The Princess and the Frog

I am so glad that they decided to do a cartoon in a "retro" fashion like this. I was just saying a while back how I missed when cartoons were, well, cartoons and not bent on looking so realistic. This realization hit me when I was watching Aladdin on Disney with my kids one night. Made me really miss the "old days" of good old fashioned animation without all the CGI and 3-D stuff.

Most excited to see this (I remember back when I was a kid and the Disney animated feature was what I looked forward to most every year). Will be checking it out Monday!

Not knocking Disney or anything but--is it just me or is Tiana just the stereotypical Disney heroine with different coloring? I was looking at a picture of her in black & white and thought I was looking at Cinderella for too long.

Somehow, I find that to be highly disappointing.

I'm pretty excited to see it. I actually hadn't heard of the books until one of the girls interviewed E.D. Baker for the OPWFT blog.

There have been some interesting reviews of it.

DeleyanLee said:

Not knocking Disney or anything but--is it just me or is Tiana just the stereotypical Disney heroine with different coloring? I was looking at a picture of her in black & white and thought I was looking at Cinderella for too long.

Somehow, I find that to be highly disappointing.

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She's wearing a similar dress to Cinderella, but look at her facial features. She has that flatter nose, eyes are shaped differently. She's actually based on the actress who did her voice.

http://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/the-princess-and-the-frog.jpg

I really liked Mulan...

But I'm willing to bet this movie does not have her joining the military - random aside, I want my Alanna the Lioness movie NOW - so I'm not sure if I'll like it as much.

At least it means there will now be a black "Disney Princess"

Zoombie said:

I really liked Mulan...

But I'm willing to bet this movie does not have her joining the military - random aside, I want my Alanna the Lioness movie NOW - so I'm not sure if I'll like it as much.

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Disney does not promote sexism, so I don't think that would work. The book doesn't promote it either, but it's such a huge factor in the beginning...

I went to see it with my kids. We loved it. However, there are somethings that kinda made me say, "Oh".

The things I liked were, her friendship with her childhood friend. Her friend was cute and saucy. Also, I liked that she wanted to work hard for her dream to own her own restaurant. She was focused and determined to reach her goal.

Things that I thought was kinda ...blah

like;

- Why was her Prince broke? He was lazy and cut off from his family because of his party like ways.

- Why didn't she get to move into the castle and live Happily ever after with riches and such like the others

With the above questions - I still liked it.

Elektra said:

Not to mention the lesson of Sure, girls, what you want may be your own dreams and career, but what you need is A Man.

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At the same time though, he needed her too. She saved him in the end. She got her dream and the prince.

But, I see what you're saying...it struck me that way too.

Disney made a few missteps, and a few courageous steps in this movie:
(SPOILERS IN THE COURAGEOUS STEPS SEGMENT)



Missteps:

a) I honest to god wish they'd hired someone other than Randy Newman to write the music. That's why you can't remember any of it. He's a forgettable lyricist.

b) The prince looked exactly like Prince Eric from Little Mermaid... but darker.

Apparently, not dark enough, either. Looking around the blagosphere I see some folks tried to make a stink of him not being black enough.

c) I might be the only person who noticed this, but the only people in the movie with money were white, unless you count the .8 second cameo by Naveen's father.


Courageous steps:

a) Letting the little bug die. I <3 that moment, and cried when he got to be with Evangeline.

b) The villain wasn't scary to me, although his "friends on the other side" were sufficiently spooky for our 5-year-old.

c) Having this princess actually want (as her wish-upon-a-star wish) to own a restaurant and work for a living. Good for Disney, in finally stopping its perpetuation of spoiled rich girls with bad attitudes (talking to you, Miley!).


Overall, the movie is a decent addition to the Disney collection, but in the final analysis it made me want to pop my copy of "The Rescuers" into the DVD player, so I could see more colorful, funny bayou creatures pulling off a harder, more satisfying adventure.