This is both a movie review and a multi-segment intellectual comparison of the movie and the fairy tale Rapunzel. If you are only interested in the intellectual discussion please skip to the section labeled Comparison.
The music was less than I was expecting, as the composer Alan Menken has done some fantastic projects in the past. I don't know why he didn't preform on this one. In fact the musical numbers could have been left out of this completely and I wouldn't have minded one bit.
On the upside this movie had what will probably become two of my favorite Disney style sidekicks:
Pascal
Maximus
The scenery is also quite beautiful, especially the lantern scene, which rivals the "kiss the girl" scene in The Little Mermaid in beauty.
I particularly enjoyed the characters in the movie, but I will get into that in more detail during the comparison. Suffice to say that the movie was light, quite enjoyable and very well put together.
THE COMPARISON
**************WARNING: Here be Spoilers*********************************
In order to do this coherently I'm going to go chronologically, laying out a section of plot from the fairy tale, the corresponding section of movie plot, state my analysis, and move on to the next section of plot.
Rapunzel is a very old tale with many variations, I am going to try to summarize as many variations as I can, but there might be some that I miss. Please let me know of any insights that I might overlook.
The Setup
In the Fairy Tale there was a very poor couple who longed for a child. After many attempts the wife finds herself with child and the couple rejoices. The wife gets a pregnant craving for the taste of the rapunzel plant and longs for it to the point of death. Desperate, the husband searches high and low for the plant, but the only plant he finds is in the garden of a sorceress named Dame Gothel. He breaks into the garden and steals the plant. The sorceress catches him and accuses him of stealing. He begs for mercy, pleading his dying wife and child. Dame Gothel relents and allows him the plant on the condition that he gives the child to her. The husband agrees and takes the rapunzel to his wife. The wife revives and bears a healthy girl child. Dame Gothel takes the child as her ward, naming her Rapunzel and imprisoning her in a tower.
Some Variations:
Rapunzels parents aren't always specified as poor, but I haven't come across any version that says they're royalty.
Some versions also have the father visiting Dame Gothel's garden to steal rapunzel three times before she catches him.
Early versions state that Dame Gothel is an Ogre. They also have the Ogre putting a spell on Rapunzel that makes her unable to escape her tower on her own.
Some versions have Dame Gothel leaving Rapunzel with her parents until she is twelve. Others have Dame Gothel keeping Rapunzel from birth, but only imprisoning her in a tower at age twelve.
The Tangled Version: An Extremely kind King and Queen long for a child. Finally the Queen becomes pregnant, but she falls deathly ill. The King sends his armies out to search for a magical flower that has the power to cure her. This flower has already been found by a woman named Mother Gothel.
image from http://images4.fanpop.com/image/quiz/497000/497580_1289834769902_362_300.jpg
Old Mother Gothel
Mother Gothel uses the flower to keep herself perpetually young by singing a song while touching the flower. This somehow transforms her into a youngish woman.
Young Mother Gothel
Despite Mother Gothel's attempts to hide the flower it is found by the King's guards, who pick the flower and bring it to the Queen. She is healed and gives birth to a daughter, Rapunzel. Somehow the properties of the flower are transmitted into Rapunzels hair, which is golden like the flower. Desperate to regain her means to immortality Mother Gothel breaks into the palace. She cuts a lock of Rapunzels hair and attempts the spell of youth. However, both the lock on Rapunzels head and the lock of hair in Mother Gothel's hand turns brown and nothing happens to Mother Gothel. She realizes that she must have Rapunzel alive if she is to access the power of the flower. Mother Gothel kidnaps Rapunzel, locking her in a tower and forbidding her to ever cut her hair. The King and Queen are desolate without their beloved Rapunzel, and send up thousands of colored lanterns in remembrance of her birthday every year.
Analysis:
In this section there are three main differences between the fairy tale and the movie:
The Flower of Eternal Life: The introduction of this element becomes the thread that ties a lot of the loose ends of the traditional Rapunzel fairy tale together. It explains Mother Gothel's connection to Rapunzel, why Rapunzel can't cut her hair, and why Mother Gothel goes to protect that virtue. The flower also eliminates Rapunzel's parents ethical embarrassment when they steal the vegetable in the fairy tale. This change allows Mother Gothel to be portrayed completely unsympathetically, whereas in the original tale she is exacting a punishment for stealing.
Mother Gothel is not a witch: At least from what I could remember. Aside from knowing what song to sing to the flower Mother Gothel doesn't do any magic or anything magical through the entire movie. Although, come to think of it, Dame Gothel of the fairy tale doesn't seem to do any magic either, despite the fact that she is described as a sorceress. The only instance where any magic is possibly done in the original tale is when Dame Gothel enchants the tower so that Rapunzel can not escape it through her own power, and this is only in specific versions. I'd like to think that the fairy tales describe her as a witch to show that she has power over Rapunzel's common parents, without casting her as royalty or as a noble.
Rapunzels parents are royalty: This move surprised me, I expected Disney to make Rapunzel's parents "normal people" in order to better identify with their audience and to go against their normal heroin M.O. However, on reflection I think that the change makes sense for the coherence of the story line. It takes a person of royal importance to justify the destruction of the flower. It also explains why the lanterns are a city wide event each year, as this will become important to Rapunzel later.
As a side not on the Disney version, I found myself bothered by the fact that the flower was taken from Mother Gothel. From what I could see she was protecting the flower and using it in a way that didn't hurt others. While her goal was eternal youth, which arguably is "against nature", and she was using the flower selfishly, I don't really see this as a problem. However the queen is somehow so important that the destruction of this "one of a kind" flower is justified? What about other people in the kingdom that need to be healed? In a sense it could be argued that the King and Queen stole the flower from Mother Gothel, and in another sense, from the rest of the kingdom. However, this doesn't justify Mother Gothel kidnapping Rapunzel in the movie, as there was no bargain struck between Mother Gothel and the king and queen that sanctioned the adoption of Rapunzel.
There's also the fact that the knight who takes the flower found it in the forest, not in Mother Gothel's yard.
ReplyDeleteOoh! This is what even I was wondering. I have seen Barbie as Rapunzel but not the new one. I can watch this one too. I liked the previous one as well. My daughter’s birthday is near and since the kids have exhausted all the episodes by Andy Yeatman, I can now make them watch this.
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