This movie is one of my favorite non-Disney animated films. I think the animation is beautiful, the characters are likable, and "Far Longer Than Forever" is one of the most beautiful songs ever written for a movie. The Swan Princess deserves more recognition and love.
sharePeople can of course love any film they want, but most including me just consider this another generic 90s animated fairy tale film. It is pretty funny hearing Jack Palance and Steven Wright in a film like this, but that's pretty much all this film has. Well, that and the classic "only beauty matters" line from the prince. Besides, there's a list of animated films a mile long that deserve more recognition than this.
"If life is getting you down and needs uplifting, then please come dance with me!"
Something that struck me recently about this movie is how some of the characters feel almost copy-pasted from Richard Rich's other projects (mainly the Living Scriptures cartoons and the Black Cauldron.) The hero and villain, Derek and Rothbart, are almost identical in appearance and personality to Nephi and Laman in Rich's Book of Mormon cartoons. It's not that hard to find similarities among a director's different works, but in this case it's painfully easy if you're familiar with the corresponding films.
I honestly feel that Richard Rich isn't a good feature film director, but is really cut out for producing typical 80s/90s Saturday morning fare. The majority of his filmography is the Living Scriptures 'toons (whose ads related them to morning cartoons) and too many direct-to-video sequels to count.
I highly agree with you. It's one of the best Disney knock-offs ever made. I don't know why it failed to appeal to a public, perhaps due to it's unfortunate circumstances.
shareI remember hearing about The Swan Princess when my grandparents gave me the Princess Odette doll for Christmas when I was a kid and I had always wanted to see The Swan Princess but it was never for rent so I bought my copy. And from the time I watched it I was enchanted by it and although it didn't have a big celebrity voice cast except for Jack Palance and Sandy Duncan and Steven Wright and John Cleese The Swan Princess was truly underrated as a movie but what's really shocking is that Howard McGillin played Prince Derek actually did a great job voicing Derek and now he's a star on Broadway but it is sad that the late Michelle Nicastro played Odette in all three sequels before passing away because she was a good choice to voice Odette and just when you thought The Swan Princess was done they keep adding more sequels every year it seems like so it still manages to be a successful franchise
shareIt's because it isn't a Disney film that it didn't get as much advertising as an actual Disney cartoon movie would have gotten, and once it was out on video, the only people who remembered its existence were kids who watched it. (The sequels stunk, by the way).
shareIt doesn't measure up to the Disney classics.
https://youtu.be/3kOHHSND_ig