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@elizabeth First off: I love the idea of an Aladdin retelling. I’ve never read one, but now I want to. And go you, trying new story types!

Like SeekJustice said, I definitely recommend reading the original version of the story instead of just going off the Disney version. (People can tell when you just go off the Disney version; trust me.)

As for your question — do you need more Aladdin elements? — I’d say yes, personally. To me, you need three elements for a really good fairy tale retelling:
-Some inclusion of the most iconic elements of the fairy tale.
-A similar (though not identical) plotline that, again, includes some version of the most iconic scenes of the original.
-A recognition of the heart of the original fairy tale — what the original fairy tale was really about and what it was trying to say.

If you don’t have those three things, I’d say your story is probably more “inspired by” than “retelling of” — which, honestly, is fine. If you want to create characters and setting based on those of Aladdin, but then send them on an entirely different adventure, go ahead. But if you do that and tell readers that it’s a retelling of Aladdin, they’ll most likely be confused.

However — and this is the important part — while you do need to include the iconic elements and scenes of the original, you don’t need to make them word-for-word the same as the original. You can absolutely transform them into something else as long as the reader picks up on the connection. I’m going to use Cinderella and Marissa Meyer’s Cinder as an example of how this works out. (There will be spoilers in this description, but I’ll try to keep them to a minimum.)

What are the iconic elements and scenes of Cinderella? Elements would probably include the glass slipper, the ball, the pumpkin carriage, the wicked stepmother and stepsisters, and possibly the fairy godmother. Scenes would be Cinderella fleeing from the ball and the prince finding her based on her shoe, and possibly also the godmother’s transformation of Cinderella and the stepmother’s refusal to let Cinderella go to the ball. (Am I listing these out of order? Very much.)

Now, let’s look at how these elements and scenes appear in Cinder. I’ll try to go slightly more in order of how they appear in the story this time.
-The wicked stepmother and stepsisters: Very obviously here in a literal sense (though only one stepsister is actually wicked).
-The ball: Again, obviously here in a literal sense, but in this case, Cinder is invited directly because she meets the prince sooner.
-The fairy godmother: Dr. Erland plays the role of the fairy godmother, but not in an obvious way. Notably, the transformation scene doesn’t show up when you’d expect it to.
-The stepmother’s refusal: Again, appears literally, as far as I can remember.
-The glass slipper: Appears, but in a very different form. This time, it’s Cinder’s mechanical foot, and it’s present through the whole story, not just at the ball.
-The pumpkin carriage: Again, it appears from the beginning. Cinder finds an orange car that she decides to repair, and this becomes the pumpkin carriage at the climax.
-Fleeing & losing the slipper: Cinder is still fleeing from the ball — but not because it’s midnight. She does lose her shoe/foot, and it is picked up by the prince, but (spoiler) Cinder doesn’t get clean away.
-Transformation scene: This one occurs at the very end, not right before the ball, when (spoiler) Dr. Erland gives Cinder a new foot and hand that allow her to finally escape.

So, all of the elements are there, but many of them take different forms from the original, and they frequently appear out of order from the original story. In addition, one of those elements (the prince finding Cinder based on her foot) is missing altogether. However, we’re ok with it because we recognize that it really wouldn’t fit the story and so many of the other elements, including the main plot structure, are there.

Most importantly, at their core, Cinderella and Cinder are about the same thing: escape from abuse and suffering into into bigger, better, more important things. In the original, those bigger, better, more important things are life as a princess (and, we assume, eventually a queen). In the new, Cinder isn’t a princess yet, but she is saving the world. In both cases, she’s free of her former situation and the story’s heart is present.

And, ultimately, having the story’s heart is the key. Once you figure out what that is and you know it’s in your story too, you can decide what scenes and elements to include, which ones to merely reference, and which ones to drop entirely. And once you reach a certain level of familiarity with fairy tales, you really don’t have to think too hard about whether or not you have the heart of the story. You’ll know. But if you’re uncertain about how well your story fits with the original, checking the heart is a good place to begin.

Anyway. Thus concludes Sarah’s mini-lecture on how to write a good fairy tale retelling. Hopefully that was helpful and actually answered your questions. Best of luck with your writing, and let me know if you have any other questions!