What's with Disney naming their new movies with those horrible one word 'modern' titles - Tangled; Frozen; what next 'Wood' for a new Pinocchio? What happened to naming them 'The Snow Queen' - too majestic and classy for them?
Three words -- The Princess and the Frog. They don't want to alienate boys by making it sound "prissy." As if the title is why the movie underperformed. It didn't stop The Little Mermaid from kickstarting the Disney Renaissance, or Beauty and the Beast from becoming a box office smash. The truth is, PatF was not a very good movie.
BTW: I concur about the generic-sounding one-word titles. I think they're taking a cue from Pixar, which always chooses "gender-neutral" titles. I'm reminded of the instant it was announced that Rapunzel was being changed to Tangled someone quipped, "If Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast were released today, they'd probably retitle them Beached and Fur." XD
I disagree and actually think "The Princess and the Frog" was a great Disney movie and a long overdue return to classic animation. I believe gender stereotypes, especially among children and teenagers, are more prevalent in today's society than ever, especially more so than during the time period of the Disney Renaissance and can impact boys decisions to see films like that - heck, musicals in general nowadays. It really sucks, and I'm not a fan of that being a reason for Disney to have to change movie titles, but the fact is that it is a reality they are having to deal with.
People in our generation grew up with Disney classics, so we are used to those Disney titles, etc. and, even though there were gender stereotypes, thy were not as prevalent or enforced in society as they are now for young children among their peers. Look at Easy Bake Ovens for example - they used to be borderline gender neutral. Now they are all frilly and pink with sparkles on them. One young boy's sister has even started a campaign to get Hasbro to make the toy gender neutral or make a male equivalent because her brother wants one, but doesn't have an alternative besides one with pink and sparkles. That's the reality that kids are growing up in. It's much more defined than it was during the ages of early Disney films.
Also, "majestic and classy" titles communicate a certain sensibility about the movie's content and genre.
Early Disney films of the princess variety strove to be majestic and classy, and were performed extremely in earnest. The Menken/Ashman/Schwartz period brought the writing out of storybook/fairytale dialogue and genre conventions by writing them like contemporary Broadway musicals in terms of style. The post-Pixar era has taken elements of the Broadway style, to be sure, but also leans more heavily on the postmodern (read: post Shrek, post Emperor's New Groove) comedic style, relying more heavily on a certain tongue in cheek irony present in the film's sensibilities.
The Princess and the Frog was successful. Disney expected millions upon millions (as in over 500 million dollars), which it didn't receive, but it was successful nonetheless.
I said it underperformed. Still, it was a modest hit at best. It bombed in the US at $104 million on a $105 million budget, but it made $267 million overall when you include the foreign gross. The conventional Hollywood rule-of-thumb is that a movie needs to gross about two-and-a-half to three times its budget to make a profit in order to cover marketing/distribution costs, the cut of the profits that theaters take, etc. So it made a small profit. Hardly the blockbuster they were expecting.
I'm on the fence over this. I have complete faith that Disney can make a decent film, but looking at the concept art reminds me way too much of Tangled. The characters look almost exactly like the main characters in that movie. Knowing all the folks involved in Frozen, I really hope it doesn't end up being Disney trying to straight up duplicate their own success, but rather push themselves to create something even better than their previous films.
I wanted to love PatF--I was *so* happy Lasseter becoming head of Disney animation pointed out that what they do best is traditional animation--not to try to compete otherwise. But I agree, it's a very mediocre movies. Some inspired moments, but a lot of it feels like a Don Bluth movie (and I'm not talking about his masterpiece, The Secret of NIMH.) I think the song score lets it down terribly, as well--I'm still annoyed they aren't using Menken's dark score which I heard parts of, that he composed for the once planned TokyoDisney stage show based on Snow Queen. It seemed ideal.
Tangled did ultimately win me over, I think the visuals are pretty great, but at times I did miss the hand-drawn look (I know it's all done with CAPS now and not cells) and I thought the score was very up and down.
I think PatF was A) Too heavy-handed with its message and B) Spent too much time with them as frogs. Also, Randy Newman's score did not elevate the material, except for maybe "Almost There." I loved Tangled and thought it was excellent, although I agree that Disney movies now have to be more tongue-and-cheek with humor than as genuine and earnest as they used to. I blame Shrek for that.
I also noticed the trend of boys refusing to watch Disney "princess" movies when I used to babysit children in high school. Sad. Feminists were very upset when Tangled was renamed because the move was catering to a demographic that is in their view already far too catered to already. Plus it's sad that no one trusts females to carry a movie financially. Sadly, Brave didn't do well, which I'm sure didn't help convince Disney otherwise.
I don't like Idina Menzel's singing but actually the one time I've thought she sounded good was voicing a character (Circe) on the Hercules animated series. So I will withhold my judgment.
"Also, Randy Newman's score did not elevate the material, except for maybe "Almost There." I loved Tangled and thought it was excellent, although I agree that Disney movies now have to be more tongue-and-cheek with humor than as genuine and earnest as they used to. I blame Shrek for that. "
Newman can't write a dramatic musical score, IMHO. He's fine when he's doing songs that more comment on the action or are played in the background (ie Toy Story), but...
As for themore adult tongue 'n cheek humour, to be fair Disney really started that with Aladdin (where it worked wonderfully), though I agree that Dreamworks have been particularly bad with that element.
"Plus it's sad that no one trusts females to carry a movie financially. Sadly, Brave didn't do well, which I'm sure didn't help convince Disney otherwise. "
To be fair, while Greta (I think that's her name) is the main protagonist of Snow Queen--traditionally anyway--her friend (Kurt? I have no idea) and him being taken by the Queen and emotionally frozen is focused on quite heavily--the recent TV anime based on the story (which was pretty good) did a good job of padding out the story and focusing on both equally. But I guess the title Snow Queen, even if she's kinda the villain more than anything else, isn't one they like.
But it is ironic because one of the biggest recent boons to Disney money wise has been their whole huge marketing around Princesses (including recently rebuilding Fantasyland in Florida to allow for even more places to meet and greet them...)
Just wanted to say that the other day I hung out with an old friend who has a daughter now and we went to the Disney Store. When the child wanted to buy a Rapunzel doll she called the doll "Tangled" instead of Rapunzel.
I have to say that I'm a little surprised that Jodi Benson does not have a role in this yet. She's already done two animated films based on Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales. One of them was distributed by Disney and is a classic. The other was distributed by Warner Bros. and was AWFUL!
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Posted: 12/13/12 at 06:51pm