a hell of a lot better. Also, it doesn’t have any slightly nasty tinges of bestiality (step up The Little Mermaid). Can you think of a Disney heroine who doesn’t encourage poor young girls to fall onto broken glass in desirability-based despair? No. Us neither.

9. They are on-going supporters of the horrible 3D format

Meaning that every painful three-dimensional second of their new releases will be impossible to hide from, no matter what universe you’re living in.

10. Do they… love Satan?

Rumour has it that Walt Disney’s signature itself is a sign of his dedication to all that is unholy. It appears to mark the symbol of three sixes on each of the whirl shaped letters– 666. The mark of the Beast. Coincidence? We think not…

So, unscrupulous in business, morally bankrupt, sexually depraved, (probably) Satanic in motive and purpose, Disney crush their competition and silence their opposition. They do not tolerate resistance and they take no prisoners. They encourage children to follow in the examples of Shave Me Bald Britney and Gonna Get Dirty Christina. And dammit their songs are catchy. What hope do we have, world? We’re waiting for the day Walt wakes up – he’s going to have a lot to answer for.

Put Down The Mouse, Pick Up The Pencil…

The Princess And The Frog is Disney’s first ‘hand-drawn’ endeavour since the unmitigated disasters that were Brother Bear (2003) and Home On The Range (2004). After the blistering success of Toy Story, Disney decided that the future of kids films was in CGI, cunningly ignoring the fact that Toy Story simply had a freakin’ awesome story, whereas Home On The Range had a semi-comical cow and that was about it. No one we know ever bothered to see Brother Bear as it looked so awful, so we can’t really comment on that one. Either way, since then it’s been CGI hits that have reigned supreme; Monsters Inc, A Bug’s Life, Bolt and Up all scored massively at the box office. The big draw of The Princess And The Frog, in lieu of fancy effects, is the fact that the heroine is African-American, and rather than being a princess is a hard working New Orleans girl with dreams of running her own restaurant. Are we ushering in a new age of Disney?

Tale As Old As Time

In a word, no. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Princess And The Frog is a simple story beautifully told, taking you back in time to the golden age of kids films, rather than forward. It tells the story of Tiana, a daughter of a chef who is determined to follow her father’s dream and open her own restaurant. She works all day trying to afford the down-payments, and never has time to dream of the life of a princess. Meanwhile, a young Prince by the name of Naveen has been turned into a frog by the terrifying ‘Shadowman’ and must find a princess to kiss in order to turn back. Mistaking Tiana for such a maiden, he kisses her and – oops! – she turns into a frog too. It’s up to the two of them, along with a jazz playing alligator and a voodoo lady, to stop the shadowman and reverse the magic. Can they do it? I think we all know the answer to that.

That’s Some Fancy Colouring In…

In style, it has echoes of Disney classics like Beauty and the Beast with its great musical score and well observed yet loveable characters, but also seems very self-aware, with its PC squeaky clean messages and well-rounded ethnicity. The animation, it has to be said, is gorgeous. Team Disney have really pushed the boundaries of what 2D animation can capture, and within about five minutes of sitting down to watch you are completely lost in a beautifully drawn world. In an Avatar-crazy world, it is actually rather refreshing to know that you don’t need 3D immersion to feel completely absorbed in a story. The only problem we could see with The Princess And The Frog was that though the story was loveable, funny, well paced and engaging, its characters sometimes lacked the complexity we’ve come to expect from recent Disney. The animation doesn’t look old fashioned, but occasionally the characters kind of do.

All the same though, this is a delightful, colourful romp, especially for kids who maybe haven’t been introduced to much 2D Disney before now. We hope to see more of this ilk from Disney in the future, if only to prove that James Cameron can’t completely tell us what to do.

What did you make of Disney’s new offering? Kissable, or avoidable? Tell us below!

But fear not! Our crack team of analysts (we put on some long coats and beards) have spent literally an unspecified amount of time figuring out the hidden messages in classic kids films, so that we can take a look at the future of our children. How will they make decisions? Who will they trust, and why? Will they be the generation to finally expose Nicholas Cage as the door-wedge that he is? It’s all here, and it’s all terrifying. Brace yourselves oldies, it’s time to walk a mile in some tiny shoes.

Kids Can Outsmart Adults

How many times a day do people in beige hats and too much skin murmur shakily “Ohhh, the young today. No Respect. No respect at all.” A lot of times. A lot of times a day. But should this really come as a surprise to us? Almost every kids film ever made has shouted gleefully that kids are more intelligent than adults, and should do as they blinkin’ well please. Nowhere is this more evident than in Home Alone. First of all, the Adults- the stupid, scarf wearing, book reading, dead eyed idiots that they are- forget a child when they go on holiday. And then they do it again. In two more films. That’s enough to lose hope in the grown-up world in itself. But then you’ve got the jaw-achingly brain-dead criminals who can’t even open a window without their arms falling off. Not exactly an awe-inspiring vision of maturity. Give a kid a paint can, and he’s a one man SWAT team. This is the war-cry of a generation.

What You’re Wearing Dictates Your Character

Then we go on to complain that these young of today don’t know what they’re doing. Well no. Why should they? In kids’ films- from Disney to Dreamworks to Pixar, the baddies look like baddies, and the goodies have big eyes and grins made of happy diamonds. Who is the evil one? Well, that shadowy figure lurking in the corner probably, wearing a cape and holding the dead kitten. Ursula? Evil. Jafar? Evil. Scar? So obviously evil. And often-times life just isn’t that easy. Mr Wiggles, the happy ice-cream man just down the street? He’s actually a massive wasp. And he wants to kill you.

Got a Problem? Sing about it!

In terms of expressing deep-down emotions- a tricky thing for kids no matter what age you’re born into- we can’t help but admit we’ve given the youth of today very little help. Except to suggest that they sing about it. The High School Musical, Camp Rock and Hannah Montana phenomenon has promised an entire generation that if you’re having an internal struggle, the only thing to do is to open your mouth and sing your very kidneys out. And hope that everyone else will join you in an attempt to solidify your bonds of friendship and aid you on your quest. But, of course, they won’t. They’ll hit you with pipes. They know that, we know that. What we’ve actually done with these films is present a solution that does not exist, probably causing even more internal despair for kids everywhere. Zach Efron tells them one thing, pure, unabashed logic tells them another. Who is right? What will win? Oh God, even we don’t know anymore. No wonder they turn to pipe crime, it’s the only thing that makes sense.

If You’re Ugly, You’re Over

In the world of grown-ups, it’s possible that Nicholas Cage can star in essentially every film ever made, giving hope to the talentless, ugly and (probably) sour smelling members of our society that they too can reach magnificent and inexplicable success. And yet children, the more fragile and hope-filled among us, are forced to come to terms with the fact that if they don’t look like a young Jessica Alba, they’re going nowhere. The stars of High School Musical are so unbelievably plasticine-ily perfect looking they could be mistaken for the Hollywood equivalent of Wallace and Gromit. Except for the one fat one that’s always in the background somewhere. In the background. Exactly.

Single parent? It’s up to the kids!

Know it all bloody kids eh? Never listen to a word we say, harrumph and such. Well what the heck do we know, anyway? If anything, we should be begging the kids to help us out, as they’re our only hope for a happy ending! Whether it’s One Fine Day, where George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer dance around each other for 90 minutes, or those parents who got all trapped in The Parent Trap, if you’re a single parent it’s up to your child to find you love. We’re pretty sure it happened to Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan too. No not that film, the other one. It’s clear that if you’re a young single parent, your kid is savvy, wise-cracking and probably a hell of a lot cleverer than you. So when he/she tries to set you up with that tramp who gives them free gum every week, think before you’re violently ill. So what if she loves setting things on fire? The heart wants what it wants

And so…

Based on the above analysis, we can safely say that the next generation will be a fine one. They will know everything about everyone, but will also judge a person’s worth solely on the colour of their tie. They will have a lot of plastic surgery to look like a dolled up Morph from Sm-Art, and if you ask them why they will reply “what the hell can you know about it? Or anything? You left me at home for Christmas again! Oh God how I hate you”. They will be insecure, knowledgeable, angry, pushy, wear lots of bright colours and be always on the look-out for potential extra parents. Oh dear. What’s to be done eh? Only one thing for it we suppose, everybody, “WE’re ALL in THIS TOgetthherr la la la something something lala WE SEE THAT!” Whew. That’s a lot better.