Tiana may very well be the fist animated black Disney Princess ™ , but she is not the first black princess in a Disney movie. That honour belongs to Brandy, in the 1997 made for TV movie “Cinderella”. To this day I remember cozying up with my parents one Sunday evening to watch The Wonderful World of Disney. I was particularly excited because I had seen previews all week for this very special TV premiere. I sat glued to that screen for a wonderful 2 hours. Afterwards, this movie kind of disappeared. It wasn’t until years later that I found it again and was able to watch it free of commercial breaks, and It is still quite enchanting. For you Musical buffs out there, this is an adaptation of Roger’s and Hammerstein’s Cinderella Musical, which has been adapted for TV 3 times. Strangely, I don’t believe it has had a theatrically released production at all. Since we all know the gist of the tale, let’s get straight down to the most obvious thing about this movie;
The swan Princess is a loose adaptation of the ballet Swan Lake. It is a fairytale about a princess named Odette who is captured by an evil magician named Rothbart and turned into a swan for refusing to marry him. In this film Odette is kidnapped after a falling out with Prince Derek, her intended, and the rest of the film is dedicated to them trying to reunite and break the spell that has been placed upon her. Those familiar with the ballet will know it’s tragic ending, but don’t worry; this story got the same treatment as The Little Mermaid, so no tissue boxes required. trailer for the DVD release Despite the fact that they blatantly ignore the existence of Odette’s Mother in the prologue, the first 20 minutes or so of this movie is really good. No really, they don’t even acknowledge that someone actually gave birth to Odette. She just “was born” one day. I don’t know why this bothers me so much, but it does. The story is set up quickly, that Princess Odette and Pr