Enchanted: Release date March 18, 2008
The Enchanted story:
Giselle (Amy Adams), a beautiful princess, is banished by an evil queen (Susan Sarandon) from her magical, musical animated land and finds herself in the gritty reality of the streets of modern-day Manhattan. Shocked by this strange new environment that doesn't operate on a "happily ever after" basis, Giselle is adrift in a chaotic world badly in need of enchantment. But when Giselle begins to fall in love with a charmingly flawed divorce lawyer (Patrick Dempsey, who plays Derek Shepherd in Grey's Anatomy) who has come to her aid – even though she is already promised to a perfect fairy tale prince (James Marsden) back home – she wonders if a storybook view of romance could survive in the real world.
What is the movie like?
The film begins with animation and switches to live action. The fairy tale scenes in the film are done in 2-D animation, as a tribute to the past Disney fairy tale films such as
Cinderella and
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
This is the first Disney live-action/traditional animation hybrid since 1988's Who Framed Roger Rabbit; but unlike Roger Rabbit, traditionally-animated characters will not share the screen with live-action characters. It is also the first theatrically released Disney American film to feature traditional animation since Pooh's Heffalump Movie.
The ten minutes of traditional animation was not done in house, but by a smaller Pasadena-based company called James Baxter Animation, started by legendary lead animator James Baxter. Baxter had previously worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation, bringing to life many memorable animated characters like Belle (Beauty and the Beast) and Quasimodo (
Hunchback of Notre Dame).
The Hidden Layers of Disney's Movie "Enchanted"
Once Upon a Time, not very long ago, Disney created the movie "Enchanted" which used story lines from previous Disney Princess stories. The plot focuses on Giselle, an archetypical Disney Princess who is forced from her 2D-animated world of Andalasia into real-life New York City by the Evil Queen Narissa. Thanks to the ingenuity of the writers, there are several layers to this movie. If you have seen the movie, there are some references that you have noticed, some you may have noticed and some references that only the most diehard Disney fan would have caught.
The obvious layer: The story is most similar to Snow White, because it has an Evil Queen, played beautifully by Susan Sarandon.
Queen Narissa is the stepmother of Prince Edward, the two dimensional love interest of Giselle. In both stories, the poisoned apple plays an important part, and the likeness of the old hag is almost identical. A very funny part of the movie is where Giselle decides to clean up Robert's house with the help of the local animals, which in this case are rats, pidgeons and cockroaches. This of course is exactly what Snow White does when she sees the messy house that the Seven Dwarfs live in. Near the end of the movie, True Love's Kiss comes into play in order to waken Giselle from the curse of the poison apple.
Additionally, Cinderella very clearly comes into play during the Royal Ball scene, and her footprint is left with the see-through designer shoe. The fairy godmother in Enchanted is really Robert's American Express card, which provides all the clothing Giselle needs for the ball.
At the end of the movie, the spectacular transformation of Queen Narissa into a fire breathing dragon is very similar to the transformation of the
villain Jafar in the movie
Aladdin.
The subtle layer:
There are several scenes in the movie that have exact parallels in the other Disney movies:
-In Central Park, there are a few seconds which show Giselle and Robert in a boat which looks very much like a scene in the Little Mermaid.
-Later in the same Central Park scene, you will notice a woman with a candelabra on her head. Seem strange? This is a nod to Lumiere, the candelabra in Beauty and the Beast.
-While singing "That's How You Know" in Central Park, Giselle runs up a small, grassy hill, her arms stretched out behind her. You may recognize the similarity of this shot to "The Sound of Music: The Hills Are Alive". There is also a similar shot to this in "Beauty and the Beast".
-A reference to another classic movie occurs when Giselle and Robert visit an Italian restaurant for dinner. The restaurant may seem a little familiar. The restaurant is Bella Notte, which is from "Lady and the Tramp".
-Characters from past Disney films are seen, such as the appearances of Thumper and Flower from
Bambi in the 2D animation portion of the film.
The layer most people will miss:
Jodi Benson, who's the voice of Ariel from 'The Little Mermaid,' was in the movie as the receptionist at Robert's office.
When Nathaniel (Timothy Spall) is in a motel room watching TV, there's a moment when Paige O'Hara [voice of Belle from 'Beauty and the Beast'] shows up on the TV screen in the soap opera. The soap-opera music is 'Beauty and the Beast' rearranged.
The law firm Robert works for is called Churchill, Harline and Smith who are the three songwriters from 'Snow White'.
Pregnant Woman with Kids: Judy Kuhn provided the singing voice of Pocahontas in Pocahontas.
Julie Andrews as Narrator: Andrews played the title character in
Mary Poppins as well as appearing in The Princess Diaries series as Queen Clarisse Renaldi.
There's More
According to director Kevin Lima, "thousands" of references are made to past and future works of Disney in Enchanted, which serve as both a parody of and a "giant love letter to Disney classics". As Lima worked with Bill Kelly, the writer, to inject Disney references to the plot, it became "an obsession". They derived the name of every character as well as anything that needed a name from past Disney films to bring in more Disney references.
Can you find more hidden references, now that you know they are there?
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