The Princess and the Frog

Okay, I don't know why I haven't blogged about this yet, but I am REALLY excited about this movie. Prepare for a long post!

First of all, for some of you who may not know, The Princess and the Frog is a new traditionally animated movie coming out in 2009. D'ja hear that? TRADITIONALLY ANIMATED. Yeah. The first one in five years, ever since Michael Eisner at the Disney studios decided to stop the 2D stuff altogether. Luckily, that decision has been changed, and I'm pretty sure Michael Eisner isn't working for Disney anymore.

Speaking of him, I think he's got some latenight talkshow now... I saw it the other night, and it was kinda funny seeing him talking about this woman's new CD at Starbuck's.

Anyway, I think the movie is scheduled to come out in December of 2009, pretty close to Christmas. Heck, I'll be 18 by then... Which is a weird thought.

Here's some more news I think is fantastic! The movie is gonna be directed by the same talented guys that directed The Little Mermaid and Aladdin! Yup, Ron Clements and John Musker! That's pretty good news. I think they'll do a great job.

The movie is gonna be composed by Randy Newman, also. That was actually a little bit disappointing for me, because their first choice was going to be Alan Menken, who did the score for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (which has one of my favorite scores period), and Enchanted. He's definately my favorite composer, hands down. Wish I could find the Hunchback soundtrack. Anyway, I'm sure Randy Newman can bring something to it, as well. I'm not as familiar with him, considering he does more Pixar stuff, I think, but I do know he did the music for Toy Story.

There's also gonna be some great names in animation doing, well... animation! Here's a couple names I recognized from the list (which you can find, along with a lot more information, on http://community.livejournal.com/froglegss/):

Ruben A. Aquino is the supervising animator for the characters Big Daddy La Bouf/Prince Naveen. He supervised animation for other Disney characters like Maurice (Beauty and the Beast), Ursula (The Little Mermaid), Adult Simba (The Lion King), Powhatan (Poccahontas), Shang and Fa Li (Mulan), Pleakley and David (Lilo and Stitch), and Denahi (Brother Bear).

Andreas Deja, one of my favorite animators, is the supervising animator for the character Mama Odie. He was the supervising animator for Gaston (Beauty and the Beast), Scar (The Lion King), Lilo (Lilo and Stitch), King Triton (The Little Mermaid), Adult Hercules (Hercules), and Queen Nerissa (Enchanted). (That last one I'm not sure about; let me know if you know otherwise.)

Mark Henn is gonna be the supervising animator for the leading lady, Tiana (who by the way is Disney's first African American princess, which has caused quite a bit of contraversy already, but I'll get to that later). He also was the supervising animator for Ariel from The Little Mermaid. I'm pretty sure he animated Belle from Beauty and the Beast as well, but I don't remember if he was a supervising animator along with James Baxter, or just an animator. I'm sure he's animated plenty of other characters, but I can't seem to find him on Wikipedia, haha.

And here's one I'm really excited about; Nik Ranieri is going to be the supervising animator for the character Charlotte! I mostly know Nik Ranieri as being the supervising animator of Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast, but he's also animated Meeko (Poccahontas), Hades (Hercules), and Kuzco (both human and llama) from Emperor's New Groove.

There are other animators, obviously, but I'm not familiar with their names, so I'll just leave it up to you to look them up. Also, if you spot some information you know is wrong above, please tell me. And if you know of other characters they animated, please let me know!

I really hope this movie does well. As I've mentioned before, Tiana is going to be the first African American Disney princess, and that's caused quite a bit of contraversy. In my opinion, I think everyone should really wait until they SEE the movie to judge it. I know her name used to be Maddy, but people looked at that as a lower-class name I guess, and complained about it, and I think that's the reason it got changed. She also used to be a chambermaid, but people complained about that, too, and I think that was changed as well. I just hope people take it for what it is, and don't complain to Disney to the point where they change the movie into something they didn't want it to be.

On a brigher note, I think John Goodman's doing some voice acting. Dunno what character or anything like that, but I love his voice. I think he did Sully from Monsters Inc. and Pacha from Emperor's New Groove, right?

Also, the movie is going to be a musical! That I am really excited about. I really loved that about movies like Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and all those greats, and it's awesome that they're bringing that back. I know Ron Clements and John Musker are probably under a lot of pressure to make this movie great, considering there's so many firsts (first 2D movie in five years, first African American princess ect.), and contraversies, but I hope they just stick to what they think is best and really put out an amazing movie.

This movie isn't only exciting for me just because it's another Disney traditionally animated feature, but it also gives me a lot of hope. I want to be an animator at Disney one day (traditional, not CGI). A while back, before I knew the movie was coming out, people kept saying that Disney wasn't going to do 2D anymore, and that was depressing. I was starting to think of other career choices, like being a character designer, storyboard artist, things like that, which would be fun, but not my first choice, y'know? Then I get news of this movie being on its way, and it's like a breath of fresh air. Heh, corny as it is. I don't think I'm going to be able to sit still when I finally get to see the movie. I might squeal out loud the first time I see a trailer in the movie theater. I feel sorry for whoever would be seeing a movie with me, haha.

Anyway, hope I didn't bore ya with my extremely long blog post thingy. Hope you're as excited about this as I am!