Disenchanted

[blackcauldron85]

There's also the now classic tale of how audiences grew restless during "Part of Your World" in a test screening of TLM. You can't fully trust a test screening audience...

Well, when I was at D23, people really clapped and cheered with Halle Bailey's rendition of that number, so I wouldn't say that is true.

The 1989 TLM, Katzenburg was going to cut "Part Of Your World," a la "If I Never Knew You."

[rodrigo_ca]

I'm not even gonna watch the trailer. I still can't believe this is actually happening.

[D82]

Character posters:
https://twitter.com/enchanted/status/15 ... 3342859264
https://twitter.com/enchanted/status/15 ... 8913214464
https://twitter.com/enchanted/status/15 ... 5057574913
https://twitter.com/enchanted/status/15 ... 1374114816
https://twitter.com/enchanted/status/15 ... 8223409152

Nice posters! And good points regarding test screenings, Farerb, PatrickvD and singerguy04. Even if it ends up being worse than Hocus Pocus 2, I know I'll enjoy it more than Rescue Rangers.

Here are some Easter eggs or references to other Disney films I spotted in the last trailer:

A statue of Ariel on a fountain can be seen in Malvina's palace. There are at least two of them in it.



There's a hand mirror which looks like the magic mirror in Snow White next to Malvina in one shot. A wall mirror similar to it already appeared in the first trailer, or was it the same that just looked bigger there? Anyway, I think this is more evidence Malvina is quite inspired by the Evil Queen when she's under the spell, while Giselle is more based on Lady Tremaine. Especially now that we know Pip will basically turn into Lucifer. The rivalry between both characters will be interesting to see. I also noticed Malvina's powers are visually associated with the color purple, while Giselle's are with gold, like the flecks of gold on her sleeves.



And could this be a Tiana and Naveen "cameo"?



There's one more, but it might be a little spoilery, so I'll put it in spoilers. I'll also add some of the other things I noticed and some speculation on things that could happen in the film. I said I wouldn't do it not to spoil anything, but I've decided to use spoiler tags instead. Don't read it if you don't want to know too much in case I end up being right on some of it.

Morgan's dress looks ripped at one point like Cinderella's, which further confirms she'll have a similar role in this story. I've also realized Malvina's son will most likely become a prince when his mother becomes Monroeville's Queen, since he's dressed as one in the trailer, so him being Morgan's love interest and them meeting at a ball is another similarity to Cinderella. Though, I've looked it up and actually it hasn't been confirmed there's a romance between them, so I guess I just assumed there was, but I think it's quite evident judging by the brief shots in which they appear together. The musical number with her and Nancy at night in the garden also reminds of "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" visually, though based on Idina's comments about it, I think the song will be about a different subject. I wonder if that scene will also include a dress transformation, though, and Nancy will act a bit as her Fairy Godmother.

Another thing I've wondered is if Morgan will get transported to Andalasia when Giselle pushes her into the well. Edward, Nancy and Pip seem to come from it, as well as the magic, so I guess it's probably the portal that connects the real world to the animated one in this movie. If that's what happens, maybe that's when we'll get some 2D animation.

Regarding the role from the fairy tale world each character takes after Giselle's wish is granted, we know Giselle's, Malvina's or Morgan's, but not Robert's. I've been wondering what could it be, and after the last trailer I have a theory, but I don't know if it'll turn out to be true. Since Morgan more or less becomes like the Cinderella of this story, that'll make him a character like Cinderella's or Snow White's fathers, which means he has to die. Maybe that's why he's shown being attacked by an ogre in the new footage and perhaps also a dragon, as it seems it's hinted in the first trailer. That would be clever, but perhaps also a bit repetitive, if he'll have to avoid being killed all the time. That's why I'm not sure my theory is correct. Maybe he'll just turn into a knight or something and that's why he fights these creatures. Does anyone have a better guess or another theory or thing you've noticed?

[Disney Duster]

You're so observant, D82! So, in the case of this movie, it seems every single thing is great except the visuals. The story is great. The script is great. The acting is great. The ideas are great. The songs are probably gonna be great. But the costumes and hair and CGI as well as hand-drawn animation? Awful! Sotiris said Idina Menzel's hair is awful and he's right! I don't mind Giselle's hair, but I do not like her dresses except the red one (and maybe the blue peacock one). Malvina's costume is weirdly hideous, and poor Edward and Nancy, Nancy being the worst. I kinda like Robert's, but it's still not the quality of the first film. None of them are. Plus, that magic mirror still looks too much like the original Disney one!

But aside from all that, this is one of the few sequels that actually has good reason to exist; that there is more story to tell, about how Giselle feels about the new world she now has to grow in.

[PatrickvD]

I think the costumes look excellent. I guess this is just a matter of taste, but to me they look far superior to the original. Just about everything does visually. Which makes sense, since the original did not have an experienced live-action director attached to it.

[Sotiris]

For me, the costumes are a step down from that of the original, but not an incredibly steep step. The VFX is on par with the average Hollywood production nowadays which may not be as good as it used to be, but at least it's serviceable. The real eyesore is the hair, both Idina's hairdo and Maya's cheap-looking wig.

I never expected the sequel to be as good as the original. Those days are long gone. Hollywood has radically changed and the quality of its productions has taken an irreversible deep dive. But when you compare Disenchanted to Disney's recent live-action sequels and remakes, the production values are much higher than their average output. This sequel feels like a labor of love and is undoubtedly thanks to the filmmaking team who not only care for and respect the original but are actually talented and skilled at their job which is a rarity nowadays.

[blackcauldron85]

Something that doesn't quite make sense to my husband and me: Giselle has lived in the real world for a decade or so, right? And only now she's like, this is so different from Andalasia. I wonder if it's addressed in the film, like after having Sophia she is not working and is just spending time at home with the baby and comes to this realization?

I'm super duper excited for this, so even if that's not addressed, no biggie I guess, but the original film is one of my most favorites, so I have high hopes for this one.

[Warm Regards]

Something that doesn't quite make sense to my husband and me: Giselle has lived in the real world for a decade or so, right? And only now she's like, this is so different from Andalasia. I wonder if it's addressed in the film, like after having Sophia she is not working and is just spending time at home with the baby and comes to this realization?

Lockdowns during the pandemic made her wish for the good old days.

But more realistically, the staying home with the baby thing also would make the most sense here. A lot of women when they have a child/take maternity leave report a loss of self identity.

[blackcauldron85]

That makes sense.

[Sotiris]

I think Giselle feeling this way was caused by a number of sudden changes, not only because of the new baby. During the same time, Morgan become a teenager, they moved to the suburbs, and into a new house that requires repairs. She also doesn't spend as much time with her husband now because of his commuting.

[singerguy04]

I've been wondering that as well, what incites this movie? I kinda hope we get an explanation, but maybe that will distract from the main story. It could very well be that it's taken a decade to wear on her enough.

[Farerb]

From what we've seen from this film, it looks a little bit overstuffed visually (too many colors thrown at once in the same frames and shots, just like Encanto). In terms of VFX, I haven't seen anything as horrible as Narissa-Dragon from the original movie, which didn't age well and is just painful to watch (along with Narissa's bad boss-level one liners).

[blackcauldron85]

I think Giselle feeling this way was caused by a number of sudden changes, not only because of the new baby. During the same time, Morgan become a teenager, they moved to the suburbs, and into a new house that requires repairs. She also doesn't spend as much time with her husband now because of his commuting.

That is true, a lot of overwhelming things going on at the same time for Giselle.

[DisneyFan09]

Well, to give my thoughts about the trailer: It was good, despite that it could`ve definitively shown more. The animated shot of Andalasia was unfortunately too brief to truly scrutinize (despite that it looked somewhat second rate). Morgan`s snarky comment about singing was expected, despite how such comments have now become commonplace in Disney (*cough, Tangled and Moana, cough*). Otherwise, I liked that Pip (the "real" version) is now having a voice (since the "real-life" Pip was one of the weaknesses of it`s predecessor, as he was highly annoying).
Even Robert seems more tolerable than previously (I usually like Patrick Dempsey, but I felt that he was another weak link from the original film. As he was too dull, wodden and dour). Edward is just as over-the-top cartoony and goofy as he was in the first movie. And it was nice to hear Nancy/Idina Menzel finally sing. I liked Robert`s costume, the effects of the well, the carriage and what`s supposedly going to be the giant. Amy Adams is just as convincing as an evil Giselle and Pip turning into an evil cat is... remarkable. The paper character with glasses is goofy (and is somewhat reminiscent of B.E.N. from Treasure Planet), but still works.

In terms of VFX, I haven't seen anything as horrible as Narissa-Dragon from the original movie, which didn't age well and is just painful to watch (along with Narissa's bad boss-level one liners).

Agreed. The animation of Narissa as a dragon was horrible, both her design and execution. Narissa was a great villain in her animated form, but became annoying and contrived when she made her final turn.

Here are some Easter eggs or references to other Disney films I spotted in the last trailer:

A statue of Ariel on a fountain can be seen in Malvina's palace. There are at least two of them in it.

Thanks for posting, D82! At least it`s nice to see an actual reference to an Disney character, instead of just a scene that pays homage to it. However, it`s now mandatory for Disney to do so, considering that now their live action remakes have gone this rough (*cough, Pinocchio, cough*)

I had almost forgotten how it felt to watch a trailer for an upcoming Disney movie and feel genuine excitement for it. This should have been a theatrical release. It's such a waste to dump it on Disney+.

Agreed.

[Disney Duster]

I didn't know Giselle's family moved to the suburbs before she got disenchanted with real life. I thought she wanted to move there to have a better life because she was feeling depressed already. I swear that was revealed in the teaser.

[Sotiris]

I didn't know Giselle's family moved to the suburbs before she got disenchanted with real life. I thought she wanted to move there to have a better life because she was feeling depressed already. I swear that was revealed in the teaser.

It wasn't. She just said "I know change can be scary, but it can also be exciting. Let's start our new life!" before moving to the suburbs. That doesn't show she got disenchanted with real life before moving.

[D82]

Chrysler Disenchanted commercial and interview with producer Barry Josephson from the latest issue of SFX Magazine below. I didn't know Amy Adams was also an executive producer on the film and had a say on choosing the screenwriter. Paragraph 5 answers a bit your question about when Giselle starts feeling disenchanted with real life, Disney Duster. According to what the producer says, I think you were right she was already starting feeling depressed and missing Andalasia before moving to the suburbs and it's the reason they decided to go live there. Although, the fact that things don't improve once they're there but quite the opposite, is probably what ultimately makes her make that wish. Barry Josephson also talks about the possibility of a third film.

AMY'S CHOICE
Barry Josephson on Disney’s belated sequel to 2007’s Enchanted

RELEASED IN 2007, ENCHANTED was both love letter to and spoof of the classic Disney fairy tale, in which Amy Adams’s (animated) soon-to-be Princess Giselle is catapulted into the real world by the evil Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon). With an impressive 93% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a box office take of $340.5 million, it’s not surprising that talk soon started of a sequel. It’s only now, 15 years later, however, that it’s materialising in the shape of Disenchanted. This is a Disney+ exclusive that sees the return of Adams, as well as James Marsden as Prince (now King) Edward and Patrick Dempsey as Giselle’s real-world husband, Robert.

“Amy was the catalyst,” producer Barry Josephson tells Red Alert. “No one knew that first movie better than her.” Now on board as exec producer, the actor helped navigate the script through various writers, until they settled on Brigitte Hales, a veteran of Once Upon A Time, having written over 50 episodes of the fantasy drama.

“She was very, very encyclopaedic and astute and creative about fairy tales,” enthuses Josephson. “She came up with some brilliant concepts along the way that led us to a screenplay that when the studio read it, they were very engaged with.”

When we first met Giselle she was an almost total innocent, a fairy tale character propelled into modern-day New York City. At the end of the film – spoiler alert – she stays there and marries Robert, while former beau Prince Edward returns to the animated land of Andalasia with Robert’s one-time fiancé, Nancy. The Giselle we meet this time, though, has been living a normal, Big Apple life for 15 years, so presumably is quite a changed person?

“We talked quite a bit about the reason behind Giselle’s new journey,” Josephson says. “She lives in New York City, but she’s thinking about the life she had in Andalasia, the fairy tale life, and what that meant to her emotionally and spiritually. She’s like, ‘I don’t want to go back to Andalasia, but I do want to change our life, so here’s what we’re going to do: we’re going to move to suburbia, and I’m going to try to create a world that is magical and wonderful and uplifting, like the world I had in Andalasia.’”

The original Enchanted was a movie that played as satisfyingly to adults as it did to kids. But Josephson is aware that at least half the intended audience for Disenchanted are in a very different place to the children who lapped up that first film in 2007.

“We’re living with a generation that probably 50% is on social media and prefer social media more than anything else,” he says. “How do you bring a younger and teen and adult audience to an aspirational story like this? The thing that we engaged in with the development of the movie was that Giselle is going to make a wish, well-intended, but that wish potentially is going to have consequences. What are those consequences? How strong is the dilemma of that? How does it change things? We thought, ‘Would the audience be engaged with all of these manifestations?’ I feel we’ve succeeded with that.”

A big clue as to what the film is about is in its title. Josephson says they never seriously considered any variation on Enchanted 2, and that Disenchanted illustrates where its lead character is emotionally at the beginning of the film. “Giselle has become quite disenchanted with her life,” the producer explains, “and she wants to have a profound change. We kept trying this title out on each other until the time where we needed to declare it.

“We just couldn’t live any more with Enchanted 2 or Enchanted: The Other Story or Enchanted: The Wish… I will say that Sean Bailey [Disney’s president] challenged us early on by saying, ‘If we’re going to make this movie, it needs to be a standalone story.’ And I think we succeeded in that by calling it Disenchanted, because it suggests immediately, there’s something else to do.”

Still, Enchanted was also intended as a standalone, and that film got a sequel. So, should audiences take to this follow-up, will we be getting an Enchanted 3? And what would it be called?

“In the brain of the producer, there’s always talk of a sequel,” Josephson laughs, “but I don’t have a title for it! I’ve not had any formal conversations with anybody. I think it’s always premature until you’ve had some level of success. But in my mind, the wheels are turning as they’ve always turned with this project. When you feel strongly about what you have, you always want to have a sequel.”

You're so observant, D82! So, in the case of this movie, it seems every single thing is great except the visuals. The story is great. The script is great. The acting is great. The ideas are great. The songs are probably gonna be great. But the costumes and hair and CGI as well as hand-drawn animation? Awful!

Thanks, Disney Duster. I just watched the trailer many times and paused every frame. That's why I noticed those things. I don't do that with every trailer, though; just when it's a movie I'm really exited for, like in this case.

I agree with you that the story looks really good, as well as the acting, and that there are some really clever ideas. I hope it's all well developed and executed. If so, it could be a great sequel. I also agree some aspects of the visual department could be improved. Yeah, I think the costumes from the original were much better, though after taking a closer look at them, I agree with Sotiris that they're not that bad either. Personally, I don't have a problem with the hair. I don't even mind Idina's bangs, though I understand why some don't like them. Some aspects of the production design and VFX look a bit cheap to me, as I already mentioned. Maybe it's the fact that sometimes there are too many colors in the same frame, as you said, Farerb. But overall I think it's all still decent enough, at least for a Disney+ film. Regarding the production design and costumes, I think it's also worth noting that they most likely had a lot more work to do in the sequel, since the real world turns into a fantasy place here and that means many more period clothes and settings. I also appreciate the fact that they kept some of the artistic motifs from the original.

Thanks for posting, D82! At least it`s nice to see an actual reference to an Disney character, instead of just a scene that pays homage to it. However, it`s now mandatory for Disney to do so, considering that now their live action remakes have gone this rough (*cough, Pinocchio, cough*)

You're welcome! At first, I didn't know how I felt about them having such a clear reference to Ariel and not something a bit more subtle, but it actually doesn't clash with the rest of the elements in the set. The statues of the dragons on the stairs, for example, are very much in the same style, so I now think it works.

[Disney Duster]

Thanks Sotiris for reminding me what the trailer said, but it seems to be in conjunction with what D82 just posted, Giselle moves to the suburbs in hopes of living a better life before the wish, because she was disenchanted before they moved to the suburbs. So thank you D82! And oh, so you paused and looked through the trailer for this film because you are so interested in this film! I gotcha. You know, you are right, they at least have some references to the first film's art nouveau motifs, and that costume of Malvina's in the photo you just posted is not awful, but I hate Nancy's bangs and still say they should have found a much better costume designer or had Disney animators design the fairy tale costumes, like I thought they did in the first film. They should have brought back whoever designed the costumes from the first film!

[Sotiris]

They should have brought back whoever designed the costumes from the first film!

Mona May was the costume designer on the original while Claire Keane worked with her as a costume illustrator and a visual development artist.

[D82]

Alan Tudyk has revealed he voices the character of the scroll in the movie:

Alan Tudyk Explains His Paper-Thin Role in Disney's Disenchanted
https://www.cbr.com/alan-tudyk-explains ... enchanted/

And oh, so you paused and looked through the trailer for this film because you are so interested in this film! I gotcha.

I've noticed now I said I paused every "frame" of the trailer. I actually meant every shot. Every frame would be too much, even for me. But despite doing that, I hadn't noticed until now James Monroe Iglehart appeared in it! The one next to Robert below is him, right? I don't know why I didn't recognize him before. Well, I know he was the Genie on Broadway and he voiced a character in the Tangled TV series, but I don't think I've seen him in anything, so maybe that's why I didn't. It seems he's one of the commuters who take the same train as Robert. I wonder if he'll turn into a genie after the spell. That would be a cool reference to Aladdin and his role on the Broadway show.

They should have brought back whoever designed the costumes from the first film!

I agree; it's a shame they didn't. I've looked Mona May's filmography up, and interestingly she did the costumes for a recent Disney+ movie, Flora & Ulysses, so it's not that Disney doesn't work with her anymore. She has made several films for the studio. Apart from Enchanted, she worked on The Haunted Mansion (Eddie Murphy's film, not the upcoming adaptation) and on several Disney Channel movies such as The Cheetah Girls: One World, Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie, Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam or Lemonade Mouth. Disenchanted's costume designer, Joan Bergin, has actually worked on a larger number of prestigious projects and has won several awards, so she's not a bad designer. She has also made a lot of period pieces, but perhaps she doesn't have much experience with fantasy.

The director is often the one who decides who he wants to work with in every department, so maybe Adam Shankman chose someone he liked, though I don't think he had worked with Joan Bergin before. I've listened to an interview with Mona May, since I was curious to know more about her work on Enchanted after we talked about it, and I found it interesting that she had to do an interview to get the job. I knew actors have to do auditions to get a part, but I didn't know members of the crew have to go through something similar. She said there were big designers fighting for the job, but she thinks her approach to Narissa's costume is why she got it. I guess it's also possible there was a selection process this time as well and the director liked Joan Bergin's ideas more than the rest of candidates'.

Something that also occurred to me is that perhaps they needed someone who could work fast, since they need content for Disney+, and she has worked a lot on TV where I guess they're used to work with limited resources. Maybe that's also the reason they hired Adam Shankman to direct this (and Hocus Pocus 2 initially), instead of asking the original directors; that he's fast too or knows how to work with a small budget. I would've preferred they had brought everyone who made the first film a success back, but they could've gone for worse options and I'm just happy this film has finally been made. And some did return, like most of the actors or Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz.

By the way, in case anyone's interested, here's the interview with Mona May I was talking about. I found it quite interesting and made me appreciate her work for the film even more. There are also lots of images of her designs for the film on her website, as well as in this other video.

Mona May was the costume designer on the original while Claire Keane worked with her as a costume illustrator and a visual development artist.

I had forgotten Claire Keane worked on Enchanted. She's also very talented.