Bah, that last line… I think it’s close, but still, Up just rocks my world.
The fact that Pixar Planet is torn over what the better animated film was this year is nothing short of amazing no matter which side of the debate you’re on. What a strong year for animation! 
Definitey, Netbug! If you ask me, non-Pixar animated studios really came back to form last year with the likes of Disney Animation’s Bolt and DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda. However, this year we’ve seen brilliant animated films from not just Pixar and Disney Animation, but also Sony and newcomer Laika, with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Coraline, respectively (the latter of which is easily my favorite stop-motion animated film of all time). I’m lovin’ it!
Yeah, it was a close one, believe me… both had similarly poignant and emotionally-vested openings and endings, with equal amounts (IMO) of heart and character development throughout the ‘journey’. Both had endearing characters which I all loved, both had truly awesome and very, very, vile (as well as equally misunderstood) villains… but in the end, PTAF won out because I’m a sucker for 2-D animation and musicals. Yes, I’m a little biased, but that’s just my two cents. But really, next to District 9 (and hopefully Avatar), the two of them have got to be the best films of the year. 
Haunt - I didn’t notice the [spoil]flying carpet[/spoil]! I’ll look out for it on my next viewing.
karly05 - Me too! I was almost expecting [spoil]Tiana to rant on “keeping his station clean”! 
Louis reminded me of Remy in a way, too.[/spoil]
I think I also saw [spoil]someone dressed as a mermaid during the ball, right about the time Tiana and Naveen (as frogs) were escaping Stella the dog.[/spoil]
Besides [spoil]Aladdin and The Little Mermaid[/spoil], here are some more Disney references I noticed while recollecting my viewing:
Big Daddy’s dog, Stella, reminded me a bit of Nana from Peter Pan.
Speaking of which, Dr. Facilier’s free-spirited shadow reminded me of Peter Pan’s.
“When We’re Human” = “Bare Necessities” from The Jungle Book?
“Dig a Little Deeper” = “Carnival of the Animals” from Fantasia 2000?
There are probably many more, but these are the ones I can remember at the moment. 
Saw it, adored it. I loved the characters; since they had actual personalities, you got to know them. You wanted to see them get together. You wanted to see them get other their obstacles. You wanted to cheer them on while you did.
I love how this movie was a bit like Enchanted in that it was a bit of an affectionate parody to the old Disney movies. Naveen acts like the young, handsome, rich prince featured in most Disney fairy tales would: Like a complete man-wh…am I allowed to say that word on PP? The character Charlotte is obviously a parody of the people who attack Disney for giving bad “hope, dreams, and love in two seconds princess” messages to little girls.
Also, I meant to post this earlier, but my English teacher, a few days before the movie came out, surprised me by proving to be even more obsessed with this movie then I am. We walk in, and on the board, there is a poster for the movie and a bunch of questions about the portrayal of women and race in Disney movies. I had a LOT of fun with that discussion, to the point where the substitute held up her hand in the middle of one of my arguments, and said “Excuse me, but how do you KNOW all this!?”
Ugh, this just put a damper on my Christmas Eve; this lady is obviously too blind and near-sighted to see the magic of it all. sigh
[url]http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/2140/disney’s_lump_of_coal[/url]
Wow, what a Scrooge.
Honestly, I thought the movie put New Orleans in a pretty good light. Kinda like a fun place to be.
But, if you need to get down to the technicalities…
Gah. This makes me so mad, I can’t epress on a PG forum.
What is this?! Wow, that’s so bad, it’s kinda funny. The person is just looking for stuff to gripe about. I mean… epic headdesk.
HUGE spoiler: [spoil]“Oh, and Disney, no funerals on Ash Wednesday unless you get a dispensation. So that funeral for the firefly Ray… liturgically incorrect.”
Nobody said it took place the next day. We don’t know what the time gap on any of these things is! [/spoil]
I could say so much more, but bothering to spend my Christmas Eve justifying to somebody complaining seems pointless. I just kinda felt a need to come in and say that not every Christian is picking at logic in film like that. -_-;
I mean, if they have a problem with how [spoil]voodoo[/spoil] is portrayed, fine, but they should just say it instead of making up a ton of reasons to hate the movie to back up her argument. If she needs to do that, then clearly it’s not that big a deal to begin with.
Man, she wasn’t too happy of a person, huh? At least she only had to pay about $2.50 for her ticket, cheapest tickets for movies around where I live are about four bucks. 
Just commenting on some things throughout the article posted…
…
Did I miss out on something here? I don’t recall him being a priest, of all things.
It’s almost like this person has never heard of an homage.
It’s great that there is a story to be offered, but it would have “obscured” the story that was already being told.
And, ugh, so many other things that I’d post at the site, but I really don’t want to waste my time and energy signing up for that site.
It feels like all those morons who were complaining about Tiana turning into a frog and Naveen not being black. Jesus, guys, this is the 21st century. Get over it. Disney worked their butts off trying to make this as sensitive as possible, you could at least respect that.
But, no, they’d rather listen to themselves whine.
Whoah. She’s trying to claim these animals would be following the rules of the church. That would bring up so many questions, the first of which being where did they learn to read and where did they get a Bible.
Wow, from what I’ve read here (didn’t read the whole review on that link because I want to avoid major spoilers), that reviewer is just being ridiculous, picking on everything. I’ve read some other shocking, short negative reviews like that about PATF online some time ago, and most of them make me just roll my eyes. Many of the negative reviews are very misled - some didn’t even see the trailer and already picking on some stuff that weren’t even true. scoff Forget them. I may not have seen the movie yet, but I’d be willing to bet everything I’ve got that this newest Disney Classic is not as racist, biased, close-minded, or offensive as those total movie Scrooges say. 
LOL, Rac_Rules, that sounds absolutely awesome! Classes would be so much less boring if any of my teachers would bring up a classic Disney movie for positive discussion. I think many of my classmates would go, like, “wtf” (why are some people so misled by the way Disney is nowadays? ), but most likely I would keep going on about it.
If anything, BDD, it actually preaches equality and meritocracy. Those who have heard the hinting [spoil]“…person from your background”[/spoil] line would’ve understood the stance Disney was taking against racism.
Oh boy, I get a kick out of reading contrarian reviews and how misguided some critics can get. Besides the fact that she compared PTAF to Song of the South (which, although it may have been too sugar-coated and politically-correct, was not offensive or racist in the least, IMO), her arguments have holes big enough to drive a tram through.
Ugh, isn’t Mama Oldie a voodoo priestest too? The point about making Dr. Facilier evil was to make a point that magic can be used for good or evil. Nobody complained about Jafar or Malificent, so I don’t see anything wrong with Facilier being a “bad guy”.
Why not?
He could’ve been black, white or mixed. Disney simply left his ethnicity ambiguous.
So I suppose Yao, Ling and Chien-Po (the solider trio) from Mulan just showed all Chinese men have poor physical health? Or that Bruce, Anchor and Chum (the shark trio) from Finding Nemo proves every Australian can’t be trusted to keep sober and abstain from alcohol. And that Shenzi, Banzai and Ed (the hyena trio) from The Lion King labels all Africans to have bad hygiene and a poor sense of humour. We have to take a couple of caricatures of comic relief characters at face value and as the Gospel truth?
Right…
I suppose it would’ve made you feel better if there were signboards, or if the characters shouted out the names. “Oh look, we’re on the Mississippi!” “Here I go running into the Saint Louis Ca-the-dral!” The fact these landmarks made an appearance in the movie is enough for me.
Yeesh, what a whiner. Obviously she never heard of the term “Suspension of Disbelief”.
If you guys are up for it, here’s another hooter from Armond White, another unrepentant troll who has denounced WALL-E, District 9, Up and pretty much any good movie before.
nypress.com/article-20657-ba … witch.html
Rule #1: Never trust an Armond White review. 
EDIT: I read a response to the AW review which mentioned that Tiana and Charlotte’s friendship may not have entirely been impossible, as there were free black people in New Orleans even before the war. Huh, that’s nice to know.
I believe Naveen is Creole, which I thought was pretty darn neat. In all honestly I don’t think they did it to be first either. That ethnicity can be found all over Gulf region, which ties him quite well to the place and time.
Seemed fine and dandy to me.
Wow, I didn’t know that, did you read it somewhere (out of curiousity, cos’ I’ve read many reports which mentioned his race as undefined).
Regardless, it’s good that Disney’s teaching kids the concept of interracial love. Not that it’s a new idea by any means… just watch Pocahontas or Atlantis (or, if you’re adventurous, Treasure Planet’s Doppler and Amelia).
This is just what I believe to be true. I knew a little bit about the creole culture before the film. After I saw PATF I did a little more research to see if my suspicions were right (the skin tone, the accent/being bilingual). Everything seemed to fit, so I just went with that conclusion. shrug Right or wrong, I kinda like the idea.
Naveen is from Maldonia, which is a made up county so he can essentially be whatever you want. I thought he seemed very Antonio Banderas-like.
Bruno Campos, the voice of Naveen, is Brazilian, so I kind of figured Maldonia might be on the north end of South America (where Guyana/Surinam are). Just a wild guess.
Wow. Obviously some people are taking this way too seriously and reading too much into it.