Lisa Dawn's Blog: The Princess Blog, page 48

Brandy Reprises Her Role as Cinderella!

It turns out I wasn't the only one who was excited to learn that the 1997 version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella was coming to Disney+ last week. Everyone involved in the making of this classic film from over 20 years ago got together for interviews, a live watch party on Twitter, and more. The biggest surprise of this celebration was a brand new music video from Disney aficionado Todrick Hall featuring the leading lady herself, . It starts out as a fun little singing session between Brandy and Todrick as they serenade each other with songs from the classic musical. Then, something magical happens as Brandy is transformed into a slightly updated version of her princess look from the 1997 film and returns to the ball with Todrick as her prince. The video comes to a "happily ever after" with socially distanced cameos from several of the other cast members in the film.

Todrick Hall is no stranger to producing professional-quality Disney fan videos. I was particularly impressed by his "Spell Block Tango" mash-up video of Disney villains with the musical Chicago back in the day. It's evident that his "Cinderella" video was a labor of love by all the wonderful little touches in the background of his studio. There are countless Broadway posters lining the walls, a classic storybook from Disney's animated 1950 version of the story, and dolls of both Brandy and in their iconic gowns from the 1997 movie. The costume that Brandy wears when she transforms into Cinderella at the ball is slightly different from the in the original film. It is a darker shade of blue and made of more shimmery material, adding to the magic of the music video. Her crown is also larger, implying that she has evolved from a princess into a full-blown queen. The choreography during this scene is on point and every bit as magical as it was in the original film.

What I enjoyed the most about this video was the look of sheer delight on Brandy and Todrick's faces as they performed these classic songs. You could tell that the video was made as a result of love and enjoyment for the original and not as a forced promotion for Disney (even though throws one in at the end). It's adorable how amazed Todrick Hall looks when Brandy walks into the room. She also seems to be having the time of her life adding her own soulful spin on iconic songs like "In My Own Little Corner" and "Impossible." The rest of the cast, including , , and , who dressed up for his cameo, show their appreciation for the movie by appearing in the "Cinderella" storybook at the end. It was delightful to see that all of these performers still remember their roles in this gorgeous movie.

Todrick Hall isn't the only one who blessed us with new "Cinderella" music last week. On the same day that Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella launched on Disney+, Andrew Lloyd Webber released another song from his Cinderella musical called "I Know I Have a Heart." This song is thematically similar to "Far Too Late." It expands upon Cinderella's regrets toward not telling Prince Sebastian about her feelings for him and running away from the ball. The song emphasizes her heartbreak after he picks a different woman to be his bride with the line "I know I have a heart because you broke it" and deconstructs today's feminist princess trope that encourages girls to suppress their femininity and hide their emotions. This version of Cinderella embodies the modern princess trope of being rebellious and independent and denying her feelings for the prince. "I Know I Have a Heart" enunciates the dangers of this attitude by showing us that no matter how tough a woman may act on the outside, she is just susceptible to pain and heartbreak on the inside.
"Cinderella" is a story that was once considered outdated. With these two musical revivals, it seems to be back in fashion. It makes sense that all of the people falling on hard times due to the current state of the world would want to embrace the fantasy of having their problems magically disappear. Personally, I've never grown tired of this story and am happy to see it make a comeback in any form. I think that the currently airing Disney+ series, WandaVision, is another example of a modern deconstruction of the "Cinderella" trope, but I will expand on that after the season ends.

Review: The Golden Ball

Since I enjoyed The Scarred Prince by Erika Everest as much as I did, I was eager to read and review the next book in the Kingdoms of Fable series, The Golden Ball. This book is a charming novella that combines several fairy tales with the main spotlight on "The Frog Prince" and "Swan Lake." It is every bit as compelling as The Scarred Prince, though it was a different story with a different type of protagonist. I thought it was an interesting choice to combine two fairy tales that both involve transformation sequences. To avoid having a bunch of sentient animals running around, the author only kept the physical transformation from one of these fairy tales. I think that was the right decision, though it would have been fun to see a swan and a frog interact together like Odette and Jean-Bob did in the animated Swan Princess movies. Another magical twist to the tale is that the main character in The Golden Ball also happens to be the daughter of "The Snow Queen."

Asha (Natashya) is a shy Russian-coded princess with social anxiety who would do anything for her friends. She is trapped under the same spell as Sienna from the prequel, The Scarred Prince, which causes her to enter a magical dream world at night and meet with the other princesses from upcoming books in the series. Asha trusts Sienna's leadership skills to guide her when they learn that their friend Odette was put under a curse and replaced by the wicked duchess Odile. Asha disguises herself as a servant to infiltrate the secrets of the palace and find the real Odette, who has been turned into a swan. Along the way, she attracts unwanted attention from Odette's cousin, Tobias, who throws himself at her, believing that she is a servant who must succumb to his demands. When Odette entrusts Asha with a golden ball that will prove her story to the court, Tobias gets his grubby hands on the ball and holds it hostage, forcing Asha to date him if she wants it back.

The one flaw I found with The Golden Ball is the same as its prequel, The Scarred Prince. Erika Everest is able to create such interesting and relatable princess heroines that the princes they fall for never seem to meet the same standards. This book had two royal couples in it, and both of them contained inferior princes who did not deserve the love of the princess they sought. Asha's brother, Alexei, claimed to have feelings for Odette, but never noticed that she had been replaced by an imposter until Asha pointed it out to him. Tobias was just awful to Asha throughout most of the book, trying to take advantage of her at every opportunity and obsessing over her to the point of coming off as a creepy stalker. The author did this to make him a metaphorical frog through his behavior instead of turning him into a physical one, as there was already another character cursed to become an animal. However, doing so made him less worthy of Asha's affections even if he did prove himself at the end. I would say this book was more about friendship than romance, and it succeeded in that respect.

Another aspect of the story that I would have liked to see expanded upon is Asha's powers. She is the daughter of the Snow Queen and has magic over ice and snow, but it is never the main focus of her story. I think this is both good and bad for different reasons. On the one hand, it tells a more human story than Frozen did by not making Asha obsessed with controlling her powers and trying to use them to solve her problems. On the other hand, it is mentioned so rarely throughout the book that I actually forgot she had them by the climax. Granted, having ice powers isn't going to do much to help turn her friend from a swan back into a human, but I would have liked to see her use her magic a little more throughout the book for small things just as a reminder that she still has it. Her powers are a part of who she is, so it doesn't seem realistic for her to never use them or think about them. Still, the fact that she used them so rarely contributed to her relatability as a character.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves fairy tales or knows what it's like to be an introvert. It demonstrates that it's okay to feel uncomfortable around crowds and that friends don't always agree with each other. There were so many different fairy tale elements that it felt more like an original story than an adaptation, just like its prequel. The Golden Ball works fine as a standalone book for this series since there isn't anything in it that requires you to know what happened in The Scarred Prince. It is not a strong love story, but it is a beautiful tale about friendship and trust that makes me eager for more books to come out in the Kingdom of Fables series so I can learn about the other princesses who meet at night in the dream world.

More Diverse Cinderella Movies Are Coming!

"Cinderella" is quite possibly the most well-known fairy tale of all time. Every culture has its own version of the story, and it has had more movie adaptations than any other fairy tale, which says something about its timelessness and popularity. Andrew Lloyd Webber is even working on a new musical of it to open whenever we're allowed to go to the theaters again. Of all the "Cinderella"s out there, there is one project that has been kept so under wraps that it hasn't even had a trailer even though it was supposed to come out today. That project is Sony's Cinderella starring one of the most adorable pop stars of our time, Camila Cabello. The movie was meant to celebrate diversity and feature the first gender neutral Fairy Godmother along with an array of modern pop songs. Like so many other movies that were supposed to come out over the past year, its release today never happened. It just might be more likely for a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage than for a "Cinderella" movie to come out on time during the pandemic.

The strangest thing about this movie is that there have been no trailers, clips, or promo images for it, save for one poorly timed screenshot of Camila Cabello in a plain corset dress. For a movie that was supposed to come out today, it doesn't seem like Sony wanted many people to know about it. The fact that they haven't promoted it at all makes me wonder if they ever truly intended for it to be released in February. There are some articles about it, but they are primarily about casting and not the film itself. Perhaps Sony is concerned that people will inevitably confuse it for Disney and took so long to try to find an original way to market it that they ran out of time. Cinderella is currently set for release on July 16th, but that is still subject to change. The most likely reason for the delay is that Sony does not have their own streaming service and were therefore unable to go in the direction of so many other theatrical releases from the past year that dropped as home releases instead. They will be launching a new streaming service this spring, but it will only be available for a specific model of television sets that they manufacture.

What do we know about this new Cinderella? Not a whole lot. Though it will feature pop music, the corset that Camila is wearing in the only known image suggests that it will take place in the distant past, unlike A Cinderella Story , another adaptation of the fairy tale featuring a pop star as its lead. Thanks to a tweet from the leading lady herself, we also know that the movie finished shooting in October of 2020. It's ready to go, but now it just needs an audience, which is bound to be Sony's biggest challenge with the release. One name that stands out among its all-star cast for Disney fans is Broadway star  as Cinderella's stepmother. Idina is one of many Broadway actresses who managed to successfully transition from stardom on stage as Wicked's Elphaba to a full-fledged career in Hollywood. Princess fans will also recognize her as Nancy from Disney's Enchanted, which is getting a sequel in the near future, and the voice of Elsa from Frozen . Sony's Cinderella is confirmed to be a musical with at least some of the songs being remixes of modern-day pop songs including a cover from Camila of Beyoncé's "Single Ladies."

If you don't want to wait until summer to see a diverse adaptation of "Cinderella," you're in luck! Disney just announced that they will be launching their beloved 1997 take of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella on Disney+ on February 12th. That's next week! This movie was one of many of Disney's princess productions that was missing from the streaming service at launch, so it's exciting to see such a wonderful new addition that princess fans around the world can welcome with open arms. This version of "Cinderella" is one of my absolute favorites due in no small part to the gorgeous costumes, sets, songs, and stellar acting from its diverse cast featuring and . Several costumes from this film were on display at the 2019 D23 Expo, where Disney+ was officially launched, which made many fans even more nostalgic to see it again. I hope that one day, Disney will release all of its princess content on their streaming service so we won't have to keep wondering when we can watch our favorite movie next.
It seemed almost magical how Disney swooped in and saved the day with their enchanting Cinderella movie right after Sony pulled the rug out under theirs. Here's hoping that "it's possible" for July 16th to be the final release date to see Camila Cabello make her acting debut as one of the most famous fairy tale princesses of all time. Until then, sit back and relax next Friday as Brandy and Whitney Houston take the stage with their incredible rendition of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. It is more necessary now than ever to make a wish come true and listen to the music in you.

Review: The Scarred Prince

I recently started a new series called Kingdoms of Fable by Erika Everest. The first book is The Scarred Prince, which is promoted as an adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast" and "Little Red Riding Hood." Instead of retelling these well-known fairy tales, I found that The Scared Prince was actually an original story with references to many other fairy tales that were not listed in the description. I knew about Erika Everest from the Fairytale Courtyard group on Facebook that she shares with one of my favorite authors, A.G. Marshall. This series is quite new with only two books out so far, and I think it's off to a terrific start. It's about a group of princesses who know each other due to a shared curse inspired by "The Twelve Dancing Princesses." Each book focuses on one of their adventures while further developing their shared friendships and experiences.

The Scarred Prince does not feel like a true "Beauty and the Beast" adaptation because the prince is still very much human and is able to function normally in society without being judged or feared for his deformation like in the fairy tale. The fabled "beastly" curse only affects half of his face with grotesque scars, similar to The Phantom of the Opera. Prince Sebastian uses a hood to hide his deformation in public, which allows him to be a regular prince without the need for an enchanted staff of servants. The most interesting parts of the story rely on its heroine, a kickass warrior princess named Sienna who wishes to join the prince's army of rangers. She makes a memorable impression on Sebastian by using cunning and stealth to sneak into his chamber without getting caught and pleading her case to him. Through her actions, she demonstrates the benefits of having a female spy on his team who can easily slip in and out of court affairs to gain valuable information. She is such a strong protagonist that she singlehandedly steals the whole story.

Another thing I like about this book is the length. It is long enough to tell a complete story but short enough to not have to sift through endless chapters of exposition. The book is pleasantly fast-paced compared to other books I've read recently. The ending leaves just enough questions to want to read more of the series without being unsatisfying. Sienna has a dark past that is revealed in bits and pieces throughout the narrative, which is what motivates her to become a ranger who is capable of defending herself. The only downfall of the short length is how late the book introduces the dream world that Sienna is trapped in at night along with the other princesses. This is where the book introduces the heroines of future stories in the series that I am eager to get to know better.

The love story between Sienna and Prince Sebastian plays a major role in this book, but it was not the most memorable part. Sebastian is impressed with Sienna's cleverness on the battlefield and sneaky methods of gathering information. He considers the prospect of marrying her several times but is so traumatized by the other women who ran away after seeing his disfigured face that he fears the same thing will happen to her. Sienna, on the other hand, is so obsessed with her independence and battle training that she does not want to consider settling down even though it is obvious that she has feelings for Sebastian. These star-crossed lovers wrestle with the idea of taking their relationship to the next level throughout the book. Though the romance is engaging, Sienna is so strong of a character that I cared more about her happiness than I did about her finding romance with Sebastian or any other suitor.

The Scarred Prince is an impressive start to a new fairy tale series about princesses who don't need rescuing. I was highly impressed with all of the ways that Sienna used her femininity to her advantage and proved that a woman can be just as capable as a man by relying on her unique strengths to make up for their physical differences, something that Disney failed to portray in the recent remake of Mulan. I am eager to read the next book in this series, The Golden Ball, and learn more about the magical dream world where all of the princesses meet in secret at night.

Review: Throne of Elves

I learned about Throne of Elves through a recommendation from a friend. It is a Chinese animated film inspired by a video game called Dragon Nest that takes place in a Dungeons and Dragons-inspired world with humans, elves, and other fantasy races. This movie is a sequel to Dragon Nest: Warriors Dawn, which introduces the world of Alterra. I watched that movie as well, but I found the plot too convoluted along with gratuitous action sequences that took me out of the story. It reminded me of Bayala: A Magical Adventure, which also introduces a vast world of fantasy characters and kingdoms that are packed into a single story. I think Throne of Elves is easier to enjoy than Warriors Dawn because it focuses on a central couple instead of jumping around between different characters and lore all at once. The girl from the central couple is an elf princess, which makes it a perfect contender for my blog.

At the beginning of the movie, Princess Liya is excited to attend her brother's wedding to the beautiful elven Queen Mayre. She requests to invite her human friend, Lambert, to the wedding, who had saved her life in the previous movie. Lambert is nicknamed Little Fish by everyone who is close with him and is called that for the entirety of this movie, so I only knew about his real name from the prequel. He looks several years older and more muscular in this sequel in a way that emulates Hiccup's growth from the How to Train Your Dragon films. Lambert is ecstatic at the chance to see Liya again and makes her a beautiful finger guard for her bow that doubles as an engagement ring. The weaponsmith who trained him to make such trinkets lets him borrow a hoverboard he invented that is reminiscent of the one Jim Hawkins uses in Treasure Planet. Lamber takes fall advantage of the hoverboard and uses it to soar through the animated fantasy world of Alterra, treating us to a series of gorgeous landscapes that resemble the backgrounds in the Barbie: Fairytopia movies.

The video game inspiration behind Throne of Elves is clear from the setting and the plot. Every character is trained in some sort of weapon or magical art. Lambert uses a sword, and Liya has a bow and magical arrows. Shortly before her brother's wedding, Liya is entrusted by Queen Mayre with protecting a magical gem that sustains life among the elves, a common trope in video game RPGs, especially the Final Fantasy series. The conflict ensues when she is given explicit instructions not to tell anyone that she has the Gem of Life, including Lambert. When Mayre's evil sister, Meyla, crashes the wedding in search of the Gem of Life's power, Liya must turn down Lambert's proposal in order to protect it. This places a rift in their relationship that forces Lambert to regain Liya's trust as he offers to help her rescue her sister-in-law, and she finds her loyalties being tested.

I like that this movie allows a chance to zero on in the relationship between Liya and Lambert without all of the convoluted characters and backstories from the prequel. Liya's responsibility as the protector of the gem is a beautiful metaphor for how adult responsibilities can get in the way of our relationships and overshadow things we enjoyed when we were younger. For this reason, I think it does a better job than most Disney sequels at developing adult relationships. I also thought it was neat how Liya remained a princess instead of a queen but had adult responsibilities because her relative was marrying into the throne. That gives her the freedom to marry a commoner of another race without risking the future of the elven kingdom. This sophisticated method of storytelling combined with beautiful animation makes it a movie well worth watching.

Overall, I think Throne of Elves works great as a standalone video-game inspired movie for people who don't have time to commit to a full-length RPG game. It's no wonder it was turned into an MMORPG for Android users. The romance between Liya and Lambert was handled much better than it was in the first movie, which relied on tired video game and war story tropes to introduce their relationship. The fantasy setting worked well with the plot and was visually appealing with beautiful CGI animation. I loved Liya's green leaf Tinker Bell dress and the magical glowing gems. This movie is available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime along with its prequel.

New Trailer Takes a Deep Dive into Raya and the Last Dragon

Raya and the Last Dragon is speculated to be the next big Disney Princess movie. Until recently, many details of its plot were kept under wraps. We know she's a warrior princess, that her people are divided, and that she needs to find the last dragon to help reunite them. Anything else about the story was only hinted at during last month's Investor Day presentation. Today, Disney treated us to a new poster and full-length trailer that gives us a first look at Raya's backstory as well as many of the other characters in the cast, including the dragon, Sisu, herself. The movie is on schedule for its March 5th release in theaters and on Disney+ for an additional fee. If this trailer is any indication of what to expect on that day, we are in for quite the adventure.

The trailer begins with Raya discovering a stray baby and, like the kindhearted princess she is, searching for its parents. Then the baby reveals herself to be a "con-baby" (whatever that means) with badass fighting skills that are practically a match for Raya's. Raya decides to recruit her for her mission and proceeds to reveal her backstory with a flashback of her handsome father informing her of her life's mission to reunite her people. We are then briefly introduced to the other members of her team who employ themselves to help her find the last dragon, including a big guy in an eyepatch and a little boy. When they finally find the dragon, Sisu, they are disappointed when she confesses that she isn't the best dragon for the job. After six years of searching, it looks like they're stuck with her no matter what. The final surprise in the trailer is when we see Sisu shapeshift into her human form, which has the same beautiful blue and purple hair as her dragon persona. This clips are interspersed with more footage of Raya showing off her incomparable fighting skills.

The trailer does not clarify exactly how Sisu is supposed to reunite the indigenous people of Kumandra, but that particular tidbit of information is revealed in the official summary, which reads as follows:

Long ago, in the fantasy world of Kumandra, humans and dragons lived together in harmony. But when sinister monsters known as the Druun threatened the land, the dragons sacrificed themselves to save humanity. Now, 500 years later, those same monsters have returned and it’s up to a lone warrior, Raya, to track down the last dragon in order to finally stop the Druun for good.

I didn't notice any clips of sinister monsters in the trailer, so it's possible that Disney is saving the reveal of what the Druun look like for the film. Considering that this world contains shapeshifting, it may even be one of Raya's companions to follow the latest trend of Disney Princesses and betrayals. If the Druun design is anything like Sisu's, it will be worth the wait. I love how Sisu doesn't look like your typical scaly dragon and instead has huggable cotton candy-like fur in pastel shades of blue and purple. It looks like her relationship with Raya will o be an integral part of the plot. In the trailer, she encourages Raya to learn to trust, a lesson that this hardened warrior princess seems to be in dire need of. We also see a heartwarming hug shared between the princess and the dragon that is dripping with Disney magic.

Raya has some similarities to Moana in that they are both daughters of chiefs who are questing to save their people instead of seeking freedom or romance like other Disney Princesses. I think what sets Raya apart from Moana is that while Moana was expected to sail across the ocean on a tiny one-person raft, Raya enlists a group of warriors to fight beside her, making teamwork a key theme of the film. With Sisu's help, she must learn to trust her companions and realize that it's okay to ask for help no matter how capable you may be, a valuable lesson for children of all ages. The leadership qualities that Raya must learn to demonstrate are reminiscent of the recently concluded Elena of Avalor series, which ushered in a new era of Disney Princesses who use the power of love for their companions to save the day rather than a singular romantic interest. This is a fresh take on an old trope that continues to celebrate compassion and femininity, something that I would like to see more of in newer princess movies.

It looks like Raya and the Last Dragon will have something unique to offer to old and new princess fans alike. The setting of southeast Asia paints a rich world of beautiful scenery and obscure mythology that redefines our perception of dragons. Even though the heroine is a hardened warrior, the story appears to have a lot of heart as she must learn to put her faith in others, even if they appear less capable than her on a superficial level. I love the design for Sisu and hope to see a lot more of her when the movie launches on Disney+ Premier Access on March 5th.

Review: Disenchanted! The Musical

Disenchanted the Musical is a project that began in 2009 and made its way to off-Broadway theaters in 2012. Not to be confused with the upcoming Disney+ sequel to Enchanted, this stage show is a parody of the Disney Princess brand that is in no way sanctioned by Disney, as proven by the public domain-approved character autographs on the poster. The show contains far too many Disney-specific references to be an interpretative musical about fairy tales in the vein of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. Disenchanted! is far less sophisticated than Into the Woods with a focus on low-brow humor and an overall lack of plot, which explains why it never could have been a contender for the elite world of Broadway. It must instead settle for off-Broadway and low-budget local productions like the one I streamed over the weekend. The show's childish humor about cartoon princesses might imply that it is meant for very young audiences, but the light swearing and song about boobs imply otherwise, which makes me wonder what sort of audience it is intended for.

I saw an ad for Disenchanted! on Facebook a few years ago, and it peaked my interest enough to research some songs and clips, but not enough to make travel plans to see it it at some faraway venue. Times have changed since then. Nowadays, entertainment is created with the intent that people will be able to watch it from home. When I saw a new ad for a small theater in Michigan that was offering livestream tickets, I decided to sign up for the Fenton Village Players' performance so I could finally see what all the fuss was about. The production I streamed over the weekend was extremely low budget with no costumes or sets and poor audio quality. The only actress who tried to dress up for her role was Cinderella, who wore a nice dress. Between the performance I watched, the song clips from the official website, and other videos I had seen from the show online, I was able to get the overall gist of the musical. For the most part, Disenchanted! is about a group of Disney Princesses led by Snow White who sing about how terrible their lives are. 

Now that this show is over a decade old, I think the idea behind it is too outdated to be enjoyable. Poking fun at princesses was a big fad when the Disney Princess brand was first introduced in the early 2000s with movies like Shrek  and Enchanted  that recoded the DNA of what it means to be a fairy tale princess, paving the way for the modern era in which Disney redefined it unironically. It no longer makes sense to sing about being tired of the ballgown-wearing damsel in distress waiting for a prince to rescue her because modern princesses wear pants and rescue their own kingdoms. Most of the jokes in this show are tired and overused, which mitigates the humor. Those of us who still dream of romance and ballgowns have trouble relating to princesses who dislike them, and quite frankly, the bitter attitudes behind the princesses of Disenchanted! are uncharacteristic of the girls they are imitating. The only two princesses whose songs I found charming and believable were Pocahontas, who sang about how disappointed she was by the many historical inaccuracies of her movie and Tiana, who sang about how pleased she was to be the first black Disney Princess.
As a narrative structure, Disenchanted! incorporates a series of vignettes in which Snow White summons various princesses from her mirror. There is very little dialogue outside of these introductions, and most songs have little to do with the one that preceded them. The only running gag throughout the show is Sleeping Beauty falling asleep whenever it is her turn to sing until the finale in which she sings the song "Perfect" with the other princesses. A narcoleptic "Sleeping Beauty" is a gat that has been done to death even though she never spontaneously falls asleep in her fairy tale outside of the initial curse. The final message of the show is that the princesses aren't as perfect as the movies make them out to be, but they're still perfect just the way they are. Did they really need a two-hour long play just to tell us that? As a lover of princesses, I found very little to enjoy about this spiteful look at beloved Disney classics. Some of the gags were quite a stretch, such as Ariel complaining about having to shave her new legs. It must have been difficult for the show's writers to come up with something for such famously optimistic characters to complain about.
Overall, Disenchanted! The Musical is an outdated low-brow satire made for people who dislike the Disney Princess brand as it was when it started in the early 2000s. It no longer applies to the new kickass princesses that Disney has been promoting over the past few years, and the jokes have been done to death in other movies and shows. The minor swearing and sexual references are inappropriate for kids, but the potty humor and trite gags are uninspiring for adults. The only audience that I think could possibly enjoy this show is college kids who have been drinking heavily. In that respect, it might be a good contender for a Vegas casino. Aside from that, it has little to offer to older fans of Disney Princess movies, as they are unlikely to agree with its bitter sentiments about these beloved characters.

Review: Poisoned

I saw an ad on Facebook for Poisoned by Jennifer Donnelly and thought "Cool. A retelling of 'Snow White.'" Little did I know that this book would be one of the darkest and unpleasant retellings about the fairest one of all that I've ever read. The book has nothing in it that would be considered inappropriate for children, but it has the same level of storytelling as the 2012 film Snow White and the Huntsman. If you enjoyed that movie, you might like this book. However, I was not a fan of either. So much of Poisoned tries to incorporate Tim Burton-esque imagery that I wasn't sure if Jennifer Donnelly was aware that she was writing a book and not a screenplay. Films are meant to tantalize their audiences with stunning visuals and sounds while books must allow us to connect with the characters on an emotional level by revealing their internal monologues. A good film or book would succeed in both. This succeeds in neither.

Poisoned is written mostly in the third person narrative, which works to its detriment. The lack of emotional attachment I felt to the protagonist, Sophie, made me wish I had a clearer idea of what was going on in her head. What is even more bizarre is that a small selection of chapters are written in the first-person perspective of the Huntsman. This would have been fine if the story was about him, but he played virtually no role in Sophie's tale outside of attempting to kill her one time just as he did in the original fairy tale. The difference is that in this version, he succeeds in cutting out her heart, a gruesome image that made me feel uncomfortable for the remainder of the book. If this story had taken place a normal world, Sophie would have been dead, and that would have been the end of the book. However, Jennifer Donnelly channels her inner Tim Buron by having Sophie encounter seven brothers who live in the woods and make her a clockwork heart that somehow brings her back to life even though her body had been missing its heart the entire time they worked on the prosthetic. For the rest of the book, she wanders the world with a gruesome scar on her chest and ticking gears underneath it.

I could have seen past the macabre imagery if it had been balanced out with an emotional plot, but all of the characters in this story are one-dimensional. At the beginning of the book, Sophie meets a prince named Hans Haakon who is so obviously evil that he might as well have been wearing a flashing neon sign on his head saying "Don't Trust Me." It felt like a chore to go through so many chapters before reaching the betrayal that anyone could see coming from a mile away. I also knew who Sophie's "real" love interest was the moment he showed up even though the author was trying to make the romance a surprise. The seven brothers who were inspired by the seven dwarfs had no real personalities outside of their professions, and it felt like Sophie had no time to form a bond with them even though they grew to love her just as much as the dwarfs from any other adaptation of "Snow White." There was also a new character who made his way through life by robbing corpses. Lovely. Amongst all the gothic and gruesome imagery, I did appreciate that the author incorporated all three methods that Snow White's stepmother used to try to kill her since most versions leave out everything except the apple.

The book gets even more weirdly existential when we learn that the true villain was not Sophie's stepmother, but instead a mysterious figure who turns out to be the personification of Fear. I rolled my eyes so hard at this. The author struggled so much with how to create an emotional connection to her characters that she decided to turn actual emotions into characters, a technique that only worked in Inside Out. I'm sure the imagery and symbolism presented in Poisoned would have looked lovely in a movie, but this is a book, so we need to feel it, not see it. The only thing that I ever felt for Sophie was pity for having to wander around with a bunch of mechanical gears in her chest. I also felt sorry that she trusted someone who was obviously no good. When she finally did meet her love interest, it came so late in the book that I was beyond the point of caring. Their romance felt forced and only seemed to be there to teach Sophie that it was her job as the future queen to reverse the people's negative perceptions about her kingdom's royals.

Overall, Poisoned is a hot mess of a "Snow White" retelling. It wants to be a deep and existential movie, but its characters are shallow and in some cases, literally heartless. Jennifer Donnelly would be better suited to writing a script for a Tim Burton movie than a novel. The macabre imagery in the book made me reluctant to finish it, and the "plot twists" were so obvious that it felt like a waste of time. The only positive thing I have to say about it is that she succeeded in making it even darker than the Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Next time I see an ad on Facebook for a book that I know nothing about, I'll think twice before purchasing it.

Fate on Netflix Is the Anti-Winx Saga!

"I'm just kinda bummed I didn't see a single pair of wings" is the final line in Netflix's preview trailer for Fate: The Winx Saga. It's probably no coincidence that her statement was every fan's reaction to the initial trailer for the show. Its TV-MA rating is a clear indicator that its target audience is very different from the sparkly animated Winx Club series from 2004, which happens to be the year Bloom says she was born. This bland live-action remake makes us wish we could go back to that time period when film and television still had original ideas. The constant references to sex and drugs feel superficial and forced into the script to get the desired rating on Netflix, unlike something like Bridgerton, which has a plot that revolves directly around its characters' sex lives. When all is said and done, the first six episodes of Fate: The Winx Saga are a complete insult to everything that the Winx Club series stood for.

Fate's supernatural teen drama influence was encoded into its DNA so deeply that the writers failed to consider if it would actually make sense with the story. The lack of wings is explained away as fairies having evolved beyond the need for transformations to use their magic. I don't know about you, but the main appeal of being a faery princess for me always revolved around being able to grow a pair of sparkly wings and fly away from all the drama and chaos of the world. Take that away, and there's very little appeal to it at all. In fact, according to a TMI story that Aisha tells in the first episode, being a fairy can be literal shit sometimes. They even got some fairy lore outside of their own canon wrong with an offhand statement that Tinker Bell was an air fairy when anyone familiar with the Disney Fairies series knows that she is a tinker fairy. Aside from the misuse of terminology, there was also the complete lack of worldbuilding. In the cartoon, Bloom was an ordinary human girl who discovered she had magic and had to deal with the culture shock of living in another dimension where everyone dresses and behaves differently. In Fate's version of Alfea, people are surprised to learn that Bloom is from Earth, but they walk around in jeans, t-shirts, and engross themselves in uploading selfies to their Instagrams every five minutes. Doesn't that sound exactly like Earth? How did they pick up on these habits if Bloom's world is so foreign to them?

The basic plot was similar enough to the cartoon to share its namesake. It took a few unexpected twists and turns, which would have been fine if they hadn't done such a lazy job developing the world. In this version of the show, Bloom doesn't have the best relationship with her Earth parents and lies to them about the type of school she is attending. Why they wouldn't have to look up paperwork and speak to school representatives to give approval for their underage daughter to attend a foreign school and inherently realize the whole thing is a sham is never explained, but the desire to mend her relationship with her parents is a driving force for her character as well as the mystery of her birth, which is a little different here than it was in the cartoon. Her visions of Daphne are replaced with a new character named Rosalinda, who has a connection to the school. Bloom is determined to learn when she came from and enlists in the aid of Beatrix, who was inspired by the three Trix from the original show. Beatrix and Bloom are linked by their pasts, which vaguely hearkens to a storyline that was introduced in the eighth season of the cartoon in which Icy became evil to rescue her sister. The fairies also spend a large portion of the show trying to fight off dementor-like monsters known as the Burned Ones, who serve as the antagonists for most of the season.

As we saw in the trailer, the Winx girls have been stripped of their bubbly personalities in this soulless remake and replaced with angsty drama queens. Gone is the unbreakable bond that they form when they decided to name themselves the "Winx Club" and become an inseparable group of friends. In Fate, the term "Winx" comes from the name of their dormitory suite. How boring is that? Some of the changes to the girls' personalities make sense in this new genre and others don't. For instance, Stella is still a princess, but instead of dating a guy who she thinks is Prince Sky and learning that he's actually Sky's servant, she is now Sky's jealous ex-girlfriend, and Brandon is no longer in the show. That made sense because she came off as a bit spoiled in the cartoon and seemed like the type of girl who would get jealous if someone hits on her guy. She is also the only one who wears glittery sequins and hair accessories, which is a throwback to her infamous passion for fashion. Sky is the son of a soldier instead of a prince in this version, but he's still the most popular of the specialists.

Musa's changes, on the other hand, make very little sense. In the cartoon, she was the edgiest of the fairies, which should make her a good fit for the new genre. Instead, they stripped her of her musical powers, changed her to an empath, and gave her the healthiest relationship among the fairies. She is no longer in an on-again-off-again toxic relationship with bad boy Riven. Instead, Riven is paired with Beatrix, and Musa gets together with the brother of Terra, a new character, who is apparently the cousin of Flora, the fairy from the cartoon who she replaced. As the daughter of a professor from Alfea, Terra is a pretty bland plant nerd who adds some unnecessary drama to the story. Tecna has been removed from the show entirely, which is a shame because a technology fairy could do so much more in the age of smartphones than with the level of technology that we had back in 2004. Meanwhile, Aisha is stripped of most of the things that made her interesting in the original series. She doesn't have a connection to the pixies or any of the tantalizing drama she suffered through in the cartoon. She makes almost no comments about her past and might not even be a princess in this version of the show.

The thing that aggravated me the most was when Fate tried to throw a bone to fans of the Magical Girl genre by giving Bloom a transformation that was so bad, I couldn't figure out if it was supposed to be taken seriously. The camera freeze-framed around her as flames shot out from different parts of her body only to reveal her wearing the exact same outfit with a couple of flames on her back in the shape of wings. That's not a transformation. That's just fire on her back, and it wasn't even a surprise since we saw her release flames from other parts of her body prior to that episode. What a slap in the face to those of us who were awaiting a transformation sequence! After seeing this, I think that the subtitle of Fate should have been "The Anti-Winx Saga" because it is the enemy of all the glitter, magic, and friendship that Winx once stood for.

Review: Stalks of Gold

I was fortunate to receive an ARC of the first book in the upcoming Bewitching Fairy Tales series by Celeste Baxendell. Set for release on January 28th, Stalks of Gold is a retelling of "Rumpelstiltskin" and "Rapunzel" that I enjoyed quite a bit more than the last "Rumpelstiltskin" adaptation I reviewed. The love story in Stalks of Gold is not shallow like many other fairy tale adaptations, and the protagonist's obstinance toward love is understandable. It sets up a flawed love triangle that gives the reader a chance to piece together how it might end up without being too heavy-handed. The first installment in this fairy tale series does a good job of balancing the two fairy tales without having a split personality by giving each of the two love interest a different role in both stories.

Stalks of Gold wastes no time in setting up the premise. Aurelia, a miller's daughter, is captured by palace guards and forced to spin straw into gold, something that she believes to be impossible. Her sole hope of being spared rests with Sandor, her good friend who works at the palace. Sandor has a much closer relationship with the king than Aurelia is aware of, and as a result, he is unable to come to her defense when she is taken against her will. Aurelia sees this act as a betrayal and turns to a magical being who has the ability to spin straw into gold for her. She makes several bargains with the mysterious man, including granting him the name Ruskin. Unlike the fairy tale, none of these bargains involve any unborn children, which could have tied neatly into the original story of "Rapunzel." However, I liked that this book kept the romance clean in both of the fairy tales it incorporated. Once Aurelia has spun all the gold that King Eadric requires of her, she is forced into another impossible situation. Without Sandor to turn to for help, she finds herself locked away in a tower after a desperate act to escape marrying the crazed king.

I appreciate how much depth went into all three characters in the love triangle from this book. At the beginning of the story, I genuinely did not know which love interest Aurelia would choose. Sandor's cowardice to stand up for her as the king captured and abused her was difficult to look past. Meanwhile, Ruskin seems like the obvious choice at first because he is always there for Aurelia when she needs him. However, things are not always as they seem. The book gives us a chance to root for Sandor by revealing his side of the story and how awful he felt about not doing anything when Aurelia was taken. In between her struggles, the book reveals Sandor's secret meetings with his sister and all of the work that he puts in behind the scenes to free Aurelia from the wicked king's grasp. Ruskin's intentions are more mysterious. As the story unravels, Aurelia learns some valuable lessons about patience and trust.

The only section that felt a little forced was the magical hair aspect of the "Rapunzel" sequence. There wasn't a particularly good explanation of why Ruskin used magic to grow Aurelia's hair impossibly long while she was trapped in the tower except to give her a convenient method of escaping. Her captor never used it to climb up, and her hair had been a normal length prior to that point. Other elements of the fairy tale were handled tastefully, such as the prince's struggle to deal with the loss of his eyesight, and the "Rapunzel" figure wandering the desert in search of him after she escapes (minus the pregnancy). I also like that Aurelia getting locked in a tower gives both love interests a second chance to prove their true intentions to her and forces her to take time to consider where her loyalties truly lie. There's nothing like being stuck in solitude to force a person to reevaluate their life.

Stalks of Gold is a clever twist on the classic fairy tale romance trope. In this day and age where princesses are viewed in pop culture media as unrealistically flawless, this book allows us to take another look at the daring princes who rescue damsels in distress with little to no effort. Love can give a person unwavering loyalty, but it does not make them invincible. Stalks of Gold is a promising start to a series of fairy tales about princesses and heroes who must look beyond their own shortcomings and learn to love each other for who they truly are. This book is available now in paperback and is set for release on Kindle on January 28th. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.