The Princess Blog

The spring and summer of 2026 are looking to be an exciting time for princess fans after a dearth of content for the last few years. Many familiar stories are returning to the small screen, from fairy tales to fairies to mermaids . This year will see the return of two famous Rainbow sPa properties, a beloved Disney Jr. princess with a magic amulet, and a modern anime retelling of a classic Hans Christian Andersen story. After a slow winter, our favorite princesses are making a comeback in full force over the next few months. Goodbye, Lara  is by far the most unique of the upcoming princess shows this year. Though it shares many of the same properties as other modern anime series , it is based on the timeless story of "The Little Mermaid."  Japan loves this Hans Christian Andersen classic and rivals Western media in terms of adaptations inspired by it, including a more faithful animated movie that predates Disney's. The premise of Goodbye, Lara combines the classic tal...

I was in the mood for something hopeful recently, so I took a dive back into the Hope Ever After  multi-author series of fairy tale retellings. A Crowned Hope  by Kayla Eshbaugh is the sixth book I've read from this series, and I don't even think I've covered half of them yet. This book is a sweet retelling of The Prince(ss) and the Pauper  with cozy romantic vibes. Although the book has a villain, he is a minor part of the story and only appears in a few scenes. Overall, it is a pleasant escape from reality with a humble protagonist who is loved by many people. Keira is a peasant girl who owes money on her cottage to a greedy noble named Lord Roth, who threatens to force her to marry him if she can't pay it off. She just happens to be good friends with Princess Anna and shares a strong enough resemblance to her. Because of Anna's trauma over a recent lost love, she asks Keira to impersonate her to deter the affections of a foreign prince who has come to court her....

While princesses return to their storybook roots  and Hollywood goes on strike , one highly anticipated movie that encapsulates the face of pop culture today is hitting theaters: Barbie . One of the many things that sets this live-action adaptation of a previously animated property and toy line  apart from Disney's endless onslaught of live-action remakes is that this film is an original story that only uses the familiarity of its brand as a selling point. It isn't entirely original since similar concepts were used in Disney's 2007  Enchanted  and the 2000 made-for-TV movie,  Life-Size  that Tyra Banks as a living doll, but this is the first time that Barbie has ever been portrayed in the real world. Her many animated films and series, which are directed toward younger audiences, feature her living in a fantasy version of Malibu with her sisters or reenacting classic fairy tales, ballets, and other popular stories. This movie depicts Barbie learning about...

It seems like every time someone wants to make a low-budget fairy tale movie, their first thought is to come up with a new take on "Cinderella."  One might think that after the extremely poor reception of Happily N'Ever After , this idea would have lost some traction. Yet, it seems that is not the case. Cinderella and the Secret Prince  is a novel take on the classic tale that managed to escape my notice when it was released in 2018. Produced by a humble animation studio called Gold Valley Films , which only has four movies under its belt, I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt like I did with Charming , another low-budget fairy tale film that came out around the same time. I discovered  Cinderella and the Secret Prince  on Plex , a free streaming service with a number of obscure shows and movies. Though I wasn't expecting much, I found it surprisingly charming. It is very reminiscent of the Barbie movies from the early 2000s  that take classic fairy ...

Barbie: Mermaid Power  is a direct sequel to two of the four Barbie movies from the new generation, Dolphin Magic  and Big City Dreams . For full disclosure, I have not seen Big City Dreams  or Barbie and Chelsea: The Lost Birthday , which came out before it. I also haven't seen Dolphin Magic  in five years, so my memory of it is patchy. Like most people from my generation, I am a bigger fan of the Barbie movies from the early to mid-2000s , which focused primarily on fairy tales and roleplay. However, since this one had mermaids in it, I had to check it out since I quite enjoyed the Mermaid Tale  films . Since the Barbie movies have moved to Netflix, their runtimes have gotten shorter. Both Mermaid Power  and Princess Adventure  come in at a little over an hour, but Mermaid Power  does a lot more to fill that time. The plot is similar to Avatar: The Last Airbender , only with mermaids. Due to a natural phenomenon that occurs once every hundred ye...

As  Disney Princess - The Concert continues its national tour, there are smaller venues making their own special magic across the nation. I was pleased to learn via Facebook  that my new castle  is located within driving distance of one such venue.  Cedar Park High School  is performing a show called  Princess Tea  this weekend, which they have apparently been doing for the past fifteen years . What a magical tradition! The show features high school choir students performing as various princesses, princes, and sidekicks from animated movies that are not entirely limited to Disney. This year's cast included Cinderella, Ariel, Belle, Megara, Rapunzel, Anna, Elsa, Anastasia, and Fiona on the girls' side and Prince Charming, Jaq, Gus, Flounder, Prince Adam (the unofficial fan name for the transformed version of the Beast), Flynn Rider, Dimitri, Donkey, and Olaf for the boys. Considering that this was a local show, I was extremely impressed with the p...

Tangled  wasn't the first movie to feature a mistreated girl who learned she was a princess, but it was the first to popularize the "lost princess" archetype. Why is this trope so appealing throughout so many recent books and films? Secretly being a princess is a fantasy that many little girls have when they're growing up, especially when they face difficult times. This popular story narrative gives a literal interpretation Sara Crewe's philosophy from A Little Princess  that every girl is a princess even if they don't know it. One of the reasons this is such a common theme in princess stories is that it goes along with one of the seven basic plot archetypes , the "Rags to Riches" trope. In the past, that trope was used more often for stories based on  "Cinderella,"  but the "lost princess" trope has become more common in modern media due to the lack of dependency on a man that the "Cinderella" trope  requires. The first...

Princess Barbie is back with a modern new makeover. Barbie Princess Adventure  premiered on Netflix today, and it made me miss the old Barbie more than ever. This musical princess adventure played like an extended episode of the Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures  series rather than a remake of the fantastic Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper  movie from 2004. If anything, it was an animated version of Netflix's The Princess Switch  from 2018 with songs inspired by Disney's 2006 High School Musical . It was more modern than Barbie's 2012 princess doppleganger remake, The Princess and the Popstar , speaking to a new generation of girls who grew up surrounded by technology and social media . I understand that I am far from the target age group for this movie, but I feel like movies set in modern times will inevitably feel dated over time, whereas those set in an era long past like The Princess and the Pauper  come off as classic and timeless. Barbie Princess Advent...

After much speculation and delay , three princess movies that once had uncertain futures are now officially coming to streaming services next month. Two will be on Disney+ , and the third will stream on Netflix. We now have confirmed release dates for these movies with new trailers and previews released for all three within the last week to build up excitement for the next month. The traditional November of princess events and releases  probably won't happen this year , so September is going to the final frontier of princess movies for 2020. With the current stigma against going outside, streaming services will become the primary medium for all our princess content, at least for a while. Of the three princess movies coming out next month, none has suffered more with its release than the  live-action remake of Mulan . Disney desperately wanted this to be a theatrical release, which is clear from the fact that they delayed it three times before ultimately deciding to make it an...

After months of speculation about whether the next Barbie movie  was undergoing the same virus-related delays as other upcoming princess titles , a new preview  went up on YouTube this past Sunday revealing that Barbie Princess Adventure will drop on Netflix on September 1st. The teaser also revealed a first look at some footage from the movie, which is set in the world of Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures  and features Barbie and her friends Nikki, Daisy, Renee, and Teresa getting in on all the princess action. It is a rather odd setting for a  Princess and the Pauper  remake since there aren't that many princesses around today, but I suppose that's where the fantasy elements come into play. What disappointed me the most about the teaser was the complete lack of "new music" they teased in it. However, there have been some leaks of the original soundtrack, which I would describe as poppy and generic. Barbie Princess Adventure  is being prom...

It's been almost three years since the last Barbie movie dropped on Netflix. Since then, it appeared as though she retired from her fairy tale princess days  in favor of the  Dreamhouse Adventures series , which also premiered on Netflix shortly after Dolphin Magic . This was a big disappointment to those of us who loved Barbie's magical and sometimes musical masterpieces that came out two to three times a year between 2001 and 2017. Seeing Barbie hanging out with her sisters in modern-day Malibu in Dreamhouse Adventures isn't nearly as interesting or exciting as discovering an enchanted realm, saving the world, or switching places with a princess. That's why I was elated to learn that she would release a 72-minute feature this year called Princess Adventure . Is Princess Barbie back? Barbie discovers what it means to be a modern princess in this full-length, original musical when she switches places with her royal doppelganger. Barbie helps a young monarch find...

The first teaser trailer for Pixar's Onward  dropped a few days ago, and it got me thinking. Onward  has a typical fantasy setting of mermaids , faeries , and unicorns , but instead of taking place once upon a time, it takes place during our  time. Therefore, these mythological beings whose ancestors lived in the days of magic and adventure now live in your average suburban neighborhood watching TV and surfing the internet. The combination of magic and technology is not entirely new. Series like Mysticons and Winx Club  also take place in modern settings, and the characters are shown to take advantage of computers and technology just as much as we do. However, most princess stories are set in the medieval or Renaissance era, long before such things were heard of. Sometimes it's fun to imagine how they might behave if they were brought up with access to all of the modern conveniences we have today. The first time I saw a traditional princess use modern technolog...

Season's Greetings, princess fans! I hope you're all having a lovely holiday season this Christmas Eve  no matter what you may celebrate . The most common princess story that takes place during this time of year is that of "The Nutcracker." Since it is so time appropriate, Disney has just released the first trailer  for their upcoming live-action movie  based on the tale, even though the movie itself isn't coming out for almost a year, with a release date of November 2, 2018. This trailer marks the first live-action movie that Disney had released in quite some time that isn't based off a previously animated film by them. They make this glaringly obvious by featuring logos of some of their more recent live-action remakes in the trailer itself. This is a significant revelation because it shows that they are taking the live-action medium more seriously for future original fairy tale movies that are not remakes. In some ways, this is sad because it does mitigate...