The Princess and the Frog

Post by **Bill1978** » December 14th, 2009, 4:23 am

If you haven't seen this yet, what are you waiting for?

For it to be released in my country LOL

Post by **Macaluso** » December 14th, 2009, 11:52 am

I saw it on Friday (and a second time on Sunday) it was absolutely wonderful. And also when we came out of the theater, there was literally a huge line outside of it for the next showing. People were coming up to the line and I could hear several say "This is the line for princess and the frog?!"

But I mainly wanted to mention one thing. I want to preface this (big) spoiler by saying that Ray is an absolutely lovable and great character.

Post by **droosan** » December 14th, 2009, 7:54 pm

I hesitated to say anything, because I'm pretty sure I'll get 'stomped on' ..

.. but I thought The Princess and the Frog was a bit of a mess, story-wise.

There is A LOT of expository dialogue (whatever happened to 'show, don't tell'?), tons of coincidental Deus Ex Machina moments, and (aside from the one plot point to which Macaluso alludes) a super-safe 'paint-by-numbers' journey plot, with occasional moments of pure silliness (the tongue gags, for instance). :p

I also thought the songs not only 'felt' forced .. but (IMO) they didn't take nearly as much advantage of the 1920's Jazz-Age setting as they could. Ditto for the score: instead of Dixieland or Ragtime .. just standard Randy Newman arrangements that might sound just as 'at home' in Toy Story.

On the positive side, this film is gorgeous to look at. Major kudos to the effects animators and background/layout artists! I loved the "Almost There" sequence .. it might've been nice to have that Deco styling in each of the songs. I also adored (adult) Charlotte; she was an incredibly refreshing comic-relief character.

As it is, I feel Coraline, Up, and even Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs were stronger films overall than The Princess and the Frog.

I really do wish I'd liked it more.

I will try seeing it at least once more, while it's still in theaters ..

Post by **eddievalient** » December 14th, 2009, 8:02 pm

Macaluso wrote:When we came out of the theater, there was literally a huge line outside of it for the next showing. People were coming up to the line and I could hear several say "This is the line for princess and the frog?!"

Which just goes to prove that if they give us something that's actually good, the audience will be there. With this, Alice in Wonderland, Tron Legacy, Rapunzel, etc., I really hope this is the start of a new Disney Renissance (sp?). After years of creative floundering, it looks like they're finally back on the right track. Took 'em long enough.

Off topic, ya know what I'd love to see Disney do? The Hardy Boys. I know they did a HB serial on the Mickey Mouse Club, but I really think they could do something good with it now. With the right cast and a fairly low budget, they could make a whole series of Hardy Boys movies that would probably do very well.

Post by **Whippet Angel** » December 14th, 2009, 8:18 pm

Droo, I actually agree with most of your points. The songs were okay, but they weren't terribly catchy and they DID feel forced. I also noticed the excessive use of exposition in the dialogue. Plus all the slapstick (they could've toned that down a bit).

Having said that, I still enjoyed the film very much. I suspect I'll be seeing it again within the next week.

American_dog_2008 · Post by **American_dog_2008** » December 15th, 2009, 4:05 pm

It's awards season.

Will Princess win a lot next year?

Post by **eddievalient** » December 15th, 2009, 4:09 pm

American Dog 2008: "It's awards season. Will Princess win a lot next year?"

Perhaps. I think "Down in New Orleans" or "Almost There" have a shot at a Best Song nomination.

Post by **EricJ** » December 15th, 2009, 4:31 pm

eddievalient wrote:Which just goes to prove that if they give us something that's actually good, the audience will be there. With this, Alice in Wonderland, Tron Legacy, Rapunzel, etc., I really hope this is the start of a new Disney Renissance (sp?). After years of creative floundering, it looks like they're finally back on the right track. Took 'em long enough.

Not quite sure how the Tim-Boiz fit into that theory, but was pretty much the way I took the movie:
Finally got out to see P&tF, and I'll agree with those who thought it was...okay, but like the heroine, it was Almost There.

Basically reminded me of '02, the year before the Troubles started, when we got Lilo & Stitch and Treasure Planet in the same year: L&S had cute characters, but a slapped-together pet-project script that didn't know what a story was, while TP had a classic book, good design, and all the Musker & Clements trimmings, even if it didn't 100% have the emotional involvement to make it one of the Classics.
Here, the first two-thirds try harder to be a Musical than a Story--we don't get supporting characters and dialogue, we get song cues and restated messages--and tries to cram all the delayed plot points into the last third, where everything feels rushed and afterthought.

Think what we really missed about the 90's was the fact that classic stories carried a little built-in neato that made us want to see what Disney would do with them, just on hearing that they were going to make their next movie out of Little Mermaid or Aladdin. (Or, to some failed degree, Beauty&Beast.)
As usual, Dr. Facilier was the coolest thing in the story, because M&C were always one of the few directors who took stories seriously enough to give us good snarly, scheming villains, instead of the persecution-complex pansies that Katzenberg kept automatically giving us after that.

'02 Disney was going through teething troubles too (trying to figure out what went wrong with Hunchback/Hercules, and starting over), and this one turned back the clock to that point, but felt more like just one step in a process--
It was good, and I'm not saying a word against the return of 2-D; I'd just compare P&tF more to a famous pianist recovering from a stroke to play Carnegie Hall again: You're applauding the fact that he could successfully do it, but it's not like you'd came to hear which pieces he was actually playing.

Post by **Ben** » December 16th, 2009, 7:48 am

eddievalient wrote:American Dog 2008: "It's awards season. Will Princess win a lot next year?"

No, unfortunately not. I may win <I>some</I>, but it won't win a <I>lot</I>. It's a big step in the right direction, but as a pretty "safe bet" kind of picture to start off with again, I think it's going to take Disney another swing or two at the bat before we get a Mermaid or Aladdin.

As for a B&TB? I don't think we'll ever really see that again as special as it was for that film; not, at least, while we have a "know your place" animated feature category or ten films vying for best picture. When there's that many films in competition, it's not really about the films but just about picking one that was half decent. When B&TB popped up as a serious contender among four other good films without any other kind of distraction, that was a special moment.

Post by **Dacey** » December 17th, 2009, 7:31 pm

Can't say that I agree with everything that's said here, but there are some interesting points:

http://www.boxofficeprophets.com/column ... mnID=12332

Post by **Ben** » December 17th, 2009, 8:44 pm

Very interesting points! And a lot of it makes a lot of sense.

One thing that they don't grasp, though, is that Rapunzel will be CGI. That'll throw the cat amongst the pigeons, as far as that group of people are concerned.

Post by **Daniel** » December 18th, 2009, 12:06 am

Saw it over the weekend and enjoyed it. Although when I did get through watching Frog, I couldn't help but feel a little letdown. It felt as if was trying too hard to make you like it. It just couldn't figure out what it wanted to be. Busy and never really has that romantic fullness that you want from a movie. Ultimately, like its been said, the script let's everyone down. Even the songs, which as fun and beautiful set pieces they are, were brought down by weak writing. My favorite would probably have to be "Almost there" which I can't get out of my head! All the characters are great and I had a feeling Ray would grow more on me after seeing the movie.

Not as great as the some of the 90's outings, but a definite step in the right direction. It's cute and a movie the whole family can enjoy. I would probably agree it's the best Disney flick since Lilo and Stitch... Lion King I wouldn't go so far!

On a side note, I still ended up buying tons of merchandise at Disney. There was never any doubt, really. Boy, do they have a lot! Got mini plushies of Naveen, Tiana as a frog, Louis and my Ray! And other miscellany stuff. Yes, I know nobody really cares, thought I would still mention it!

Post by **James** » December 18th, 2009, 12:17 am

Official AV review is up!

http://animatedviews.com/2009/the-princ ... -frog-film

(EDIT: BTW, no major spoilers as usual!)

Post by **Dacey** » December 18th, 2009, 12:19 am

I just read it. Nice work!

And I just now realized that I've never posted my thoughts on the movie here...even though I saw it a week ago! Long story short, I really did love it. To be fair, I had tried very hard to keep my expectations "realistic," and to be honest, I did want to like it at the end of the day.

Post by **EricJ** » December 18th, 2009, 1:16 pm

Tiana’s all-work-no-play attitude is a little too overplayed. And the falling-for-each-other storyline comes a little too easily (though that is almost to be expected in princess movies).
That’s not to say anything is wrong with her character — it’s just that the rest of the cast are so fun and memorable that she pales a bit in comparison.

That was my reaction too: Tiana's a good character, it's the story that shoehorns her into the humorless Smart Hardworking Regular Female Who Figures Everything Out For Everybody--

And maybe I'm just paranoid, but the almost propagandic harping on "Real girls work hard, and any princess-gals who dream about marrying lazy, indulgent, god's-gift-to-women princes deserve what they get" felt like the movie was still carrying DNA traces of the overcompensatingly princess-bashing Enchanted era from five years ago--Back when Eisner was so traumatized by Shrek 2, he thought he had to apologize to the world personally for Snow White and "Someday my prince will come".
P&tF was very intentionally a post-Eisner project, but seems like they were playing it safe by hedging a few bets juuuuust in case...It's just a transition phase, though; one or two more films on their own (after Rapunzel's hair-fu), and they'll get over it.

And Jim Cummings as Ray? It is about time professional voice actors got some respect from the big Hollywood animation studios!

Given that Ray was so marketably "lovable", I actually stayed through the credits trying to see "O-kayyy, which director/chief animator got to play with the in-house Goofy-Voice Cameo this time?

" (Ie. Chris Sanders as Stitch, Andrew Stanton as Crush, etc.)
That we actually had Disney voice-talent do one of the comic-relief roles was welcome, even if wasn't what some of us might've been cynically expecting....I was pretty sure it wasn't Musker or Clements.