Who knows what the finished product is going to be like, but Disney's marketing team is trying to downplay this as a movie about a fairytale princess. I've noticed that over the last decade or so, their trend is that after they have a disappointment with a film, they don't try to learn from their mistakes but rather do something completely different. When Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, and Home on the Range didn't do well at the boxoffice, while Pixar and Dreamworks were doing fantastic numbers, they didn't pin the problem on bad scripts or unappealing plots--it was because they were traditionally animated. So then they come out with Chicken Little and Bolt, two computer animated film that are very much in the "animals have wacky hi-jinks" mode of Dreamworks and Fox Animation.
So when The Princess and the Frog doesn't do so well, it's not because they alienated a lot of their potential audience with all the racially insensitive crap during its early development. No, it's because it's a traditionally animated film for girls! Let's make our next one computer animated and make it about a dude! Also, calling it "Rapunzel" or even "Rapunzel Untangled" is going to alienate all the boys who want to see it. Let's give it a stupid, confusing title like Tangled.
Despite my grumblings, I'm hesitantly excited, because this movie does look beautiful. I remember drooling over the early Rococo influenced concept art, and the animator's attempts to replicate classic traditional animation is probably going to make this the prettiest computer animated feature-length film ever made. Flynn, the thief who the trailer tells us is the main character, does have some funny lines and Zachary Levi's bravado is going to be great. Plus, Rapunzel looks adorable and that little chameleon buddy is too cute.
Don't disappoint me, Disney! I've put you on notice
