Disney's "Tangled"

[megladon8]

Disney's new film is a re-telling of the famous fairy tale "Rapunzel", with Mandy Moore voicing the story's titular princess with long locks.

Other voices include Zachary Levi, Ron Perlman, Brad Garrett, Donna Murphy and Jeffrey Tambor.


A bunch of new photos appeared on IMDb's front page today, and I was kind of surprised to find that this is a CG-animated film. From the initial stills I saw several months back I thought it was going to be a traditional 2D-animated feature. I guess they were just pieces of concept art.

[Spinal]

I've seen the trailer a couple of times now before other stuff. I was not encouraged. But who knows?

[youtube]wCxuxrLNrsw[/youtube]

[megladon8]

I really feel "behind" for not knowing this was a CG-animated feature. I didn't even know there was a trailer out already.

These (and the one I posted to start the thread) were the only shots I'd seen up until this evening, and so I thought it was a traditionally animated film...


Spoiler'd to save peoples' load times...


[

Show Spoiler

]

[Raiders]

Yeah, this was before Toy Story 3 and it looked positively atrocious.

[Mara]

Wow... that looks just... awful.

[Spinal]

I'm not sure why you would approach the Rapunzel story from the point of view of her male suitor, but that's just me.

[Mara]

I'm not sure why you would approach the Rapunzel story from the point of view of her male suitor, but that's just me.

Entainment Weekly (so it's not scripture) said that the film doesn't focus on the prince at all-- but that no boys came out to see the frog princess movie, so they're trying to market it more to males.

[Dukefrukem]

Zachary Levi? who?

[Sycophant]

A Google search tells me he is Chuck from TV's Chuck! So he is actually yeah kinda famous yeah!

[[ETM]]

Zachary Levi? who?

Leave your geek credentials at the door before you leave.

[Spinal]

Entainment Weekly (so it's not scripture) said that the film doesn't focus on the prince at all-- but that no boys came out to see the frog princess movie, so they're trying to market it more to males.

I now feel guilty for not taking my boy to the frog princess movie.

[Grouchy]

That was embarassing.

[MadMan]

No. Just no. Next!

[Mara]

Zachary Levi? who?

Aww, he's a cutie patootie. He's been picking some stupid projects, though.

[Wryan]

How the fuck can she control her hair like that?

Anyway, looks bad, but I had a dream about a darker telling in which Rapunzel is a witch and traps a prince in her tall tower out of jealousy and lust and general insanity. He eventually has to kill her in a way that enables him to climb down to safety and get back to his kingdom in one piece.

[D_Davis]

That concept art looks about a millions times better than the final CG in the trailer.

[Dukefrukem]

I don't know why people think this looks so bad. So she can control her hair... so what? it's fairytale... you know like... Beauty and the Beast?

[Sycophant]

At the time of its announcement, Glen Keane was talking about how this movie would use some new processes to make it look like to Rococo painting instead of a CG-animated feature. I think it was supposed to be a slightly more classic take on the fairy tale, too. This, however, looks exactly like every other Shrek-era CG animation since 2001.

Wikipedia leads me to believe the emphasis on the thief character may have more impact on the story than the above suggests. They also changed the title from Rapunzel to Tangled, apparenlty as a marketing decision to get more boys.

Floyd Norman, a retired Disney and Pixar animator, said, "I'm convinced they'll gain nothing from this except the public seeing Disney as desperately trying to find an audience."

He's probably right. This is probably not going to be very good. I'd love to be proven wrong, but it seems very unlikely. This was in development since before the integration of Pixar management, but I thought they were there to keep things like this from happening.

Walt Disney Feature Animation is a mess. They're thinking entirely with their marketing dicks.

Speaking of which, this is a questionable idea, but if they want to get young boys slightly more interested in their princess movies, put Rapunzel in a glorified bra a la Ariel and Jasmine. Unless the boys of 2010 aren't the same as the boys of 1990.

Oh, and maybe market the movies as if they might be tolerable to adults.

Or instead of focusing on WACKY IRREVERENCE, maybe show us the dark forces opposing our heroes? Ursula, Jafar, Scar, and company were compelling designs and presences. Maybe. I dunno.

Disney Feature Animation probably needs to lose this committee approach. It just hasn't worked as well since they lost Walt. They probably need to suffer a decimation like they had in the seventies so they can be reborn with fresh creative personnel backed by brilliant technicians later like a couple decades later like they were in the eighties.

[Sycophant]

A blog full of Glen Keane's art, which I think is a good argument for why Keane shouldn't be animation director for something that's probably mandated to look as bland as this.

[[ETM]]

Unless the boys of 2010 aren't the same as Watashi.

Fixed.

[megladon8]

I don't know why people think this looks so bad. So she can control her hair... so what? it's fairytale... you know like... Beauty and the Beast?

It's nothing to do with that.

It's the terribly written humor and seemingly poor (by Disney/Pixar standards) voicework.

[Grouchy]

Maybe she's an Inhuman like Medusa:



Being a comic book nerd means that your suspension of disbelief very very rarely fails you.

[Fezzik]

This was surprisingly awesome.

The marketing department, or whomever put together the trailer for this movie, needs to be soundly flogged.

They totally misrepresented it. It's funny, charming and does indeed harken back a bit to the 1990s run that Disney had.

The songs were a welcome touch, especially Murphy's number, 'Mother Knows Best,' which stands apart as a master class in passive-aggressiveness.

The voice work is good, too, and Menken's score is excellent.

The movie is good to very good until Rapunzel and Flynn get to the Kingdom's capital city. From that point on it leaps into great to classic territory.

And I want a chameleon.

[megladon8]

That's great to hear, Fezzik.

I gotta admit I was/am caught off guard by how positive the reviews are.

The commercials and trailers really did make it look terrible. But I LOVE Disney, and I want to love going to see Disney movies again.

Maybe I'll check this one out.

[KK2.0]

I always say this but it's worth repeating: nearly every trailer for animated movies are horrible, they cram lots of jokes trying to get the kids' attention and they fall flat out of context for adults.

The film's looks were not as ground-breaking as they promised, but Glen Keane is a master animator and i expected at least a quality film.