I remember my excitement when I got the Pocahontas Barbie Doll I had asked for and The Lion King ponytail bands I couldn’t wait to showoff at school. My favorite pastime on the playground was firing off lines from The Lion King with my best friend; she loved to be Simba and I didn’t mind playing Scar. Those were the days. Life was simple and beautiful in the 1990s and Disney was at its best.
When Pixar came into the Disney scene, I couldn’t have been more unenthused. Don’t get me wrong; I think computer imaging can do wonders for film. After all, it makes it possible to bridge the gap between mediocre and astounding, but when Disney began to use computer imaging I felt cheated. It just didn’t fulfill the Disney legacy I felt I knew.
I can’t honestly say that some new Disney films are terrible just because they are computer animated. I think Finding Nemo is brilliant, and I know with hand-drawn animation it would not have been as bright and beautiful. The same goes for Dinosaur. Hand-drawn animation does have it limits; even Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King had to incorporate some computer effects to help with the storytelling, but overall I think the magic of Disney went away when the hand-drawn animators were asked to move over and move out to make room for the computer graphics team.
Walt Disney Studios released America’s first hand-drawn feature in 1937 with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. From then on until 2004, Disney produced 44 hand-drawn feature films. Walt Disney Studio’s 67-year reign as the king of traditional animation came to an end on April 3, 2004, as it announced the release of its last hand-drawn feature film, Home on the Range. In those 44 years, Disney released some of I what I feel to be the most beautiful animated stories of all time, among them Bambi, Dumbo, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King.
Disney lost a lot of its spark when it went digital, but one thing they lost the most was the magic of the Disney princess. The last film Disney produced with a fairytale setting was Beauty and the Beast in 1991.
If you think the days of the Walt Disney princess are over, you better guess again. Enchanted, the new film from Walt Disney Pictures, brings back the longed-for and greatly missed Disney princess like the ones we knew when we were kids; the kind of heroine that’s been missing since classic Disney animation was retired.
Enchanted is the story of Giselle, a young princess who is banished by an evil queen from her magical fairytale world to the real life streets of modern day Manhattan, where she falls for her true prince charming. The film revives the one thing that used to make Disney, Disney: hand-drawn animation and, you guessed it, the music.
Even if the hand-drawn animation plays only a small role in the live-action romance Enchanted, seeing that old familiar Disney-look gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. I remembered what it was like to be swept away by a good Disney movie. The film opens with hand-drawn animation and the familiar faces of classic Disney: characters with wide-eyes, bright smiles and gentle voices. This is what I grew up with, and this is what I have missed so much. This is my Disney. Within the first five seconds of the film, I knew it was going to be wonderful.
Enchanted plays on the classic Walt Disney style, with birds and animals caught up in song and princes and princesses searching for their true love. The film doesn’t make fun of the classic style or mock it, but gives it new life; a rebirth of Disney magic that has been missing all this time. There is a particular scene where princess Giselle begins to sing in the middle of Central Park. What makes the scene so wonderful is that everyone begins to join in with her. There is singing, dancing and an array of color and pure joy everywhere. Everything about it rings out classic Disney. The experience is like being in a Disney theme park because it carries with it that same caliber of magic. The minute I walked out of the theater, I wanted to walk back in and see it again.
There is good news for those who are like me and miss the good old days of hand-drawn animation. Walt Disney Feature Animation plans for a 2009 release of The Princess and the Frog, a feature film entirely composed of traditional animation. On board are writer-directors Ron Clements and John Musker, who brought to life hand-drawn films such as The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. Composer Alan Menkin, who is responsible for the Broadway-like musical style of many Disney features, is also along for the ride.
Traditional Disney storytelling isn’t for everyone. Some people would rather watch a film straight through without having to worry about when the characters will get distracted and come up with a ditty to sing, but it works for children and it has always worked for me. I love music and I love lightheartedness. If I’m having a bad day, all I have to do is put in The Lion King or Lady and the Tramp and my worries go right out the window; even if it is just for a moment.
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