DVDizzy Forum

We're living in a postmodern society where a princess who waits for her prince to come just doesn't connect with audiences anymore.

What a load of crap. Men and women, teenage boys and teenage boys, old widowers...everyone yearns for someone to love or to be loved. Watching a young woman have romantic longing "just doesn't connect anymore"? Oh, really? It's a staple of the human condition. It might not connect as "hip" with 20 something theater students recruited out of college to write dialog for Disney Feature Animation, but that's why Lasseter has been purging DFA of that corporate Los Angeles cynical KATZENBERG mentality for the last few years.

Having a romantic longing isn't the same thing as being a passive figure who can't exist without love. Here's the difference:
Cinderella loved Prince Charming. Did she need him? No. All she needed was to escape her wretched step-family and have a life of her own, with all of her animal friends. Would she have enjoyed that? Sure. Does she love being married to the man that she's deeply in love with? Definitely.
Aurora loved Prince Phillip. After being told that her entire life was a lie (sort of akin to being told you live in the Matrix), the only thing on her tiny little mind is: NOOOO! No more Phillip! I'd rather DIEEEE!
Cinderella is a strong heroine, who is still the strongest part of her movie after all of these years, who made her own decisions, and is definitely the best pre-Renaissance heroine. Aurora had approximately 17 minutes of screentime in the film named for her. That's just sad. She's not even really the protagonist.
Love: wonderful. Complete dependance: not so much.

Just because a movie is named after you doesn't mean you have to be the main character.

She's supposed to be passive for the majority of the film! She's the driving force of the story, not the story itself. Even in the original fairytale, the prince hears the STORY of a princess in a sleeping forest. If disney stuck to the original, she's only be awake for 3 minutes of the film. The fairytale was never written with a "strong minded female lead" in mind... just because Cinderella was doesn't mean they all should be. It's like comparing apples and oranges. Oranges have that horrible citric taste, unlike the strong minded apple! And it calls itself a fruit

NOW the second part of sleeping beauty is a different story altogether. I think she showed some strength of character there. Maternal and what not.

That is a good point. I'm just trying to say that a character doesn't have to be a doormat to make human connections. The original stories aside, in the Disney films of both tales, both Cinderella and Aurora have beautiful romances. It just so happens that one "doesn't wait for her prince to come," while the other does. Perhaps Snow would have been a better counter-example than Aurora. I just don't think Snow was even quite as pathetic as Aurora. At least Snow actually did things, even if those things were just cooking and cleaning. I do know that this stems from the latter's role in her original story as a "living prop."

I only think the people involved were saying the princess shouldn't sit around and wait for a prince to find and rescue her--she should play an active role in her own romance and story. There's nothing regressive about a woman falling in love or wanting to get married, but when movies consistently portray that that's all women want or do (besides housework of course), it can be. I don't think it's really a problem these days, because Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty aren't the only female characters depicted anymore (Alice being one exception). Now you have Pocahontas, Mulan, Ariel and Belle who all take rather active roles in either their romance or the story (I would include others, but I'm talking of films where women are the central figures).

It's also nicer to see more romance in the "boy's" films, like Hercules and Aladdin, to show that love isn't just a female thing. Whereas in the old days, you wouldn't find something like "I'm Wishing" in The Jungle Book or the idea of true love in Peter Pan (those movies also portray a more juvenile, "you're pretty" kind of love--all the women in PP besides Wendy and her mother are jealously psychotic).

MadasaHatter wrote:According to Coming Soon.net the official release date is November 24, 2010

November 24, 2010

Well, it's definitely here on the WDP official site. :] I was really excited to see that. Hopefully they won't push it back.

Mandy Moore just tweeted this:

TheMandyMoore
recorded with a 70 piece orchestra for "rapunzel" yesterday. indescribably magical. one of the cooler things i've ever been a part of.....

very cool

Yep, totally old-school Disney.

Mandy!!! I'm so proud of her!

The music is the big thing about classic Disney, so that sounds pretty promising.

Disney's music usually has a high standard, and I'm sure Rapunzel won't disappoint in that regard. I can't wait to hear the songs and the score for the film.

Zachary Levi, voice of Flynn Ryder about Rapunzel in a recent interview:

What sort of voice are you doing for Disney’s Rapunzel?

Zachary: My character is a bandit, named is Flynn Ryder. It’s funny because when I auditioned for the part, he was supposed to be British and I auditioned with a British accent. And I got the job and was like, “Sweet! I get to do something outside of the box.” And then, they decided, “No, we’re not going to make him British. We’re just going to do your voice. Just do what you do.” And, I was like, “But, I don’t wanna do that!”

Is it a different kind of Rapunzel than the traditional version?

Zachary: Yeah, kind of. It’s funny, I’ve seen some blogs and things with people freaking out because they’re like, “They’re going to make her action Barbie Rapunzel,” and that’s really not the case. As far as I’m concerned, John Lasseter is one of the most genius guys on the planet. He has done no wrong at Pixar, and it’s because he really knows how to make amazing movies. There has not been one Pixar movie that hasn’t done well. They’ve all been hits, it’s just the degree of hit. There’s no like, “Oh, it did okay.” They’re all amazing movies, every single one of them, because adults and kids watch them and there’s no gaps. It’s not like the parents are tuned in and then they’ve gotta tune out and then tune back in.

I’ll watch a Pixar movie, over and over and over again. I’ll be with friends of mine who have kids, that want to watch Finding Nemo, and I’m like, “Yeah, okay, let’s watch Nemo again, for the seven billionth time!,” because they’re amazing movies. They have heart, relationships, story and characters, and they’re not gimmick-driven. They’re all really amazing films. And, Rapunzel will be no different.

Telling a fairy tale is not an easy thing to do. In the ’50s and ’60s, when animation was still a new thing, people would just be amazed by the animation, so you could tell it in a more classic, slower way. But, we live in the YouTube generation, so if you don’t keep it interesting and moving, than you’re going to lose the audience anyway. And, Pixar knows how to do that. I have every confidence that it will be an amazing film, and I’m just super-excited to be a part of it.

Source: http://www.collider.com/2009/12/05/zach ... -rapunzel/

Uh... He does know it's a Disney film, doesn't he?

Oh, and this:

In the ’50s and ’60s, when animation was still a new thing

Haha, Disney should give him a complementary Oswald the Lucky Rabbit DVD, so that he knows a little bit more on the history of who he's working for.

Then again, when I was younger and didn't gobble up every single behind-the-scenes info on Disney, I thought Snow White was made in the '50s. But, I'm better educated now.

Mooky wrote:Uh... He does know it's a Disney film, doesn't he?

Oh, and this:

In the ’50s and ’60s, when animation was still a new thing

someone should tell the poor guy animation had already been invented like 60 years earlier.

It scares me that that was said by a guy supposedly working for Disney. How exactly are Disney animated films different from Pixar animated films these days?

I suppose he is correct in the attitude to animation.
I mean in the 50's, 60's a feature length animated film would be more of an event then one released today. The market of animation is very saturated, and styles are so varying.
I think he is making a valid point that Disney have some very good competition, and need to wow things up.
He made a little slip up, so what-
he's a voice actor, he's not being payed to write a history of the company.

animated shorts had been around in theaters since the 20s and full length animated films since the 30s.

Though I understand what he meant. You can't refer to animation in the 50s as "a new thing". It was anything but new.

But again, why are we expecting a voice actor to be so clued up on his animation history?

Someday... wrote:But again, why are we expecting a voice actor to be so clued up on his animation history?

Because this forum is infested with Disney geeks that daily talk about aspect ratio, color correction and other shit like that.


So when someone makes a slip up, the forum goes apeshit.