Pretty much. Some of them are equal. For the princesses, none of the original stories surpass the Disney version. This is not true for all of the Disney movies (Peter Pan, for example), but is for the princesses.

The original stories, as I know them, are this:


Snow White: Grimm's fairy tale, Snow White is much younger (7 years old), story pretty much the same except no friendly animals

Cinderella: No friendly mice, etc., otherwise the same

Beauty and the Beast: Belle has sisters and brothers, and her father is a merchant, not an inventor. He loses all his money when his ship crashes, and he goes to see if anything can be salvaged, getting lost on the way and reaching the Beast's castle.

Aladdin: Disney version is just very embellished; jasmine doesn't run away, Jafar's character is not the Grand viser, story is more about Aladdin getting lots of stuff including a princess, rather than about the love story.

Sleeping Beauty: More than 3 fairies (7 or 13 depending on version), sleeps for a hundred years (therefore didn't know Philip before), whole castle falls asleep, no dragon...

Little Mermaid: Hans Christian Andersen story--biggest difference is that Ariel doesn't succeed, she dies in the end.

Pocahontas: true historical story--in real life there was no romance between her and john smith, and of course all the magic stuff is Disney.

Sleeping Beauty is the only one for me than I like the fairy tale better, although I love the songs and the animation in the movie. But I'm just not that huge a fan of what disney did with the story.

The other ones, I'm the same, some of them are equal for me but none of them surpass.

All of them!

I did like how there were more fairies (13, including "Maleficent (who wasn't actually called Maleficent, in the version I read) and they gave her better gifts :)
However, I like that Aurora knew Phillip before he kissed her. So the Sleeping Beauty stories are pretty equal to me :)

I'm really confused/sad as to why a few people have picked The Little Mermaid. I read the Hans Christian Andersen version when I was younger and I nearly cried! I was so sad that there was no happy ending :(

Not that I have anything against Ariel but I always liked the original fairy tale. I still like the Disney version, too.

I like them in Diseny cause if for example they used Ariel and she died at the end well that would be tragic altogether it would be like Titantic gone wrong. Anyway I love all the Disney versions

i love the original fairy tale of little mermaid

There is not always a happy ending in life... This was the most real in this respect. She dies in the end... but she still gets the chance to have an immortal soul.

although I love the original Beauty and the Beast almost equally

I like the original story of Beauty and the Beast better. There was more dimension to the characters, and Beauty in the original story is a kinder person than Belle is.

I tolerate Andersen's original story of TLM, but I think he loved killing off his characters, because TLM was a repeat of what happened in The Little Match Girl, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Fir Tree, etc. The man loved death and dying.

I always know all of the stories in Disney version before I know the original versions of them.