The Magic is Back!

So I saw The Princess and The Frog last weekend. What a movie! Drama, suspense, romance, angst, horror... this one's got it all! P&tF was definately worth the 5 year wait for Disney's return to traditional 2D animation.

The backgrounds were gorgeous, the animation was flawless, the whole color palette of the movie was just beautiful. The costumes were amazing, the voice acting was great, the music was astounding! There were these three little girls sitting two rows ahead of us and they actually got up and danced whenever a song came on! Randy Newman hit it big with this score! And the writing was just amazing. There's a very important lesson to be learned from this movie. And of course, it's a love story within a love story!

The thing I never liked about the different versions of this story was that the characters never learned anything. In the Grimms Brothers' "The Frong King," the princess is a spoiled little brat who is horrible to the frog and in the end gets to marry the king without learning anything or going through any kind of transformation of her own. Sadly, the same is true in many Mother Goose versions of the fairytale, as this is the one that those are likely based on. In "The Frog Princess," by Alexander Afanasev, it's the woman who is under a spell and the prince who is a spoiled, selfish brat.

Thankfully, Disney has done the classic story justice as each and every character, from the two main heroes to the dastardly villian, to the spoiled friend and cute animal sidekicks, learns an important lesson about the difference between what they want and what they need. The journey to this realization takes place through such emotional songs as "Almost There," "Dig a Little Deeper," "Ma Belle Evangeline," etc.

The whole movie, from beginning to end, is absolutely beautiful. The ending, however, is perhaps the most beautiful of all fairytale endings where everything is just as it's meant to be, but in a way that's the complete opposite of what the viewer (and the characters) would expect. What an inspiring film!

More Toy Story Accessories

Just because there aren't enough Toy Story accessories out there! I made this out of pajamas. The bag part is the shirt and the handle is the pants. Or was. I wrote "There's a snake in my boot!" on the back in orange, but it wouldn't come clear in a picture.