Disney Movie Challenge: The Princess and the Frog (2009)

 

 Disney Movie Challenge

The Princess and the Frog (2009)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021. 

After the failure of Home on the Range (2004) Disney said they would never make a traditional hand drawn animated movie again.  Five years later and under the supervision of John Lasseter things changed.  

The Princess and the Frog is an updated version of the Grimm's fairy tale The Frog Prince.  This version takes place in New Orleans and involves a waitress and a prince who get turned into a frog.  Tiana (Anika Noni Rose), a waitress in New Orleans is working extra hard to raise money to buy a restaurant.  When she gets real close to succeeding at her dream it gets snatched away from her.  At this low moment a talking frog seems to magically appear from nowhere.  The frog says that he is Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) and that he was turned into a frog by a witch doctor (Keith David).  Remembering fairy tales she was told as a kid she figured what's the worst that could happen if she kisses the frog.  Well unlike the fairy tales this kiss turns her into a frog also.  They embark on a journey to turn themselves back into humans and along the way meet a variety of friends and of course fall in love.

When John Lasseter moved from Pixar to Disney everyone expected that was the end of traditional animated films.  But as a film lover in general he knew that traditional animated films were Disney's signature and decided he wasn't going to give up on that.  Since many of the traditional animators had left Disney in the 5 years since Home on the Range, Lasseter had to go and rehire them.  The top of his list was John Musker and Ron Clements who had directed some of the biggest hits during the Disney Renaissance, including The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Hercules. Lasseter made them a deal, come back to Disney and make the film however you wanted.  They came back and chose hand drawn animation.  The biggest problem was that a lot of the technology they had pioneered during the renaissance was now outdated (specifically the CAPS program) so they had to look for new ways to make the films. After making a few shorts they decided their best was to hand draw it and scan it into a program called Toon Boom which they could use to manipulate the drawing similar to the way CAPS did.  In the end it had a classic feel but still felt fresh.  

Originally Musker and Clements wanted to work with frequent music collaborator Alan Menken, but Lasseter wanted Randy Newman.  Newman had worked with Lasseter on the Toy Story films and was from New Orleans . Lasseter felt that Newman could bring some authenticity to the music.  Mixing the score with Jazz, Zydeco, and Blues the music really had a distinct New Orleans feel. As the first musical in years it definitely felt like a return to form for Disney. My biggest complaint is that the song "Friends on the Other Side" sounded a lot like "Friend Like Me" from Aladdin.     

This is the first Princess movie that takes place in a modern city in the U.S and it surprisingly worked really well.  I had my doubts because it doesn't make sense for a Princess to be in New Orleans, but the story sold it to me.  I loved the independent spirit and drive of Tiana and how she doesn't fit the normal mold for Disney Princesses.  The Prince on the other hand is the one that comes off ditzy and out of touch with the normal world. At first, Tiana wants nothing to do with him and he is the one forced to change if he wants to marry her.  The rest of the characters were fun and loved their little quirks, like the alligator that wanted to play the trumpet.  The voice cast was top notch.  I loved everyone involved in it.  

Being the first Disney Black Princess the film had a lot of controversies prior to being released.  First thing that was changed was the name of the film.  During production the movie was called The Frog Princess, but many people felt that it felt a bit degrading that the first black princess was referred to as an animal in the title.  Also changed was the name of the character and her occupation.  Originally she was named Maddy and worked as a maid.  This was felt to be too close to the racial stereotype of "Mammy" being a maid.  Her name was changed to Tiana and she became a waitress.  Another controversy surrounding the film was that it took place in New Orleans.  Some felt that it was insensitive to the city as it was still struggling rebuilding post Katrina. To me the film felt like a celebration of the city and more I'm glad they kept that aspect.

Overall: A fun music filled movie that has good songs and a great cast.  Definitely more similar to the Renaissance films of the 90's and maybe it felt too out of date when it was released, but looking back on it it's a really good film that deserves more attention.  

Random Facts

While the movie was a critical success it didn't "ignite the box office" the way Disney thought it would.  There were some in Disney that thought having Princess in the title affected the box office. Their thought was that it turned away the male demographic because they all assumed it was a "girly" princess movie.  This thinking would affect the names and marketing of their next two princess movies.  Rapunzel title was changed to Tangled and marketed as an action movie not a Princess movie.  The Snow Queen title was changed to Frozen 

Another factor affecting the box office was that it was released one week before Avatar which pretty much sucked up all box office money.  

The movie was nominated for 3 Oscars. Best Animated Feature Film, and 2 Best Song nominations.  This was the most nominations any Disney film had received since The Lion King received 4 nominations.  

According to IMDB Tiana and Naveen kiss each other five times which is more than any other couple in a Disney princess movie. I didn't count to verify this fact.  

Beyoncé and Jennifer Hudson were both at one time considered for the role of Tiana, before Anika Noni Rose was cast.  Alicia Keys actively campaigned for the role. 

Oprah Winfrey was brought in as a consultant but ended up taking a role as Tiana's mother.  

Disney Movie Challenge: Bolt (2008)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Bolt (2008)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021. 

With Bolt it feels like Disney finally figured out how to do Computer Animation.  The movie looks great and has a lot of good action sequences that feel like they wouldn’t have been able to pull off in past movies.  

The movie is about a dog named Bolt (John Travolta).  Bolt is an acting dog and has his own TV show.  The problem is that Bolt doesn’t know he is in a TV show and thinks he really has superpowers. When he thinks his owner Penny (Miley Cyrus) is really kidnapped he escapes. While running around the studio he gets lost and ends up being placed in a box and shipped to New York.  There he begins a perilous journey back to Hollywood with some new friends, a cat named Mittens, and a hamster named Rhino.  Along the way Bolt learns that he isn’t a superhero and other valuable life lessons. 

Bolt had a similar development as Meet the Robinsons.  Both movies started production prior to John Lasseter joining Disney and both underwent significant changes based on suggestions by Lasseter.  Director Chris Sanders (who previously directed Lilo and Stitch) did not appreciate the suggestions and didn’t want to change anything.  Lasseter removed Sanders from the project and the directing duties went to Byron Howard and Chris Williams.  Also similar to Meet the Robinsons Lasseter told the production they had an abbreviated timeline to finish the project (it’s reported that he told them to do what normally takes 4 years in 18 months). 

Somehow in the compressed timeline they put together a good looking movie.  It has the best action sequences in a Disney computer animated movie up to this time.  Pushing the limits of computer animation, new technology was developed for the movie.  Instead of trying to make the movie photorealistic as most computer animation does, this technology did the opposite. The program was used to make the background look like painting and added brush strokes into animation.   They also used different styles to show the difference between the fictional world of the Bolt TV series and Bolt’s real world adventures.   The finished product has a unique look that still holds up. They also decided early on that this film would be in 3D and was animated with that in mind. Previous films were made in 2D and upgraded to 3D. Making the movie with 3D in mind from the beginning gives a more sharper look as the animators can spend time getting the details right.

Probably the weirdest thing about the movie is the premise.  It’s like someone saw The Truman Show and said let's do that except with a dog.  But once the movie turns into a road movie it feels more organic.  I love the ragtag feel of the team he gets together.  It’s still bizarre to me that Rhino would just run away from home to join Bolt, but the whole Bolt and Mittens dynamic works really well.  

Overall:  Despite all the retooling and a weird premise the movie works pretty well.  The action is fun and the cast has some great interactions.  

Random Facts

Even though Chris Sanders was removed from the project he ended up a Dreamworks and helped create the popular How to Train Your Dragon series so things turned out pretty well for him.  In a weird twist of fate his first live action film was Call of the Wild  at Fox.  After Disney bought Fox the movie was technically released by Disney.  So even though Disney fired him he still found a way back.  

Chloe Grace Moretz did all of Penny’s dialogue but then was replaced by Miley Cyrus.  They did keep her as young Penny.  

Both James Lipton and Randy Savage have small parts in the film. This would be the last film for both of them.   

At one point Arnold Schwarzenegger was considered for the role of Bolt.  

Disney Movie Challenge: Meet the Robinsons (2007)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Meet the Robinsons (2007)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021.

Starting with Meet the Robinsons we enter a transition period for Disney.  The 2000’s saw Disney struggle and be overshadowed by animated features from Pixar and Dreamworks.  While Meet the Robinsons wasn't a huge success you feel Disney starting to right the ship and the beginning of the second Disney Renaissance.  

Meet the Robinsons is about an orphan twelve year old named Lewis.  Lewis fancies himself as an inventor and has some crazy gadgets.  But, it is these gadgets that seem to keep him from getting adopted.  When he enters a science fair with a machine he thinks will show memories (he hopes to find out why his mother left him for adoption) a man in a bowler hat sabotages his machine and causes it to fail.  Luckily there is another kid (Wilbur Robinson) who wants to help him succeed.  Wilbur tells Lewis he is from the future and to prove it he takes Lewis to the future with him  There Lewis meets the rest of the quirky Robinsons.  They welcome him to their home and for the first time Lewis feels like he has a family.  When the family finds out he is from the past they tell him he can’t stay and must go back to his time.  Meanwhile the man with the bowler hat is still trying to steal Lewis’ invention so he can claim it as his own.  The bowler hat is revealed to be a sentient robot called Doris who has nefarious plans of her own.  There are a bunch of twists that follow but in the end Lewis goes back to the science fair and proves his memory scanner works and everything works out. 

 As I mentioned earlier Meet the Robinsons came during a transition period for Disney. After Jeffrey Katzenberg left to start Dreakworks in 1994 Disney Animation went through a number of leaders.  After Disney bought Pixar in 2006 John Lasseter, who was Vice President of Pixar, was named Chief Creative Office of both Disney Feature Animations and Pixar animations.  At the time he took over Meet the Robinsons was already in development.  When he screened the film for the first time he told them the villain needed to be more scary.  60% of the movie was then reworked adding Doris the hat and a dinosaur chase at the end.  

Meet the Robinsons is the second (third if you count The Wild) fully computer animated film for Disney.  While it’s definitely an improvement it still feels like early computer animated films.  By this point Pixar and Dreamworks had come a long way and making cutting edge films and the Disney team still had a lot of catching up to do. To give you an idea, the animation in this movie reminded me more of Jimmy Neutron which came out in 2001 and less like Ratatouille which came out the same year as this film.  But given the film has an overall retro look it doesn’t take too much away.  

What I really liked about the movie is the writing.  It has funny and clever dialogue that feels like early Lord and Miller style.  I even had to look up if they were involved but they weren’t.  One of my favorite lines from the film is “Knock ‘em dead...that was a figure of speech don’t kill anyone” right before Lewis turns his invention on at the science fair.  The biggest problem I had with the movie is the time travel.  Time travel is always a tricky aspect and very rarely works for me. Each time travel movie has their own time travel rules but this one just doesn’t have any.  They don’t try to explain anything and if you think too much about things it will make your head hurt.  The most egregious part in my opinion is when**SPOILER ALERT** Lewis tells Doris that he just won’t invent her in the future and that solves the problem.   As long as we are doing spoilers the reveal that Lewis is Wilbur's dad is kind of odd because Wilbur's dad is named Cornelius. While that is kind of explained it still feels dumb.

Overall: Not a super memorable movie but has some fun parts with good dialogue.  It also moves along quickly and keeps you from getting bored.  I have my issues with time travel movies and this movie doesn’t even try to explain any time travel paradoxes so best to just roll with it.  

Random Facts

The character of Lewis was voiced by both Daniel Hansen and Jordan Fry. Daniel Hansen voiced Lewis at the beginning of the film's production, and when the studio needed Lewis' lines changed, they had Jordan Fry re-dub many segments

Director Stephen Anderson wanted to direct the movie because he was also adopted and connected with the character Lewis.

Only Disney Animated film to be scored by Danny Elfman.  While I usually enjoy his scores this one wasn't very memorable.

Disney Movie Challenge Bonus: The Wild (2006)

 Disney Movie Challenge Bonus

The Wild

In 2005 Dreamworks released the animated film Madagascar about zoo animals in New York City that escape and go to Africa. In 2006 Disneay released The Wild about zoo animals in New York City that escape and go to Africa.  This isn’t the first time Disney has released a movie that was similar to another movie.  The Pixar movie A Bug's Life was released around the same time as the Dreamworks movie Antz.  But the biggest question about this movie (and the reason it’s a Bonus Post) is “is this movie a Disney movie or not?”  When I looked up my list of Disney Studios Animated Films on Wikipedia this one wasn’t listed, and I never gave it another thought.  There are lots of movies that don’t fit the strict definition to be considered official Disney canon.  What makes The Wild a bit different is that it is considered Canon in Europe but not in the U.S. I am a bit confused why there are different lists for different places.  My initial thought was the movie was so bad and felt like such a copy of Madagascar that they erased it from canon. And if a movie is that bad I need to see it. 

Like I said, The Wild is about zoo animals that escape from a zoo in New York City.  The main animal is a lion named Samson (Keifer Sutherland) with his friends Bridget the giraffe (Janeane Garofalo), Benny the squirrel (Jim Belushi), and Nigel the koala (Eddie Izzard), and a snake named Larry (Richard Kind).  After Samson and his son Ryan have a fight Ryan falls asleep in a cargo carrier that is being shipped to Africa.  Samson and his friends set out to rescue him.  

 Trying to find information on the making of this movie and why it’s not considered canon in the U.S. has been near impossible.  Few things I do know is that it was a partnership between Disney and a Canadian company, and it is the only directorial effort by Steve “Spaz” Williams.  One review I saw mentioned that there was corporate espionage going on. While I couldn’t find anything specific he was talking about I assume it has to do with Jeffrey Katzenberg leaving Disney and going to Dreamworks.  If Katzenberg knew The Wild was in development he could have brought the same concept to Dreamworks and rushed it through development.  Anyway it feels like a move Disney doesn’t want people to know about (although it is on Disney+).

I haven’t watched Madagascar in a long time but obviously there are a lot of similarities. But that hasn’t stopped movies from being successful before. So what makes this one so different? The biggest issue for The Wild is that it’s really bad.  Not only does it feel like a rip off of Madagascar but it feels like a really bad rip off.  This would have been Disney’s second fully computer animated film (after Chicken Little) and it looks awful.  Something about the texture on the animal's fur just looks bad and I found it really distracting.  While the story in Madagascar is pretty absurd it’s at least fun.  The Wild is both absurd and tries to take itself too seriously. There is an overuse of slow pop songs (Yellow from Coldplay seems really out of place) to try to give the film more emotional impact.  And the less that is said about the weird love story between a squirrel and giraffe the better.  

The one thing that worked really well in this film was the voice acting.  Keifer Sutherland and Eddie Izzard did a great job with their characters.  Jim Belushi played the annoying squirrel perfectly as I was annoyed by him the whole way through.  I wish they had better dialogue and a better story to show off their talents. 

Overall: Usually when two movies dealing with similar storylines one gets the spotlight while the other fades in the memory.  But when it comes to The Wild it has nothing to do with comparing it to Madagascar and everything to do with how bad it is.  And I guess everyone learned a lesson.  Don’t let a guy nicknamed “Spaz” direct a movie.