Comments on: The Princess and the Frog

By: Winnie the Pooh Movie Announced for July 15 » DVDs Worth Watching

Winnie the Pooh Movie Announced for July 15 » DVDs Worth Watching — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:41:21 +0000

[...] traditional 2-D animation — which I’m glad to see, since I feared Disney had given up on it since The Princess and the Frog [...]

By: Santiago Casares

Santiago Casares — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 15:01:59 +0000

Also, the new Winnie the Pooh movie will come out this year. If I remember correctly, it’s made by the same animation team than Princess and the Frog.

By: Jennfer Hachigian

Jennfer Hachigian — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:56:43 +0000

“I want more hand-drawn movies and modern girl leads who have dreams beyond romance, and who wind up with a partner, not a prince.”

I do not know if Sylvain Chomet’s “The Illusionist” will meet the last two conditions, but it should meet the first as a hand-drawn animated feature. :^D It’s playing only in Los Angeles and New York at this time, but it should come out on DVD soon.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:43:11 +0000

While I’m not a parent, I did buy my niece for Christmas last year a Tiana Barbie-doll, plus she got the DVD as well as a gift for Easter. I was surprised how fast they rushed the film to DVD at the time—guess Disney must not’ve thought it did as well as they wanted (IIRC it broke the $100 million box office mark domestically, but just barely).

From what I recall, one reason for the film’s problems last year was the success of the other family-friendly film it was up against, “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel,” which proved to be as big a money-maker (or even bigger) as the original CGI film was, even with “Avatar” as competition for both films (which also might’ve hurt “Princess and the Frog”). Audiences apparently preferred CGI talking chipmunks over 2D talking frogs. I went with my niece and her mother to see the Chipmunks movie (unfortunately). While I like the Chipmunks, as well as the Chipettes from the 80s cartoon—IIRC this film passed the Bechdel Test as well, per a few scenes of the girls talking about their singing careers—this was just another lame CGI-meets-live-action remake of an animated TV show.

Wonder as well if audiences are also too accustomed to seeing only CGI animated features and not 2D ones these days—Cartoon Brew’s list of major animated films out for 2011 show virtually all of them to be CGI, and Disney’s previous few 2D films in the 2000s (Home on the range, Treasure Planet) were flops. Hollywood I imagine also would prefer CGI for whatever dubious reasons…

By: Johanna

Johanna — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 16:56:05 +0000

Commercially, I think, they wanted it to be a worldwide blockbuster. I agree, artistically, it was very satisfying.

By: judi(togainunochi)

judi(togainunochi) — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 16:36:51 +0000

Failure? that’s too bad because I thought it was fantastic. I loved that it had more modern themes. The heroine was spunky and not looking to forsake her dreams for a prince/husband.