The Princess Blog

The twelfth and final installment in The Swan Princess franchise was aptly titled Far Longer Than Forever  in tribute to the romance theme from the original film . As some fans have pointed out, the title accurately represents how long the filmmakers have been milking the series  for almost 30 years with one awful sequel after another. Some of the later sequels had potential , but this movie did not do them any favors as a finale. Written as a direct follow-up to A FairyTale Is Born , the eleventh film in the series,  Far Longer Than Forever  ties up some loose ends after a tedious and forgettable journey that fails to acknowledge many characters and plot points that had been introduced over the course of the other eleven movies. Despite the obvious nod to the famous song that this latest installment uses as its title,  A FairyTale Is Born  seemed more suitable as a conclusion because it contained more tributes to the original film. Far Longer Than F...

Promoted on Sony's website as "Part One of the thrilling conclusion to the Swan Princess series," The Swan Princess: A FairyTale Is Born  marks the 11th film in the franchise  since The Swan Princess  came out in 1994, meaning it is expected to end with a total of 12 movies. That's still not as many as The Land Before Time , but it's close! With all the experience that Richard Rich and his team have making Swan Princess films, they had plenty of time to hone their skills with animation and plot development, which is why the last few movies have not been as nightmarish as some of the earlier CGI ones . This movie serves as a nice homage to its roots as a partial prequel that ties up any loose ends long-time fans of the series may have had about Queen Uberta's origins and the absence of Odette's mother and Derek's father along with some nostalgic orchestrations of memorable songs from the original film. Do you ever get the feeling that you've jus...

The Swan Princess  has released yet another sequel  in their never-ending franchise . Fortunately, the last one  was such an unfathomable disaster that the story had nowhere to go but up. I was pleased to find that Kingdom of Music  was an improvement over the last few CGI direct-to-DVD sequels. This is in part thanks to its throwbacks to the original "Swan Lake" inspired story  as well as cultural diversity, which is trending right now in the world of fairy tale princesses , and the coming of age for Alise, Odette and Derek's adopted daughter. Actually, I think they could have generated more interest among the Swan Princess  crowd if they had made her grow into a teenager a bit earlier, since that is the classic age for fairy tale princesses. They decided to go the Sofia the First route instead by making her an ordinary little girl who falls into royalty without the obstacle of romance getting in the way. However, Lucas, the orphan boy Alise met in Pri...

If you didn't know that there was another Swan Princess sequel released yesterday, you are a very fortunate person indeed. The Swan Princess: A Royal MyZtery  (yes, that's the actual title) marks what I believe is the eighth movie featuring the characters from Richard Rich 's 1994 classic, The Swan Princess . It was no mistake that I left "The Swan Princess" portion out of the title of my blog post, as these movies are so far and away from what was once an adaptation of the "Swan Lake" ballet that they may as well be on another plane of existence entirely. All of the CGI sequels that started with The Swan Princess Christmas  in 2012 have been pretty terrible, but this one might just be the worst yet. Don't worry, though. I went ahead and watched this abomination so you don't have to. Below the image is a description of all the most cringe-worthy things that happened in the movie and why it is objectively terrible and should never have been ma...

It's a well-known fact that most princess stories end with "happily ever after," which is why it makes little sense to follow them up with a sequel. Disney started the sequel craze in 1994 when they created The Return of Jafar  as a direct-to-video release to kick off the Aladdin animated series. The Return of Jafar  took only a couple of months to produce, unlike most theatrical animated films which take years. Since Disney profited from it more than they expected to, Michael Eisner, the CEO at the time, thought it would be a good idea to make more direct-to-video sequels because they were so cheap and easy. Other copycat animation studios quickly followed in their footsteps. As the first of its kind,  The Return of Jafar  is one of the most cringe-worthy sequels of the "cheapquel" era. It focuses mainly on the irritating Iago, causing the other beloved characters to take a backseat. The movie's only romance song, "Forget About Love," is...