Disney and Pixar revealed their slate of animated movies until 2012, and Rapunzel, sadly, is still a go. I shouldn't be sad, it'll probably be awesome and have wonderful visuals and music and it's better than all that Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons shit they've been peddling.
But it won't be my Rapunzel - the animated screenplay I was (slowly) outlining and working on and animating in my head while listening to Alan Menken. It was original! It had a nerd inventor shut-in heroine! It had a witch stepmother who was actually misunderstood - and her demon familiar who totally wasn't because he was totally evil. I had a handsome prince with flaws! FLAWS! It dealt with bullying and being yourself and gave the notoriously difficult fairytale a relatable context! ARGH!
That's not to say I don't have another ideas for when I work for Disney. I put a lot of personal stuff into my story for Rapunzel, so I'm disappointed that I couldn't write it and get famous fast enough to show Disney how brilliant it obviously is. I mean, I've seen some of the early pictures for Rapunzel. Blonde, again? Pink, again?? Seriously, there are different colours out there, and Punzie doesn't have to be blonde. Can you imagine how dingy her hair would look like after a few climbs if it's so light-coloured? Ew!
Anyway, sad sad sad - but maybe I should get my ass on writing The Six Dancing Princesses, The Frog Prince, The Princess and the Pea, and The Seven Swans screenplays before Disney snaps all those ones up too.
Rapunzel has gone through so much retooling that I fully expect it to look very different from the test shots that were shown at SIGGRAPH... at this point, I'm well past questioning Glen Keane's eye for character design, and I'm more interested in whether or not they can actually pull off that oil-on-canvas texture they've been talking about for years. That said, it had better be Alan Menken providing the score.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably worthwhile to point out that especially since the Pixar merger, which really was Pixar taking over Disney as far as animation was concerned (thank goodness), I've seen a trend moving away from writer-driven projects. In fact, there's a lot of dissatisfaction among animators and informed critics alike about decisions being made by executives and writers who didn't come from an animation background - something that hasn't led to the kind of complex moral drama you envision, but to a culture of one-liners and a lack of visual finesse (which still persists at other studios). The best animated films come out of their storyboards, not their scripts, unless (or even if) we're talking about very personal screenplays by established animators like Brad Bird and Andrew Stanton.
Worth reading: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-commentary/who-writes-cartoons
I don't know if you have an art background at all, but if you want to work for Disney, some extensive training in animation would be an invaluable and necessary asset.
The Princess and the Pea? Now that has potential.
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