The Princess and the Frog (Single Disc Widescreen DVD)
Now here's where I'd like to take an informal poll and ask how many of you have actually seen Princess and the Frog? I'll admit I haven't. All the hype and my interests didn't combine to get me out to the theatre to see it. I am bemused at how poorly it did at the box office by Disney standards. (Otherwise, it's a success by other studio standards).
I think the release date had a lot of impact on it. I still don't understand why it came out on December 11th, almost a month later than the usual Disney winter holiday releases. I ended up with neither the time nor inclination to go see it. Then all the snowy weekends since--I am in the South after all--have continued the trend.
The Princess and The Frog (Three Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo with Digital Copy)
Anyway, Disney is releasing the movie to DVD next month on March 16, 2010. I have placed my preorder after debating between the three different options available. Yes, three options. There is regular DVD, regular Blu-ray and a combo pack where you get DVD, Blu-Ray and a digital copy. How about that for hedging their bets? And then of course it will be a limited time release, per usual Disney practices. 
The Princess and the Frog (Single Disc Blu-ray)
I do hope the DVD sells well since Princess and the Frog's "failure" at the box office has already caused the studio to rethink its production schedule and rename Rapunzel to Tangled. Tangled? Tangled mess, I think. I love the way Hollywood thinks we're all uninformed sheep who wander into movie theatres without any information about what we're seeing. Guess they've never heard of the internet, have they?
I think the internet hurt them with all of the controversy about Tiana being a frog for most of the movie. This becomes more obvious when one looks at the stills. Almost all of the Tiana pics come from one scene. Then there's a lot of frog images. The princess fans wanted a princess, not a frog, whatever the color of her skin.
These links are all to Amazon, by the way, and the pre-order price guarantee means that you will get the lowest price between now and release day no matter what the price is today. These DVDs usually go lower closer to release date, especially Disney ones as price leaders. If I see any great deals come up, I will post them here.
I did and my first comment out of the theater was a dejected, "Avatar was better." This might mean more to you if you know that I thought Avatar was really pretty, but hardly exciting overall. I don't think the fairy tale or the princess aspect of this movie was the cause for any disappointment and that Disney is taking away the wrong lessons from this movie. It had many things hideously wrong with it, but being (extremely tenuously) based on a fairy tale with a princess was not one of those things.
ReplyDeleteI saw it! I enjoyed it, but it didn't blow me away. The animation was very pretty, the story was okay, and the music was okay. I'd give it a three of five stars.
ReplyDeleteI saw and actually liked it a great deal, though I'd place it above Mulan and well below the classics (SW, BatB, etc) on the Disney Scale of Excellence. The others I saw it with also liked it, though my husband likes musicals and therefore may not be the ideal random sample of the male population...
ReplyDeleteAs someone who simultaneously falls for princessy things while resisting the whole "Disney Princess" marketing ploy, I think that was part of the problem-- there was plenty of action and creepiness for boys, but how many saw it when it was billed as "the next Disney Princess movie"?
Also, I do agree with the "extremely tenuously" comment above-- is Disney losing its nerve for true fairy tales? Enchanted was a(fantastic) spoof, P&tF is a remix, Tangled is likely to be the same... When will Disney get over their sudden attack of postmodernism and give us classics again?
I saw it and while I wasn't blown away I left the theater with a certain sense of releif. I've had major issues with the quality of recent Disney films, but both Enchanted and Princess and the Frog were worth watching.
ReplyDeleteIt did strike me that the level of politcial correctness in the plot was completely amped, but the way they decided to handle turning the frog back into a prince made me happy.
The movie has premiere in the theatres this week in Norway, and I am going to see it on Sunday. I´m looking forward to it:-)
ReplyDeleteI saw it and I rather liked it. I don't think it's up there with Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast, but I would definitely place it in the second tier (Mulan, Hunchback. . .) of Disney animated films. It wasn't perfect but I think they got a lot of things right, for the first time in awhile (not including Enchanted, which I don't place in the same genre.) I don't think the release date in December was the best marketing ploy - and I would've been interested in hearing an Alan Menken score - but other than that I quite liked it.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed it. It did not meet the standard set by The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and the rest of that ilk but I thought it was good. I loved the songs and the animation was beautiful (I was so thrilled about the return of hand-drawn animation). The story did have so weaknesses--Tiana being a frog for so long being the prime example--but I thought the characters were great.
ReplyDelete