OUAT vs. Other Fairy Tales: Compare & Contrast

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Just saw the trailer for the new Peter Pan and Wendy movie... and I thought OUAT's version was bland-looking. Geez. 

It seems competent enough visually (a few moments of bad CGI), but I agree there was nothing intriguing at all in terms of the world or the story which would make me want to watch it.  

I guess one difference is not all the "Lost Boys" are boys.  Hopefully, there's more innovation than that.  I wonder if they are going to address where the lost children actually came from.

The dialogue also felt a little clunky.  

The arc seems to be that Wendy doesn't want to grow up, so I suppose she realizes that she needs to, by the end?  I wonder if the London scenes are flashbacks or just a prelude before they head off to Neverland.

I too wish that if they are going to do live-action, there needs to be something new.  If not, the direction/production/performances need to be exemplary.

I agree it does make one nostalgic about OUAT.  At least its exploration of classic tales were often fun.   I would rather see individual movies about the origin stories of Tinkerbelle, Tiger Lily, Smee, Mr. and Mrs. Darling, etc.

Edited March 1, 2023 by Camera One

[Camera One]

Did anyone see The Little Mermaid trailer?  It seems competent, but like most of the live actions, it doesn't look like there is anything new.  At this point, I'm almost more interested in any additions or changes, like if they give Eric a little more to do, or if they show a bit more of the relationship between Ursula and King Triton.  

Though I guess with "Once", they didn't change much of The Little Mermaid, beyond inserting Snow and Regina.  It was less about Ariel as a character.  She mostly appeared in fun adventures after the events of her main story, I think?  And then there was the real Ursula, who had a separate backstory, mainly to support Hook's story.

It's interesting how different stories were adjusted.  With Aladdin, they did more to change the main story, and I guess Jasmine and Aladdin had their own arcs, but it really wasn't satisfying.  So in a sense, they were less just supports for the main characters, even though Aladdin had the Savior connection with Emma, and Jasmine was Snow's teacher's aid.

[Shanna Marie]

On 3/21/2023 at 12:48 PM, Camera One said:

Did anyone see The Little Mermaid trailer?  It seems competent, but like most of the live actions, it doesn't look like there is anything new.  At this point, I'm almost more interested in any additions or changes, like if they give Eric a little more to do, or if they show a bit more of the relationship between Ursula and King Triton. 

That's why Cinderella is my favorite of the live-action versions so far. It wasn't just remaking the cartoon in live action. It was more like a new telling of the same source material fairy tale, with some Easter egg references to the Disney cartoon version. The prince got rounded out as a character and we got a lot of his relationship with his father. We learned more about Lady Tremaine. We got more of a sense of how Cinderella's life went downhill and why she was sticking around, and there was more of a relationship between Cinderella and her prince. If you're just making a live-action version of the cartoon, why bother? They pretty much have to add something for Eric in The Little Mermaid because he's practically a non-entity in the cartoon. I was amused by the live TV version in which they just had the live actors do the songs and otherwise showed the movie because it meant they wouldn't even need a live Eric unless they incorporated songs from the stage version (which they did).

And I still want them to do with Sleeping Beauty what they did with Cinderella, just a good fairy tale fantasy adventure that's sort of based on the same story, not even necessarily a musical. There's all that fighting the dragon stuff that could be cool.

The Snow White looks like it could be interesting. I don't think they've done a full trailer, but the pictures make it look like it's not a slavish remake and, as I recall, Snow is played by the girl who was Maria in the new West Side Story, and she's an incredible singer.

[Camera One]

7 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

And I still want them to do with Sleeping Beauty what they did with Cinderella, just a good fairy tale fantasy adventure that's sort of based on the same story, not even necessarily a musical. There's all that fighting the dragon stuff that could be cool.

What about Maleficent, LOL?

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The Snow White looks like it could be interesting. I don't think they've done a full trailer, but the pictures make it look like it's not a slavish remake and, as I recall, Snow is played by the girl who was Maria in the new West Side Story, and she's an incredible singer.

She really was very good in "West Side Story". 

I hope they do with "Snow White" something similar to what they did with "Cinderella".  Though I did miss the singing in "Cinderella".

"West Side Story" was actually a rare example of doing pretty much the same story, but somehow, it felt fresh and a bit of a different perspective.

[Camera One]

On 1/16/2022 at 10:28 AM, Shanna Marie said:

I think these are more fantasy movies with swashbuckling than they are "pirate" movies. There's almost no actual piracy (sacking and looting, that sort of thing) in them, aside from a sequence early in the first movie.

I watched the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" tonight and last night.  I didn't expect much... a movie from an amusement park ride seemed scraping at the bottom of the barrel.

It was more entertaining than I thought it would be.  The main characters were generally likeable, including Captain Sparrow, who I thought I wouldn't like.  I generally appreciated the balance between humour and adventure, though there were a few too many redshirts being killed off.  I also didn't find the climax very satisfying, but I think I will watch the others (eventually). 

I'm surprised "Once" didn't do more with characters from this popular franchise, connecting it with Hook's backstory or something.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

On 4/4/2023 at 1:14 AM, Camera One said:

I watched the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" tonight and last night.  I didn't expect much... a movie from an amusement park ride seemed scraping at the bottom of the barrel.

It was more entertaining than I thought it would be. 

The first movie was good because it didn't take itself too seriously. It knew it was kind of goofy at times, similarly to OUAT in the earlier seasons. It unfortunately gets very bogged down by its own confusing universe in the sequels.

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Though I guess with "Once", they didn't change much of The Little Mermaid, beyond inserting Snow and Regina

I'd say Ursula's story in S4 was closer to The Little Mermaid than Ariel's in S3. 

[Shanna Marie]

On 4/4/2023 at 1:14 AM, Camera One said:

I watched the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" tonight and last night.  I didn't expect much... a movie from an amusement park ride seemed scraping at the bottom of the barrel.

It was more entertaining than I thought it would be.  The main characters were generally likeable, including Captain Sparrow, who I thought I wouldn't like.  I generally appreciated the balance between humour and adventure, though there were a few too many redshirts being killed off.  I also didn't find the climax very satisfying, but I think I will watch the others (eventually). 

I remember going with friends to see it when it first came out. We were mostly going out of curiosity, like watching a train wreck, then were surprised that it was actually good.

The next two are a lot like UOAT, with some really excellent moments buried in a lot of nonsense and a plot that doesn't entirely make sense, plus they don't really seem to know what to do with Jack because they want him to be bad but not a bad guy but not really a hero but also maybe kind of a hero. The second one has one of the best fight scenes ever, with some really innovative choreography.

The two after that are odd. There's some stuff I like in 4, but you can really tell that they grafted this universe and some of the characters onto an existing, unrelated novel. 5 was unmemorable (as in I watched it recently and remember almost nothing from it), other than them somewhat fixing some icky things from previous movies.

[Camera One]

I saw the trailer to the upcoming Disney+ series "American born Chinese".  (may want to watch trailer before reading ahead)

It's another one where real life collides with fiction, this time with Chinese folktale characters (The Monkey King in "Journey to the West").    

"Once" could have done half a season with Mulan and various myths from East Asia with a similar plot.

I read the graphic novel it's based on after seeing the trailer, and the TV series seems to be: 

Spoiler

adding the "world is about to end and we need to stop it!" type story that was common on "Once".

Still, I am interested in a show that might explore this "universe".

Edited May 1, 2023 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I was watching this interview with the actresses who plays Snow White and the Evil Queen in the new live-action (beware minor spoilers ahead) and some things said:

Spoiler

"She's not going to be saved by the Prince and she's not going to be dreaming about true love.  She's dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be, a leader her late father told her she could be, if she were fearless, fair, brave and true..."

Of course it's impossible not to compare with "Once", who I thought didn't do a good job of dealing with Snow grappling with leadership.  There is room for something new there, I think.  Though this also reminds me of Jasmine's arc in the live-action "Aladdin" and the "fearless, fair, brave and true" reminded me of the live-action "Mulan" with its tagline "Loyal Brave True".

Speaking of BRAVE, of course we can't forget Merida, but of course we already got a note-perfect live action with that one in "Once", LOL.

There's also a lot of controversy with the casting and the seven "dwarves" being diverse and mostly just normal humans.  I wonder how different their approach is to the dwarves in "The Hobbit" movie, who they did flesh out, though of course that adaptation could use the source material. Whereas the animated Snow White movie dwarves were each summed up with a single word.

I was thinking that maybe the "dwarves" could actually be loyalists at the palace who help Snow survive on her own after she was threatened with her life, if they wanted to go a bit more with the political intrigue aspect.

And then the last question is the Evil Queen, and whether she is going to get the misunderstood villain trope.

Now with Snow White no longer dreaming about true love, how will the songs change?

I'm wishing
(I'm wishing)
For my rule to come
To start now
(To start now)
Today
(Today)

Someday my reign will come
Someday I'll rule this land
And away to my throne room I'll go
To pass laws and make judgements for yo' all

Someday when spring is here
We'll establish a representative democracy
And the birds will sing and positive polling numbers will ring
Someday when the Good Queen will come......

Edited July 23, 2023 by Camera One

[ParadoxLost]

On 7/23/2023 at 2:07 PM, Camera One said:

There's also a lot of controversy with the casting and the seven "dwarves" being diverse and mostly just normal humans.  I wonder how different their approach is to the dwarves in "The Hobbit" movie, who they did flesh out, though of course that adaptation could use the source material. Whereas the animated Snow White movie dwarves were each summed up with a single word.

I was thinking that maybe the "dwarves" could actually be loyalists at the palace who help Snow survive on her own after she was threatened with her life, if they wanted to go a bit more with the political intrigue aspect.

Those set pictures were dreadful.

Snow White is the one animated movie that I think its a very bad idea for Disney to veer too far away from in the live version of the movie.  This primarily because so many non-Disney live movies Snow White movies have already been made.  

I've already seen versions where almost anything Disney can do differently has already been done.  Because everyone else can go off the original tale but the Disney animated version is not in public domain.

I would probably feel different if they were trying to do anything truly innovative which I highly doubt.  Or if they were in a different place in their ability to make a watchable movie.

[KingOfHearts]

Finally watched The Little Mermaid live-action remake after it came to Disney+. I thought the actors for Ursula, Ariel, and Vanessa all knocked it out of the park. For the most part however, the movie just didn't need to exist. The remake doesn't add much to the original except for runtime. It brings up some interesting concepts (like the humans' fear of the "sea gods" and blaming for them a bunch of recent shipwrecks, implying Triton has been intentionally causing them, or Ursula being Triton's sister), but it doesn't ever really explore those. I know a lot of people liked Eric getting more development but he was a little too whiny for my taste. I found Triton less likeable this time around too. Overall, the movie didn't really do anything to stand on its own (unlike Aladdin). It felt very safe and inoffensive.

But of course, they had to go around fixing plot holes unnecessarily like these remakes always do. The fact Ariel couldn't remember she needed to kiss Eric felt needlessly complicated and kind of under-minded Ursula's desperation when she transforms into Vanessa. The sudden plan change didn't feel as warranted because of the memory curse. 

I actually liked the way OUAT split the Little Mermaid story between Ariel and Ursula - they kept the spirit of the original in different ways. I thought the remake did a decent of job of recapturing it too, but it just wasn't as good and didn't add anything, so it felt pointless. It's always weird to me when I like OUAT's version better than the sequels or remakes (as with Frozen 2).

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Did anyone see The Little Mermaid trailer?  It seems competent, but like most of the live actions, it doesn't look like there is anything new.  At this point, I'm almost more interested in any additions or changes, like if they give Eric a little more to do, or if they show a bit more of the relationship between Ursula and King Triton.  

This aged pretty well.

Edited September 15, 2023 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

On 8/2/2023 at 11:41 PM, ParadoxLost said:

Snow White is the one animated movie that I think its a very bad idea for Disney to veer too far away from in the live version of the movie. 

I spent the summer rewatching the Disney animated films, and I was rather surprised by how thin the Disney animated Snow White was. It struck me as basically a comic short about the dwarfs with the Snow White story sort of wrapped around it. Which makes sense, given that it was the first full-length animated feature and before that, Disney had been making comic shorts. The whole segment after the dwarfs come home and find Snow White and they go through the process of her inspecting their hands before dinner, then go outside and wash up, with many hijinks, could essentially be a standalone cartoon. As short as the movie is, this is at least a fifth of the entire runtime. That seemed to be the way they fleshed the fairy tale out to feature length, instead of doing what they did in later movies (especially in the Disney Renaissance era) and fleshing out the characters and the situation. They do a similar thing in Cinderella. There are to sequences involving the mice that could work as standalone shorts, and you could remove one of them entirely without affecting the plot.

I think this is one reason the live-action Cinderella wasn't really a remake of the animated film. They didn't add that much to the fairy tale to make the animated film, so there was room to make a new story based on the same fairy tale, with some Easter egg references to the animated film. It sounds like they're doing the same thing with Snow White, though apparently it's a musical, unlike Cinderella, so it is more of a remake there. With the later films, the live action versions had to be remakes since Disney had already added a lot of stuff to the fairy tales in the animated versions, so the Disney versions were distinct from the fairy tales.

On another note, if you want another badass princess with a sword movie, there's an animated film I found on Disney+ called Strange Magic that's certainly interesting. I'm not sure it's actually good, but I found it highly entertaining. I somehow missed it entirely when it was released, but it's basically A Midsummer Night's Dream meets Beauty and the Beast meets Moulin Rouge (it's a jukebox musical). It's Lucasfilm rather than Disney (released via Touchstone after the buyout, but George Lucas executive produced, so must have been in production before the buyout), so it's ILM doing animation that's supposed to be animation instead of inserting CGI characters into movies. The voice cast is excellent, and if you've ever wanted to see a sword-wielding fairy princess singing Taylor Swift (voice by Evan Rachel Wood, so a better singer than Taylor Swift), this is the movie for you. It gave me the same "I'm not sure what this is but I think I'm enjoying it" feeling I got the first time I saw Moulin Rouge.

[Camera One]

On 9/14/2023 at 8:04 PM, KingOfHearts said:

Finally watched The Little Mermaid live-action remake after it came to Disney+.

I have been dancing around when I was going to watch it, but your post made me finally take the plunge.

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I thought the actors for Ursula, Ariel, and Vanessa all knocked it out of the park. For the most part however, the movie just didn't need to exist. The remake doesn't add much to the original except for runtime.

I agree the casting was fine and it was watchable, and especially your point that it didn't add much of note.  The story didn't seem to flow as well, for some reason.

I thought Eric was more interesting than Ariel for most of it.  I was hoping they would explore a bit more why Ariel was interested in the world above.  I thought they would have a flashback of her mother taking her up to see the humans, or something to that effect.  

The actress did a good job with Ursula, though she was monologuing a bit too much.  They got specific that she was exiled for 15 years, but did nothing to explore her backstory at all.  Not that I wanted her to dominate the story but there was literally nothing new there.  I really expected Ursula to announce she was behind Ariel's mother's death or something.

The animated Sebastian and Flounder weren't as weird as the trailer made them out.  I was surprised they cut out the crowd favourite "Les Poisson" but I think the climax actually flowed well.

One thing I was looking forward to were Alan Menken's new songs, but they were surprisingly weak.  Eric's new song was too talky and sounded too much like the deleted song from the "Aladdin" live action.

The movie felt like a pale imitation so I wasn't really affected by most of the moments carbon copied from the film.  Tritan destroying the grotto was much more devastating in the animated version.  Heck, the animated shark in the shipwreck was scarier.  Those copied moments of Ariel on the rock were almost hokey.

I think the movie finally gained some momentum when it started to diverge a bit.  For example, showing how Ariel and Eric connected over their shared love of hoarding.  So I got more into it once Ariel became human.  I liked how even without speaking, Ariel was able to communicate with Eric about the sea.  The Caribbean island kingdom setting was interesting.  I was surprised when Eric mentioned the Spanish.  I was expecting the story to be set in a fictional land.

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It brings up some interesting concepts (like the humans' fear of the "sea gods" and blaming for them a bunch of recent shipwrecks, implying Triton has been intentionally causing them, or Ursula being Triton's sister), but it doesn't ever really explore those.

 

Yes, I thought that was going to build up to something.

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The fact Ariel couldn't remember she needed to kiss Eric felt needlessly complicated and kind of under-minded Ursula's desperation when she transforms into Vanessa. The sudden plan change didn't feel as warranted because of the memory curse. 

That change was really frustrating and annoying.  I'm not sure why they decided to change this.  Maybe they didn't want to make it seem like Ariel was intentionally trying to kiss Eric out of desperation?  Anyway, it didn't work.

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It's always weird to me when I like OUAT's version better than the sequels or remakes (as with Frozen 2).

I actually liked the way OUAT split the Little Mermaid story between Ariel and Ursula - they kept the spirit of the original in different ways.

OUAT really had a lot of diamond in the rough.  It was just a shame there was so much rough.

8 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I spent the summer rewatching the Disney animated films, and I was rather surprised by how thin the Disney animated Snow White was. It struck me as basically a comic short about the dwarfs with the Snow White story sort of wrapped around it. Which makes sense, given that it was the first full-length animated feature and before that, Disney had been making comic shorts. The whole segment after the dwarfs come home and find Snow White and they go through the process of her inspecting their hands before dinner, then go outside and wash up, with many hijinks, could essentially be a standalone cartoon. As short as the movie is, this is at least a fifth of the entire runtime. That seemed to be the way they fleshed the fairy tale out to feature length

Yes, I did a rewatch of them a year or two ago too.  Those comic short sequences really tested my patience when I was younger.  I found I appreciated them more this time around.

I am curious how they are going to "fill in" more of Snow White's story.

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On another note, if you want another badass princess with a sword movie, there's an animated film I found on Disney+ called Strange Magic that's certainly interesting. 

Thanks for the suggestion.  I will give it a try.  

Edited September 24, 2023 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I forgot to mention, I thought the "Daughters of the 7 Seas" concept was interesting and something that "Once" could have explored.

Though it made me wonder about how Triton had a different partner in each part of the world.  Yikes.  

We've discussed it before, but "Once" could have done so much with mythology here.  Triton and his relationship with Hades could have linked the story with Hercules.  "Once" did capitalize on Ariel swimming around from one part of the world to another, though.  

[Camera One]

Have y'all watched the trailer to "Once Upon a Studio", a short film to celebrate Walt Disney's 100th anniversary?  It's airing on ABC on October 15th. 

We should all watch it and comment here.  😀

[Shanna Marie]

I finally got around to watching Peter Pan and Wendy last night, and I actually rather liked it. I felt like it was closer to the Cinderella kind of live-action remake, in that it wasn't actually a remake of the animated movie, but a new telling of the same source material with some nods to the animated film. They fixed the parts of the animated film that made me cringe -- mostly the fact that the girls (Wendy, Tink and Tiger Lily) worked together and became friends instead of all the female characters getting catty with jealousy over Peter. I thought that the changes they made to Peter and Hook's backstory were interesting.

It was also interesting that they changed it from Wendy resisting moving out of the nursery to Wendy resisting going to boarding school. It's always struck me as odd that a preteen/early teen girl old enough to be interested in boys would be horrified at the idea of getting a room of her own. It makes more sense for her to be unhappy with the idea of having to go to boarding school.

And it's fun that they let Alan Tudyk appear in live action in a Disney movie after he's done so many voices (though funny that a Texan plays British so often).

But a thought crossed my mind during a quick shot of mermaids (who didn't really do anything in the movie) that they missed a chance on OUAT to play with crossovers by mashing up The Little Mermaid with Peter Pan and really make Ariel one of the Neverland mermaids. Ariel did appear in Neverland, but because Regina called her there. She wasn't originally part of Neverland. Without any of the elements that make Neverland fun in the Peter Pan stories, the Once Neverland was pretty blah, so having mermaids around might have livened things up a bit.