Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams is a 2007 direct-to-video animated feature produced by DisneyToon Studios. It was the first film in a planned new Disney Princess Enchanted Tales series of direct-to-video films, each featuring new stories about the Disney Princesses. It was released on September 4, 2007 by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.
The DVD features new stories about Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Princess Jasmine from Aladdin (1992).
Video Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams
Production
This film was originally intended to be the first of a series of spinoffs "in which short stories about the various princesses from the Disney canon were paired according to some thematic overlap". Originally, the first film in the series, was to be titled A Kingdom of Kindness and feature a completely different Aurora story as well as a story about Belle of Beauty and the Beast rather than Jasmine. Trailers were released for this installment on various Disney DVDs, but it was never released. The second film in the series, referred to simply as Disney Princess Enchanted Tales in previews on various Disney Princess related DVDs, was originally scheduled for a 2008 release. It was to have a new Cinderella story as well as a new Mulan story. It too was never released, due to poor sales of Follow Your Dreams.
The fan blog Antagony & Ecstasy speculates that this specific project was the catalyst for newly appointed Chief Creative Officer for Disney animated projects John Lasseter shutting down and halting all DisneyToon Studios sequel projects that weren't too far into production.
Maps Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams
Segments
Keys to the Kingdom
Keys to the Kingdom features characters from Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty. King Stefan (Corey Burton), Queen Leah (Barbara Dirikson), King Hubert (Jeff Bennett), and Prince Phillip (Roger Craig Smith) have left the kingdom for two days for a Royal Conference, leaving Princess Aurora (Erin Torpey) to reign over it in their absence. The three good fairies, Flora (Barbara Dirikson), Fauna (Russi Taylor), and Merryweather (Tress MacNeille), offer to help her, but Aurora declines their offer, because she believes she can do it alone. Merryweather gives Aurora her wand in case she needs any assistance and warns her to be very careful with it. Her tasks include planning banquets, dealing with peasants, and organizing servants who look after the kitchens and the gardens. Aurora believes she can do her job without the use of the wand, but later at night before bed, Aurora can't help but play with it and uses magic to make herself a big yellow ballgown. Eventually, after a long day dealing with complaints, Aurora gives in and uses the wand to help a local farmer in need of new chickens and pigs. Her magical inexperience leads to unusual consequences, including massive chickens, green pigs, and transforming the farmer into a duck. After she realizes that using the wand was a mistake, she promptly comes up with ideas to solve the problems on her own.
More Than a Peacock Princess
More Than a Peacock Princess features characters from Aladdin. Princess Jasmine (Linda Larkin) is tired and bored of her usual princess duties. She is no longer satisfied with overseeing shop openings and assisting in the sale of a camel at the local market place. While having her portrait painted as a "Peacock Princess," Jasmine loses patience and says she wants more responsibility. The Sultan (Jeff Bennett) gives her the job of "Royal Assistant Educator" at the Royal Academy. Jasmine is thrilled until she meets her pupils. They misbehave, draw on the walls, pillow fight, and throw books. She calls her pet tiger Rajah (Frank Welker) to scare the children into behaving, but they ignore him first and then chase Jasmine and Rajah into the mud and up a tree. Jasmine gives up. Later that night, her lady-in-waiting tells her that she needs patience and perseverance and that with these tools, she can do anything she wants. The next day, Hakeem (Zack Shada), the stable boy, seeks Jasmine's help. The Sultan's prized horse, Sahara, is missing from the Stables and if he isn't located, Hakeem will lose his job. Jasmine takes it upon herself, with Carpet, Abu (Frank Welker), and Iago's (Gilbert Gottfried) help, to find Sahara and return him to the Palace.
Song numbers
- Keys To The Kingdom - Words and Music by Amy Powers and Russ DeSalvo, Performed by Cassidy Ladden
- Peacock Princess - Words and Music by Amy Powers and Russ DeSalvo, Performed by Lea Salonga and Gilbert Gottfried
- I've Got My Eyes On You - Words and Music by Amy Powers and Russ DeSalvo, Performed by Lea Salonga
Critical reception
Common Sense Media assessed that the film had "perseverance lessons for princess fans ages 3-6" and gave it a rating of 2 out of 5 stars. It noted the prevalent themes of "follow your dreams and never give up", the "plucky, brave and determined" role model nature of the princess protagonists, and the notion that "as a Disney property, this film inevitably works as brand reinforcement for the Disney Princess line of products." CineMagazine gave the film a rating of 2 out of 5 stars, noting: "It is unfortunate that the two stories have such varying quality. If it had been a little more balanced then [the film could have] become a great movie. Now it remains weak due to the Sleeping Beauty segment being entirely mediocre and barely worthy of Disney". It concluded that this project was focused on turning a profit than upholding artistic integrity".
Antagony & Ecstasy described it as "the first in an aborted attempt to create a new series of cheap-even-by-the-standards-of-cheapquels videos", and concluded "I cannot entirely hate this dreadful little cast-off. It's too short; it's too ebulliently random; and it might very well be the reason that the Disney sequels were finally strangled to death." AnimatedReviews said "This is Disney Product with a capital P" and "I thought Disney had turned a corner in getting away from this low-level quality, but this is just poor, poor, poor". It added "Personally, I'd like to see this kind of thing where it belongs" which is on a television show called "Disney Princesses, with a new episode with a different Princess every time", as opposed to dressing up things like this, Cinderella II, and Belle's Magical World as movies.
DVDizzy said "It is hard to praise a pairing of two half-hour "movies", created with standards not much higher than those of a Saturday morning cartoon, that are being marketed as a full-length movie" In a review of the DVD, InsidePulse said "The special features with the games are aimed at girls and Lord knows you won't enjoy them unless you're under the age of...6 years." It added that it "does provide a modicum in fun in that it lets us see these winning characters again and more of their lives. But in contrast to the excitement and entertainment of their big screen outings, their lives here are a bit boring and didactic."
Mary Costa, the original voice of Aurora, was not fond of the new film and felt that it did not work.
Awards
References
External links
- Official website
- Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams at AllMovie
- Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams on IMDb
- Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams at Rotten Tomatoes
Source of article : Wikipedia
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