This was actually a complaint I had when I first read George Orwell’s, 1984. The book’s protagonist starts out already disavowing his loyalty to Big Brother, there’s no realization that the oppressive government is not the utopia it claims to be. Instead the story starts with Rapunzel already knowing her “caretaker” isn’t a good person and Rapunzel already has a desire to leave her captivity. As someone who has gone though something similar (see: religious evangelical cults started in the 1800s) I would have loved to break down the process of leaving the cult mindset and accepting truth. It would have been great to explore the crisis of faith that comes when this thing you’ve believed in your whole life suddenly turns out to be a lie.
I would have loved to see Rapunzel’s realization that her “mother” wasn’t as benevolent as she had made herself out to be. There is one main plot and two subplots, the main plot being “Rapunzel escaping her abusive mother” and the subplots being “The dragon Penelope trying to please her father whilst still maintaining her identity” and “The political feud between the kingdoms is growing worse”. Now that I know if any plagiarism happened it was on Disney’s end, I actually have a heightened respect for the writing.
Barbie as rapunzel 2002 movie#
Despite the fact that I knew this movie came out right on the cusp of the 2000s, I had to check to make sure I hadn’t been having a stoke when I’d learned that, because I could have sworn this plagiarized from the Disney Rapunzel film (the one that came out a decade later). That was a very nice touch considering the protagonist is an artist (also the horse’s name is Botticelli!). One thing I noticed was that bits and pieces sort of draw from Renaissance-era art which is actually the era this film takes place in. I’m all for stylized animation, but it can be jarring to see that design next to the literal Barbie doll playing the lead. There is something to be said about the strangely cartoonish design of Gothel, however. Rapunzel was obviously the star of the show (after all she is the doll they’re trying to sell), but the Kellys (the little girls) also looked nice and no one really looked bad. The scenery isn’t great, it looks more like an old video game than anything else, and the color palate didn’t work for me (Green, pink, and purple?), but the characters are nicely designed and the costumes were accurate-ish to the time period. The Animation: Overall, a step up! While it’s still obvious that CG animated feature films had only been around for 8 years at this point, the animation isn’t horrible. While it is by no means perfect, or even close to the best Barbie movie put there, it is refreshing to see that instead of abandoning this project after the lack of success that was their debut film, Mattel instead stepped up their game and showed us that these films are worth caring about.
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The creators put significantly more effort into this production than their previous one and it shows. Barbie as Rapunzel is a story of children finding self worth and independence, and thereby growing into confident, competent, adults.
My Initial Thoughts: I’m not sure what happened between the making of Barbie in the Nutcracker and this, but goddamn am I glad it did.
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