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.