Difference Between Tangled and Classic Princess Movies

Jaimie Kim English 1: Language Dynamics First Draft of Analytical Essay November 6, 2012 “Well, I’m really not supposed to speak to strangers, but we’ve met before ... once upon a dream. ” This quote from Sleeping Beauty portrays Walt Disney Productions’ grand tradition of Disney princess movies of how most of the female protagonists are waiting for her love. . In 2010, however, Disney created a movie, named Tangled, which was based on the Grimm Brothers’ tale of Rapunzel. Although Disney decided to put its own version of this tale, Tangled is still about the long-haired princess who is locked away in a tower by a witch.

Instead of dreaming about love, Tangled presents a story where Rapunzel makes a deal with a thief, Flynn Rider, to go on an escapade to see the festival of lights that appear annually on her birthday. Among the classic Disney princess movies, Tangled is distinguishable because of the lack of femininity shown in the title. Disney had named all the fairy tales with titles that did not intrigue all audiences, such as Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Sleeping Beauty. On the contrary, the tale about Rapunzel was not named Rapunzel, but rather the title Tangled, which interested a larger audience.

Another difference that can be seen between Tangled and The Little Mermaid, as the ideal classic princess movie, is the female protagonists approach to love – Rapunzel to Flynn Rider and Ariel to Eric. Lastly, the other princess movies were mostly all drawn by hand and appeared to be ‘flat’ while Tangled was created with computer-generated images that made the visuals more attractive and, therefore, was added to the list of successful animated films that were produced by Disney.

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The titles of the classic princess movies followed a pattern: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a movie about the princess Snow White, Cinderella was about Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty was about the princess Aurora. These titles had female characteristics that caught girls’ interest, but did not appeal to the other half of the young audience – the boys. Nevertheless, those movies were successful, but why did Disney decide to change its style for the title of the story of Rapunzel?

Many believed that the title change may have had something to do with them altering the traditional Rapunzel story enough that it warranted a completely different title. Adam Markovitz, however, argues that “because The Princess and the Frog was no great shakes at the box office [in 2009] and Disney wanted to make the project seem less ... girlish, [the title] was changed from Rapunzel Unbraided to Tangled. ” This proves that Disney thought that The Princess and the Frog place in the box office was a failure because of the title.

This leads to why they named the movie Tangled, so they can attract varied demographics. It also drew the audience’s attention to the duo’s complicated relationship. In addition, this movie was not all about Rapunzel, because there was another protagonist besides the princess – Flynn Rider. By having the title as Tangled, Disney broke the standard of titling the princess movies by their names. Based on the main character’s attitude towards love, Tangled is distinctive from Disney’s The Little Mermaid. I specifically chose this classic princess movie because many believe that Rapunzel is an Ariel ‘knock-off. Throughout The Little Mermaid, Ariel and Eric communicate to each other by only smiling and doing gestures. It was slightly ridiculous how they still managed to fall in love, as shown in the scene where Ariel udders: “Daddy, I love [Eric]! ” and, in the end, gets married. The reason behind the whole concept of love at first sight is, as Robin Murray says, “If Ariel wasn’t attractive, Eric would not be as motivated to spend time with her. Likewise, if Eric was unattractive, Ariel wouldn’t have sold her soul to be with him. (146) This proves that fact that the relationship was based entirely on looks, because these two characters did not communicate with each other effectively. As a result, they knew nothing about each other besides seeing that the significant other was attractive and, therefore, the one for them. This shows that the Disney princess movies were all about the idea of love at first sight. Aside from the concept of love, Tangled was a movie that had a plot that related to reality, minus the magical hair of Rapunzel. This can be seen at “the moment where Rapunzel scoffs at Flynn when he broke out his charm.

This sets her apart from most of the other princesses, who would most likely swoon over Flynn’s charisma. In the presence of an attractive guy, Ariel jeopardizes her existence, but Rapunzel is not impressed and is ready to use her frying pan as a weapon. Throughout the movie, Rapunzel and Flynn’s relationship contrasts greatly from Ariel and Eric’s. They don’t fall in love instantly, which doesn’t follow that princess movies’ storyline of love at first sight. “Their relationship progresses and the audience are able to witness all the individual brilliant moments they shared together. Rapunzel and Flynn first had a friendship that was a combination of fun and passion that later progressed organically and realistically, into love. Rapunzel’s approach to love was more respectable and relatable to the viewers, which shows the difference between Tangled from not only The Little Mermaid, but also to the rest of the classic princess movies. The classic Disney princess movies were all made from the traditional hand-drawn process. Due to limitations in computer technology, many basic principles of animation had been absent from these movies.

Tangled was created by using computer-generated imagery, known as CGI. Even though it was a CGI film, the producers wanted this movie to be more attractive visually by still having movement that mimicked the soft fluidity of the hand-drawn art found in classic Disney princess movies. This is why Disney decided to have the movie modeled after the romantic look of French Rococo oil paintings on canvas from the artist, Jean-Honore Fragonard, as stated by New York Times. (Scott) This helped add an atmosphere that had a magical appearance.

Rather than focusing on realism, the 3D team decided to use an aesthetic approach that drew the audience in a fantasy. Tangled’s stereoscopic supervisor, Robert Newman, explains of the process of the new approach: "We’re using depth more artistically than before, by using a new technique called multi-rigging, which is made up by multiple pairs of virtual cameras. Each pair is used individually on each separate element that adds depth to a scene, like background, foreground and characters, without adjusting for the relation with the other pairs.

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