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Last December, we pointed out that on the announcement of the 2010 slate from Walt Disney Pictures, the upcoming animated feature Rapunzel was listed as a “working title.” This squared with a couple of comments I had seen on animation-related blogs; most noticeably, the comments section of the Animation Guild’s blog featured speculation that the new film would have a name change before release. I was never able to firm up any of these rumors – after all, who would change the name of such a prominent film right before it was to hit theaters?

Well, apparently Disney would. The Stitch Kingdom news site pointed out today that Disney had secured a number of different domain names relating to two specific titles: The Thief and the Tower and The Hidden Tower. These names have popped up before; an anonymous comment on the Animation Guild blog from early in January said that they hoped the new title would be “nothing dumb like The Thief and the Tower.” The Hidden Tower was also mentioned in a recent thread.

The reason for this abrupt name change on a film that’s been in development for a decade comes, as most terrible ideas do, straight from marketing. The Princess and the Frog, while successful, did not turn out to be a mega-hit as Disney had hoped. All of a sudden Disney execs seem to be in a panic, and are blaming Frog’s under-performance on its “princess” aspects.

This is both hilarious and tragic. Those who have seen The Princess and the Frog will know that it’s far from a traditional “princess” tale. In fact, much of the film’s storyline is a direct slam on the creepy princessploitation mythos Disney marketing has been pushing on young girls for a few years now; after all, the character made to look the most ridiculous throughout the whole picture is the one who most longs to become a princess. One doubts the film’s heroine would ever be caught dead in the Bibbiti Bobbiti Boutique, which makes it all the more ironic that Disney tried to market the film that way.

Marketing which, of course, failed… which means blame the movie, right?

What a lot of people seem to not understand is that Princess and the Frog’s problems had little to do with the film itself and a lot to do with the product that preceded it. Disney, in their attempts to wrench as much money as possible from young girls and their parents, infantilized their animated classics to an obscene degree and created the view in the public’s eyes that Disney films – and fairy tales in particular – are just for little kids. They’re doing the same thing to parks these days – you can see it in almost every ad. Princess and the Frog might have had some story issues, but the fact that it was a fairy tale wasn’t one of them. Princess and the Frog didn’t bring itself down, this did. Now Disney is tasked with reversing a decade of marketing and trying to convince people that, wait, maybe these films aren’t just fodder for babysitting your toddlers, and that maybe there is a difference between classic Disney features and Cinderella III.

It’ll be hard, and it will probably take a few solid films to turn around public expectations. I’m not sure Winnie-the-Pooh is the way to go about that, but what do I know?

The point is, it looks like the clever folks in the executive suite are, instead of acknowledging the real problems, going to make a purely cosmetic change that will not address underlying issues but instead merely confuse the target audience. Rapunzel is one of the best known fairy tales of all time – do you actually think that The Thief and the Tower is going to send people running for the cineplex? I guess UP was such a hit because people just love that direction. Think how much money it would have made if they’d called it Old Guy and the Flying House? Box office gold!!

All you have to do is read the (admittedly anonymous) comments on the TAG blog to get a hint at the toxic atmosphere that still pervades Disney’s feature animation department. Sure, there will always be cranks and naysayers, and most of those people commenting probably don’t work at Disney anyway, but these are stories that get told time and time again and it makes one wonder if any meaningful changes have actually been made since the Pixar merger. I think that obviously things are better, but there’s a long way to go. If an idea as stupefying as this name change can get any traction at all, it just goes to show that we’ve got a long hard road ahead.

For what it’s worth, I’ll also point out the hilarity of Disney’s animation marketing department fleeing in panic from anything princess-related (awful rumors on the TAG blog suggest that The Snow Queen is now shelved), thinking that well is now dry, while the parks division in Florida has broken ground on a very expensive expansion that is 100% princess. Left hand, meet right hand.

Early last month, the first five minutes of The Princess and the Frog appeared online. You’ve most likely seen it already, but I’m excited about the impending release so I don’t care. Early reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, and the fact that merchandise has been selling out for weeks now despite the fact that the film isn’t a sequel or “franchise” picture is a hopeful sign. I want this movie to be huge. I want this to be a smack in the face to every idiotic suit who thought that earlier, lesser films from previous years failed because they were traditionally animated.

I want this movie – a traditionally animated film that’s actually good – to make such a sickening amount of money that every studio starts scrambling to start up their shuttered animation units and every animator in New York and L.A. has as much work as they can stand. I want this project-to-project hiring and firing mindset to stop, and for people to sign fat, long-term contracts. Without those animators on contract but between projects, we’ll never get those inspired make-work projects like Goldberg’s Rhapsody in Blue.

Anyway, this is the first sequence of the film. It introduces us to Tiana and her friend Charlotte as children; soon after this clip ends, we transition to characters as adults. This was part of the film that was shown at D23, and it cracked me up because it seems to be taking a direct jab at the “princess” phenomenon and mindset.

One last note: while some of the animation in this clip is complete, some shots are still rough animation. That being said, here you go:

And it might be just me, but young Charlotte is reminiscent of Darla from Mark Dindal’s sadly unappreciated 1997 film Cats Don’t Dance. And her cat reminds me of the feline Yzma from Mark Dindal’s slightly less unappreciated 2000 film The Emperor’s New Groove.

Story sketch for King of the Elves by Ralph Zontag, circa 2007

Steve Hulett from the Animation Guild spent his day at Disney feature animation and has a few tidbits of note.

First, and unsurprising when you consider recent reports, is the fact that merchandise from The Princess and the Frog is selling like gangbusters well before the film even premieres. Disney’s Consumer Products division is usually far, far from my field of interest, but for those of us who love traditional animation and hope to see it spring back to life, this is nothing but good news. This film isn’t a sequel, or franchise, so the fact that millions of little kids already know and love these characters enough to clear shelves of the film’s merchandise means that they’ll be lining up when Princess hits theaters. The fact that the film, by all accounts, appears to be quite good makes the situation just about as perfect as it can get.

Next up is Joe Jump, the previously-abandoned computer animated project that is recently said to have staged a comeback from production limbo. Hulett reiterates that the film has, indeed, been moved from the back burner and has returned to active development.

Sadly, Hulett also reports that King of the Elves is being “retooled”. The long-in-development project, based on the 1953 short story by Philip K. Dick, seems to have gone into turnaround once more. Recent reports indicated that one of the film’s directors had departed the project, and the TAG Blog now confirms that it was director Robert Walker. It’s rumored that a new co-director has joined remaining original director Aaron Blaise on the project. It’s unknown how deep these story problems run or how it might affect the film’s previously-announced 2012 release date. The animation process is indeed a confusing and mysterious one, but hopefully the project will re-emerge from these troubles even stronger than before.

You kids. I slave all day over a hot keyboard, and every year I get a record amount of hits just from people looking for pictures from Disney’s latest animated features. But who am I to argue? Here are the latest publicity shots from the upcoming Disney animated feature The Princess and the Frog.

I’m excited about this one, especially after seeing the film’s first act at the D23 Expo. A couple of the characters’ designs bother me, looking a little more Bluth than Disney, but the filmmakers seem to have the story and characters locked down perfectly. The first act breezed by, getting a number of important story beats across without dwelling on them unnecessarily or in a heavy-handed manner. It showed a deft touch that was refreshing and appreciated.

I received a review copy of the film’s soundtrack yesterday, and a review is forthcoming. It’s a good one, though – Randy Newman’s songwriting combined with talented voice artists makes for a pleasing New Orleans vibe that will blend well with the film’s lush visuals.

For now, though, enjoy the pretty pictures!

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