Unhappily Ever After - The End of Princess Films?

Unhappily Ever After - The End of Princess Films?

One of the Holiday films that came out this past weekend was the latest, and what will be the last Disney Princess film for the foreseeable future, according to Disney.



Though, I guess it should be noted that before The Princess and The Frog, Mulan was the last of the "Princess" films back in 1998 if you don't count sequels. Then the one before that was the poorly translated Pocahontas in 95, which ironically enough better fits the title but isn't part of the brand. Others in the bran are Jasmine from Aladdin in 92. Beauty and the Beast in 91. But then you get to a dry spell where before 1990, you have only four princess movies being made over the course of 53 years.

Anyhow, back to this film, it began as a traditional animated story from Disney about Rapunzel. However during pre-production the decision was made to turn it into a CG movie and in 3D from what looks like a really nice sketch character design..



So let's go back to the beginning. The original concept from Disney animation legend Glen Keane was to give the film a distinct look. Where every frame resembled an oil painting, directly inspired by classic Rococo art. This painting, "The Swing" by Jean-Honore Fragonard, was the chief inspiration for the look of the film:



So what you ended up with a little CG animation was something that looked, according to Keane, as "a film of astonishing beauty". If you don't believe me, here's what it would have tried to translate the above painting to in terms of backgrounds.



Here's a couple more shots of what the concept art for how the film was suppose to look was going to be like.



And you wouldn't be able to tell this story without a tower that needed long hair to climb up it.



And here is the original Keane character art for Rapunzel:





But then they took a look at the actual numbers for The Princess and The Frog and.. well...

After the less-than-fairy-tale results for its most recent animated release, "The Princess and the Frog," executives at the Burbank studio believe they know why the acclaimed movie came up short at the box office.

Brace yourself: Boys didn't want to see a movie with "princess" in the title. This time, Disney is taking measures to ensure that doesn't happen again. The studio renamed its next animated film with the girl-centric name "Rapunzel" to the less gender-specific "Tangled."

The makeover of "Rapunzel" is more than cosmetic. Disney can ill afford a moniker that alienates half the potential audience, young boys, who are needed to make an expensive family film a success.

The Princess and the Frog underperformed, which Disney execs blamed on its lack of appeal to boys -- hence the effort to butch up this film's marketing campaign as much as possible. (It's still called Rapunzel in much of the rest of the world, though.)


So thanks to panicky Disney executives for whom a $222 million dollar worldwide gross for The Princess and The Frog was simply not enough to keep the Disney Princess market alive, they pushed Keane out, dumped his project and started over going more towards a boy-appealing Shrek style film.

But I guess we really shouldn't judge a film based on the format it's presented. 3D is just a way to cash in on a new technology right now, so how about the meat and potatoes of the film.. the story. The story on this one after it's all said and done

After receiving the healing powers from a magical flower, the baby Princess Rapunzel is kidnapped from the palace in the middle of the night by Mother Gothel. Mother Gothel knows that the flower's magical powers are now growing within the golden hair of Rapunzel, and to stay young, she must lock Rapunzel in her hidden tower. Rapunzel is now a teenager and her hair has grown to a length of 70-feet.

The beautiful Rapunzel has been in the tower her entire life, and she is curious of the outside world. One day, the bandit Flynn Rider scales the tower and is taken captive by Rapunzel. Rapunzel strikes a deal with the charming thief to act as her guide to travel to the place where the floating lights come from that she has seen every year on her birthday. Rapunzel is about to have the most exciting and magnificent journey of her life.

Okay, that sounds at least interesting. I mean, I've survived through all the other Disney films that have been horribly butchered from the source material to make them cautionary tales to uplifting happily ever after stories, so this one can't be so bad, can it? I mean, I enjoyed the first Shrek, and if it's anything like that, then it should be entertaining.. minus all those stupid Top 40's pop songs.



And even though it's not done in 2D animation, it does look beautiful and I have heard many good things about it. Though not had the chance to see it as I've just caught the latest in Harry Potter films.... Okay, I'm sure that makes me sound like my interest in film is that of a 12 year old.

Disney Goes Back To Basics

Disney Goes Back To Basics

Today in a theater near you, Disney returns to the stuff that made them famous.. 2D animation. While we've all enjoyed the 3D and CGI fest that they have been doing, it's nice to get back to the classic 2D fun that made Disney great. Yes, the Disney Princess magic is back!

The movie takes place in Louisiana. It is consistent with all the folklore of that state. So in saying that it's pretty clear to see why the bad guy is literally a voodoo doctor. I'm sure religious groups will give Disney a lot of shit for this in itself. When will Disney make a villain that is a rich white developer set on demolishing the local teen center to make room for a gentrified strip mall.



They've been making these Disney Princess movies for almost 100 years now and there's one about Chinese, Indians and even the fish people but it took until 2010 to include blacks.. and she turns into a frog at the end of act 1. Way to go, Disney! Yup, she'll spend a good amount of time during the film as a frog, not as a black princess. What will the ACLU say about that?

Oh, it's nothing new. Disney is a vile parasitic corporation of racist, fascists, misogynists and animal abusers which has never contributed anything of any value to the world and never will.... But god damn will I be going to see this sucker!



I think people are complaining because instead of taking this opportunity to provide a positive role model for kids (black or otherwise), disney is instead choosing to play into a number of stereotypes. and in fact transform the princess so she doesn't even get to be a person for most of the movie, hardly someone a child can identify with.

Maybe I'll continue to boycott Mulan, a children's movie, because it does not address the crushing poverty experience by most rural Chinese during the Northern Wei Dynasty. But perhaps the idea that the classical Disney Princess is completely dependent on her Prince gives the wrong ideas to children.. Let's take a look at the following ad.. Oddly enough, this message is not in your average Disney Princess themed movie.



I know a couple who won't let their five year old daughter watch Disney Princess movies because none of them have mothers or something. It's true though, they generally are motherless and depend too much on daddy to do things before the Prince picks up the tab and runs with it.

Here's hoping that Tiana can actually take care of herself and be her own person without the need of the Disney Prince by her side to define her. I mean, that's the bigger concern in this film. Let's just get past that whole racism stuff. This film probably wont be as racist as Peter Pan. Then again, nothing can really be as racist as Peter Pan.



Yeah, it's bad enough that they made Splash Mountain without even acknowledging what movie all the characters are from. Hell, there's parts of Song of the South that nobody sees because they've been locked in a vault for decades. It's only if you're outside of North America can you see the full version.

This isn't a critical take on Walt Disney's lack of Black heroes. I mean, there isn't very many Spanish/Latin heroes or Disney Princesses or anything. At least Disney has never released anything like this...



But like I said, we should just move on from the whole racism stuff. Let's get to the real meat and potatoes.. the return to awesome movie posters. Call me a sucker for either red heads or mermaids, but the one that was released for the little mermaid really was something that I considered art when I was much younger.

It didn't have much in terms of big name stars listed on it. It didn't have the critical praise for it or the situation where they have large floating heads of the characters plastered on it. It was simple. It was beautiful.



That in itself is a poster worthy of framing and hanging. It's very simple in its beauty and if you saw it outside of a movie theater, you would know everything you need to know about the film and want to see it. It's a nice take on the whole movie art.

So when I see a poster like this for it, I can't help but think it looks pretty cool.. Yeah, I realize that I held back from saying "Awesome". But hey, I'm trying to be a man here... A man talking about Disney films. So with that said, the following poster for this new Disney film is pretty damn appealing.



Since this story is set in a sort of modern time.. at least modern enough that you can actually study and view the areas within a few generations of when it is suppose to take place, I wonder how much that effected the production of this. Hell, for things like little mermaid they only had swimmers to work with.



Having been to New Orleans a couple of times. Both pre and post Katrina, and considering I really haven't been to the locations or areas that the other Disney films have taken place in, I suppose that adds a new element to it. It's actually real, or real enough in that regard. So it being on American soil is something interesting that I hope will come in handy from the artist and creators of this. It's always a problem if you don't get input of the source or, in some cases, the original artist you end up things like this...

Can't blame them for how screwed up it was. I mean, I also really hate it when the person I'm kissing's face falls off and turns into moths. It's almost as horrifying as if you were to see the Disney Princesses as zombies.. Oh wait, that's been done already... I can' say that the Disney Princess brand isn't being a bit progressive.. especially if we've gotten to the point of them being able to not only fend for themselves.. but now they fiend for themselves...