The Princess and the Frog

Post by **Bill1978** » May 18th, 2009, 5:42 am

Been meaning to post these couple of thoughts now for a few days but Eurovision distracted me. After I regained my sensibility after the initial viewing of the trailer, I am a little concerned about the story of Naveen. In the trailer it appears that there are a lot of human scenes and possibly even a song number with him as a human. My concern is that the introduction of this character will be super quick to get him into the frog stage. Of course this could be a misguided worry and it turns out that a lot of the I'm a human story is told in a flashback to Tiana.

It has taken me ages to come to this conclusion but the title of the movie is a little misleading as Tiana is not even a Princess for the main part of the story. Of course I'll be happy to admit I'm wrong especially if she ends up being human married to a frog Naveen. But I guess it's more exciting to refer to her as a princess than a maiden. Which brings me to my next point - how many true princesses have there been in Disney animated theatrical movies. eg they were born one and not married into the title. The ones I am certain of are:

Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)
Ariel (The Little Mermaid)
Jasmine (Aladdin)
Kida (Atlantis: The Lost Empire)
Eilonwy (The Black Cauldron)

And I guess you could include Pocahontas but I'm not familiar with American Indian culture to know if she would be classified as a Princess according to European labelling.

Regardless of these two thoughts, I'm still very excited for the movie and looking forward to it even if though I have to wait until next year to see it.

Post by **Locall** » May 18th, 2009, 1:57 pm

The factt that Naveen as human is given a lot of screen time may have some other reason... here's my thoughts

I'm not saying this is the answer, but we know very very little of the story so anything is possible, I don't think the introductions will take so long so it's gotta be something else

Post by **Ben** » May 18th, 2009, 2:25 pm

Well, let's all think about this logically.

The story is actually The Frog PRINCE. So it's really all about a PRINCE that becomes a frog and needs to find his true love to break the spell, leading her to become a princess as a reward for eventually doing her "duty".

Of course, for marketing, its the princess that now gets the title billing, but to all intents and purposes the story is set to be the same, albeit in a post-modernist way where the characters actually <I>know</I> the story of The Frog Prince (as witnessed by the title of the book Naveen shows Tiana).

So don't put everything into a title change.

Post by **EricJ** » May 18th, 2009, 3:20 pm

Bill1978 wrote:Which brings me to my next point - how many true princesses have there been in Disney animated theatrical movies. eg they were born one and not married into the title. The ones I am certain of are:
Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)
Ariel (The Little Mermaid)
Jasmine (Aladdin)
Kida (Atlantis: The Lost Empire)
Eilonwy (The Black Cauldron)
And I guess you could include Pocahontas but I'm not familiar with American Indian culture to know if she would be classified as a Princess according to European labelling.

Uh, you could include Snow White, as there's a reason why she's scrubbing the Queen's steps at the beginning...

Post by **Vernadyn** » May 18th, 2009, 4:44 pm

The joys of Wikipedia...I visited Hans Zimmer's wikipedia page today, and according to it, he is writing the music for The Princess and the Frog with Steve Jablonsky and David Newman (although the actual film's page does list Randy Newman.)

In addition, it claims that he was music producer for Harry Potter 6 and the Hannah Montana movie.

This will probably be fixed soon, though (I hope).

Post by **Bill1978** » May 18th, 2009, 6:29 pm

Uh, you could include Snow White, as there's a reason why she's scrubbing the Queen's steps at the beginning...

I was going to list Snow White but I've only ever seen it once and I couldn't remember if her Dad was a King or not. Even though I knew her stepmum was The Evil Queen, I think my brain decided that meant she was a Witch Queen and didn't count LOL.

Oh and Ben I hear what you are saying about the title, I guess where I was coming from is I was putting myself in the shoes of those people who think that this movie is just about marketing the Princess line. Cause when I think like that I think The Frog Princess would have been a better title and a bit more accurate.

Post by **Ben** » May 19th, 2009, 5:29 am

You're probably right, but they didn't want to insult the French!

Post by **OriginalGagBonkers** » May 19th, 2009, 8:10 am

I can see some influnce from Chuck Jones on the frog. (:

Post by **EricJ** » May 19th, 2009, 10:50 am

Bill1978 wrote:Oh and Ben I hear what you are saying about the title, I guess where I was coming from is I was putting myself in the shoes of those people who think that this movie is just about marketing the Princess line. Cause when I think like that I think The Frog Princess would have been a better title and a bit more accurate.

I remember being disappointed that it really was just the Frog Prince story (or book variation thereupon), and not the Russian fairytale titled "The Frog Princess", which could've also made a good transplanted story.

Which led me to my guess that they mixed the title to suggest that we were getting a "humorous spin" on the story, and not a straightforward version of the smooch that everyone already knew.

Post by **Ben** » May 19th, 2009, 11:53 am

Well Ron and John's films have always leaned to the comedic side. Despite their dramatic moments, Mermaid/Aladdin were more steeped in comedy than the Hahn team that produced Beast/Lion King.

So we can pretty much guarantee from before seeing a frame of film that this was always going to have a big injection of humor. I just hope they can keep it in check and go more for the Mermaid feel rather than the Aladding or, though I like the film it's not right for this kind of material, Hercules.

Post by **Bill1978** » May 24th, 2009, 7:42 am

I've also viewed this movie as having a strong comic lean. Cause as you said Ben it's directed by Musker & Clement. I envision that it will be more in the veins of The Little Mermaid than Hercules or even Aladdin.

Take the following with a grain of salt but according to the Wikipedia page the following are the featured songs:

Down in New Orleans - it doesn't say whose song this is but it does sound like the title of an opening number
Almost There (Tiana's Solo)
Dig a Little Deeper (Mama Odie's Solo)
If I'm a Human (Louis' Solo)
I Got Friends On The Other Side (Dr.Facilier's solo),
2 Ray's solos

So that's a grand total of 7 songs. I just hope that Disney picks the best song to present as a potential crossover hit. I still feel that they made a mistake picking Ever Ever After over So Close.

Post by **EricJ** » May 24th, 2009, 12:03 pm

EricJ wrote:
Ben wrote:Hence the move back in dates so as not to compete with the Chip--
...WILL YOU STOP THAT??????

Or, to put it another way--

In order to move P&F away from the inexorable, crushing-all-in-its-path juggernaut that IS the nationwide Alvin-mania sure to accompany its long-hyped and awaited sequel at Christmas..
Disney has shifted the release date to Thanksgiving '09, thus putting P&F in direct head-to-head competition with Sony's "Planet 51".

(beat pause)

...OMG, THEY'RE DOOOOOOMED!!!

(And to the next person trying to preserve the safety of their imaginary Neato Release-Date world and protesting, "Well, like, what about Night at the Museum 2 beating out Terminator this week, that PROVES it?"...please keep in mind, one of the two had reviews that warned audiences away ahead of time.
It wasn't a particularly difficult Terminator to beat.

)

Post by **EHH123** » May 24th, 2009, 2:48 pm

It is coming out on December 11.

Post by **Once Upon A Dream** » May 24th, 2009, 3:18 pm

Bill1978 wrote:It has taken me ages to come to this conclusion but the title of the movie is a little misleading as Tiana is not even a Princess for the main part of the story. Of course I'll be happy to admit I'm wrong especially if she ends up being human married to a frog Naveen. But I guess it's more exciting to refer to her as a princess than a maiden. Which brings me to my next point - how many true princesses have there been in Disney animated theatrical movies. eg they were born one and not married into the title. The ones I am certain of are:

Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)
Ariel (The Little Mermaid)
Jasmine (Aladdin)
Kida (Atlantis: The Lost Empire)
Eilonwy (The Black Cauldron)
.

The only Disney Princesses who are real princesses are Snow White,Aurora,Pocahontas,Ariel and Jasmine,actually Pocahontas is the only real one when I think about it because she didn't got merried in the end,the Frog Prince is a silly story with not a point really but the plotline of the Princess And The Frog is better.

Post by **Bill1978** » May 25th, 2009, 6:16 am

Just curious Once, why don't you consider Kida and Eilonwy as princesses? Is it because they are in the Disney Princess line. When I posed the question I wasn't discussing the Princess line, I was looking at the actual character. And the last time I checked Kida and Eilonwy were called princesses, therefore they are real princesses.

And why does getting married mean that someone like Ariel cannot be a Princess? From what I remember the ones you list as princesses, they all married Princes (except Jasmine), theyfore they still retain their title of Princess it's not like they married a King and got upgraded to a Queen?