Growing up, Disney had the market cornered on childhood movies.
Everything from The Little Mermaid to Cinderella to The Parent Trap fascinated us with their magical stories, picture-perfect fairy tale endings, and warmth and comfort.
This monopoly caused other films made by non-Disney animation companies to become criminally underrated. The Swan Princess is one of them. Here’s why many adults, including myself, consider it our favorite childhood film .
First, some backstory. The 1994 film was based on the ballet, ‘Swan Lake’ by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
It began with King William and Queen Uberta from two separate kingdoms hatching the plan to have their kids — Derek and Odette — fall in love.
When they married, they would be able to unite their two kingdoms.
This plan didn’t seem to work at first, as Odette and Derek hated each other.
Thankfully, this all started to change as they grew up and each saw the opposite gender as something other than just “cooties.”
They even started to fall in love, which led to Derek proposing to Odette.
This didn’t go well, though, as he fumbled over his words.
Even in 1994, the movie was ahead of its time, with Odette wanting Derek to say that he loved something other than her beauty.
But being the typical man that he is, he was unable to get the right words out.
This led to the hilarious line, “You should write a book! How to offend a women with 4 syllables!”
This also gave Rothbar, an evil and banished sorcerer, the chance to take over King William’s kingdom.
Things got dark when he killed William and kidnapped the princess.
Since she refused to marry him (good on you, Odette!), he cast a spell that turned her into a swan, thus the name of the film, ‘The Swan Princess.’
She was only able to return to her human form temporarily when the moonlight touched the lake.
Like any good fairy tale film, the only way to break the spell is if Odette kisses her one true love.
Derek never gave up on searching for Odette and eventually figured out the mystery of her being hidden in plain sight.
I won’t spoil the rest of the film — just know that there is clearly a happy ending.
Although the film bombed at the box office, it’s become a cult classic among us former kids who will always cherish it.
There was so much to love about the film, starting with the animation that took four years to make.
This was done with the process of hand-painting. The end result was dreamy animation that felt like staring at a painting.
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It was directed by Richard Rich, a former Disney animator who created ‘Robin Hood’ and ‘The King and I.’
For a non-Disney movie, it had all the elements of a good Disney movie that we all know and love. This includes a cast of loveable side characters.
In the film, there was Rogers, Speed (the turtle), Jean-Bob (the French frog), and Lieutenant Puffin (the Irish puffin).
The music was catchy enough that you’d run around the house singing it. ” Far Longer Than Forever ” was even nominated for Best Original Song at the Golden Globes.
All in all, if you haven’t seen this film yet, you really need to.
The Swan Princess featured great music, ground-breaking animation, and love between two characters that you could really root for .
The movie was also ahead of its time by breaking stereotypes and having a leading lady who refused to marry who she thought was a shallow man.
