CULTURE

The Latest Aladdin Trailer Finally Has Singing

A whole new friend like me!

by Elizabeth Logan

aladdin
Disney/IMDb

The latest trailer for Disney’s live-action remake of Aladdin finally gives Disney kids what they’ve been waiting for: music! While early sneak peeks mostly focused on how Will Smith would look as the Genie (and the Internet obsessed over Hot Jafar), we now have confirmation that both “A Whole New World” and “Friend Like Me” will be given the full spectacle treatment.

The first part of the trailer is mostly the titular street urchin running from the authorities (in the animated flick, this all happens to the tune of “One Jump Ahead”) until he’s awestruck by the sight of Princess Jasmine in disguise at the market. Then we get the de rigeur exposition about the Cave of Wonders and the entrance of the Genie, in case you’re somehow both excited by this film but unfamiliar with the plot of the original.

Flying carpets soar through the Agrabah night, fireworks explode over decorated elephants, and Abu the monkey plays the trumpet during “Friend Like Me.” Naomi Scott and Mena Massoud belt their hearts out in “A Whole New World.” There’s a shot that’s almost certainly part of “Prince Ali” and another of a group dance reminiscent of Bhangra.

Disney is paying it close to the vest in terms of revealing the elements of the 2019 movie that weren’t there in 1992; we know that Nasim Pedrad plays a friend of Jasmine’s, and Billy Magnussen plays a suitor prince, but so far we haven’t seen either of them in action. If you scan through promotional photos from the set, you can find Pedrad, but we didn’t spot her in the trailer. Sneaky, Disney. However, we did get a glimpse of something that definitely wasn’t in the first movie: Aladdin falling through an ice cave? Just before the two-minute mark, he’s doing parkour on a glacier. That’s new!

We do see the Sultan on the poster, as well as everyone’s favorite animal sidekicks: Apu the monkey, Iago the parrot, and Rajah the tiger.

After hitting the Internet Tuesday morning, the trailer immediately went viral, garnering hundreds of thousands of views as #Aladdin started trending across Twitter. Watch it below, but only if you’re prepared to have “A Whole New World” stuck in your head for the rest of the day:

Aladdin hits theaters May 24.

Related: Will Smith as the Genie in Aladdin Is Terrifying, but Twitter’s Reactions Are Delightful