Day 54: Big Hero 6

Big Hero 6 (2014)

Starring: Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, T.J. Miller, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans, Jr., Genesis Rodriguez, Maya Rudolph, James Cromwell, Daniel Henney, Alan Tudyk, Katie Lowes, Billy Bush, Stan Lee

Songs: "Immortals" by Fall Out Boy and a Henry Jackman score

Big Hero 6 is the fifty-fourth (and currently most recent) Disney animated feature.  Inspired by the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name, the film tells the story of Hiro Hamada, a young robotics genius who starts a superhero team with his friends and goes after a villanous masked man.

Development for Big Hero 6 began in 2009 when Disney purchased Marvel.  Though Disney made the movie alone, without Marvel's help, several members of Marvel's television department took part in the development, and the two companies cooperated with one another throughout the production.  Visual inspiration for the film came from Japanese art and architecture as well as the landscape of San Francisco, as the filmmakers wanted to caricature the real world and felt these two cities would blend well.  The movie was a critical and financial success -- the second highest grossing Disney animated film, and I'm writing this post the night after the film won Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards.

I enjoyed this movie a lot.  It has a unique look and sound, and while it is emotional, the drama is done very well.  Never heavy handed.  The characters are also all likable, and the animation is beautiful.  It's exciting and fun, and very enjoyable.  I hope Disney continues to make films this fun and with such broad appeal.

What I Liked: The setting of San Fransokyo.  Also Baymax is just wonderful.

What I Disliked: Nothing particular.

Should You Watch This Film: Definitely.

Spotlight on The Snow Queen

In light of the fact that Frozen is unfortunately not my favorite movie, I wanted to watch another adaption of the same fairy tale, The Snow Queen.  I had heard wonderful things about this Russian animation, so I found it on youtube and watched it.  But I wouldn't be me if I didn't post about it.

Снежная королева (The Snow Queen) 1957

This movie sticks quite close to the original fairy tale and tells of two children, Kay and Gerda, who grow up next door to each other and love each other deeply.  When they are told the story of the Snow Queen, Kay makes fun of her, so she curses him and comes to kidnap him.  Gerda then goes on a journey to save him.  The movie was made in Russia in 1957 by the Soyuzmultfilm Studio and an English dubbed version was released in 1959, the same year as Disney released Sleeping Beauty.

This movie was beautiful.  The animation was stylized and so pretty, but also quite well done.  The movie was enjoyable and proved that yes, you can do the story with the snow queen as your villain and make it likable.  Hayao Miyazaki cites this as one of his early inspirations to become an animator.  I'm going to be brief, for once, and just say that I would definitely recommend this movie (honestly, click the link up top... it's barely over an hour long, and so worth it).  But seriously, look how lovely.

Day 53: Frozen

Frozen (2013)

Starring: Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Santino Fontana, Alan Tudyk, Ciaran Hinds, Chris Williams, Maia Wilson, Paul Briggs, Maurice LeMarch, Jennifer Lee

Songs: "Frozen Heart," "Do You Want to Build a Snow Man?," "For the First Time in Forever," "Love Is an Open Door," "Let it Go," "Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People," "In Summer," "Fixer Upper," "Vuelie"

Frozen is Disney's fifty-third animated feature.  Inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Snow Queen, it tells the story of a Princess Anna who must journey into the mountains to confront and save her sister, Queen Elsa, whose ice powers have plunged the kingdom into an eternal winter.

Disney's first attempt at adapting The Snow Queen came around the time of Snow White in the late 1930s.  Disney planned to team with MGM and make a film with a live action story about Andersen's life with animated segments based on some of his stories, but this fairytale proved to be difficult to adapt as the Queen was a character they couldn't make sympathetic.  Development on the project stopped all together because of World War II.  The idea was brought up again in the 1990s during the Renaissance, and was developed on and off over the next decade and a half, in earnest after the success of Tangled.

Well, this movie.  I have to admit, I'm not a big fan.  It is beautiful to look at, but it honestly doesn't feel worthy of the over the top praise and popularity it has gotten.  The music is okay at best ("Let it Go" is an unremarkable song saved completely by Idina Menzel's stellar vocals) and the plot doesn't always make sense.  The plot twist, I will grant, I did not see coming.  But other than that, everything is recycled and predictable, and for the most part the humor falls flat.  Maybe the movie froze my heart.

Originally the story would have stuck more closely to the original fairy tale and Elsa would have been a proper villain.  This concept art (one from very early development and one from more recent years) shows how lovely it could have been.  Honestly, I feel the movie would have been more interesting this way.

And also for funsies, and because this picture is quite beautiful, here's an illustration of the fairy tale by artist Elena Ringo.

What I Liked: The animation is quite beautiful. But my most favorite part of the whole experience was Get a Horse!, the Mickey Mouse short that played before the film in theaters.  

What I Disliked: Saying there are a few plotholes would be kind.  The "Fixer Upper" scene was obnoxiously annoying.  But mostly, Olaf.  My God how I hate him. 

Should You Watch This Movie: Like you haven't already.  

Day 52: Wreck-It Ralph

Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

Starring: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk, Mindy Kaling, Joe Lo Truglio, Ed O'Neill, Dennis Haysbert, Adam Carolla, Horatio Sanz, Rich Moore

Songs: Henry Jackman score and pop soundtrack

Wreck-it Ralph is the fifty-second Disney animated feature.  It tells the story of Ralph, the bad guy from the Fix-It Felix Jr. video game, who dreams of being a hero.  He travels through different video games and meets up with Vanellope, a glitching character from a racing game, and finds a way to become a hero.

The idea for this movie had been kicked around by the studio since the late 1980s.  It was abandoned at the time and had been revisited several times throughout the years.  At one point there was going be a Sims like world where Ralph would go to find value and beat the depression he had fallen into but the idea proved to be too hard a concept to convey.  The filmmakers wanted to use the many video game cameos to make the atmosphere of Ralph's world and the arcade feel authentic, but they didn't want to shoehorn them in just for the sake of including them.

This is a great movie.  It's really pretty and unique, the story is fun, and the characters are likable.  I feel like even though this movie did well at the box offices and got good reviews, it's been ignored a lot by the Disney fandom, and that's really a shame.

What I Liked: Obviously all the references to retro video games and their characters, but mostly Vanellope.  She's a ball of cute wrapped in a ball of pure energy wrapped in a ball of awesome.  In her own weird, glitchy way, she's utterly relatable, and definitely lovable.

What I Disliked: Nothing particularly.

Should You Watch This Movie: I would totally recommend it.

Day 51: Winnie the Pooh

Winnie the Pooh (2011)

Starring: Jim Cummings, Travis Oates, Tom Kenny, Craig Ferguson, Bad Luckey, Jack Boulter, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Wyatt Hall, Huell Howser, John Cleese

Songs: "Winnie the Pooh," "The Tummy Song," "A Very Important Thing to Do," "The Backson Song," "It's Gonna Be Great," "Everything is Honey," "Pooh's Finale," "So Long"

Winnie the Pooh is the fifty-first Disney animated movie, one of few sequels in the official canon.  Like its predecessor, 1977's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, it is based on the Pooh stories by A.A. Milne.  It tells the story of Pooh and his friends thinking that Christopher Robin has been kidnapped and trying to rescue him, needing to find Eeyore's tail, and Pooh being out of honey.

This movie began production in 2009 and used many veteran animators and story artists.  The movie was done in the style of earlier Pooh movies, and was originally to adapt five of Milne's stories, though the final version is merely inspired by three of them.  Several scenes and ideas were deleted or abandoned before the film was finished, making this one of the shorter films in the canon at just under seventy minutes.  That was one of the biggest complaints from critics.  The movie did receive pretty good reviews though its box office performance was only decent.

Overall, this was a cute movie.  While not quite as enjoyable as its predecessor, in my opinion, it was still a fun watch.  And the animation is beautiful, and quite likely the end of an era, as this is the last traditionally animated film to date.

What I Liked: John Cleese's narration and the opening with Christopher Robin's bedroom.  Also the whole sequence with "The Backson Song" is pretty darn cute.  And I love the design for the Backson as well.

What I Disliked: Since Jim Cummings is the only one to reprise his roles as Pooh and Tigger from previous Pooh projects, some of the voices sounded off to what I'm used to -- Owl and Kanga most notably.  It was a bit distracting at first, but it wasn't a make or break type thing.

Should You Watch This Movie: You know, it's not a bad movie.  Pretty cute and enjoyable, actually.  But I wouldn't call it a must-see unless you're either trying to see every Disney movie or you've already watched The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and need more Pooh stories.

Day 50: Tangled

Tangled (2010)

Starring: Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Donna Murphy, Brad Garrett, Ron Perlman, Jeffrey Tambor, Richard Kiel, M.C. Gainey, Paul F. Tompkins, Delaney Rose Stein

Songs: "When Will My Life Begin?," "Mother Knows Best," "I've Got a Dream," "I See the Light," "Healing Incantation," "Something that I Want"

Tangled is the fiftieth Disney animated film.  It is based on the German fairy tale of Rapunzel, and tells the story of a princess who is kidnapped by an evil woman who wishes to use the powers of the girl's magical healing hair to stay young forever.  Rapunzel grows up, locked away in a tower and longs to be free and to see the glowing lights that appear on her birthday every year.  When a thief named Flynn Rider ends up in her tower, Rapunzel gets him to guide her to the lights.

This story, like many other Disney films, has roots in the late 1930s.  Disney wished to adapt this story to film just after Snow White, but they found certain difficulties in writing a compelling story treatment and the projects was shelved.  Glen Keane revived the idea in the mid-1990s and began work on the story.  It was to be called Rapunzel Unbraided, as one of the challenges the fairytale presented when adapting it to the screen is that much of it takes place in the tower, and the idea was to put a new spin on it and take her out of the tower.  The Alan Menken score and soundtrack too inspiration from 1960s folk music and medieval music.  Visual inspiration for the movie came from oil paintings like the circa 1767 "The Swing" by Jean-Honoré Fragonard.

This is a really great movie overall.  It's cute, entertaining, fun... and it's beautiful to look at and to listen to.  The love story is compelling, and Rapunzel is a very relatable character.  While I don't enjoy this one quite as much as The Princess and the Frog, I really do love it and appreciate it.

What I Liked: There's a lot of things, but if I was to single out one thing, it would be the horse Maximus acting like a dog.  That's hilarious to me.

What I Disliked: Nothing really.

Should You Watch This Movie: Definitely.

Day 49: The Princess and the Frog

The Princess and the Frog (2009)

Starring: Anika Noni Rose, Elizabeth Dampier, Bruno Campos, Michael-Leon Wooley, Jim Cummings, Keith David, Jennifer Cody, Breanna Brooks, Jenifer Lewis, Peter Bartlett, John Goodman, Oprah Winfrey, Terrence Howard, Frank Welker, Dee Bradley Baker, Corey Burton, Jerry Kernion, Ritchie Montgomery, Don Hall, Paul Briggs

Songs: "Down in New Orleans," "Almost There," "Friends on the Other Side," "When We're Human," "Gonna Take You There," "Ma Belle Evangeline," "Dig a Little Deeper," "Never Knew I Needed"

The Princess and the Frog is the forty-ninth Disney animated feature.  Inspired by the E.D. Baker novel The Frog Princess and the Frog Prince fairytale, it is Disney's first traditionally animated film and first fairy tale film in a number of years.  It tells the story of Tiana, a hard working young woman who dreams of opening a restaurant but is turned into a frog when, dressed as a princess during Mardi Gras, she kisses a frog who is in fact a playboy prince.  The two journey through the Louisiana Bayou together (with the help of a jazz playing alligator named Louis and a Cajun firefly named Ray) to try and find a way to turn back into humans.

In 2006, Disney and Pixar were both developing movies based on the Frog Prince fairy tale, so the projects were merged and development continued from there.  Originally Tiana was to be maid named Maddy, and the title was going to be The Frog Princess.  The visual look for the film was based on Lady and the Tramp, and the backgrounds for the bayou were based on the look of Bambi.  Because most of the traditional animation departments had been closed and the artists laid off after Disney decided to focus on CGI films, they had to be rehired and reassembled for this film.  Because the movie was successful (though unfortunately not to the levels of the renaissance films of the 1990s) the studio decided to do traditional and CGI animation, though they later announced that the traditional animation departments had again been closed.

I love this movie, truly.  It's easily one of my favorites and one of Disney's best.  Best animated film since The Lion King, maybe since Beauty and the Beast, and I don't say that lightly.  

What I Liked: To say that there being a black princess was a dream come true for me, a lifelong Disney fan who happens to be a black girl, wouldn't exactly be accurate because I never even dreamed that there could be or would ever be a black Disney princess.  So the fact that there is one... wow.  It just means so much to me.  And she's an amazing character, too.  Very close after Aurora on my list of favorite princesses.  Plus she is voiced by a stunning black woman, Anika Noni Rose, who totally looks like the character.

What I Disliked: Nothing, honestly.  Maybe the fact that this movie is often so ignored by the Disney fandom.  *massive side eye*

Should You Watch This Movie:  Yes.  Without hesitation.