I find it odd that they’d focus so heavily on the guy when Rapunzel is the draw of the movie. She barely has a single line in a 2 minute trailer.

Not much else to say other than the little animal sidekick on the shoulder, which was so played to death that it’s still stale even though it hasn’t been used much in recent years.

At least after the better part of a decade worth of speculation we finally have some concrete to go on.

I wonder just how far the tone of this movie has been removed from Glen Keane’s beautiful classic fairy tale vision…

Not as bad as I thought it would be. As sacrilegious as it may sound I think the Rapunzel’s hair will be better CG then hand drawn. With the hair being so long and VERY useful seeing each individual strand will sell it better then just a clump of hair.

nice! marketing seems to be really down-playing the “princess” angle, but the movie itself seems really cool. This is a pretty good set-up for the story, seems to give it a lot more to work with than the original story might have. and The animation, as expected, is stellar. –also I love the design of that little chameleon she has with her.

horrible marketing aside, it actually does looks pretty good.

thank god they changed the name from Rapunzel! Now all the boys will watch it a dozen times each for sure! If anyone can market a princess movie to boys, it’s Disney! I don’t know how much they pay their PR people but its not enough! Considering the prince design is the exact same design they use in every movie they should have some extra money to give the guy who came up with the name “Tangled” a raise! I was worried there wouldn’t be an animal sidekick too, but luckily I forgot how prevalent an archetype the Princess’ chameleon is in fairy tale literature! I am almost painfully sarcastic!

No, but seriously Disney, you bought Marvel so you wouldn’t HAVE to keep trying to cram your “girly” movies down the over saturated boys market anymore. Throw the girls a freaking bone already and at least draw them a prince that isn’t a punchface for once.

Hey! We’re Disney! We are hip and cool! We use the rock music the kids seem to like in our trailers!
Could someone explain why Prince Eric is fighting with a Barbie doll that posesses the powers of Medusa from the Inhumans?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa_(comics)

Meh.

Same design again…

purple and pink colors….

modern pop music….

same characters….

bufff…..

What happened to the painterly or 2d look? This looks like everything else that has been coming out….

Seems a little too soon to be putting out Shrek 5.

Pop song background, anachronistic dialogue, far too many forced smirks, and a girl-power princess with butt-kicking kung-fu hair skills for no legitimately good reason. With a few gorgeous images in a few places (the tower itself, or the hair after it drops on the male lead), it’s even sadder seeing them put in service to such lowest-common-denomenator gags.

Visually appealing, really nice animation/timing – hope the story is excellent. Seems like a bit of a departure for Disney though. They’re spreading out to cover all the marketing bases now…

Visually impressive, however, the trailer makes the film look “mean spirited”.

Anyone else remember that this was supposed to have a painterly look, like classic oil paintings? Anyone? Because I’m not seeing it here at all.

Although strange, when the guy and horse fell on that branch, it looked almost like the horse was covered in felt.

I think this trailer was intended for the audience that watches the disney channel. I mean this was a sneak preview they showed. All together I think its too early to judge the movie as a whole, though i have to say the fight scene hair gag was well executed

Re: The Inhumans. Say, if they replaced the annoying thief guy with Black Bolt, maybe he’d shut up for five seconds. That’d be a welcome relief, I’m sure.

Sigh…

…amazingly cookie cutter looking.

Once again we have the daring dashing exciting male hero being hen-pecked and harangued by the female lead. I just don’t see the appeal of this. The boys in the audience don’t want to see the male hero having his fun ruined, and do the girls in the audience really want to the relate to the female fun ruiner? I don’t get it.

Can’t they just, you know, go have an adventure together without all the eye rolling and animosity? Can’t they BOTH be fun? Why does it always have to be one at the expense of the other. Do we really have to start drilling the whole battle of the sexes bullcrap into kids heads at such a young age?

I mean seriously…they have the girl *hit the guy over the head with a frying pan*, and when she’s not doing that she’s being silly and frivolous. How old fashioned can you be? This isn’t grrlpower…it’s a 50s sitcom depiction of women.

Oh, and they’re gonna run out of animals for cute sidekicks soon.

I’m looking forward to the movie. I think the trailer is just to get people to go see it. It kind of reminds of the trailer for Walle. They use the song At Last and it had a llight comical feel. But as we know, there was more to it than that. In a way, the trailer does make it come of as something out of Dreamworks. But I think the movies storyline will seperate it from a Dreamworks film. But I am a little dissapointed in the look. The Swing is my favorite painting ever and I was expecting to be blown away by the trailer as for as the aesthetic.

The trailer was good. But I agree, change the title to Rapunzel: Unbraided.

I dunno. I think this movie looks great. Character designs are appealing, lots of action. What’s not to love?

Oh come on, you Poopy-heads. Lighten up. It’s a kids cartoon for the whole family. Well, except for all you animation students.

…gloom…doom…despair. I can hear it now: “Disney hasn’t made a good movie since Walt bought the back forty…”

Just so you guys know, this is mostly test/teaser animation, NOT footage from the movie. This was intended to get people excited, thats all. The tone of the film does not match this trailer. Thank marketing for that.

The role of a trailer is to make the viewer want to see the movie. This made me want to see the movie. Success.

It feels really Dreamworks-like. It’s not going to help the folks that get Dreamworks, Disney, and Pixar mixed up, that’s for sure.

I actually thought the horse was hilarious (at 1:30). Pure Disney equine design in 3D.

I never trust trailer, as marketing is usually in charge of trying to sell the film, with little effort to try and reflect the true tone of the story.

Glad to see this suspicion has been confirmed by larry.

Technically beautiful. I have not seen early visual tests with the more painterly look, as other people implied. Bit of a shame.
Looking forward to seeing it.

@larry I’m guessing you have insider wisdom, but this is a very sad thing to hear. Not only are the artists who worked on the film being downtrodden, but the public is being deceived. It shall be interesting to hear what Lasseter has to say in answer for this film.

They seem to have a film they were desperate to sell after being in development hell, and have no idea what is it or how to sell it.

Felt really underwhelmed at the trailer. It feels like its trying to hard to be edgy and hip, but at the same time it seems really generic. I have the feeling this has more to do with the music and the scenes they chose though. I’ll still give it a chance.

I initially was going to pass on commenting, but this remark by Scott Monroe caught my eye:

“Once again we have the daring dashing exciting male hero being hen-pecked and harangued by the female lead. I just don’t see the appeal of this. The boys in the audience don’t want to see the male hero having his fun ruined, and do the girls in the audience really want to the relate to the female fun ruiner? I don’t get it.”

Dude, you couldn’t be any more right.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah. But this is a MATURE and ADULT take on Rapunzel, so she does reveal her tryst to the witch by asking why her clothes are getting so tight, right? Right? Come on, please?!

OK the music is appalling but if you ignore it the trailer is really quite good. I personally like the horse – the cartoony take as it falls shows just how far things have moved in the past few years rigging wise.
It’s hard not to hate the way this film has been tailored for teenage boys but that aside I am sure there will be scenes in there that will inspire and delight for years to come. I hope that music doesn’t make it into the movie though!!

I love the sentiment “relax, this is just a kids movie”. Since when kids deserve some imaginative and inspiring, something with soul and originality? Lets keep them on sugar diet and cartoons following the same formula over and over. They don’t know bad from good, so why bother? The will swallow any junk, as long as it’s sweet, smooth or colorful.

These movies are starting to become caricatures of themselves.

I think this has alot of potiential, the Forest environments look beautiful, I just wish they didn’t use current pop music. I think that’s what will take away from it if they do.

Watching it the first time, the Disney purist in me was full of judgement and “This is not what it has been like beforeeeee!”

But give it a few more viewings, and try not to be snarky. There’s some interesting stuff going on here. I really love the animation style.

Good character animation and timing… But I dunno. After 90 years, this is where they’ve come?

I like the look of that. It’s a softer look than what we’ve seen before.

If the story doesn’t concentrate on yet another princess that will be fine with me too. It still wont’ get the 12 year old boys into the theater.

I’m looking forward to it.

But the stock giggle gesture she does at 1:46 made me think “Bishop”.

The animation looks pristine. It’s amazing!

I agree the trailer could be better, but the animation is such that I want to see it. You never know; the film could actually be good.

I’d like to see more footage…

@steve

I know. Thats why I said “mostly.” Some of it is, some of it isnt.

How about this, all of the stuff showcasing Rapunzel’s “kung fu octopus hair” skills are not in the film. Fair enough?

…no pop music. Trailers such as these are ruined by crappy pop songs, which give the impression that this movie is only for teenage girls.

That long shot of the tower looks fantastic. I’m sure this film will be a good’un, I just hope that it isn’t over-modernised with cliché val-speak, ipod references and pop songs.

First: If they wanted to make it more appealing to boys then here’s an idea. How about telling the story of Rapunzel after the prince, or thief, or whatever you want is blinded by the witch and has to travel across distant lands to find her. THAT would be cool, THAT would get boys to see the movie.

Second: What happened to the beautiful pre-production designs?

Finally: Apparently Disney and Dreamworks have had their brains switched in some sort of weird 90′s kid’s sitcom fashion. The studio making stupid jokes is now the one making good stories (Dragons) and the one that used make good stories is making stupid jokes.

Hum… after seeing this I think I’ll buy a new CRT TV and re-watch Darkwing Duck cartoons.

I just thought of an idea for an Onion article. “Disney adds fifth expression”

It looks good and is nicely animated, but it feels like the same type of movie but with different characters.

I’m dissappointed, because I was hoping to see finally something new and refreshing in the CG-field, and storywise something more deeper and serious(actually the original story of Rapunzel is very dark), but all I see is another edgy, funny(not really…), popculture and over the top CG-movie.
In the Trailer it feels like watching another (but much better!) version of Shrek.
I fear that this movie will have a lot of flat and lame popculture jokes and Gags that have been reused million times before, that is the feeling that the trailer gave me, there wasn’t anything in it I found funny or entertaining, it feels like I already know the whole story.

Why do have they make ALL the new CG stuff the same way(edgy, crazy, “funny”, wild, same type of designs?)?

There is so much you can do with CG! It seems that all the big studios are trapped in the same pattern and are afraid to try something completely new!

Even when my excitement went down after watching that, I still give it a chance and watch the movie! Maybe the movie has a lot more than that trailer is showing us!

When I said “there will probably be better jokes than those showed in THE MOVIE” I meant “than those showed in the TEASER”. Sorry.

If my boyfriend made faces like that, I’d hit him with a brick. Just saying.

Looks like a step forward to me.

I agree with “Joe”‘s comment. Didn’t anyone else notice it just says
“Disney” and the title “Tangled” NOT Walt Disney Presents or Disney’s Tangled.

What’s up with that???

Where’s the pride in ownership? Pride and personalizing in what you’ve done?

Sorry Walt, you’ve been reduced to the equivalent of a Nike logo.

Shame on you guys…..

I didn’t watch the trailer, but it must be really bad because the movie most of you folks are describing is not the one I saw two weeks ago at a test screening! No pop songs! It had new Broadway style tunes. Not Shrek 5! It is very much a classic style Disney movie, done in CGI; with a very solid script. The finished animation looks great. Finally, the frying pan is NOT sexist. It is the best weapon available to Rapunzel. For the reason she feels the need to defend herself so vigorously, you’ll have to see the first ten minuets of the film, I won’t spoil anything.

I watched it and all i could think was “I just dont care”

Please, bring back the “Silly Symphonies”!

somehow the horse annoys me… maybe it’s because of the face expressions like Donkey in Shrek 2.

Great, looks like all those Euorpean animated films have had some influence on American studios.

Looks good to me! —kindova CG “Enchanted”. I’ll take my girls to see it. Who knows, I may even enjoy it.

I really hope Disney do well. I will go watch it just to support them but please, please please keep making better films as you go and don’t let us down… Disney still have my support. I personally feel Pixar and DreamWorks needs more competition just so they aren’t too comfortable in their ‘top 2′ seats..

Meanwhile, Evangelion 2.22.

I think it is hySTERical! (And she is gorgeous!) I wan’t wait!! (If only stupid “Into the Woods” would be a DIME as funny!)

Your not the only one who finds it weird that Disney doesn’t put an apostrophe ‘S’ in their name anymore on their ‘properties’, Joe. I also can’t help but wonder if the likes of Hilary Duff, or Miley cCyrus had a hand in the film’s marketing (‘She’s been grounded, like forever’? Please, 1983 ended a really long time ago, ladies!)

“WHERE is Glen Keane’s “painterliness”? The backgrounds are beautiful, but the characters generic”

You wonder about an effect that has long ago been dropped, and yet slam Mr. Keane’s character designs?

**I’ll say this: the human characters look a lot more appealing than the ugly mannequins in those “Shrek” movies! Disney has it all OVER DreamWorks in that category!**

I have to agree with this. The human characters are superbly rendered – heck, really, everything is in that trailer. I think the trouble is that CG is CG – it will never really match the beauty of the best animated and designed 2D classic Disney feature (like Pinocchio and Lady and the Tramp. I don’t include Princess and the Frog in that category. The characters moved well. But there was no real beauty in the classic Disney sense). Although one can see the attempt at “painterliness”, at least in the backgrounds.

You know what’s ruining it for me? The way the trailer is put together – the brash, in-your-face, pop-song-riddled mess we’ve been subjected to time and time again. Audiences are getting TIRED of that. Proof that it doesn’t always work: Marmaduke. The trailers for that film were beyond obnoxious, and on the weekend of its premiere, surprise! The movie flopped (at least I bet it was a surprise for the marketing geniuses who put those trailers together, basing them on the fond Hollywood belief that audiences are fart-loving attention-span-deprived morons). Disney needs to try again with a more thoughtful trailer. Then maybe it’ll grab viewers’ attention instead of confusing them (“Oh, no, not ANOTHER Dreamworks Fractured Fairy Tale!”)

While the trailer is pretty poorly constructed, the film itself looks promising. I like the character animation. I do wish they had been able to deliver on a painterly style just because that would have been interesting to see, but if they decided it didn’t work, I won’t complain. This looks good for what it is. We’ll have to wait and see if the writing is any good.

To Akbar Shahzad – so don’t see the movie. If you hate “Tangled” this much, sight unseen – save your bucks.

Life is so simple.

What I’d REALLY love to see, is all the “observers” who trash this stuff – show us yours. Come on fanboys. Post links to your work so that we can judge your *ahem* “expertise”.

None of the people working in the industry mind a little constructive criticism. That never hurts. But the outright hatred of the medium that I see on these boards – and considering WHO is making these comments – is completely unjustified.

So… disappointed, bitter, angry Disney-Fan kiddies, before you comment – SHOW – US – YOURS.

heh… heh… heh… Now THIS outta be good…

The guy looks like Tulio from Road to El Dorado.

Wish she had more lines, but it’s just a teaser. Definitely going to see this.

btw im not a “disappointed, bitter, angry Disney-Fan kiddie.” i think this movie looks impressive. just cant pass up an oppurtunity for animation critiques

Student work.

Don Knott’s vocal performance was nice.

Will Disney please grow up and get back to the roots….. Some DECENT writing? At least Verbinski’s going for something a little more original with Rango and not redoing every Goddamn fairy tale over and over again! The Dreamworks/Disney pissing match continues.

It looks really good, the character designs are nice in a ‘classic’ kind of way, and you can tell a lot of time and care has been put into creating such rich visuals. I don’t see what most of you guys are on about.

Disappointingly generic, and an astoundingly weak trailer. I wouldn’t have known this was Disney without the logo included. So far I am really unimpressed with their CG (non Pixar) movies – Bolt, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons and this one, which I probably won’t bother with now that my kids are teenagers and over this assembly line, paint by numbers product.

A filmmakers greatest fear is to have their movie ignored. Love it or hate it, at least they’re talking about “Tangled.”

Count your blessings, Disney.

Why was Glen Keane’s painterliness (one of the main points of this production from the start) dropped from the character designs? Was it for budgetary reasons or something else? What I’ve heard is that he couldn’t quite get a hold of the movie’s story, but why should that have to affect his amazing ambitions for the film’s look? Anyone know any more about the reasons behind this?

jamesT,

No they do not, however, you do not suit up for the beach solely on the opinion of your neighbor that “it probably will not rain.” My point, and I believe the point of Steve as well, is that we have seen 2 minutes of footage, most of which will likely not make the final cut; so it is premature to offer a critique of the film as “pure shit,” or “unoriginal” as of now. To do so is disrespectful and unfounded. Any specific critique one may have of the film (with exception to those who have attended screenings) is merely speculative, and to be openly hostile is unfair towards a company that is the very reason people such as myself and Akbar are pursuing this field.

Aaron Long – Hey – cool videos. You should promote them more. Good for you. Also, try adding a music score – it’ll add tons of production value. You can find open source stuff online if you don’t have a budget for a composer.

As far as “Disney hasn’t learned anything” – the one truth in the biz is that nobody knows anything. Period. Ever. Disney didn’t “know” when they did The Lion King or Aladdin. Nor did Walt when he did “Snow White”. Its a crap shoot. Always has – always will be. That’s what makes it so much fun.

jamesT – RE: The Show Me Yours. Criticism of a professional’s work that goes beyond “not my taste” – but gets into specific technical aspects requires some professional knowledge and experience. Otherwise the opinion is meaningless.

About the “pathetic reuse of ideas” – the audience likes those ideas or themes. There is safety and familiarity in a Disney movie that a parent understands. There will be some songs. There will be some jokes. There will be a scary part. There will be nothing that scares the crap out of the kids. Parents get it. Disney gets it. YOU are not the audience for this movie. If YOU don’t get it – don’t watch it.

I’m sure there are animated films with more challenging themes – this isn’t one of them.

It never fail to amaze me how idiotic people can be whenever I read comments on cartoonbrew…

“THAT’S WHAT THE TRAILER IS FOR– to give you an impression of what the movie will be like”

THAT’S WHAT THIS COMMENT SECTION IS FOR – so you can hear from people who know better that the trailer is not an accurate representation of the movie.

“People are reacting to the content / designs / stock actions”? There are 150 comments of people describing exactly what they’re reacting to, and very few of them are complaining about stock actions.

They’re mostly dismayed by the appearance of a lame Dreamworks clone, and that’s not what this movie is by a long shot. For instance, the tied-to-a-chair “smolder” scene is 20 seconds near the beginning of an 80-minute movie, and is not representative of the other 79 1/2 minutes. The octopus-hair fight as presented here isn’t in the movie at all. Believe it or not, the movie isn’t about Flynn anyway. It’s mostly about some kid named Rapunzel. She sings. She dances. She overcomes adversity. And she’s an interesting, fully realized character.

It is true that Tangled is an intentional throwback to the Mermaid/Beast/Aladdin era, and feels pretty derivative at times. I am certain that the John K crowd will hate it with a purple passion, and as loudly as possible. And that’s fine.

But all the theorizing about formulas and designs and stock actions falls flat against a theater full of very happy people. The test audience was delighted with Tangled, and didn’t seem to be “tired of this stuff” at all. If the audience enjoys themselves, then the Disney artists did it right.

The trouble with this trailer is that it’s likely to scare off the very people who will LOVE the movie.

Hmmm… I think this comment board invites comments about the posted videos. I am not being disrespectful to anybody, and never said that people shouldn’t watch it, just that I am not going to.
What if I loved it, would I also need to watch the whole film first and create a film of my own before I could express an opinion about the trailer, or would that be OK because you would happen to agree?
I loved the film “Persopolis” for example, but if you didn’t like it, it’s OK with me. You can say it based on the trailer, you can not know anything about animation, as long as you are not a professional critic with a popular column it’s understood that it’s just one personal opinion, which comment boards are all about.

I think it’s a pretty great representation of Glen Keane’s style in CGI. Go watch little mermaid and cheer up, peoples.
I hate the pink song, but other than that, looks surprisingly good.
It amazing how music can effect the image.
Just pull a page out of Walt’s book and throw some classics in there, marketeers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U8NCfDwbFk

Syncs up not bad, try watching it with the teaser muted, night and day right?

**I agree with “Joe”’s comment. Didn’t anyone else notice it just says
“Disney” and the title “Tangled” NOT Walt Disney Presents or Disney’s Tangled.
What’s up with that???
Where’s the pride in ownership? Pride and personalizing in what you’ve done?
Sorry Walt, you’ve been reduced to the equivalent of a Nike logo.
Shame on you guys…..***

Yes Yes YES!!! ^^^^ THIS!

Damn you, Iger. Damn you to hell. Taking the Walt out of Walt Disney – in more ways than one. I hope Iger’s out of there SOON.

Does it remind anyone else a little of “Enchanted”?

I like the character design, colors and rendering here but the story looks so awful in this trailer. These type of gags get old, if only there was something interesting story wise here.

Sometimes trailers can be deceiving, but so far this trailer is enough to keep me away

To all those that are complaining about Rapunzel’s use of a frying pan:

Please note that a complete stranger has entered her home and is stealing her possessions. What weapon should she use to defend herself? I doubt she has a 9mm hidden in her hair. This sounds sarcastic, but I’m very serious. It’s a realistic response to finding a strange man in your home. Hit him with whatever is nearby. It has nothing to do with a 1950′s cariacature.

Also, please remember that every Disney movie released since the Little Mermaid (and doubtless before then, but as my memory only goes back to the advertisements from the late 1980′s, I’ll say up to this point only) has had more than one trailer. Remember the serious ads for Beauty and the Beast that made his castle seem so forboding? So dismal and still so beautiful?

Okay. We had those ads, then we had singing candlesticks.

Singing. Candlesticks.

Think about it.

There is more to this movie than people think. Give it time. Wait for the trailer they’ll release in the theatres. I bet a fair few of you will change your minds.

The reasons why Princess and the Frog bombed, was not because it didn’t appeal to boys. It was because it sucked! The Execs are stupid here thinking that boys won’t see this if it has a girls name in the title, boys won’t see this if it looks like crap! To me this all looks like stock!

OK. So the trailer is not representative. Apparently it’s an Alan Menken musical, which I did not know and certainly could not have been expected to pick up from the trailer. As for the character animation, I think it’s just as foolhardy to praise it on the basis of a series of two-second cuts as it is to dismiss the whole movie based on a trailer, which is not what I’m doing — I’m dismissing the trailer.

Scott Kennell says I have “no knowledge” of the Disney studio. You may be right. I have quite a lot of knowledge of their films, however. A lot of the people here seem to be industry insiders who have spoken to, worked for or worked with people who make these films — an idea which blows my mind.

As for the pre-War Disney films, of course I don’t mean to suggest they were “truer to the fairy tales”. That in itself is not a virtue. I only mean to say that they were better films than nearly all that the studio has done since. In the last fifteen years, even the relatively good Disney movies have appeared to be “compromises”–I’ll try to avoid sounding too much like Michael Barrier, but I’m afraid it’s true. What disappoints me about the trailer–whether or not it’s representative of the film–is that it feels the need to attach itself to bad pop music and a smirk to have a hope of getting across to anybody. It shouldn’t have to do that to itself. The reason I didn’t have trouble believing the trailer–before I found out they’d left out the whole “Alan Menken thing”–is because exactly this kind of movie is found in abundance these days. I don’t want Disney to do the same thing. I cannot think it will end well.

If I’m wrong, and this movie is actually a good story not hung up on its own one-liners and actually delivers us a Real Movie as opposed to a Disney-Flavored Product, I’ll probably love it. I’d love it more if it were hand-drawn, but I’d still love it in CG. What is so terrible about fearing that that won’t happen? I do HOPE I’m wrong.

Years without a post , and now 2 posts pack to back!
Sorry about that…just want to add an afterthought…

Sometimes, when u wanna make something different, u need to package it in something more familiar and acceptable by the mass audience so it gets seen and not shunned,and also make the “product” commercially successful, cause lets face it, thats important too.
Specially if u r confident that if u can get them in, they will like it!

One can call this false advertising or smart publicity, depending on how much u liked the final film.

Personally,if i have to sit through a crappy trailer to make a good movie viable,am very ok with that…just as long as my benefit of the doubt pays off and the movie does not turn out to be exactly what this trailer makes it out to be!:)

To those of you of you saying that Disney needs to show this preview to as little people as possible, you need to start understanding something. You are taking your opinion based on the fact that the majority of the people in comment sections all over the internet are unhappy about the trailer. Which is true.

But ask yourself this: WHO are those people that are commenting in the first place? They are either 1) Disney Fanatics that have been waiting to see this trailer for years, or 2) Animation Fanatics and/or Employees, who have been waiting to see this trailer for years. Sure, there are a few who have probably never heard of Tangled before this trailer, but for the most part, everyone making comments, especially here on Cartoon Brew, has a stronger connection to the animation world than the average person.

The point is, while we all think the trailer sucks and we were hoping for something different, and Disney marketing doesn’t know what they’re doing, etc etc etc…. The truth is that the general theater-going public will eat this up. Come June 18, when the theater is full of a huge variety of people coming to see Toy Story 3, this trailer will start, and from the opening two shots will have the attention of all the males in the theater, especially the younger ones. By the time the gorgeous shot of the tower comes around, the Disney and/or animation enthusiasts who don’t follow upcoming movies and so haven’t seen this trailer will be intrigued. When Rapunzel starts kicking Flynn’s ass, the 9-10 and younger crowd will be giggling like mad. And when Rapunzel steps into the light, the rest of the ladies who haven’t been convinced yet will finally see “another princess!!!” and will also be paying attention. And maybe the Pink song will even get the last few teens that haven’t given in yet to think twice because it reminds them of 6th grade.

So within the first minute, we have the attention of males, Disney and animation enthusiasts, children, and finally the ladies. And when a preview has the attention of a child, it also gets the attention of their parents.

So, whether we on Cartoon Brew agree with the trailer and what it portrays about the movie, the truth is that the point of a trailer is to get the audience who will be paying money to see it aware and interested. And admit it or not, that is exactly what this trailer will do.

And as a side note… Akbar, for someone who claims to be interested in the industry and you want to go into it, and you have all powerful knowledge of Disney films and whatnot, you obviously haven’t done your homework here. It’s been known for a good year by now that this movie is going to be a traditional fairy tale (at least as traditional as we’re gonna get these days) musical with Alan Menken music. Go read up on some stuff, then come back, enjoy the trailer for what it is, and go see the movie in November.

All right, Matt. I’ll do that. To clarify, I thought I’d read they’d ditched the musical angle along with story changes when Keane left the picture–there was something about it being retooled after he couldn’t make the third act work, or something. I am glad to hear that Menken is still involved, though.

For the millionth time……………..

KEANE HAS NOT LEFT THE PICTURE. He’s directing the animation!! He’s been involved with every single frame of every single shot!

Have we ever had a thread this long before?

Say what you will, this discussion has been fascinating.

‘They just can’t get my nose right!’ are you serious? Wow…

“Most people here don’t seem to see a difference between a 2 min trailer and a 90+min movie.Either they are overestimating the power of 2 min storytelling, or underestimating that of 90mins!”

90 minute storytelling has no power whatsoever in an empty theater. This trailer is going to be seen by millions in 6 days.

“WHO are those people that are commenting in the first place? They are either 1) Disney Fanatics … or 2) Animation Fanatics”

Nuh-uh. The trailer has received wide coverage on general interest entertainment sites. Not everybody hates it. But an awful lot of them have expressed great disappointment that Disney has sunk to doing bad Shrek imitations. Which is a shame, because that’s not what Disney is doing at all. Just the Disney trailer department.

“The truth is that the general theater-going public will eat this up.”

You may be right. We’ll find out soon enough. My concern is that they won’t be as enthused by what they see in this particular trailer as you think they will. Especially surrounded by trailers for half a dozen other CGI movies, which will undoubtedly have the exact same pacing, tone, and probably musical style.

It doesn’t just look like a Dreamworks movie – certainly not one of their recent winners. It looks like one of the mediocre written-by-focus-groups Dreamworks movies from 5 or 6 years ago (better visuals notwithstanding).

And it’s clearly spilling over into perceptions of the movie itself. Audiences aren’t going to say “oh it’s just a trailer marketed to a specific audience, the movie is probably totally different.” They’re going to say “gee, the creators of Bolt are doing a Shrek knockoff about an arrogant smirky prince guy who makes lame jokes. That doesn’t look like something I’d want to spend $40 and 90 minutes on.”

I just think they’ve undercut the lowest common denominator here, and have narrowed the appeal to one particular demo, a small segment of the “general public” that’s not Tangled’s core audience. I think there are negative first impressions being created that are now going to have to be undone to get back the other demos that should have been a slam dunk.

I think that after the trailer runs, and I tell the mom sitting next to me that I’ve seen the movie, and it’s actually a terrific un-fractured classic Disney fairy tale movie with Alan Menken Broadway songs, a slinky psychotic female villain, and lots of very intelligent, sophisticated humor in addition to brilliantly executed slapstick for the kids, she’s going to look at me like I’ve lost my mind.

Exactly Billy Batz, you hit it right on the head! Glen Keane, Adreas Deja, Eric Golberg, we’re looking at you, and the other 5 or so guys. Draw from real life not the formulaic stuff you have been drawing for the last 30 years!

I don’t know, man. I had such high hopes for a while for this movie, and now it seems like the creators have gone back on everything hopeful they said about it.

They took the “unbraided” off the title because they realized that Disney doesn’t need to do their own Shrek, that they can still make something beautiful and magical because that’s what Disney does best. So… THIS is Disney’s best attempt at a non-Shrek?

If that godawful song isn’t in the actual movie (which I’m sure it won’t be) I think it might stand a chance. I think the characters are appealing, the scenery is gorgeous, and the hair is just as fabulous as promised. The thing I can’t get past is that stupid little chameleon thing. It’s so exactly the sort of sidekick that appears in every single Barbie movie I can’t even stand it.

So… I’m still looking forward to this movie a whole lot, but I’m growing more and more wary of it as it keeps looking like all that “this-isn’t-our-attempt-at-Shrek” talk was either just talk, or got drowned out by stupider voices.

Animation is never meant to be a recreation of life, merely a representation (I’m attempting to steer away from the cliched “illusion of life” phrase thrown around at Disney). This applies to facial expressions, movements, even character design. Bambi anatomically only vaguely resembles an actual deer, but it doesn’t mean that the artist is incapable of drawing an anatomically correct deer. The animator’s job is to be able to capture the essence of a deer to the point that that character is capable of a performance while still allowing the audience to immediately recognize Bambi as a deer. Viewers left the theater marveling at how accurate the animals were, yet they were nothing of the sort. Animators had merely captured the essence of what a deer was to the audience.

The same is true of facial expression. While I will be the first to admit, I am tired of the so-called “Dreamworks face,” I would just like to point out that characters making seemingly inhuman faces are part of the medium; and are simply exaggerations HOPEFULLY used in an artistic way towards furthering the emotion of a scene.

This is the issue with motion-capture in cg today (as well as rotoscoping “back in the day”… but this is a can of worms for another time). Raw motion-capture footage is near unusable in film due to its stiffness, despite its accuracy, and requires a team of animators to exaggerate the performance and give it more character. Even then, sometimes the movements are still cold and lack the freshness and charm of animation (see: The Polar Express). The fact that critiques involving physical accuracies are even prevalent today is a testament to how far the medium, and technology, has come.

Well, this may actually be good! :)

Animationwise its ok. Don’t expect any wonders if it’s not from Pixar (I guess).

Some of the comedy reminds me of Warner Bros though – or better The Emperor’s New Groove which is the darn closest thing to a Warner Bros. cartoon Disney ever did!