Tangled (formerly Rapunzel)

[ShyViolet]

The Wild. Over the Hedge. Open Season. Just how many chatty hyper-realistic creatures can one tolerate in a single year?

They forgot to include "chatty hyper-realistic cars".

Ha, like Walt wasn't a control-freak too. Wink

Walt wasn't running two separate animation studios, one of which he has a huge personal/professional stake in.

Walt didn't totally deluge the public with tons of media on one studio's film while completely shortchanging the other one. (if that makes any sense, since Walt only HAD one animation studio to begin with.)


And, just FYI, I generally have no problem with one powerful executive/producer type guy calling the shots on a film he's overseeing and reworking it if he's got a problem. Hey, that's entertainment right?

But if that producer/exec/studio head has conflicting interests tied to another studio's output and needs to control what comes out of the first studio in relation to what "his" studio is putting out, well....I tend to be a bit more suspicious.

[Kinoo]

As far as I can remember, there was NO real good buzz around rapunzel story, on the contrary! As good and stunning as the visuals look, the story with the pizza boy and the modern times chick looked lame!

[ShyViolet]

I know you don't like Jim Hill but here's an interesting excerpt from one of his stories:

Do you remember how heavily the Mouse hyped this movie at SIGGRAPH 2005? With concept art from this Glen Keane project being prominently displayed at WDFA's recruitment booth. And how Keane himself appeared at a special session at that year's event to talk about the role that new technologies played in the "Legacy of Disney Animation" and then showed some test footage from "Rapunzel Unbraided."

Of course, back then, "Rapunzel" was envisioned at WDFA's answer to Pixar. Proof positive that the Mouse still had what it took to be tops in toons. That Disney was still capable of rising to meet the competition. More importantly, that Feature Animation's long-standing traditions of excellence and innovation were still alive & well.

But -- of course -- that was back when WDFA was supposed to be competing directly with Pixar Animation Studios in 2007 and beyond. But now that Pixar is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company ( More importantly, now that Lasseter & Catmull are calling the shots at Feature Animation) ... No one knows quite what to do with "Rapunzel."

On the contrary, Jim. I think Lassetter saw what a great film it could be and felt threatened. It's CGI but NOT CGI. It's CGI done in a style far more accessible, human and subtle than anything Pixar has ever put out. Oh, and it's a love story. A CGI animated love story, new technology with an old theme. Yeah, John wasn't worried when he saw it.

Glen was "Disney's secret Weapon" in the pre-Pixar days....now he's a threat. Like Chris Sanders was. Plain and simple.




FYI: Just my opinion here. Let's try to keep things....civil.

http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/ ... -june.aspx

http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/ ... 8/656.aspx

[ShyViolet]

This other little excerpt from the second JHM story is REALLY interesting, especially in light of today:

In fact, to hear Glen reflect on his career to date, you'd realize that this master animator has been trying to do something significant with CG since the early 1980s.

"I remember when John Lasseter and I were working on 'The Fox and the Hound,' " Glen recalled." And we got to see 'Tron.' And it was like every scene in that picture was a multi-plane shot. Where the camera moved and created depth up there on the screen, but everything still stayed in perspective."

"I remember that John and I went back to our office at Feature that afternoon feeling totally depressed, " Keane continued. "We said to ourselves: Those guys working on 'Tron' get to work on cool stuff. So how can we get to work on cool stuff too?"

John & Glen's opportunity to " ... work on cool stuff" finally came when these two still-newbie animators convinced then-Disney studio head Ron Miller to allow them to begin development of an animated featurette.

Ah, but not just any animated featurette. This film was going to be based on Maurice Sendak's much beloved children's book, "Where the Wild Things Are." More to the point, the featurette that Lasseter and Keane wanted to create would place traditionally animated characters on top of computer generated backgrounds.

Intrigued by this idea, Ron gave John & Glen enough funding for a 90-second test. Keane handled the traditionally animated portion of the project, while Lasseter created the CG backgrounds and mapped out all of the camera moves.

The end result was stunning. This minute-and-a-half of the proposed film truly wowed Miller. The only problem was ...The projected cost of completing "Where the Wild Things Are" was high. So high that there was just no way that the Mouse would ever recover the money that it was going to have to spend in order to complete a featurette based on this Caldecott Medal-winning book.

Which is why Ron reluctantly tabled the "Wild Things" project. And Glen went back to working on traditional animation at Disney Studios. And John ... Well, as Keane put it at last week's "Legacy" presentation "... Lasseter went off and did a few things and nobody's ever heard from him again."

[Meg]

I'm honestly not suprised Rupunzel is having story problems - let's remember that Glen is an *animator*, not a director. All the concept artwork I've seen so far is fantastic, yeah, but the the plot summaries I've read seem to be different everywhere I go.

[ShyViolet]

Well....I'm sure Glen did have story problems, before and after JL came. ALL animated films do.


It just seems, to me, that JL could help him more by advising him, then stepping back and letting him grow and do his own thing, not Pixar's Rupunzal.

I'm honestly not suprised Rupunzel is having story problems - let's remember that Glen is an *animator*, not a director

Neither was Lassy when he left Disney....or when he directed Toy Story. (and I don't count the few shorts he did, he never directed a feature up until TS) Hence all the "story problems" THAT movie had which, in interviews, Lassetter and company pretend were all Disney's fault and that it had absolutely NOTHING to do with them.


Lassetter was a newbie on TS, and he came through at the end. Disney pulled back and decided to (mostly) trust him rather than take the film over....unlike what JL is doing to Glen Keane now.


(Or what he did to Sanders, who was directing his second feature, the first of which was a HUGE commercial and critical hit. )

[Ben]

Especially when you want to do a classic fairly tale, have execs force a Shrek-spoof version on you, and then you're able to go back and take those elements out to - hey! - go back to your classic fairly tale version.

What film wouldn't have "problems" after a runaround like that?

I'm glad it's Kirk and Gary though...they've shown their on Glen's level and work well as a team before, and if any three can recreate the Beauty And The Beast magic - even in CGI - it's these guys.

[ShyViolet]

I hope so!! I trust them, so I think this will be really good....as long as certain people don't interfere.

[veu]

Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale aren't involved into this project... it was a IMDB news and the news was fake.

Glen Keane has a co-director... the new co-director is Dean Wellin...

The main plot of Rapunzel is the same... the frustrated witch transformed modern-day teens, Claire and Vincent, into Rapunzel and her gallant Prince...

So, no spoof but no classical fairy tale, it will be a modern-day fairy tale... personally we think this idea isn't good, we think this idea is stupid...

We think that a very classical version of Rapunzel (in "Snow White" style) with NO MODERN DAY REFERENCES will make a new Disney golden age, but today fairy tale isn't classical...

[veu]

Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale aren't involved into this project... it was a IMDB news and the news was fake.

Glen Keane has a co-director... the new co-director is Dean Wellin...

The main plot of Rapunzel is the same... the frustrated witch transformed modern-day teens, Claire and Vincent, into Rapunzel and her gallant Prince...

So, no spoof but no classical fairy tale, it will be a modern-day fairy tale... personally we think this idea isn't good, we think this idea is stupid...

We think that a very classical version of Rapunzel (in "Snow White" style) with NO MODERN DAY REFERENCES will make a new Disney golden age, but today fairy tale isn't classical...

[ShyViolet]

Here's the IMDB page:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398286/

Yup, Dean Wellin is indeed the co-director. Does anyone know anything about him or what he's done?

[Ben]

Um...click his name...?

[Daniel]

Seems he was an animator on Treasure Planet. Cool!

[ShyViolet]

Yeah, that was obvious. I guess it just didn't occur to me. (I mean about clicking his name.)


That aside, it just seems like Lassetter has kind of a hard time dealing with "heavyweights" like Keane and Sanders, who obviously have their own ideas about how they want to do things...which is maybe why he went for more unknown artists to direct and co-direct these films.

Not that those artists are any less talented, (and I'm sure that Dean is awesome, he was an animator and story artist on The Iron Giant) but they might be easier for Lassetter to supervise...at least my theory anyway. Just my theory....


I still think these films will be great, no matter what, they've got the talent of WDFA working on them and that's always a force to be reckoned with. I just find changes like this interesting. Oh, and BTW, Ron Clements is still listed as TFP's lone director. Has there been any info on whether or not Musker really was demoted from director to writer?

(Also, Rob Edwards is also listed as a writer now.)

[ShyViolet]

BTW I don't know if anyone noticed but DreamWorks got a little one-up on Disney yet again when showing....Rupunzel in Shrek 3, with quite an active role!


SPOILER!!

Oh yeah, and she ends up betraying Fiona and the others 'cause she's Charming's girlfriend.