The Princess and the Frog
 

Disney's upcoming 2D animated movie:

http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/07/30/...easer-trailer/

Yes! Finally back to Traditional. I love her facial expressions, she reminds me a bit, facially, of nani from Lilo and Stitch.
Haha not sure about that toothless firefly though? Kinda poking at that southern stereotype thing again. I am surprised he didn't have a banjo
It's looks cute though, "How about a handshake" :lol:

Was that Jim Cummings as the firefly?

Anyhow, the animation looked great. The frog's expressions alone screamed good old fashioned classic Disney.

Looking forward to this as much now as I was before.

Think it looks cute.

Love that it's 2D animated (really miss that), like the new princess, and am thrilled to see that Jim Cummings is in it (he's my favorite voice actor, followed by Rob Paulsen and Billy West).

I've been watching this movie develop for the last couple years.. Should be interesting. The first American princess for Disney...and the first African princess too. It's set in 1920's New Orleans.

I kinda liked it better when her name was Maddy tho instead of Tiana. Ah well.

The cast is:
Anika Noni Rose - Princess Tiana (The 19-year-old heroine.)
Jennifer Cody - Charlotte La Bouff (An 18-year-old spoiled, southern debutante and diva)
Keith David - Dr. Facilier (A Voodoo magician/fortune teller. The villain of the movie)
Jenifer Lewis - Mama Odie (A 200-year-old Voodoo priestess/fairy Godmother)
Jim Cummings - Ray (Love sick firefly)
Michael-Leon Wooley - Louis (Jazz singer alligator. Comic, manic, high-strung. Has a trumpet.)
Bruno Campos - Prince Naveen (A gregarious, fun-loving Prince who comes to the French Quarter for the Jazz scene, in his early twenties. A young Cary Grant type.)
Peter Bartlett - Lawrence (Prince Naveen's pompous valet.)
John Goodman - Eli "Big Daddy" La Bouff (Charlotte's dad. Rich and owns a Sugar mill)
Angela Bassett - Eudora (Tiana's mother)

Randy Newman's of course doing the music.

Oh man I can't WAIT to see this movie. :D It's so awsome to see a good traditional Disney animated movie again. Extra points for Jim Cummings being in it. (he's one of my fav voice actors ;))

Then u should be happy that Jim Cummings will soon be heard as the voice of King Triton in the Little Mermaid III (out Aug 26th) :P

I wouldn't doubt it. The guy spent a lot of his life in Lousiana... he was in a lot of Mardis Gras parades... so of course he would have a wonderful cajiun accent... like he did when he played Leatherhead.

Anyway, the film looks okay. Not too much to go on. But this is such a highly anticipated film. Look at how they wound up screwing up 2-D for the longest time. They even planned it so Brother Bear and Home on the Range were their last 2-D films. And the only reason they had their own CGI studio at the time was because they didn't think they'd wind up buying Pixar. I mean, Chicken Little was a sweet little film, but their others have been misses. I REALLY hated Dinosaur.

It's nice to see a traditionally animated movie again, but I'm not really feeling this so far. I mean I like Disney movies, but I'm a little disappointed by this being yet another formulaic looking princessy flick. I thought the old princess design was also more fitting for the theme and time-period, so why did they change it? She went from a cool mature looking African-American jazz-era woman to a racially ambiguous Hispanic-Caucasian-Asian-African teenage girl.

But who am I kidding? I'll go see it anyway cause it's 2D animated and I feel the need to support it. I just hope the next trailer can win my heart over for real.

Win. It's about damn time he voiced a Disney villain.

Hey, it was a nice formula, until they added Pocahauntus to the list and started making it predictable. Critics were all over Disney for making princess movies, but as soon as they made something different, they were criticized for not doing princess films. And it really was a double edged sword.

Another thing I'd like to add... of course it took them so long to do an African American princess film. All the fairy tales that people have known and love are from Europe and the middle ages to the 1800's. The hub of whiteness.

I'm surprised they didn't do another African tale, similar to the Lion King, but with a more human cast.

thankyou we are finnally getting back on tract with the decent animation in Disney instead of all this ugly computer animated crap. This looked really good, I hope since this is hand drawn that they can reclaim the glory and nostalgia of Disney's past master pieces of hand drawn movies.

And I think that sistah looks really pretty. About time they had a black herion in the disney line-up.

Man, I wish Masked Ninja was around to comment on this. I know they Love the good 2-D animation as much as I do... :D

Maybe this movie'll be a good sign for Disney to realize that people want the traditional art. Anyone can mess around with a computer. It takes REAL skill to animate by hand..

This story kinda hints of Cinderella. She's not the 'traditional' princess like Jasmine or Snow White, but more like how Belle became a 'princess' by marriage. I kinda thought they would do an African location as well, but I'm sure New Orleans will like the bit of attentions...

*that frog SO reminds me of my dad...*

Oh my gosh, it's Jean Bob from the Swan Princess! :D

hehe

This looks great. In a computer era I'm so glad they're going back to their roots of hand drawn!

Especially with random third parties oversaturizing the market with generic fodder like Fly me to the Moon and Space Chimps.

Still disappointed we didn;t get any way shape and form of Asterix and the Vikings... not even on DVD... considering they used an American voice cast, and aired it at an American film festilval. I saw various trailers... the animation was beautiful. Ditto the Lucky Luck movie from France.

I'm looking forward to this.

I am realy excited about this. It's been eons since I've seen a traditionally drawn movie up on the big screen. The trailer was pretty cute as well ('til the firefly turned up. Damn that thing annoyed me). Hopefully Disney will keep the traditional 2D animation medium alive after the release of this one. :)

wasn't there a diffrent design for the african princess than the one they have here? I've been seeing alot of debate about how the orgins of the princess has changed to that of a society girl from a supposed chamber maid named Maddie.

:roll:

Leave it to my people to making a racist thing out of all this.

Yeah. She was originally a chamber maid named Maddie.

This is her original look (I took the picture from when the original article aired in 07 and kept it)

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y72/Dierna/Maddie.jpg

And now this is Princess Tiana:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...gprincess2.jpg

From wikipedia:
WTF??? A chambermaid is an occupation some felt not in keeping with the image of a Disney Princess?! Um... Cinderella anyone?!

As for the name Maddie....how is that a stereotypical black name??? WTF?! I have never heard of any black person with that name!! Maddie is short for Madeline. You know.. Madeline Albright, Madeline Pryor, Madeline the little French orphan... :ohwell:

personaly I like the design on Tiana, her look is more smooth and refined, like most of Disney's 2D artwork. The Maddie one looks more simplistic and stylised and I'm sick of seeing "cutting corners" 2D animation. Though I do like Maddie's hair jewelry.

I'm just sick of the bickering. Disney finnally gets a fellow sistah as a herion and my people start bitching that they gave her a slave name like Maddie and made her and oppressed African American woman by making her a chamber maid and how racist it was. Now their complaining that they made her a priness with a white girls name as princess that barely looks African American, and that Disney's new portrayal is racist because taking out all the African aspects about the herion and that they are afraid to tackle a true African american style princess. And that with all the changes she may as well be white instead of black, so their racist.

I'm getting sick of it, sometimes my people really make it hard to for black people to be involved with anything because they let that chip on their shoulder dictate every thing and suddenly nothing is good enough.

Sorry about the rant people. :(

Didn't this take place in New Orleans? What is she a princess of? o_O

Have you never seen My Super Sweet 16? North America has lots of princesses.

That show does not exist.

Don't worry about it, hun... that's what the thread's here for - opinions and commentary. ;)


As for the first picture of 'Maddie', the dress and hair looks very time-appropriate for how people dressed back then, with the whole 'flapper' look and everything:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebit...images/20s.jpg

Flapper info

It'd be kinda neat if they keep close to the flapper look and it comes back into fashion... 8)

The location and time of the story kinda boggles me - New Orleans isn't your usual 'princess' location. Though I'd never be sure if there'd be an uproar if it took place in Nigeria or something...


The 'Tiana' look is more of the usual 'fairy princess' style that Most of the Disney princesses have (except for Pocahontas, Mulan maybe..?) Very simple, very pretty. I really hope we get some more sneak peeks soon... *loves 2-D animation*

Yeah. Takes place in 1920's New Orleans.

She's the Princess of um er umm....probably a disposed princess sent to live in America for her safety or something. Would explain why she just has a mother and not a father. Course that's a first for a Disney princess. Her mother is alive....ok so Sleeping Beauty's mom was alive too but she's the only one with BOTH parents alive. *thinks* Unless you count Ariel's daughter...she's a princess with both parents alive....

Im surprised people aren't complaining about the name of the Prince. His name was originally Harry but now it's Naveen.

Why would anyone complain about that? They probably changed it to avoid references to the actual Prince Harry.

Probably. You know how anal some people get about small things like that nowadays. *sighs*

I agree, but to be honest I rather like both of them, I would have been fine with eigther. But like some one else said on here I think the first version looks too simplistic and the current final version looks of better quality and more fluid.

you know what I think is funny about the first version and the second version of the princess? The newer Princess looks like if she let her hair down and put on the same head jewelery as the first pic, she would just about the same. The features on both seem about the same so I still don't get all the bitching. :-?

Hey, this is America. We're the head up our butts being politically correct country. We have to make sure we don't offend one person or we'll get one letter. And one letter equals elevinty billion angry people.

So the complaint is that she was too black. then they took the black out of her so it wouldn't seem racist, and it's just as racist? This is why I hate Anti-defamation leagues. Now, listen, I am not racist. I hate everyone reguardless of nationality, and all humans are equally inferior (Yeah, I watch too many cartoons about evil aliens)... but it seems to me these special interrest groups are so weak and lazy, they go after an entertainment company, whine and whine until they get their way, and have an inferior shoddy product. Yet, they let major social injustices slide under their noses, since it would require EFFORT to change.

I guess it's just easier for a company like Disney to fold to avoid bad publicity than to try to stomp out ACTUAL hatred and negative attitudes from hate groups...

Hey, remember that movie Song of the South?

Of course you don't. That movie doesn't exist. DOESN'T EXIST! So sayeth The Disney!!

Hey, a happy go lucky slave is about as tolerant as Walt ever got! :tcouch:

I really don't give a damn what they do. Since Ron Clements and John Musker are directing, they already sold my ticket.

Song of the south? I think I used to have a picture book about that when I was little. I barely remember it though, can some one refresh my memory on what that was about? My mom has always been big on black pride and I remember her taking my picture book and tape cassette that read it to me, and throwing them out. I remember how I cried when she threw them out right in front of me. :cry: I heard a rumour about it being briefly considered of running Song of the South as a short before the the actual movie when the Princess and the Frog debuted in theaters but it was scrapped, because they didn't want to make the associat the new movie with something as racist as Song of the South.

I find it hillarious that people still snarf and snort at that film at Disney, yet they totally ignore the fact their movies stared white folk only for the longest time. I'm talking the live ation ones in the 50's...

Somehow this reminds me of the story of Ralph Bakshi's film "Harlem Nights" (which had a different name). it was considered racist somehow, but they employed African American animators, while Disney was still highering only whites. Now, I'm not sure how true this story is, but seems to me, one group was intentionally hurting someone, and it wasn't Ralph...

Heck, how is Song of the South more racist than Dumbo (the jive talking crows) or even Peter Pan (the totally stereotypical Native American caricatures). If we're gonna go crazy and throw out one Disney movie because it's racist, then a lot of others would have to be cut or removed entirely also.

That "what made the Red man Red" thing made me red... such an embarassment. And they didn't alter it at all when they aired it on ABC 3 weeks ago. But they still somehow think that the only time Disney was being tolerant was more offensive than when he was being intollerant.

I really think they shouldn't turn it into a "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves" thing. Hey, they might as well recall every copy of Huckelberry Finn and rename him "Upstanding African American Person Jim." It's more racist to keep that locked up. We need these things to remember how intollerant everyone was. We need reminders of the time. And putting it the closet because a few 2 year olds might not understand?

Jeez... they treat the film as if it were a KKK recruitment film.

I think they let that fly because of the Pochahontas (I know I butchered that spelling) back in 95.

If you want to talk sterotypes how come Mulan doesn't get bashed. There is some asian sterotypes in there to, what with every one saying "**insert name** you dishonor meeeee" :roll:

Heck, racism didn't keep Columbia from releasing the old Batman serials...man those are funny because of their ridiculous racial stereotypes.

It's kinda like what Mel Brooks said about doing Springtime for Hitler in The Producers, what better way to disarm evil then by laughing at it...although to be fair those films weren't meant to be funny...but you can now, seeing as how much American society has changed (and how much it has sadly stayed the same.)