The Princess Blog

I have never been a fan of the Descendants franchise , which was originally created by Disney to take down Mattel's semi-successful Ever After High line of dolls, books , and webisodes. It succeeded in this endeavor thanks to  Disney brand recognition  despite being an inferior product. Coming out nearly a decade after the original , we have a fourth Descendants movie entitled The Rise of Red . This movie introduces a new generation of fairy tale offspring with countless changes to the classic stories, most of which are for the worse. Its only redeeming factor was a heartfelt tribute to Cameron Boyce , who played the son of Cruella de Vil in the original films. The Descendants franchise had very little working in its favor from the start, but it at least had a leg up over The School for Good and Evil  by basing the backstories of the Disney characters on their films instead of superimposing an artificial school setting where they learned to be heroes and villains. T...

The princess movies of 2024 are few and far between , but there are still a few to look forward to. While it may not be the original princess story we were hoping for, Disney announced Moana 2 earlier this year along with a brief teaser. The full trailer that launched today does not give much more information about the film's plot, but it does reveal a bit more footage. Following the concept for a cancelled TV series, Moana 2 sees Moana reuniting with some old friends for a new adventure at sea. The movie is set for Disney's usual princess movie release date of Thanksgiving weekend , marking it as one of their biggest blockbusters planned for the year. The fact that they gave such a prestigious date to a sequel is somewhat disheartening but may imply a higher quality film than the Disney sequels of old . The trailer portrays an aged-up Moana joining together with a new crew of Wayfinders to take on her biggest foe yet--an enormous whale covered in magical glowing symbols...

It's been a while since I've shared anything new from PattyCake Productions . Using state-of-the-art costume designs, visual effects, and professional actors, this group excels at recreating characters and scenes from classic Disney movies and putting their own spin on them. Their latest series showcases the evolution of various Disney characters through remakes , TV specials , and numerous other sources beginning Cinderella in a video that released on YouTube today called "If the Shoe Fits: The Evolution of Cinderella."  The video features all five of Disney's Cinderella properties including the original 1950 animation , the 2015 remake , the 1997 Rodgers and Hammerstein adaptation featuring Brandy , the 2014 Disney adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods , and the version of Cinderella that was portrayed in ABC's Once Upon a Time . PattyCake has done it again! This music video was absolutely magical and exceeded all of my expectations. It takes...

There is no fairy tale that has been retold as many times as "Cinderella."  With a new jukebox musical on Amazon Prime  and West End stage show from Andrew Lloyd Webber , the story has no shortage of modern-day retellings. That's why I couldn't bring myself to get excited when I heard that Jennifer Lopez is developing a limited series  based on Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella  with Skydance Television  and Concord Originals . This version alone has had three made-for television films and a 2013 Broadway revival starring Broadway Princess Party 's Laura Osnes . Can you blame me for not feeling at least a little skeptical of yet another version of this rags-to-riches classic that the media has shoved down our throats for years? What's even more concerning about the announcement is that it is not another feature-length film, but instead a limited series with multiple episodes written by Rachel Shukert , who worked on Netflix series GLOW and The Baby-Sit...

It's hard to get excited about something as cringe-worthy as Descendants , which premiered on Disney Channel in 2015 as a blatant ripoff of Mattel's Ever After High . It was followed up with an even more cringe-worthy sequel in 2017 that barely had any semblance of a plot. These movies seemed like an easy cash-grab to show off the singing and dancing talents of various Disney Channel teens by turning them into rebellious offspring of classic animated Disney characters  who jump around in leather '90s grunge and brightly colored hair. They focused mainly on the villains' kids, with the cliché message that you shouldn't judge people by first impressions. That's all well and good, but there weren't many royal children to demonstrate that princesses aren't always sugar sweet either. The only token princess to fill this role was Audrey, the daughter of Princess Aurora from Disney's  Sleeping Beauty . Instead of being polite and loving, Audrey comes off...

With all the controversy over Halle Bailey getting cast as Ariel , I wondered why nobody made such a big deal out of all other times Disney race-bent a fairy tale princess. This is not intended to be  another post about why we should support Halle  but instead an analysis of all the other times this happened in a Disney production. This is such a hot button issue right now that people are talking about it when they don't even have all the facts. ABC's The View aired an episode in which Whoopi Goldberg claimed that Halle was voicing the character for an animated production, and other people are making videos where they claim that Ariel isn't a princess  or that she had green skin in the original fairy tale . Let's take a moment to get our facts straight while we explore how this is something that Disney has been doing for over 20 years. Cinderella - 1997 This is the one that people remember the most fondly, and for good reason. Whitney Houston 's passion pro...