Tangled

Better Late Than Never...
We apologize for the later than usual update to the blog this week. Circumstances beyond our control meant we couldn't seem to be online at the same time in order to chat. We got there eventually though, and here are the results...


matt: hey, are you there?

yello...?

talk ta me, ya silly little freak!


... I'll be back in a bit...

Josh: ah. sorry. okay just saw this things is so crazy!

matt: Are you there NOW?

Josh: YES!

matt: FINALLY!

Ok let's discuss what we thought of Tangled

Josh: it had me in knots. nyuk nyuk nyuk

matt: Ha ha... This one had an interesting genesis, in that it was going to be the first Disney feature that Glen Keane would direct. Particularly noteworthy then that it was a CG film, not a traditional 2D film, don't you think?
Of course, Keane left the project as director during production, but you can still see his thumbprint, don't you think?
I just said "don't you think" twice... bad form...

Josh: Yeah, there had been talk of it for a long time. I had a lot of curiosity about how Keane would be as a director, considering a lot of the heart from the films he worked on came from the characters he supervised. I totally think his influence is felt throughout the film. The animation is some of the best CG I've ever seen and I think that's probably due to his supervision.

The subtleties in the acting were amazing at parts. and it didn't feel too real. It felt like a cartoon and had the real"ism" of modern day animation

matt: Yeah, totally. The character designs are totally in his style. I heard an interview with him from the early days of the production, and he talked about how he was trying to advance a look for the film that would suggest a moving painting, rather than a "plastic" look. At times, you can see that the film does achieve that effect.

I agree with you about the subtle animation. For a while I think Disney's CG features were running in third place next to Pixar and Dreamworks in terms of animation acting, and in my opinion this was a noticeable step up in the acting quality.

Josh: Yeah, I can't remember the name of the painting that he took inspiration from, but they would show it in articles and such...

Jean-Honoré Fragonard's "The Swing"

matt: Hmm... yeah, you can definitely see the influence in the film, particularly in the use of lighting

Josh: The horse was real Loony Tunes-esque. He was great! From the commercials I thought it was going to be too silly, but the relationship with the guy - Flynn - and the horse was great. Real Abbot and Costello...

matt: Again, it all comes back to the acting. That was a character that would succeed or fail totally on the strength of the animation, since there was no dialogue

With added difficulty being a non-human

Josh: It is an old gag to see a horse act like a dog, but it worked so well and it was funny so I didn't care, I just enjoyed it

matt: I think one of the real strengths of this film was the way they gave all three main characters - Rapunzel, Flynn and Gothel - very strong motivations.

Josh: Yeah, none of them felt secondary

matt: I liked the fact that they seemed to be exploring slightly different territory for a Disney film, making the hero a roguish, Han Solo-type character. They've done the "plucky heroine" quite a few times to break out of the damsel mold, but they've tended to keep the male love interest pretty bland until now... am I forgetting a previous film they did this kind of character in?

Josh: I don't think Disney has made too many roguish male leads. side characters maybe. That was always Dreamworks' thing

matt: Right, there was Gaston, but he was a villain in Beauty and the Beast

Josh:Lumiere, but he was a side character. I think it's the best love story in any Disney film to date, and someone described the love story here as "the most earned" and I think that's a great description. They weren't even thinking of being together at first, the Flynn character tried to "smoulder" her (a great bit) but that was only so he could get out of there. When they separated, they actually missed each other, and you missed them being together - no "hey look at them, I'm in love! Woo hoo"

matt: Yeah, it made the payoff at the end more involving for the audience, because there was a genuine moment of "oh, he's really leaving!"

Gothel made for a really interesting villain. I really loved how there were shades of gray to her character - she wasn't the typical "baddie in black". You could almost sympathize with her. You could tell that while she was using Rapunzel, she also did care for her in her own twisted, co-dependent way.

In a way that made her even creepier.

Josh: Yeah, although I didn't feel like she really cared for her, it was totally creepy like you said, but it felt more like she was emotionally dependent on what Rapunzel did for her.

She just knew how to manipulate her

She liked having someone to be in control of, and that's where her "love" came from.

matt: Yeah, I think you're right, actually

Josh: It was a little too close to real life there

Social Services definitely needed to be called

But Rapunzel, too, didn't just wake up and say she was going to stand up for herself, she grew into it

matt: Yeah, you're right, she had a long and difficult arc to get to the point where she broke free from Gothel's influence

Josh: The earlier scene when she first gets away and is going back and forth about her mother and how great it is to be free was hysterical

Total co-dependent mind f*&k.

matt: Yeah that was really well done.

The way they staged Gothel's song, "Mother Knows Best" was great - it really felt like a stage musical. They seemed to be making no apologies for where the movie musical has its roots - this was reinforced by the way the animators had her do that big flourish with her hand on the final verse. I loved that!

Josh: Yeah, the musical aspect was really on par with the classics

Not quite Howard Ashman-worthy, but real close

It did feel like an actual show, I really liked that

matt: Alan Menken did the music and Glenn Slater did the lyrics

Joshua: I saw it in 3D in the theatre, thinking I wasn't going to like that, but it really brought a cool dimension to it

Although it took my eyes about 15 min or so to get used to it, and I think being in a movie should be instantaneous

Not something you have to physically adjust to

matt: I saw it in 3D also, but it wasn't one that I thought needed that treatment

I'm kind of over the 3D thing

Josh: Back to the art: I think the characters really felt like Glen Keane drawings

There are certain nuances he always used that were present in the characters

matt: Yeah, I agree. And I figure they must have developed a new way of handling hair for this movie, because the length of Rapunzel's tresses always had a nice artistic shape to it.

Josh: Yeah, there's probably something on the DVD about it, I haven't watched everything yet

matt: It moved and animated as a shape, the way an animator would draw it on paper, rather than strands

Josh: At this point, they always say "we had to invent a new way of doing - blah blah blah - for this film."

matt: Yeah, it's an evolving medium

Josh: I'm impressed by the product, but not by the fact that they had to do it, because they always have to do it

Wet hair in The Incredibles

matt: right

Josh: Major articulation for Kung Fu Panda

and on How to Train Your Dragon

Fur for Monsters Inc

matt: You are an animation encyclopaedia!

Josh: Paper and pencil pal! PAPER AND PENCIL did it all back in the day!

Watch THE OLD MILL

I was just in San Francisco this weekend and I went to The Walt Disney Family Museum

matt: Oh wow, what was that like?

Josh: It was a great, comprehensive collection of everything

matt: I didn't know that even existed

Josh: Art, family history, the films, the studio, the artists, the animation, the story, the parks,

we were there for a couple of hours and had to rush the last parts to catch our plane, we want to go back to really see the rest

matt: Sounds like something I'd like to see!

Ok I really have to go now... Chat to ya soon

Josh: Thanks! Later!