Disney Channel is starting a Tangled series! So, it’s not a sequel, but it’s still something. The series starting with an hour-long movie. We’ll see how it holds up to the original. Now, it has at least one thing going for it, which is the return of the original movie cast. On the other hand, it does have cheaper tv studio animation. The art is kinda pretty, in its way, but I’m not so sure how I feel about it.
Anyway, I thought I’d watch this thing, and live-blog it, and we’ll see how it turns out.
Standard Eugene opening, and summary of Tangled. I enjoy the running gag of "This is the story of how I died..." opening every Tangled incarnation.
So, for reference, this takes place 6 months after the end of Tangled, but before they get married (How long a time period do they intend to stretch a tv series over? It seemed like Eugene and Rapunzel got married fairly soon after Tangled).
Rapunzel has a coronation to become princess officially, apparently. Is that a thing, if one was born a princess?
Rapunzel is having issues being a princess. I think her problems are stemming from the fact that she still doesn’t wear shoes to formal events.
Her dad talks in this one! (and even sings a little). Mom talks too. That’s more lines than either got in the first movie.
The pub thugs are at a spa, planning Eugene’s proposal. That’s kinda cute.
I think they had difficulty coming up with a rhyme for Fitzherbert. (I think the lyric was "Life's gonna be like strawberry sherbet when she is Mrs. Eugene Fitzherbert).
Rapunzel painted her room in the castle! Aww!
Ominous unidentified villain in the sewer. I think her name’s Lady Cane.
So this is Cassandra. She calls Rapunzel “Raps” and dislikes Eugene, Unsure what to think of her right now.
The overprotective guards are getting annoying. They were sent by Rapunzel’s overprotective dad.
Cassandra put Eugene at the kids table. Lol.
Eugene proposed! … And Rapunzel freaked out about living trapped in the castle. Which is fair, since she spent 18 years in a tower, and only just got out.
Cassandra’s dad is captain of the guards, which apparently means she has a closet full of weapons.
Eugene feels really bad about putting Rapunzel on the spot with his proposal, but Rapunzel is gone.
Rapunzel and Cassandra are sneaking out.
Cassandra has a pet owl… It’s name is Owl. That makes it slightly less exciting,
Apparently a bunch of weird, unbreakable spikes sprouted up around where they picked the flower in the first movie.
Sleeping Beauty reference.
… And it blew up. And now Rapunzel has her hair back. Why? Can they not spend more than a 10-minute short with Rapunzel if she doesn’t have her long hair? Can’t she have adventures with the short hair? Are they going to have to cut it again at some point (since in Tangled Ever After she has short hair)? This is bugging me.
Her hair doesn’t cut this time. That makes total sense.
Pascal is excited about the new hair. Eugene… is more in shock right now.
Her dad is freaking out about the potential dangers of the world, and that apparently justifies him refusing to let Rapunzel do anything unsupervised.
Her mom has a backstory! It sounds like she was a world traveler. She wants Rapunzel to go have adventures too. That’s sweet.
Epic hair flip.
Frying pans are back.
Dad’s upset that she snuck out. He just locked her in the castle?! What the heck? We don’t need tower 2.0.
Rapunzel and Eugene patched things up and had a nice moment together. Rapunzel decided (via a musical number, of course) that she’s going to go on adventures anyway. That’s cool I guess.
Overall, it was good, but not great. Didn’t quite live up to the standard set by the movie. Maybe the series will be better. I think the plot line was really weird and left a lot of questions (starting with how did touching a rock made her hair come back?). I also think that locking Rapunzel back in the tower and making the main conflict center around her trying to learn to be a classic princess (pretty dresses, curtsies, etc) is a really lame story line. Like Disney could have made her a scientist (the original movie mentions that she was interested in astronomy, and she also works really well with animals) or focused on how artistic she is. Instead, it wasn’t until like ⅔ of the way into the movie that Rapunzel really did anything very interesting or exciting. Considering that Disney is currently trying to market the princesses as great role models for little girls, they kinda dropped the ball on what could have been a useful opportunity.
It seems like it’s a lot different than Barbie as Rapunzel. I watched it when I was young and it has been a long time that I am looking for it online. Anyways, I have already lined up some amazing shows by Andy Yeatman for my kids as vacations are about to start. I can still continue with my search while having something for them.
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