I hope all of you are pleased to know that I love, love, love the character descriptions! Thank you
tsom, you are amazing, what a tremendous find!! I didn't want to read them and spoil myself, but it wasn't very spoiling, and I am so glad I read them!
After reading them...I think...this film...will be GREAT!!! It SOUNDS like one of the BEST FILMS...PERIOD!!!
I have thought for a while that a Disney heroine should paint or draw, as that is creativity, producing something great, that females do not often get to do in films, and it is, after all, what the the Disney artists did and do! Though Cinderella kind of created dresses... But giving the heroine "deep inetellctual curiosity" is going above and beyond for any film, for children or adults! And who would have ever thought Disney would write the words "Mommy Dearest villain" for a character of theirs?!
BUT, will they stick to these descriptions? They already changed one character's dialect, and remember how The Princess and the Frog's character descriptions changed? But IF they stick to these...these will be some of the best characters I've ever seen in a film, and one of the best films I've ever seen. The words "deep" and complex" have been thrown around quite a bit on this forum, but I think this is a time when a film will really live up to those words, or at least try very hard to. If they stick to these descriptions.
And who in here actually thought the witch that stole Rapunzel didn't care for her in some motherly way? In the original fairy tale it was always clear to me she was an evil character and perhaps a mean mother, but she still took Rapunzel and visited her because she wanted to be a mother to a child, she wanted to love/care for a child. Otherwise why keep her and raise her?
But WHERE is the RAPUNZEL LETTUCE?! This could still be more like the original tale by having the lettuce that the peasant husband steals for his wife give his baby girl magical hair (because the lettuce came from the witch's garden, and perhaps a father's and mother's love makes the magic more powerful), and so the witch takes the baby as an exchange for the lettuce and also to have the magical hair (and the witch has to love Rapunzel to keep the hair's power...but the witch really falls for Rapunzel, as a mother). And the Prince could still want to explore the world like a bandit and go after any beautiful chick, but then Rapunzel changes his view. He could get out of tricky situations like the bandit because of his smile, but also because he's a Prince, and Rapunzel could still better him because she has more active tactics. Or the Prince could want freedom so he tries to deny being a Prince, and doesn't so much "steal" from the royal treasury but spends it very irresponsibly (and the king and queen get pissed). What does anyone think of that?
Ah, well. The characters still sound great faithful or not.
As for the first legitimate good look at the characters and animation...I am very deeply dissapointed. Or I was. I think I have gotten over it because I have given up on Disney changing anything now.
One last time, I will post this image of what Glen Keane envisioned for Rapunzel. EVERYONE...THIS PICTURE WAS MADE IN 3-D CGI ON A COMPUTER:
Yea. So to make CGI look like a painting certainly is possible. To make a whole animated film look like that is probably not impossible, but would take a long, long time.
But here's the thing: I was okay with this traditional Disney fairy tale being in CGI because they were going to make the CGI look like past traditional films. Because all the past traditional (and slightly less so) Disney fairy tale films have been hand-painted. The backgrounds weren't too far from that picture above, and in some features, including the earliest fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, shading and lighting and other details were painted onto the characters. So CGI looking like a rococo painting was just a more detailed version of that for me (because Disney never thought of their animation as 2-D, they always tried to give their animation roundness and depth in the hand drawings and paintings).
Now...they seem to just barely be keeping that, just like it's barely traditional. At least it will look and sound great and have great characters, even if it could have been something so much more.
The previous fairy tales were more traditional in their stories and more traditional in their look. They were more classical. But I think Rapunzel will be a classic...in the good, entertaining, powerful, feeling way.
Oh, and the costumes. I definately prefer some of the costumes we saw in earlier Rapunzel concept art, but at least the final costumes resemble some of those. As for the designs of the characters, I like them, though once again I prefer Rapunzel's look in some earlier concept art. Flynn's hot and cute though.
I hope Disney doesn't take it for granted that 2d animation films bomb in box office so they would stop producing them.
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