Oh the emotional rollercoaster Disney takes us on. First they launch Pixar into a mega giant studio under their banner. Then Pixar leaves the nest and Disney abandons traditional 2d animation for the new popular cg format. Now Pixar is back in the fold and they bring back their 2d feature film department.
First project out of the gate? A take on the Princess and the Frog, but this time its set in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
Written/directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, creators of The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, the animated musical is set in New Orleans. The movie follows Tiana, a young African-American girl who lives in the infamous French Quarter. The new movie will feature a soulful singing crocodile, voodoo spells, and the music of Randy Newman (as heard in the teaser). The Princess and the Frog hits theaters on Christmas 2009.
Clearly this is taking a cue from some of the amazing scenery found in Beauty and the Beast and still implementing 3d landscapes and objects in with traditional cel animation.
But for me, the quality of the cg scenery is still a tiny bit of a distraction from 2d. Go one way or the other.
Now this is just a teaser trailer, so I will reserve judgement on the animation until later.
I for one am glad to hear that traditional animation styles are not forgotten forever. This is what made Disney GREAT, and Pixar is GREAT too. So let each of them do their own thing and lets get back to the magic of these films.
Hop on over to /Film to see the teaser trailer!
And the point of the article Darren linked to was that the original concept of the character was that she would be a servant girl. But now she is a princess. She isn’t a little dick chasing priss.
Disney was pretty white bread through out the 50-60s but as times changed so did Disney.
You are wary of this because they havent made and african princess, but now that they are you think its JUST to pacify those who criticized them for it?
So no matter what they did you would have a problem with it?
Damned if they do, damned if they dont.
But Belle fucking RULES. She was my hero growing up:) I’m a bookworm, too.
Yeah, I’m wary about this. I’ve been critical of Disney for seemingly wanting to make films about women of every race BUT African-American. Pocahontas, Mulan, Princess Jasmine, but no African-American princess? Come on! I just hope that they make this a good movie rather than throw some garbage out there simply to pacify their critics.
As for the princess in this film being subservient, hell, most Disney princesses ARE subservient little twits whose big goal in life is to bag a prince. Ariel, Aurora, Snow White, Cinderella, all of ’em are chasing dick through their films. And even if a female character has bigger fish to fry, the film makes a point that without a man, she ain’t shit. Watch the end of Mulan. She beats Attila the fucking HUN, but her happy ending isn’t complete until the hot general comes over for dinner. Bullshit.
The additional bad news is that a good week before Rodney’s post, the project had gotten some controversy regarding the storyline.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/news/disneys-subservient-black-princess-animates-film-critics-869725.html
The real bad news here is music by Randy Newman. Boring, I thought that was the least interesting part about the spate of Pizar films he wrote songs for and they are so stylistically one-note. If they’re going with traditional animation why not go for traditonal Disney musical style songs?
A cartoon would be a nice change for once.