Some of the Reasons I Love Princess and the Frog…

I just watched Princess and the Frog again and I thought it was about time for another blog post where I talk about just how much I love this movie.

I know quite a lot of people focus on the fact that Tiana should have spent more time as a human instead of a frog, (it is true, she should have) but if that’s the part that people focus in on then I think they’re missing a lot of wonderful stuff. So I am going to share just some of the reasons I love Princess and the Frog…

·         Princess and the Frog is the rare Disney Princess movie that features female friendship and shows it as being important. Tiana has clearly been friends with Lottie for a long time and during the ball when Tiana gets knocked down Lottie immediately helps her get back up.

·         "The only way to get what you want in this world is through hard work." I love that line.

·         Naveen is not Tiana’s happy ending. I’m sure we all know the problematic trend in Disney Princess movies of having a man be a woman’s happy ending. However Princess and the Frog avoided this trap, Naveen is a part of Tiana’s happy ending but he is not all of her happy ending.

·         I love that Tiana’s goal is to open her own restaurant and I love that she is willing to work hard to achieve that.

·         The music is fun. It’s a little different from the more traditional Disney Princess songs but Princess and the Frog has a really upbeat soundtrack that I can listen to repeatedly.

·         The animation is beautiful. I feel like Princess and the Frog deserves more appreciation just for the fact that it is (at the moment) the last hand drawn 2D animated Disney Princess movie. But not did it use the traditional animation style one last time it used it really effectively in many very visually striking scenes.

·         And finally, Tiana is the best Disney Princess.

Another Semester Is Over!

Well another semester has come to an end today. It really doesn’t feel like it should be time for me to be typing this already, it feels like it was just the other week that I was writing about coming back after Christmas!

Spring is always seen as the season of change and this spring semester is no exception. Thinking back to where I was when I started this semester back in January and where I am now at the end of it in March a lot has changed. I feel like I’m constantly reflecting on how much I’ve changed but it’s true. University is often seen as a massive period of personal change and growth, I think this is one of those clichés which is actually true.

I think in many ways this has probably been my most academically challenging semester yet. Obviously education always steps up a level but there has been some times this semester that I’ve felt really down, both mentally and physically when I got a quite nasty stomach bug. However I am someone who does try not to dwell on the negative aspects of life and instead search for the positive stuff. And I try to get through most things by drinking copious amounts of coffee!

These past few days have been really good and I’ve been feeling pretty upbeat and positive lately. Of course I’m happy at the moment, I’m going to Disneyland Paris very soon! But I also had my birthday recently, which was great. I saw Mamma Mia which I loved! And there’s been all the good stuff that I shared in my post on how March is speeding by. The other day I also made a little Lego DC Superheroes stop-motion animation (which you can watch on YouTube here) and that’s something which I’ve wanted to do for a while so I’m glad I’ve finally done it. On a slightly random tangent I also want to share that I’ve been listening to Super Friend from the recent Flash/Supergirl musical crossover episode which is a really fun song that’s had me smiling a lot.

It’s certainly strange to think that the end to my second year at university is now on the not too distant horizon. I’m trying not to stress about what the future holds for me, however there is a certain sense of apprehension when I think about what my story holds. But on a personal level 2017 has been off to a great start and I’m sure it’s going to keep being a good year for me.

Disney Live-Action Remakes – My Thoughts

The Disney Movie of the Month this month is Maleficent, the 2014 live-action remake of the 1959 animated Sleeping Beauty. Disney has recently had quite a thing for live action remakes of their beloved animated movies recently. The highly anticipated Beauty and the Beast is going to be released shortly, and they’re not stopping anytime soon.

I previously talked about what I’d like to see in a live-action Aladdin but this time - because Maleficent is the Disney Movie of the Month – I am just offering a few more general thoughts about live-action remakes of Disney movies. I am not completely opposed to Disney remaking their archive but I feel it needs to be done well when they do…

The aesthetic is important.

·         This is something both Maleficent and Cinderella got spot on. In Maleficent the aesthetic is a cool dark gothic style which really serves the movie well. On the other hand the live-action Cinderella was a gorgeous looking movie, the dress was stunning and the locations were beautiful. I hope subsequent live-action Disney remakes can also have strong aesthetics which really fit the movie.

If it’s going to be different then really go for it.

·         This is Maleficent’s style, it took a princess romance story and made it a villain origin story that turned the villain into an extremely sympathetic character. As I mentioned in my initial post about Maleficent, I think the movie could have been even stronger if it had pushed the differences even further (for example they should have completely left out Prince Phillip). I’d love to see a live-action remake of The Little Mermaid done in the style of Maleficent that focused on Ursula.

If the basic story is the same then fix the problems of the original in the new version.

·         This one is one of the biggest strengths of the live-action Cinderella. I really hate the 1950 animated version of Cinderella. It’s boring, it’s sexist and Cinderella is completely useless. But the live-action remake fixed that! Suddenly Cinderella and the Prince had personalities! They actually interacted before falling in love! There was a more substantial plot! I’d love to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarves undergo a similar process.

Give the live-action movies a legacy.

·         I would like to see a lasting legacy for the live-action remakes. At the moment it sort of just feels like a quick brand recognition cash grab that is then quickly forgotten by Disney, but I’d like to see them start to create a legacy for their live-action remakes if they’re going to keep doing them. For example why not merchandise the live-action version of Cinderella alongside her animated counterpart? This idea of giving the live-action remakes a legacy leads onto my next point…

A Disney Shared Cinematic Universe!

·         I don’t know if this would ever happen but wouldn’t it be fun to see characters meeting up and teaming up!

And finally, do a live-action Princess and the Frog.

·          I love Princess and the Frog, Tiana is the best Disney Princess. This movie deserves more love and attention from Disney. I just really want it to happen!

So that’s a few thoughts on Disney’s live-action remakes. I’m interested to see what they have in store for subsequent live-action remakes.

Maleficent – Disney Movie of the Month

It’s March, that means it’s time for a new Disney Movie of the Month. In January I looked at Aladdin – an Animated Classic – and in February I looked at A Bugs Life – a Pixar movie. So for the third Disney Movie of the Month it seemed like it was time to look at a live action movie and I chose 2014’s Maleficent.

Maleficent was released back in 2014 and is the live action reimagining of the 1959 animated Sleeping Beauty. Angelina Jolie plays the titular character who is given a more sympathetic backstory in this darker take on the original film. Maleficent is one of my favourite villains – more on that in a follow up post later this month. I originally saw Maleficent in the cinema about a week after it was released and yet I haven’t watched it since then. Until today.

I’d forgotten just how strong Angelina Jolie’s performance as Maleficent is. She clearly relished playing the moments when the story requires her to be a slightly camp arch villain, but she’s also faultless when required to convey some very strong emotion material. I was very pleased to rediscover just how wonderful Angelina Jolie’s performance was.

Maleficent is not a regular adaption of Sleeping Beauty, it is very much its own thing. It has moments for Disney fans to spot that reference the original – such as the forest of thorns, the speech when Maleficent curses Aurora and the dragon. But it also rejects a lot of the tropes of the Disney Princess format and I stronger because of that. However at times it also has a loyalty to the source material that can get in the way of the films full potential. For example Maleficent gives us an infuriating take on the three good fairies who are absolutely useless. As well as trying to shoehorn Prince Phillip into the story for literally no other reason than he’s supposed to be there. The movie could have been much stronger if Phillip and the three good fairies were just completely cut out of it.

I can’t really write about Maleficent without mentioning that there’s definitely some similarities with Wicked. Both movies take a green skinned villain from a popular fairy-tale and retell her story to make her a more sympathetic and feminist character. However they are both very different stories. I think Wicked may have partially been an inspiration for Maleficent, but I don’t think that Maleficent is a rip off of Wicked.

Part of the appeal of these live action remakes for me is seeing the way that Disney brings the animated original to life. I like that despite many changes elsewhere the design team chose to keep Maleficent’s look more or less the same. In the case of the original Sleeping Beauty the movie has a strong medieval aesthetic, when adapting it for live action the production team chose a cool dark gothic style that I think really suits the movie.

Another more technical thing that I love about this movie is the structure of the story. The pivotal moment in the story of Sleeping Beauty is when the dark fairy (Maleficent herself) curses the infant princess. The entire story hinges on that moment. So when it came to telling the story of Sleeping Beauty from the villain’s perspective Disney decided to restructure the narrative so that act one is building up to why  Maleficent places the curse on Aurora and how she becomes the ‘Mistress of All Evil!’ And then act two of the movie deals with redeeming her, as Maleficent faces the consequences of her actions. This structure would actually work well if Disney ever wanted to do a stage adaptation of Maleficent!

In conclusion, Maleficent is definitely worth watching. It’s not an adaptation of the 1959 Sleeping Beauty, it is an interesting alternate take on a well-known story that shifts the focus onto the villain and makes her a tragic hero. 

Dot and Atta are not Disney Princesses?

A Bugs Life is the Disney Movie of the Month, I’m following up that initial post by considering why are Dot and Atta not Disney Princesses.

To be clear by Disney Princesses I mean characters in the marketing Disney Princess franchise (there’s currently 11 official Disney Princesses) and not just characters who happen to be princesses in movies released by Disney. Dot and Atta are essential to the plot of A Bugs Life and both of them are princesses of the ant colony, with Atta becoming a queen at the end of the movie. Like most of the other Disney Princesses they both have to overcome obstacles - both internal and external - in order to save their realm.

Perhaps the first reason that they’re Disney Princesses is that A Bugs Life is a Pixar movie. Except Merida from Pixar’s Brave is one of the 11 Princesses. Another reason could be that A Bugs Life is more about Flik than Dot and Atta. But Aladdin is obviously mainly about Aladdin and yet Jasmine is in the Disney Princess franchise. An obvious reason would be that they’re ants not humans. This one is harder to argue against, but Ariel from The Little Mermaid isn’t a human, she’s a mermaid and is often depicted as being a mermaid in products. (And funnily enough Jodi Benson – the voice of Ariel – also voiced Atta for a video game)

As far as I’ve been able to tell in the early days of the franchise there wasn’t even an official set line-up of characters. Depending on the product line was Disney would add or take away characters somewhat randomly. It was only with the release of Enchanted that it seems like an official line-up was settled on. As far as I’ve been able to find out Giselle from Enchanted was intended to be marketed as a Disney Princess but (probably due to the royalties involved in using Amy Adams’ likeness) Disney decided against long term marketing and merchandising for Enchanted. In response to this Disney seemed to have decided on a fixed line-up for the Disney Princess franchise.

I personally would like to see other characters like Dot and Atta added to the line-up. It’s about time that characters like Snow White and Cinderella started to take a back seat and characters like Dot and Atta could be good candidates to take over their spaces. If Disney did have more variety in the Princess franchise it could make merchandise collections more interesting. For example they could use Mulan and Merida for an action adventure themed collection but then maybe have Dot and Atta joining someone like Rapunzel in a garden themed collection.

Sure Dot and Atta are perhaps not the most obvious characters to add to the Disney Princess franchise but it would be good to see more of a variety in the franchise and I’d just to see A Bugs Life getting more representation from Disney.

A Bug’s Life – Disney Movie of the Month

A childhood favourite of mine, but does it still stand up?

It’s February! And a new month means that it’s time for a new Disney Movie of the Month. This time I’ve chosen to look at A Bug’s Life. Probably not one of the most obvious movies to choose for this monthly series but it’s one of my favourites from when I was growing up.  It was a couple of years since I last watched A Bug’s Life and recently I’ve felt like it’s probably time for me to revisit it.

In many ways A Bug’s Life is quite a typical Disney movie. There’s the quirky outsider who people underestimated - Flik. There’s a princess who needs to learn something - Atta. There’s an arch villain for the audience to root against - Hooper. And there’s a cast of colourful side characters - like Heimlich, Slim and Francis. If you’re not the type of person who enjoys movies with any of those elements then A Bug’s Life is an earth-shatteringly different movie. However it has the charm and humour that we have come to expect from Pixar movies. A Bug’s Life is a thoroughly entertaining adventure with lots of very enjoyable moments.

A Bug’s Life was Pixar’s second ever feature length animation and one of the first few fully computer animated movies, considering that it’s 18 years old the animation still looks good. I suspect that the more stylised instead of realistic character designs were intentionally done so that the computers of the time could render them successfully. There’s a few wide shots that look primitive by today’s standards but they don’t detract from the overall look of the film. It really has aged well in that regard.

As with all of Pixar’s releases this is a movie that presents a rich and varied world on screen. Pixar really did a great job in showing on screen what the world looks like from an ant’s perspective and creating a whole insect culture. For example, the scene’s in the bug city all work to indicate that the movie exists in a larger world of bugs which expands beyond the main narrative. As a creative writer this is something that I always like when movies can allude to.

Overall A Bugs Life still stands up as a very enjoyable film, not just something I liked when I was younger. If it’s been a while since you lasted watched it I would say it’s worth watching again. If you’ve never seen it then it’s one I would recommend.

A Few Thoughts on Moana (Spoiler Free)

I saw Moana in 3D this afternoon and here’s a few of my (spoiler free) thoughts on the latest Disney movie.

My main reaction upon leaving the cinema was that whilst I had enjoyed the movie - and it is a good movie - I didn’t love it. This the type of movie that’s good but it could have been great. I remember back in early 2014 Disney announced that Moana had jumped forward a year in the schedule (partially as a result of the crazy success of Frozen) I feel that Moana probably would have really benefited from that extra year in production.

To me Moana felt like a strange hybrid of a movie that both wanted to be a Disney Princess movie and a movie that really didn’t want to be a Disney Princess movie. It used a lot of the tropes that we’ve come to expect from the Disney Princess movies – like the way Tangled lovingly used the tropes of the Princess movies – but Moana didn’t own its use of those tropes. Moana also defied a lot of the tropes from the Disney Princess movies – like Brave did – however it never fully went with rejecting the tropes we’ve seen from the Princess movies.

Another problem was that Maui was not a strong enough character to hold the number of scenes he had. I feel this movie needed a character like Olaf from Frozen – someone to provide helpful advice, heart-warming moments, humour and just generally help keep the plot moving. But instead of Olaf we got stuck with Maui.

Also I have to mention the music. What a let-down! The songs just don’t really work – there’s no Let It Go, Almost There, I See The Light, A Whole New World or Colours of the Wind. I found them really forgettable and unneeded. I think Moana would have been a stronger movie if like Brave it had chosen to not include songs. Perhaps without the forced songs it would have felt like the filmmakers knew more what they were doing with the tropes of the Disney Princess movies?

That’s enough of the negative. I’m making it sound like I hated the movie when I really didn’t!

Here’s a list of a few of the thing I really enjoyed about Moana…

• ·         Moana herself is a cool character.
• ·         The visuals are stunning.
• ·         Moana grows as a character throughout the movie. She’s not automatically perfect.
• ·         The scenes in the ‘Realm of Monsters’ is like nothing Disney have ever done before.
• ·         Pua (Moana’s pet pig) is adorable!
• ·         Seriously the animation is incredible.
• ·         Moana did a great job at world building.
• ·         The Kakamora were a really interesting and creative adversary.
• ·         Did I mention that the animation is REALLY good looking!

In conclusion I did enjoy Moana but considering how good Disney have been lately this is a bit of a let-down after Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Frozen, Big Hero 6 and Zootropolis. Moana is a good movie but it really suffers from the bar being set so high by what came before it.