Walt Disney Pictures will release its 50th fully-animated feature, Tangled, this November and unlike last year’s The Princess & The Frog this new princess tale will be computer-generated and in 3D.
The new “Creating the look” featurette for Tangled reveals that it was fashioned after classic Disney fare like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, in the hopes of producing a film with its own unique visual style. The results can be viewed in the first trailer and movie poster (see below).
Here is the official Tangled plot synopsis, for those that are curious:
When the kingdom’s most wanted – and most charming – bandit Flynn Rider (voice of Zachary Levi) hides out in a mysterious tower, he’s taken hostage by Rapunzel (voice of Mandy Moore), a beautiful and feisty tower-bound teen with 70 feet of magical, golden hair. Flynn’s curious captor, who’s looking for her ticket out of the tower where she’s been locked away for years, strikes a deal with the handsome thief and the unlikely duo sets off on an action-packed escapade, complete with a super-cop horse, an over-protective chameleon and a gruff gang of pub thugs.
There are some lovely, hand-drawn storyboards and pieces of conceptual art on display in this new featurette. The painterly look of the animation in Tangled was based on the work “The Swing,” by French Rococo artist Jean-Honore Fragonard, so that certainly bodes well for the film.
Check out the behind-the-scenes clip and movie poster below:
I was not exactly blown away by the Tangled teaser trailer, with its overemphasis on tired physical comedy gags and the attempt to look like a hip fairy tale in the vein of the original Shrek. Hopefully the final product will be more inventive and inspired than that.
This has been an overall solid year for animation so far with likes of How To Train Your Dragon, Toy Story 3, and Despicable Me all becoming both critical and financial hits in their own right. We shall wait and see if Tangled can end 2010 on a similar high note.
Tangled will arrive in regular and 3D theaters in the U.S. on November 24th, 2010.
Source: Walt Disney Pictures (via Yahoo! Movies and /Film)
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The artists at Disney are the best. I saw some of the original artwork for Toy Story 3 when I went to Orlando and was so impressive. John Lasseter deserved his spot as Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering.
I get the strange feeling this feature is a giant promo for people to drop cash at Disney theme parks… oh, wait a minute… that’s what they all do. Don’t get me wrong, as a former art/animation school slacker Disney has done great stuff. I just can’t help thinking the behemoth of today is far removed from its’ origins.