But to what end? These characters never return and no one even comes back to the woods for a second look. Similarly, there’s a whole sequence following two incompetent knights in the woods running into (and then away from) Gothel’s big, pink guardian dragon. The conclusion of this game of ‘Guess Who’ deflates under the weight of a much more important (yet equally stupid) revelation – Rapunzel is royalty, herself, by way of her estranged father king in another land.
#Barbie as rapunzel soundtrack movie
The film is full of weird tangents that never pay off: Rapunzel spends most of the movie ignorant to the fact that Prince Stefan is, in fact, a prince and named Stefan. Why would Gothel even build this? Or maybe Barbie just had her first documented adventure down a sewer. For example, after the paintbrush is ‘destroyed’ by Gothel at the end of Act 2, why doesn’t she just find another way back to the passage underneath the fortress? And did Gothel know about the passageway all this time? It wasn’t very hard for Rapunzel to find. Introducing the paintbrush earlier would’ve eliminated a redundant story beat, showcased more of the “magic” of Rapunzel’s world, and crossed off questions inadvertently introduced later in the film. It seems to me the writer just got lazy and neglected to find a better storybeat to tie A to B. Why is she able to leave Gothel’s fortress by way of an underground passage and a magic paintbrush? Why not just one or the other? There’s no reason she needs the passage in order to access the paint brush, nor vise versa. After finding a secret passage beneath Gothel’s fortress, she enters society for the first time, all the while keeping Gothel none the wiser by returning to the tower when necessary by way of a magic paintbrush (introduced mid-movie).Īfter Rapunzel falls head-over-hair in love with Prince Stefan, Gothel discovers Rapunzel’s plot and traps her in a tower forever… that is, until a convoluted technicality in Act 3 turns the tables and she lives happily ever after. In Barbie as Rapunzel, our heroine plays an isolated Cinderella-wannabe to a witch named Gothel (voiced by Anjelica Huston). So that’s where Barbie auteur Owen Hurley comes along and constructs his own Rapunzel tale from scratch. I guess there aren’t many exciting tales about painting. But painting and Rapunzel? Not really appropriate. In Barbie and the Nutcracker, at least learning ballet and The Nutcracker are a match. Let’s talk about Barbie’s fairytale analogies. In a way, Barbie is kind of like a gentle, drifting grandpa to Kelly, armed with Werther’s Original Candies. I see now that this is the format we’re going to get in every Barbie movie: Kelly huffs at something she doesn’t understand and Barbie analogizes the incident to a fairy tale. What Kelly didn’t expect was that Barbie, ever understanding and patient, would sit her down and teach her a thing or two about using your imagination. “ Just tell me what to paint!” Kelly exasperates, tossing a paintbrush at her empty canvas like the brat she is. Where in Nutcracker, Kelly complained about her poor dancing skills, in Rapunzel, Kelly can’t channel creativity for peanuts. Our story starts in a very similar fashion to its predecessor, Barbie in the Nutcracker: we open in a modern day scenario between Aunt Barbie and little Kelly. Anything would be better than this…right? A monkey could write a better story than this Brothers Grimm garbage. They’ve created something entirely different that just happens to include Rapunzel. Judging by scant synopses and descriptions of Tangled, Disney is all too aware of the issue. When the most exciting thing you can recall about a story is how long the hair was, you know you’re in trouble. The only thing people remember about this abysmal work is Rapunzel’s long hair hanging haphazardly out the tower window. Baby grows up to be a disgustingly innocent teenage girl. The original yarn bares all the usual fantasy cliches of the day: evil witch curses baby at birth. Originally scribed by the Brothers Grimm, they phoned it in between better stories like Hansel & Gretel and Rumpelstiltskin. You ask, why didn’t Disney stumble upon Rapunzel earlier? Simple. It’s a story about Rapunzel, a hapless young gal who sits in a tower and brushes her impossibly long hair. No, it’s not a heartwarming tale about shoe laces or Christmas lights devising a way out of ties and knots. Later this year (November, 2010), Disney Studios will be releasing their 50th official animated feature entitled Tangled. Obligatory Pink Vehicle: A pink dragon, a purple dragon, and in the final reel, a pink horse carriage.