I was reading an article linked to somewhere that Disney apparently wanted to add the Giselle character to their line of marketable princesses, but decided against it because it would be to difficult to license Amy Adams’s image for perpetuity. Can’t say I’m angry about it- I know the “Disney Princess” line makes a lot of money for Disney, but the whole idea that these princesses lived in the same time period/universe and were all good friends with each other makes absolutely no sense. (I seem to recall reading in James B. Stewart’s DisneyWar- a must-read for anyone interested in the modern era of Disney and the rise and fall of Eisner- that Roy E. Disney had the same complaint when the line was first announced.)
Wall Street Journal, December 19th - Disney Reaches to the Crib to Extend Princess Magic by Merissa Marr - its sitting on my desk because I just wrote a paper…
Well, not to be combative, but one of the Disney princesses lived in a castle with a talking clock, one was put into a magical sleep by a witch who subsequently turned into a dragon, and one was a mermaid. Belle spoke unaccented American English while living in France, as did everyone else in her town and in the castle, with the exception of the French-accented candlestick.
All by way of saying, the idea that these princess lived in the same time period/universe makes exactly as much sense as anything else about their stories, for better and for worse. I think the idea of a little Disney Princess universe is kind of cute, frankly.
The Los Angeles Times has an interesting interview with director Kevin Lima discussing some other Disney references in the film.
WARNING: Registration may be necessary.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-enchanted27nov27,1,7622100.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews
Yeah, I’m going to wait, I think. She just recently sat through all of The Little Mermaid, with a few moments of hiding her face in the couch while I patted her back during the Ursula bits. She watches whole episodes of Sesame Street, but that was her first full feature length film (and it’s a pretty short one, at that.) I think a big screen would just be too…big. Overwhelming.
‘Sides, I’m gonna go see it on Sunday with a couple of my girlfriends for a Ladies’ Night Out! Woot! 
Ursula is much scarier than the Susan Sarandon character in this.
I really enjoyed the movie. I loved how most (all?) of the animated animals were dead ringers for earlier characters. Toby the turtle from Robin Hood, Thumper, etc.
Dammit. I really want to see this, but my husband and daughter drug me to see Fred Claus instead. When I bought the tickets, I almost bought them tickets to FC and me a ticket to Enchanted!, but then I thought, “No – I’ll do the family thing…”
Bad call. Fred Claus sucked – we all just hated it. Would have left midway through, but my daughter uses crutches and it’s not possible for us to scoot out quickly and quietly – we would have been blocking the people behind us for an unacceptable length of time, so we toughed it out. Later, though, my husband said that any time we blocked the screen would have actually been a favor to those behind us. In short, Fred Claus is a Christmas movie that made me glad to be an atheist.
My husband’s fishing today – maybe Doe and I will go back and see Enchanted!.
I noticed that too! But I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure.
Sorry I’m late to the party but I just saw the movie today. I absolutely loved it. Amy Adams is just as cute as can be. I couldn’t even think dirty thoughts about her, and that’s saying a lot.
I disagree with some others about the ending. I thought it was fitting to the movie. My favorite scene is the dance
Where Giselle and McDreamy were dancing together obviously starting to really realize how much they loved eachother to the song of ‘So Close.’ I felt bad for Nancy and Edward but on the other hand I was glad for Giselle and McDreamy. I am so glad that Nancy wasn’t shown as a bad person and that everyone got there very own happy endings.
Why yes, yes I do love fairy tales. Why do you ask?
I disagree with the complaint about the ending where the princess saves the day. It’s a cliche when the girl suddenly and without foreshadowing saves the protagonist’s butt. But in this case the girl IS the protagonist and the story is about her growing beyond the traditional damsel-in-distress role. What cheesed me was that the actual “twist” is that the stupid chipmunk saves the day (by a method that should ONLY work in the cartoon universe), bringing everything full circle and undermining the character’s newfound strength and independence.
Amy Adams is cute as a button and talented as all get-out but at least 10 years older than any Disney princess I’ve seen. I understand it would have been creepy to have a teenager shacking up with single dad Patrick Dempsey, but it was distracting every time I saw her laugh lines in close-up. I emphasize that 33 is NOT old or unattractive, just something that pulled me out of the move in this case, and it was hard enough for me to get into. I found myself bothered by things like her gown’s not getting dirty as she trudged through the alley and her not being hurt by her fall off the billboard. Of course after she called the pigeons and roaches to clean up the apartment it was obvious that “fairy tale” magic followed her through the portal, and I was able to relax my skepticism. I kind of wish that had been clearer to me earlier. I really enjoyed the Central Park musical number, but my disbelief kicked in momentarily again at the ball, where suddenly all these non-fairy-tale New Yorkers are executing rather complicated choreography in perfect sync.
Overall, though, I enjoyed the movie way more than I ever expected to.
To me, that one can easily be fanwanked. Not just anyone goes to those types of balls, so chances are if you’re going you know a thing or two about the dancing. And like one of the old women said, 'A much better show than last year" so that shows that that wasn’t the first time the dance has been held.
Or something.
Hmm. Well… OK! Why not.
(I really need to brush up on my fanwanking skills, I guess.)
Also, I missed your spoiler the first time around, but I couldn’t agree more. Until about halfway through I thought they were going in the direction ofGirlfriend turns out to be a bitch and Prince is a pompous twit so it’s OK to hurt and humiliate them,and it was refreshing to be wrong.
Since this thread’s been bumped, here are a few tidbits about how it did.
It’s still 93% at Rotten Tomatoes with 126 positive reviews and only 10 negative reviews.
Its box office total was $301,830,069 worldwide (domestic $125,769,808, which means it made more overseas than in the US!).
In the Hollywood Guilds it was nominated for:
Costume Design Guild (CDG)
Best Achievement In Fantasy Costume Design
Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE):
Best Sound Editing in Feature Film: Music - Musical
Visual Effects Society (VES):
Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Motion Picture
Academy Awards
3 Best Original Song nominations
“That’s How You Know” (the Central Park song)
“Happy Working Song”
“So Close” (the ball song)
Golden Globes:
Amy, Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy
Music
Amy and the music were nominated for various other awards. It didn’t do as well as I thought, such as my prediction that Amy might get an Oscar nomination. I joked about Ellen Page for Juno but expected Amy Adams, and it turned out to be the opposite, with Ellen getting the Oscar nomination.
As much money as the movie made, it wasn’t the smash I was expecting, and I kinda have to blame the writers strike for that. It came out while the late night shows were off the air. Amy never got the chance to make the talk show rounds and charm the pants off of everybody watching. Neither did Dempsey or Marsden. I think that would have made a lot of people check it out that might not normally go to see it. The Writers strike hurt The Golden Compass too, but hey, both movies made over $300 million worldwide, so, it’s not that big a deal. Millions of people will discover the movie on DVD and it will be a favorite for many children and families for decades to come.
Do we know anything about the DVD release? It’s one I want to buy, but I understand Disney gets really tricky with DVDs, often releasing a bare-bones edition first, and saving all kinds of cool special features for later. Now that Blu-Ray is out, I hope they don’t totally shaft Enchanted in standard DVD format.
Disney’s web site says that the DVD/Blu-Ray will be out on March 18, with deleted scenes, bloopers and featurettes. The Blu-Ray will have some extra things on it. I hate that, and the fact that Blu-Ray is more expensive, but damn, it’ll look great!
Thanks for that. I still can’t believe how much I liked the movie, and I’m really far from the target audience.
Oh, same here. I’m older, didn’t ever go through a ‘fairy tale princess’ phase, have hardly seen any of the big Disney movies, and There Will Be Blood was my favorite film from 2007. The marketing experts would say it wouldn’t appeal to someone like me, yet I adored it!
Didn’t see it till yesterday, and loved loved loved it. Will definitely be buying a copy.
What I loved is at the very end, when he starts singing to her, very, very quietly …
Wonderful film.
For anyone who still hasn’t seen this film, or wants to reminisce about how good it was, it’s finally now on Disney+.
I saw it for the first time in several years, and it still holds up.
Actually I just rewatched it tonight for the first time in years (and before I saw this thread.) The scenes with Amy Adams and the city animals are inspired.