Nice to see the series dealing with the (some of) the reality that you can't wish away your previous life and bad care givers (understatement!). We know it's been a huge wish of folks who've identified with Rapunzel, to see that her experience of being raised by Gothel, wouldn't get conveniently swept under the rug. Getting you 'happily ever after' doesn't erase the trauma of a horrible upbringing and at some point, it has to be dealt with - more than likely continuously over a lifetime.
While we don't know how this is ultimately handled, or if this is an issue that will recur/be touched on over time, we're glad to see there is an attempt at addressing this enormous issue in the first place.
See the official clip, with proper resolution on YouTube HERE.
We particularly like how there's indication of a headache and mental strain, that is, turmoil from inside Rapunzel (as opposed to her getting zapped from the outside, as if your bad-parent is only an external problem), not to mention the physically manifest messy aftermath of this encounter. We know there are more than a few folks who will appreciate the not-so-subtle symbolism and will feel validated that even though that problem-person is (possibly) in the past, it doesn't mean you've completely escaped your internal prisons.
The episode aired last week (March 24th we believe) so there's a good chance it will repeat again this week for those wanting to catch up.
Kudos to the Tangled: The Series team for addressing this important issue!
Note: For some reason, the embedding function has been disabled on the original clip, which is unusual so the one above is (obviously) someone's at-home recording of the sequence. If you can't see the one embedded above, you can watch the official clip on YouTube HERE.
The world, universe and adventures of Tangled have been begging for exploration ever since its theatrical success and the follow-up short, Tangled: Ever After, wasn't quite what fans were looking for. The fan market has remained strong, almost a decade later, but apart from a wedding only being good for so many laughs for kids, once the 'hairy adventures' aspect was over, with Rapunzel's hair being bobbed and not quite as potentially weaponized, what was there to watch that could be quite as magical and exciting?
Slight trivia aside: the first thing Rapunzel paints in her new room is the (fairy) tale of what happened in the 2010 movie. Neat huh?
The creators were stumped for a while until they decided to look at the themes of Tangled and, essentially, reboot them in series form. The trick was, to do that without redoing the movie's story and all that mythos and hard-earned happy ending, and they found an interesting way to do just that: turns out, in some ways, Rapunzel traded one prison for another. OK. Maybe that's a bit strong, since nothing quite adds up to being stuck in a doorless tower for most of your life, but it turns out Rapunzel is indeed chafing under the weight and stifling responsibility of her new position, not to mention the duties and the expectations everyone has of her.
Rapunzel sets out to fight that stifling...
[Here's a clip in which Eugene discovers she's slipped out of the castle, defying her father's orders. It illustrates the sense of fun we can expect to see in the coming series as well.]
... and is magically 'helped' along the way by getting back the means by which she was able to explore her freedom before: her magically long hair. (It's not her choice, to get back her 70 feet of blonde-ness, but it's one she embraces pretty quickly.)
Here's the scene in which Eugene tries desperately not to freak out when he discovers The Hair is back:
The series was introduced this weekend, with a special Disney Channel Original Movie, which fills in the gap between the end of Tangled, the movie, and Tangled Before Ever After (which is the new series showing what happens between Tangled and the Tangled Ever After short aka the wedding, got it?)
Confusing, yes. Here it is in story-chronological order:
Tangled - feature film 2010
Tangled Before Ever After Disney Channel Original Movie - just aired this weekend
Tangled Before Ever After series - first episode to air March 24, 2017
Tangled Ever After - short (2012)
The movie’s official description reads:
“It’s just the beginning of happily ever after for Rapunzel and Eugene. As Rapunzel reacquaints herself with her parents, her kingdom and the people of Corona, she comes to realize that there is so much more she needs to learn about the world and herself before she becomes Princess of Corona. With the help of her handmaiden and friend, Cassandra, and Eugene, she begins to find the adventure she desires right outside her door. Life is about to get a little hairier!”
In addition to Moore and Levi, the cast includes Ashley Judd, who plays Rapunzel’s mother Queen Arianna, and Broadway actress Eden Espinosa as Rapunzel’s handmaiden and close friend Cassandra.
As you can see from the promotional artwork and clips, the movie and series are no longer CG but very stylized traditional animation, returning to more of a storybook quality. Turns out fans are really happy about this, feeling like they'll be getting fairy tales again. (Nice to know!) In fact, the response has been so positive, the series has been confirmed as renewed for a second season, even before the first has aired. That's fairly unusual, so you know what that means: people want their fairy tales!
Here's a little more behind-the-scenes info, giving you an idea of how this developed and what they'll be doing with the series.
It's clearly adorable, has a very fun sense of humor and is wonderfully artistic. Though we'll have to see how the individual episodes pan out story-wise, the series looks very promising and is delighting fans of Disney fairy tales everywhere already. Looks like something we should be checking in with regularly when it gets rolling. Note: The Tangled Before Ever After Original Movie will be available on DVD April 11th, 2017. It will include four 'Tangled Short Cuts': Checkmate Prison Bake Make Me Smile Hare Peace
Rapunzel concept art for Disney's Tangled by Claire Keane
We don't think we ever posted this but it should be of interest today with the trailer for the animated TV series having just been released.
Created in 2010, this intro was created by the incredibly talented Claire Keane (who was the key artist in the creative development and concept art for the movie Tangled, especially with regard to Rapunzel's tower), along with her husband Vincent Rogozyk, for Nintendo Wii for the Tangled video game. They summarized the story via murals, which they also animated. It's this amazing little work of art all by itself!
(Note: Click on Vincent's name above to go to his website. It takes you straight to the page showing you close-ups of the murals. The one with Mother Gothel's visage peeling just like the paint on the wall is genius.)
The hair is back! And the first question you will ask - if you think the way we do in the newsroom - is: how??
And we're not just curious (aka baffled, slightly perturbed) at just the how, but also the "why": why does she get her very blonde mile-long, assassin-worthy, hair back? Apparently the series is set to answer that question - and it's an important one, since we know, from the movie, that Rapunzel is really an un-magical, though royal, brunette, and, frankly, we thought that was a good thing.
Flynn, er, Eugene looks a little shocked here too, though Pascal looks pretty happy about. He has his jungle gym back, we're guessing.
The series, featuring Rapunzel, Flynn/Eugene, Pascal and many of the other characters, is set to take place between the events of the movie (2010) and the short Tangled Ever After (2012), aka the wedding short.
The man-eating beast lurking around the shores of Pleasure Island has inspired this team’s monstrous stats. Watch out for their end game (and their toothier front, as well)!
Fairy tales and sports: it's one of those combinations I have to weed through daily to find the 'real' fairy tale news, but this time the two have been combined wonderfully by the talented graphic design team at shirts.com. These guys looked like they had a lot of fun making these!
4. THE FORBIDDEN MOUNTAIN THORN BUSHES
A Thorny Lineup
You’ve got to watch out for these players! They have infamous elbow jabs and they know how to use them. If they’re behind at the half, they become real fire-breathing hot heads.
15. THE SNUGGLY DUCKLING DREAMERS
Breakin' Femurs
The only team in the league that can somehow play with hook hands. They’ve got big dreams to win the whole thing and nothing is going to stop them except, perhaps, a spontaneous frying pan duel.
Very clever! Here's their introduction (and I like their notes about the teams too):
16. THE ARENDELLE ICE HEARTS
It Takes Heart
Beware the frozen heart!
They’ve got icy resolve to win at any cost.
They keep their home games as cold as an eternal winter,
the cold never bothered their biggest fans, anyway.
It’s that time of year again: the sneakers are squeaking, the balls are bouncing, and you’ve finally spotted your first referee of the season. It can only mean one thing -- March Madness is here!
While we’re all basketball mad around the office with our brackets all stacked with care, we noticed that we have a year-round-madness that is much more magical than even the hottest NCAA game. We’re speaking, of course, about Disney magic! So, we thought it would be a wonderful idea to take our two passions and mash them up.
If the Disney universe held its own basketball tournament, these are the jerseys all the fans would be proudly sporting to every game.
I have to say, if these were real products, I'd be pulling out my wallet to order a couple of them right now.
14. THE XIAN LUCKY CRICKETS
Lucky Shot
If your team can deal with the incessant cricket noises throughout the game, we think they’ll have no problem winning the match. Either way, fans love the fireworks show at the end buzzer!
(I like the cricket one because it makes me think of lots of different folktales too, not just the movie source.) You can go see them all, full size, HERE - and guess which jersey belongs to which team (movie).
Here we come to one of those times when the internet shows it's personality disorder: "..we want more diversity among Disney princesses!" is currently having a head-on clash with "..why is OUAT's Rapunzel not blonde?!".
:/ Yeah.
What is more interesting (to me) is not how 'non-white' the new Rapunzel character for OUAT's features will be, but how dark the storyline is promised to be (by OUAT creators Kitsis & Horowitz), and when we say "dark" here we mean The Grudge Japanese horror film dark.
Apparently. No doubt it will be toned down a lot to keep the current mostly-family-friendly rating but that's the promise: The Grudge-dark.
In the second half of season three, we will meet Rapunzel (Alexandra Metz).
The executive producer, Adam Horowitz, has confirmed this to be true.
However, he stated that, “We’re not doing Tangled; we’re doing our spin on the character.” This just makes the news all that more exciting.
Kitsis went on to describe Rapunzel’s character. He said that she is going to be a little darker and freakier. Think of a horror story like the vein of The Grudge.
The long-locked damsel (Alexandra Metz) will be visited in her tower by Prince Charming (Josh Dallas) as well as a mysterious hooded menace. Might it be the Wicked Witch of the West (Rebecca Mader) lurking under that hood? "I can't tell you," says Mader.
I'm immediately reminded of the Fairest (Fables comic spin-off) Rapunzel and how perfectly that Japanese horror aspect is explored, not to mention how well it fits with Rapunzel's story. I guess the OUAT people aren't keeping up with Willingham's Fables/Fairest? Or are they?
Not only is the trend for understanding the villains' side of the story continuing but it has well and truly expanded into "the heroes aren't exactly as squeaky-clean as you thought..".
I have to say I'm enjoying the look at the anti-hero a lot - the perfect princess/hero approach of the last 20+ years has been cloying but at the same time this trend of villain stories and exposing the dark hearts of the heroes can occasionally feel a little forced. I'm curious to see where on the spectrum this storyline lands.
The way people are viewing fairy tales is certainly richer than it was a few years ago but instead of mining the multitude of stories that already have complex heroes and villains we're still in re-mix mode for the familiar ones.
This is not a complaint - exactly - more of a sigh at a missed opportunity but honestly, I'm just glad people are still considering different aspects of fairy tales more than they have for some time.
We're in the run-up to Disney's Beauty & the Beast 3D and the Tangled sequel, Tangled Ever After. This time next week (January 13, 2012) the Beauty & the Beast remastered-and-tweaked feature will be in playing theaters with Tangled Ever After showing at the start.
I feel a little odd posting this video, I must admit. There's really nothing left to relate it to Rapunzel.. we could always stretch the idea and say the gigantic train is supposed to remind us that she was stuck with crazy-long enchanted hair until recently but... yeah.
There's a second video here - (warning: quality is not great) - and in between shots of the hosts we see glimpses of the mayhem to come.
Reminds me of Louis the Chef trying to make delicacies out of Sebastian in Disney's The Little Mermaid.
I didn't ever blog what I thought of Tangled and I'm probably not ever going to write a proper review (or recommend it to anyone who likes fairy tales or a well told story, although it's very pretty, the horse was inspired and the "Art Of" book is great) but one of the disappointments for me was that this pair...
... seem very different from this pair...
... which is a real pity since I was hoping for the far more layered characters promised on the initial Rapunzel-slash-Tangled (yes, I wrote it that way on purpose) teaser poster. Any layering they had in Tangled seems totally absent in EverAfter but unfortunately I'm no longer surprised at that.
It IS nice to see Maximus again (who was the whole reason I actually made it through the feature), though it appears his crafty savviness, which stayed almost completely intact through the movie, has now drunk whatever Kool Aid is being served at the castle. Sigh.
By the way, did you ever see this? The Japanese poster for Tangled also promised great fairy tale things. Somehow, after all my disappointments, I still want to see "that" movie (as long as Maximus stays in it).
Oh - and I read a rumor there is a plan for a 3rd Tangled movie (this short one being the 2nd). All I can think of is a toddler with max-locks having multiple mishaps being babysat by a horse and a chameleon. I just have one thing to say: "Nooooooooooo!"
*I don't mean any disrespect to the people who worked hard on the film or those who loved the movie. I just... didn't like it. I thought it had much more potential, considering the story source. The art is beautiful - no question about it (although the distractingly huge size of Rapunzel's eyes obviously left no room in her head for much in the way of brain matter) - and the techniques developed, and ultimately used for the film, were incredible (really and truly amazing stuff!). I simply find all those achievements hard to appreciate in the middle of a mangled mess of storytelling. Sorry.
Yes - that's right. You get a chance to compare Disney's most recent fairy tale princess with one of the classic ones...
Tangled (Ever After), will premiere a delightful new animated short film spotlighting the royal wedding of Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) and Flynn Rider – a.k.a Eugene – (Zachary Levi) in front of each screening of Beauty and the Beast in 3D, which opens on January 13, 2012 in US.
Since the long hair is long gone I can't see much, if any, connection to the original Rapunzel for this short. Pity.
Yes - you read it right (quotes are linked to sources if you'd like to read more). After announcing Disney is "closing the book on fairy tales" (to quote an LA Times headline) their own latest fairy tale effort, Tangled (a retelling of the Grimm's fairy tale Rapunzel) broke all animation box office records (including Pixar's) with their unexpectedly (obviously) giant pre-Thanksgiving opening. Um, yeah...
Women in Hollywood had their own things to say about Disney's swearing-off on fairy tales, though their concern is more about the lack of female-centric films in animation altogether. If you haven't heard, Pixar's first fairy tale film "Brave" (previously titled "The Bear & the Bow", created and directed - until very recently anyway - by Brenda Chapman) has had a huge amount of controversy for replacing Ms. Chapman. (Look at the number of comments on that exclusive post, let alone what they have to say.) There are many reasons for the outcry, some of which I agree with, but my biggest regret is that the first female-centric-which-also-happened-to-be-a-fairy-tale film by Pixar that was to shake up the girl-needs-boy-for-happiness formula so prevalent in fairy tale movies, is very likely to lose that precious and unique focus. Now that Tangled is looking at success not only in the box office arena but as a serious contender for this years Oscar (only 3 can run this year), how will that affect a) Pixar's Brave and b) the new 'no more fairy tales' policy by Disney Feature Animation?
Something tells me there are a few knots in the company hair that need to be untangled before we can get a straight and solid answer.
Since Tangled was already on my radar today I was reminded of some old news (from the end of May) about how the movie is turning out.
From a Disney forum, the post was titled: "I just saw Tangled! Stop worrying. It's good." Here are a few little excerpts from the post and replies (there are pages of them):
Even in this rough form, it is a VERY entertaining movie, and the audience was laughing their butts off at the gags (even the ones still on storyboard) and was very engrossed in the exciting stuff...
There are some GORGEOUS set-pieces in the works. We had to use our imaginations, but we could tell where they were going. They're gonna be stunning, especially this one thing near the end that I refuse to spoil for you.
Those who were disappointed in the musical numbers in The Princess and the Frog ... Get ready, cause they're about to make it up to you. WONDERFUL songs. At least two of them are Oscar worthy IMHO. One in particular, which involves a tavern full of assorted dangerous scoundrel-types singing about their secret dreams in life, has the potential to be a personal favorite of mine, not to mention a stone-cold classic. It is hee-larious!... it is a crowd-pleaser, fun for all ages and all sexes (yes, boys too, so FORCE them to go see it), lots of laughs, wonderful music, and potentially fabulous art direction. I absolutely can't wait to see the finished product.
Especially where in the heck they're going to put all that dang hair in each scene.
>>A dear friend told me that humor isn't à la Shrek or à la Princess and the Frog (for Princess, humor was too slapstick and there is too toilet humor) and in Tangled humor is intelligent... Do you agree?<<
Not exactly. There's a LOT of slapstick. Rapunzel herself swings a mean frying pan.You can't generalize about the humor too much - there's a variety here. Nothing particularly scatological that I can recall. But there is a lot of slapstick. Very funny slapstick. I enjoyed it, and I'm not much of a Three Stooges or Tom and Jerry fan.
I failed to mention that R has a pet chameleon (non-talking). He's the source of a lot of the gentler humor, and is one of the least obnoxious Disney sidekicks ever (the non-talking thing has a lot to do with that IMHO). There's also this horse that I think is going to be a big hit.
There's a little bit of pop culturism related to the ruffians in the tavern - nothing too distracting IMHO. Certainly nothing Shrekkish. They play the fairy tale vibe pretty straight, although the plot bears only superficial resemblance to the original Rapunzel story.Romantic? Yes, but I don't recall the mushy stuff getting as much screen time as in the Menkin-Ashman flicks. This movie is heavier on the action.
>>would you say the overall storyline follows the fractured fairy tale idea, or is it more like Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which takes existing characters and creates a new (albeit entirely appropriate for the characters and situations) story around them, much like a sequel might?<<
I'd say it's a whole new story that uses elements from the Rapunzel fairy tale as a jumping off point. It's a straight fairytale-style adventure - not a satire.
Disney Feature Animation is obviously a lot further a long in production right now and remains on target for the Thanksgiving release (note the 'date' on new teaser poster in the previous post) so fingers crossed.
The vibe is 'mischievous'. Think it will grab the boys attention? Personally I'd like to see more of the fencing horse, as in, a horse with a sword (artwork below).
Here's a reminder of the synopsis:And below is some uncredited development art that's been released (though much of it it looks like Glen Keane's work). I'm just posting a small selection. You can see a whole lot more HERE. I see a "lather, rinse, repeat" regarding some of the motifs (most of which I did not include here) - I'll leave you to discover what I mean by that - but I'm guessing it's supposed to be a tribute to the classics.Looking forward to seeing what they do with the chameleon. I hope he still doesn't talk by the time it gets to the big screen.This one below is lovely, although again a 'tribute' sort of piece to the classics and yes, there's a book for the beginning too - at least in the development art. That makes me happy. :) The mosaic is gorgeous.Again, you can see a whole lot more behind-the-scenes art HERE.
In case you missed it on the SurLaLune Blog, here's a behind-the-scenes featurette recently released by Disney on creating Tangled.
Sources for poster HERE and development artwork HERE.
