Discover Top Posts Tagged with #enchanted tales

My frustration with how Disney uses the Disney Princesses in related media

From a corporate standpoint, I get why Disney wants to make as much content for the Disney Princess line as they can (especially seeing how profitable they are), but I feel like there were better ways to do it.

Crossovers--The obvious decision for Disney princesses is to have them cross over, despite Bob Iger's (or was it Bob Chopek's?) statement that the Disney princesses would never meet in canon, but I feel like it's never been done in the "correct" way, at least from my biased perspective. None of the specials have ever done 2D animation or 3D animation without the girls having more of a chibi-influenced design (like "Wreck-it-Ralph 2"), and the characters are presented as more goofy and comedic. While the latter issue isn't really a negative in certain circumstances, it kind of errs on Disney prioritizing goofy comedy for their animated properties, which is exhausting for me (and I can't even say this is a Revival-era thing; they've been doing this for a few eras). And the plot for the Lego crossovers is very fanfic-y, pitting them against prior villains. I'm SO GLAD that Disney gets as many of the OG actors as they can, but still! I'd prefer a new, original plot, new villains, and explorations of the girls' characters, preferably Snow White and Aurora, who have often been criticized.

Neglected Princesses and biased rosters--The Disney Princess Lego specials only use a limited roster of the princesses (Tiana, Snow White, Ariel, Moana, and Rapunzel in the first special, with Cinderella and Belle being added in the upcoming special), and WiR added Elsa and Anna to the Disney princess group, despite actually not being part of the line (long-story short: "Frozen" was so popular Disney didn't see a need to add them to the DP roster for their property to sell). On top of this, a couple of Disney princesses in various media are often ignored, namely Pocahontas, Raya, and Merida. I get it--Raya's from an underwhelming film, Merida's "from the other studio," and "Pocahontas" is controversial--but unless Disney's gonna remove them from the roster, they should be used more for events and stories. It's interesting to me how Mulan and Raya are the warrior princesses, but Disney doesn't really take advantage of that, even though highlighting them would help deter some criticism of the Disney Princess line. Legitimately, sometimes I forget Raya's a part of the line because I rarely see them use her. I imagine showing off Pocahontas' Powhatan culture, Raya's home of Southeast Asian-influenced Kumandra (maybe a soft reboot where the cultures for each land have a specific SEA country as their influence? Headcanon that Raya is Vietnamese or Malay), and Merida's native Scotland would be ripe with fantasy stories while being informative of unique cultures.

Enchanted Tales was wasted potential--I know this wasn't really made to be high-tier cinema, (particularly since this was a straight-to-DVD film, which relied more on the IP than any depth), but this was definitely a missed opportunity. Given that most of the Disney princesses have admirable skills (athleticism, curiosity, desire to learn and read, cleaning and cooking, etc.), there was a lot of material to use, though I'd rather Disney worked to flesh out the Disney princesses who didn't get as much time to shine. Aurora and Snow White are the Disney princesses with the least amount of screentime for their stories, and we don't get to learn much about their interests or hobbies (and one could argue this for Cinderella, Mulan, and Jasmine, since their movies keep them occupied from much free time), so capitalizing on that would've been ideal, including their romances with their princes. Plus their characters' needed to be kept the same; the Lego films make Snow White a little off-kilter, and Aurora was essentially made more in personality to Ariel in her ET film, but I feel that keeping her sophisticated and glamorous personality would've been ideal, particularly seeing how popular Elsa is (plus getting actors who actually sounded like Mary Costa; they didn't even try). Exploring the princes' personalities would've helped the couples to become more enjoyable and likeable, similar to the prince in "Cinderella: A Twist in Time," which many of the fans consider unofficial canon, in particular Anastasia's redemption and the prince's expanded personality (the fact that he was voiced by Prince Eric's actor and kinda feels like Prince Eric is so fitting).

Hit or miss add-ons--I've already talked about Disney's STDVD sequels, so I won't mention it much, but the idea is that the concepts were good, but wasted; Jasmine isn't given a larger, important role in Aladdin's sequels, Ariel's sequel rips off the original while the prequel could've been a part of her tv show, Cinderella had one bad seuqel and one good sequel, Mulan and Pocahontas' sequels carried over mature messages but had poor writing to manifest it, Belle's interquel doesn't add anything to the original, and Moana's sequel was screwed over by production and made in the course of 10 months. As for shows, it isn't much better, with Ariel and Jasmine having shows that pretty much served their purpose of being fanservice entertainment for Disney fans, while Rapunzel's show aimed for a more mature story but a lot of people felt it ruined her character and could've been executed better, while Tiana's show got cancelled and is being replaced by a special.

Overall, I definitely feel like these crossover events, while fun, would've been better suited for Disney heroines (throw them a bone) while the Disney princess projects were more selective and had better writing, both for the script and the songwriting. I think that out of all of them, Snow White and Aurora deserved more opportunities to be fleshed out, Raya, Pocahontas, and Merida need more marketing in the media, and Moana's probably been the least screwed over of the girls (her movie may have been sabotaged, but it was still successful and didn't trash her character, so I consider that something of a win for her). Maybe at some point I'll make a post about my individual feelings about the Disney princesses and princes!

"How do you know that song? It's the song my mother used to sing to me."

"I have heard it in a dream...and now it is the only song I hear."

~~~

Wild card! While I was looking for a place to stream another movie, this little number popped up. At first I chuckled and moved on. But then my sister said, "Oh come on, watch it! Do it!" And I did. And here we are.

This iteration of Beauty and the Beast was obviously produced in the direct to video heyday as a means to dump something out there to trick little kids into renting or buying when the Disney film was out of sight. And hoo boy, there are some interesting things in this bizarre little movie. Pointless frame story (was it a part of a series of fairy tale movies?), obnoxious stock sound effects, overbearing use of public domain classical music, terrible original songs, unintentional laugh out loud moments, mostly passable animation (direct to video standards), dancing crabs... It feels like there's scenes missing, and it takes about half the movie for Beauty and Beast to even be onscreen together. All that being said, young me would have loved it I'm sure. But it'd have to be like 5 year old me. 7 year old me woulda known better.

It's a must-see for lovers of bad animated films.

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Cancelled Disney Projects Bracket

Welcome to the mini-tournament where we ask you to tell us which project cancellation is the most egregious!

All of these had time, resources, and skill put into making something entertaining and all of these also had the plug pulled before they could be enjoyed. Whether you felt it heartbreaking or got enraged, vote for whichever has a bigger impact on you.

For this tournament we only had 14 projects brought to our attention. As a result the first round will be only 6 polls. They will be the typical 24 hour polls and will be posted tomorrow.

Propaganda is allowed and encouraged. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!