Turning Rapunzel into an animated film should have been a slam-dunk for Disney: some of their most beloved movies – Snow White, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty – have been based on classic fairy tales. Plus, the Disney Princesses line of merchandise has been a stunning cash cow for the company, earning $3.4 billion in 2006 alone.
However, acclaimed animator Glen Keane has struggled for many years to bring Rapunzel to the big screen. Now, after health issues sidelined his directorial debut, Keane may watch his dream turn into a seemingly market research-mauled monster named Tangled.
What happened?
How Glen Keane Developed a CGI Rapunzel For Disney Animation
The son of Family Circus creator Bil Keane (he inspired the character of Billy in the long-running comic strip), Glen Keane joined Disney right after graduating from Cal Arts in 1974. Mentored by legendary animator Ollie Johnston, Keane swiftly became one of Disney's top artists, and "animation's version of a rock star." Audiences can view his distinctive touch on characters like The Little Mermaid's Ariel, Beast from Beauty and the Beast plus the title characters from Aladdin, Pocahontas and Tarzan.
Despite his mastery of traditional animation, Keane was an early fan of CGI. In 1983, he assisted Lasseter with the stunning test reel for a proposed Disney adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, and worked on countless scenes that mixed cel animation and CGI: the ballroom scene in Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas' swirling leaves and ultimately, the cyborg Long John Silver in Treasure Planet.
When Keane finally decided to submit his first feature proposal, a retelling of the classic Grimm fairy tale Rapunzel, Walt Disney Feature Animation head David Stainton and Disney CEO Michael Eisner had two conditions.
First, it had to be a 'fractured fairy tale,' much like DreamWorks' Shrek, giving the classic story a hip, modern spin. Second, Disney brass decided that cel animation was toast – due to the success of CGI movies from Pixar, DreamWorks and Fox/Blue Sky – so the film, now called Rapunzel Unbraided, would be computer generated.
Rapunzel Unbraided: "a Film of Astonishing Beauty."
"That they'd ask me to make it a computer animated film . . . I hadn't expected that," Keane told a 2005 Siggraph conference. "After all, I was the guy who kept saying 'I'll kill any person that tries to take a pencil out of my hand.' Now I have to eat those words."
Rising to the challenge, Keane tried to bring the flowing beauty of oil painting to the CGI realm, Working with CGI director Kevin Geiger and artist Lisa Keene, he developed a visual style heavily influenced by French rococo painters like Jean-Honoré Fragonard.
"Rapunzel Unbraided has to be a film of astonishing beauty," Keane told Siggraph in 2005. "It's the story of a girl who is swept up to fulfill the destiny of another. And – in doing this – she discovers her own."
Due to a 2006 revolt by former Disney board members Stanley Gold and Roy E. Disney, Keane's former protegé John Lasseter, became his new boss.
Despite saying, "I can't remember ever seeing a movie that has such a powerful beginning as Rapunzel," Lasseter immediately wanted to make it a more classic fairy tale. Working out a compromise, Lasseter and Keane lost the Unbraided and made Rapunzel (voiced by Mandy Moore) a more modern heroine, matched with a charming bandit named Flynn Ryder (Zachary Levi). Dean Wellins (The Iron Giant) signed on as co-director.
"When the kingdom’s most wanted (and most charming) bandit is forced to make a deal with the golden-haired, tower-bound teen, the unlikely duo sets off on a hilarious, hair-raising escapade complete with a super-cop horse, an over-protective chameleon, and a gruff gang of pub thugs," claimed Disney's official plot synopsis. "The handsome prince Flynn Ryder has sailed through life by looking good, talking fast and being lucky – but when he picks a mysterious and secluded tower as his hideout, it looks like his luck may have run out.
"Flynn is knocked out, tied up and taken hostage by the beautiful and feisty Rapunzel, whose 70 feet of magical, golden hair, which she can use like powerful tentacles, isn’t even the strangest thing about her. Locked-away and lonely, Rapunzel sees this smooth-talking bandit as her ticket out of the tower. One comical kidnapping and a bit of blackmail later, Flynn and his curious captor are off on one of the most tangled tales ever told."
Keane Steps Down as Director, and Disney Market Researchers Ask, 'Who is Rapunzel?'
In 2008, Keane was forced to relinquish the director's chair due to some "non-life threatening health issues." Bolt co-director Byron Howard replaced him, and supplanted Wellins with Nathan Greno. Keane stayed on as executive producer and animation director for Rapunzel.
Then there was The Princess and the Frog: Disney's much-heralded return to cel animation needed 8 weeks to turn a profit, despite glowing reviews and impressive buzz. All of a sudden, an animated princess movie based on a classic fairy tale no longer seemed like a sure thing. Disney executives believed that audiences stayed away because they thought The Princess and the Frog was a 'girlie film.'
"Based upon the response from fans and critics, we believe (The Princess and the Frog's box office) would have been higher if it wasn't prejudged by its title," Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull told the LA Times.
Adding fuel to the fire, Disney's market researchers reported that, outside of North America and Germany, no one actually knew the tale of Rapunzel. Renaming the film Tangled and basing the story more about the Flynn character, the Mouse House believed, would remove the 'chick flick' associations and make it more palatable to males.
Dominic von Riedemann - Dominic is the Animated Film Feature Writer, and winner of 11 Suite 101 Editors' Choice Awards.
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