Last month I looked at the Miramax cut of the movie The Thief and the Cobbler, I called it a poor attempt to ape Disney movies and an insulting re-edit of what could have been an incredible movie. Well, it got me to thinking about other movies of that caliber, movies that are obvious attempts at aping Disney while not being as good. You know these movies, the not exactly mockbuster but still obviously some level of knock off. Honestly, I probably have less of a respect for these kind of movies than genuine mockbusters, because mockbusters at the very least don't pollute the theatre with their undiluted awfulness. Still, these films were done by big studios, with pretty good budgets and were theatrically released, so they have a bit more of a leg to stand on than a movie like "A Car's Life" or "What's Up: Balloon to the Rescue", but still, these movies were ripping off Disney, and it isn't a coincidence that these movies were coming out in the nineties, when Disney was having it's renaissance. 1994 especially was not a good year to try this stunt because Disney would end up releasing the biggest animated movie of that decade, a little movie called The Lion King.
Getting back on topic, I was curious to check out other films of this variety, and one movie just got me interested, The Swan Princess. Why? Because I have my copies of Quest for Camelot and Anastasia in other places so this was the one I had on my shelf, so I decided to put it in and... I'm gonna be honest I kind of forgotten the movie already. I'm literally writing this just after having seen it and I'm struggling to remember anything about it.
Okay so, what is the plot? Well, this movie is loosely based on the Swan Lake ballet, which I've never seen. I'm not exactly a regular of stage productions, and my city doesn't really seem to have a lot in the way of theatre as far as I know. So, barring the ballet, the film focuses on Prince Derek, and Princess Odette. After Odette gets kidnapped by the evil sorcerer Rothbart... yes, Rothbart, seriously I come up with better names for my characters, Derek goes to prove his love and rescue her. But, she is cursed to turn into a swan, until the moonlight hits the lake she lives on and she'll turn into a human once again for a brief time. Then there is Rothbart's plan to get Derek to confess his love to the wrong princess, kill him and take over the kingdom and... you can tell I'm not giving this my A Game yes? Okay, real talk, plotwise the movie is fairly solid. I noticed no major plot holes or loops in logic, I guess the villain's plan could have been better explained, I mean, I get the whole "Get Derek to confess to the wrong princess" plan, but, how does it work? How does getting him to confess his love for a princess, to a woman disguised as said princess do anything? I mean, how about a throw-away line about him confessing to an impersonator, boom, and I'm not a screen writer.
I think the characters of this movie are... I mean they aren't bad, but they're very weak. Derek is your protagonist, he is not very interesting. Odette is kind of the same, after the first act, the movie just kind of forgets that she had any potential to be more than the princess character. Yes, she does things, but is she as good as say Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas? I shouldn't compare characters, but what happened to the Odette from the opening scene? The Odette that could outshine Derek in several areas? I kind of liked Rothbart, if only because he was kind of fun to watch. I didn't really care for the animal companions, and I think the only character I really liked was the valet character Rogers, I like dry sarcasm, I think it comes from watching British sitcoms like Blackadder and Red Dwarf. Over all, characters get a thumbs down from me.
But honestly, neither of those are what make this film bad, at the very least I'd rate this film a "Slight Recommendation" because I could see someone getting into the movie, but the one thing that took me out of the experience was the editing. The movie's editing was atrocious, some cuts were way too quick and there was one bit of pacing in particular that cemented the editing as what kills this movie. The scene where Derek meets Odette after having chased her down as a swan, they are so happy, and then in the blink of an eye it goes into "You can't stay" or "You have to leave" or whatever. They could not let the moment sink in before they had to move on to another moment. There is also a scene where one of the animals tries to pole vault over a moat, and it looks like some shots were missing there.
It is a shame because, just like with The Thief and the Cobbler, the animation isn't bad, okay it isn't as good as The Thief and the Cobbler, but it isn't terrible. It looks nice and has a nice colour palette, I noticed very few animation errors, one caught my eye but I'd have to watch the movie again to be really sure about it. I think my biggest issue with the animation is the moments where it looks too much like a Disney movie, even then the scenes still looked nice enough I could forgive someone overlooking it.
And since this is an animated movie for kids from the nineties... I'm gonna be honest the songs in this movie mostly suck. The opening song isn't bad, but it's not the best written song in the world. It's cute, and I could get behind it. The villain's song would have been fine if Rothbart's singing voice wasn't completely terrible, and the rest of the songs... God I can't even remember them. That is a big problem with this movie, it is just so forgettable. I saw it, and now I'm having trouble remembering exactly what was in the movie, quite frankly I don't even know how valid my criticisms are because this movie was just so forgettable.
The Swan Princess is a simple and mediocre Disney-Lite outing that is about as memorable as walking down the street and seeing nothing, and I have some great stories about weird things that happened while I was out walking. The songs are bland, the characters aren't anything special and the editing kills this movie like a Mortal Kombat fatality. I guess I could see some young children enjoying this movie, but if it were up to me I'd show them anything else instead, The Lion King, The Secret of NIMH, The Land Before Time, The Nightmare Before Christmas, heck, even The Thief and the Cobbler. That all being said, I don't think this movie is worth avoiding, it's not offensively awful or an insult to the medium I hold dear to my heart, it's just a bland and forgettable movie. So, I don't recommend it, but not to the level of avoiding it.
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