#rapunzel unbraided

[theartoftangled]

Concept art by Douglas Rogers for Rapunzel Unbraided

[princess-ibri]

Tangled Unbraided

For ages I've wanted to find a way to use the old fractured fairytale idea of "Rapunzel Unbraided" Disney was going to do in the early 2000s, and decided to just go ahead and show what I've got. So here's some sketches of how the main characters would appear in this hypothetical Tangled spin off movie:

The original synopsis for Unbraided ran as thus:

“An evil witch named Lucretia despised fairy tale happy endings and plotted to change all that. Meanwhile in modern day San Francisco, Claire and Vince are two vastly opposite teenagers who cannot stand one another. Claire is a short haired, fashion obsessed teen who was concerned with her looks. Vince is a stocky and crude pizza delivery boy on hard times. The two of them get on each other's nerves which gets the attention of Lucretia in the fairy tale realm. Lucretia takes Rapunzel and her prince Beau and transforms them into a squirrel and dog, respectively, while Claire and Vince find themselves filling their roles. Claire and Vince eventually team up with Rapunzel and Beau to defeat Lucretia and return to their respective places in time. “

---

And I'd want to follow the basic plot of that, though with changes with what we have from the actual Tangled movie. But basically two teens from 2007 San Francisco (why not make it a 'period' piece with all this Y2K nostalgia going on that makes no sense to me, a Y2K kid x) get reverse Enchanted and find themselves in the Everrealm. Searching for a way home, mentored by a talking squirrel and dog that claim to be famous fairytale characters also trying to regain their human forms.

The reason the witch tries to recreate the Rapunzel story with two people who are unlikely to give it a happy ending is that she's trying to make a spell to warp reality and bring about another golden flower (so that we can have the one that eventually shows up in Sofia the First) and so gain immortality for herself.

My ideas for the growth journeys each character goes on in this hypothetical movie is of course that Claire and Vince both learn to be more comfortable with themselves/find their real potential, as well as learn that its ok to trust others emotionally, both in a platonic sense with Eugene and Rapunzel mentoring them, and romantically with eachother as they get closer.

Rapunzel and Eugene would have this be an opportunity for them both to work through the concerns they both have about being parents. Sure they both have better parental relationships now, but both grew up with either abusive or absent parents (and then hyper protective ones in Rapunzel's case with Frederick) and though they both want kids they're afraid they might still mess it up. So, getting to help these two teens find themselves and their way home gives them a sense of the type of parents they'll be, and that they'll be ok in the end.

(They also all eventually find out Claire is their many times descendent and thats why she looks like Rapunzel so much, and why the spell called her into Rapunzel's place)

For the Witch I decided to change her name from Lucretia as I already had a character with that name for the Bluebeard story. I still wanted her to have some actual connection to the og Rapunzel fairytale, and a way to know about the Sundrop flower, and while I know we already had Cass as Gothel's kid, per my DisneyVerse she did have more then one over those many many years 😅😬

We already had a benevolent version of another Gothel daughter with my rewrite of Ginny, so I decided this time we'd get to focus on a malevolent one, so our villain for this story is Azalea.

(I based her looks on one of the tree nymphs from Gothel's backstory in OUAT, old Gothel/witch concept art and her name was inspired by Alice from OUAT being Gothel's daughter, just with a sharper sounding plant name x)

Also here's some original concept art of the Rapunzel Unbraided story treatment!

(Some of these might technically be from the Rapunzel treatment but I feel they fit the story anyway)

Also some video! A rough animatic overview of the whole story

And a more polished small clip of Claire and Squirrel Rapunzel

But yeah that's my rough little idea of how I'd incorporate the Rapunzel Unbraided concept/characters into the Disneyverse :)

[theepsizet]

So this was one of the original songs that would have been in the earlier version of Tangled, called Rapunzel, and it would have been Mother Gothel’s villain song. This was back when Rapunzel was a LOT darker and more in line with Hunchback... so why am I posting this?

Because I honestly think that THIS is the best cut villian song that Disney ever made. Like, ever. Give it a listen.

(Credit goes to Christopher Curtis. As for the images, its a bit difficult, but its mostly comprised of concept art of Rapunzel.)

[scurviesdisneyblog]

Character designs by Jin Kim for an early version of Tangled called Rapunzel Unbraided. Claire and Vince were the original protagonists, while Lucretia the witch was the antagonist.

[chatretr0]

Rapunzel/Tangled/Enredados Unbraided Early Pre-Production

[dilvuc]

Hi I'm Liam and I came up with a cute idea that I hope you can write

Jamil and Reader (Male) make a bet with each other and the loser has to do what the winner says. When Jamil loses the bet reader decides that he gets to do Jamils hair and he has to wear the style for the entire school day. Jamil aspects that it's gonna end up really bad but reader actually does a really good job and Jamil starts asking reader to do his hair ever once in a while

That's my idea. If you don't wanna write it you don't have to but I hope you do. Anyways make sure to take care of yourself and get plenty of sleep.

A cute picture I found on pinterist of Jamil 🙂

❝BET❞

𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖗𝖊: fluff

𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗: male

𝖙𝖎𝖙𝖑𝖊: bet

𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌: jamil x m!reader

𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌: none

𝖘𝖚𝖒𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖞: jamil lost a bet to you and now had to listen to what you say. however, your order isn't that bad.

“Look like I lost the bet. Ok, what do you have for me?” jamil asked you, awaiting your order. you thought to yourself then snap your finger, “Let me do your hair.”

“Eh? My hair? Why?” the tan skinned male asked while stroking his hair. you nodded, “I couldn't resist trying to do your pretty hair.”

“...! M…my hair isn't that pretty…” jamil blushed.

“Plus, you'll be keeping your hair in the way I put it for the whole day.” thanks for ruining the mood for jamil, you. the tan skinned male unbraided his hair and untied his hair, letting it fall back, “Ok…Do your worst.”

“What do you mean by that??” you sweatdropped. you remember watching rapunzel back in your world. so, you know exactly what hairstyle you'll give him. you reach for jamil's lock, realizing how soft it is. “Soft…”

“H-hey, don't be a creep…” jamil shivered.

“I wasn't!” you huffed before getting to work. it didn't take long for you to finish his hair. you were hoping that he would like it. since you knew that he would look pretty in it. “Done~”

“If you screwed up my hair, I'm gonna make you eat more spice until you're unable to handle it.” jamil threatened you. you deadpanned, “Is that a threat…?”

the tan skinned male grabbed the mirror from you to check his hair. and…it was all that bad. why does it make him feel…?

“Beautiful…” you grinned, catching jamil off guard. he turned to you in question. you chuckled, “I wouldn't want to screw up your hair. I just wanted to do your hair because I have been desperate to do it. Do you like it?”

“...I…it's not half bad…” jamil blushed. “But…do I look beautiful with my hair like this?”

“Silly question. You still look beautiful in whatever hairstyle you have.” you winked.

“...! Heh. Your charm never ends…” the tan skinned male smiled timidly, looking away. you snickered, “Now, you can walk around with your hair like that for today.”

jamil shyly asked, “C…can you do my hair every once in a while?”

“Sure~” you nodded.

“Whoa! Jamil! Your hair looks pretty!” kalim beamed as he gently grabbed jamil's braid. “We should add some accessories in them!”

“Good idea~ Some beautiful flowers and gold.” you smile at kalim’s idea. jamil sweatdropped, “Eh? W-wait!”

“Wow…I must admit. Your hair looks…gorgeous.” vil complimented the tan skinned male's hair. “Look at the accessories. Who did your hair?”

“[Y]...” jamil blushed, gently stroking his hair, “I lost a bet, so he suggested that he can do my hair.”

vil blinked owlishly, “Oh? Maybe I should ask him to do mine. Not bad for a potato.”

╰┈➤ author note: please note that this is a slow update. i will still accept your request, but it will take a while since i'll be working on my books on wattpad. if you wish to read those books, here's my wattpad account.

twst masterlist

rules

[midocotea]

I've had this guy since launch, yet it only occured to me very recently how insanely long his hair must be unbraided. he could be the Union's own Rapunzel if it wasn't for Sally

[pomrania]

People with short hair don't seem to realize that hair doesn't just inevitably grow to Rapunzel lengths; people whose hair is longer than butt-long are UNUSUAL, not only for choosing to let it get that long, but for being ABLE to get it that long.

And it's really not that unusual. You don't expect eyelashes to get inches long, or body hair to be long enough to braid; they all have a length at which they stop growing, which differs depending on bodily location (my armpit hairs are longer than my forearm hairs) and individual person. Head hairs just happen to have a longer maximum length than body hairs; for me, it's to around mid-lower back (I'm not going to unbraid my hair just to check that for a post), I've never been able to get it any longer because I've prolly run into the limits of my genetics.

Another thing that people with short hair don't seem to know, is that long hair can be tied up and/or tied back, so that it won't get in the way. Seriously, we have evidence of this going back millennia and across continents, this isn't some obscure discovery. There's braids and ponytails, but also turbans and head scarves, and that's just the first things that came to mind.

[springbloggy]

This is the only post from my reddit account I will properly archive on this tumblr, as it is the only one that I think is truly interesting. I have had this post saved in drafts for 4 days before the deletion of my account so no one can find my cringey reddit. Enjoy!

Note: some of the sources I got from this youtube video. Check it out! Don't worry, I did a lot of my own research as well. Special thanks to some users on my original reddit posts, the tumblr blog lostdisney, and more for helping or showcasing some cool stuff along the way.

Do you recognize this dog?

Chances are, if you were an animation fan or Disney fan in the mid 00s, you might. This is the story of that dog and how his film ultimately transformed into Bolt, the arguable first movie in the Disney revival era. No, seriously.

Lilo & Stitch & Chris Sanders

In the early to mid 90s Disney was releasing a slew of movies that were massively popular and successful for the company, an era that is collectively known by Disney and Animation fans as "The renaissance era" of Disney. However, by the late 90s and early 2000s, things began to shift for Disney, as strong competitors began to pop up, particularly Dreamworks and Pixar (which weren't out-right owned by Disney, just had movies presented by Disney at the time) were wowing audiences with CGI imagery and stories that went against the grain of typical Disney fare. To make things worse for Disney, they were now releasing films that were not the big box-office successes of past ones and did not gain the critical praise Disney once had.

A new smash success was needed, but it would take nothing short of a miracle to happen, a visit from an angel if you will.

Luckily that angel would come in the form of animator Chris Sanders, who had worked on Disney movies in the past before, but this movie would be his first director debut. This movie would transform and grow in a behind-the-scenes story that is amazing by itself, eventually releasing as Lilo & Stitch. Lilo & Stitch was just the success Disney needed at the time and now the animation world as well as Disney were looking forward to Sanders' next big move.

The next mov(i)e

On August 16th 2004, Disney announced the creation of three new projects: A Day with Wilbur Robinson, Rapunzel Unbraided, and the main focus of this piece: American Dog. Then on August 10th, 2005, Disney revealed more about the production at that years SIGRAPH event including various pieces of concept art, a short looping animation of the central moment of the film alongside various locations, and a brief plot summary.

The comments on ain't it cool forums had some who were excited about the upcoming film...

Looks great. by Daddylonghead Man, that painting of the poker game is beautiful. Is American animation learning something from the Triplets of Belleville, maybe? What great cartoon gangsters! the design of this looks great. i'd go see it. by g_mo_d the best looking stuff ive seen from disney in years.

and some that were more critical…

"Lilo and Stitch" was a bore... by Mr. Waturi I love a kids movies... "Iron Giant" and "Monsters, Inc." being my favorites. I actually walked out of "Lilo and Stitch." It was cute without being funny, animated without being interesting. The concept was fine, but the movie just dragged. The stills from this movie look nice, though. Looks like the same artist that creates the comic book about the polar bear and kid.

Oh Hell no. by Krahnos When are we going to grow up from overly cartoonized characters?Christ. I have sever reservations about this... whatever it is.

Despite a few criticisms, things were still looking up for American Dog, with many curious about how the director of "Lilo & Stitch" would follow up his wonderful story with another one. That answer would come from Jim Hill Media and would build up over the years from input from a variety of animators that had worked on the project or witnessed its production.

The plot

Henry, a famous TV dog, finds himself stranded in the Nevada desert. Out in the world for the first time, Henry's tidy life of scripted triumph has come to an end, and his 2,000 mile trek through the real world is just beginning. -Jim Hill

From the creator of Lilo & Stitch comes the charmingly twisted story of a Canine TV star who finds himself stranded in the most forsaken hundred miles of Nevada with an oversized bunny and a testy cat. -Disney

Henry is a dog that was adopted as a puppy by a Hollywood studio and grew up as an actor for a hit television spy series, starring a cast of characters inspired by Ocean's Eleven. The concept art seems to tell a specific "episode" of Henry playing poker and stealing all the money.

Henry seemingly has everything: fame, fortune, and star power.

However, Henry lacks a real home life as at the end of each filming session, Henry is locked up in a dark cage or room and his life is put on hold until the filming of the next episode.

To Henry, this is normal, so he believes that what he does during filming is real. Then one day, a stunt goes horribly wrong and Henry gets knocked out and ends up waking up on a train going towards Nevada. After years of being served hand and foot, going through "adventures" where he always wins, and living a skewed reality on a television set, Henry has no idea how to interact with real people or get along in the real world.

If Henry attempted something he thought he knew how to do due to his scripted adventures, such as drive a car, it would not work his way and would cause a terrible situation. So Henry needs as much help as he can get.

Luckily for Henry, he comes across this help in the form of Spig, an eye-patch wearing cat (that was radioactive in early concepts), and Mr. Buttons, a radioactive rabbit that was gigantic in early drafts.

The two live in a gas station with retirement savings stored in a giant dinosaur statue and, most importantly to Henry, a classic car hung in some Christmas wire.

Henry bribes the duo to drive him back home and the two agree to it, possibly due to Ruthie, a mutant zombie girl-scout that stalks the duo and tries to kill them each night.

Along the way, the trio come across a variety of odd and quirky characters. Some of the most-documented ones were Jo Night/Knight, a Vegas waitress that meets Henry in the elevator of a safari-themed hotel. She could have potentially "used her movements" to distract a would-be assailant.

There was also The Lady in Black, an ex-circus performer who was holed up in a mansion located in the swamps of Georgia. Alongside her may have been a fez-wearing knife-throwing gorilla, though one render might indicate he was downgraded into a background prop at some point in development.

There would have also been several other characters as well that have been showcased in concept art and renders, though their involvement in the story have not been documented or discovered.

Those 2,000 miles back home would be filled from challenges, not just by the characters that the trio would meet but also the situations the trio would get into with each other! But in the end, perhaps Henry would have realized he doesn't want his Hollywood life back and finds himself living life with lifelong friends. This last bit is just a guess though.

After reading all of this, you may already have an idea what happened, but let's move forward through this story.

How American Dog became Bolt

After a couple years of moves that brought down the value of the Disney company, Eisner was kicked out of Disney and a new CEO was given the keys to the kingdom. Meet Bob Iger, starting out as ABC's person to conduct menial labor on TV sets, he would soon grow in the ranks into becoming head of ABC entertainment. When ABC was bought out by Disney in 1995, Iger was too brought in, and then would once again grow in the ranks within the larger Disney company. When the "save Disney" campaign was well over with, picking Iger was a natural conclusion for shareholders. Iger's early moves were specifically done to fix the reputation of Disney, with the largest being to fix the broken relationship between Disney and Pixar at the time. To do so he offered to buy out Pixar for 7.4 billion dollars (that's $10,272,431,932.45 in 2022 money). As an added bonus, John Lasseter, one of the heads of Pixar at the time, would now become head of Disney Animation. Some point afterwards, Lasseter went around to see how the progress was going on some of Disney's recent projects. That's when he saw American Dog's progress, after seeing two screenings of the film, Lasseter reportedly wrote down suggestions on how to fix the film. Sanders, not wanting to change his passion project, rejected all the suggestions, and so Sanders was dropped off his own project.

Take this with a large, large grain of salt, but one alleged insider in Cartoon Brew's comments described the screenings:

Man, this is so annoying. Amid, someone....please, SOMEONE get their hands on the latest story reels of American Dog. Someone from Disney steal it and give it to someone and let people watch it online. Why? Because it was AWFUL!!! I saw the latest reel (yes, I worked at Disney then) and it was the most disjointed, confusing, quirky, weird, unmarketable movie Ive seen. It was rife with plot problems, the characters were unappealing (the dog looked like a miniature moose for eff's sakes, and his giant nose took over the screen so you couldnt see his eyes, no matter what you did) Sanders was never around, and when he was, he wasnt leading, just giving weird notes and then would disappear for weeks. A-dog had ONE thing going for it, good concept art. Big effin deal. And thats fine for a film when its in early production, but this was ready for primetime, it was supposed to be final, and at the last possible second, Lasseter came in and saved the day. Bolt is WAAY better. Had Sanders stayed on the project, it would have either been severely delayed (which we couldnt afford, the execs woulda pulled the plug) or been abysmal and closed WDAS down. As it turns out, Bolt is the best animated film in a long long time from Disney (some think better than wall-e or ratatouille or the incredibles, no joke), and it just fell victim to a dumb fan-fueled movie that scored a 40-something on rottentomatoes* and bad marketing. To an outsider watching the marketing, Bolt looks like trash, but after seeing it you realize its a VERY good film. Im sorry (very sorry) for ranting, but I HATE seeing people ignorantly trashing a film, and comparing it to a film they know NOTHING about, and have built up in their mind as something amazing, when in reality it was a garbage film being directed by an absentee, flighty director who was given plenty of chances to fix his film, and didnt. Lasseter didnt pull the plug on A-Dog because it was quirky, he pulled the plug because it just wasnt working and Sanders wouldnt fix it. And it wasnt just John's opinion, we ALL disliked it, even those of us whole liked Chris very much personally. Now, this is just my opinion, but I hope I didnt ruffle too many feathers, but I just wanted you guys to know there IS another side to the story.

The book Creativity Inc.:overcoming the unseen forces that stand in the way of true inspiration gave more information on what specifically went wrong during the screenings (as well as being a more legitimate source).

A key moment in this evolution came in the fall of 2006, nine months after the merger, at a Story Trust meeting in Burbank. It happened after a fairly awful screening of American Dog) a film structured around a famous and pampered canine actor (think Rin Tin Tin) who believed that he was the superhero character he played on TV. When he found himself stranded in the desert, he had to face for the first time how his tidy, scripted life had not pre- pared him for reality-that he, in fact, had no special powers. That was all well and good, but somewhere along the way, the plot had also come to include a radioactive, cookie-selling Girl Scout zom- bie serial killer. I'm all for quirky ideas, but this one had metasta- sized. The movie was still finding its way, to say the least, so John started off the meeting, as he often does, by focusing on the things he liked about it. He also indicated he saw some problems, but he wanted to give the Disney folks the chance to take the lead on those, so instead of digging in and getting too specific, he threw the meet- ing open to the floor. Throughout the meeting the comments stayed at a superficial level, remaining strangely upbeat-judging by the commentary, you would have never known the film was in disarray. Afterward, one of the Disney directors confided to me that many people in the room had major reservations about the film but didn't say what they thought because John had kicked things off so posi- tively. Taking their cues from him, they didn't want to go against what they thought he liked. Not trusting their own instincts, they held back. John and I immediately arranged a dinner with the directors- and told them that if they ever resorted to that kind of thinking. again, we'd be finished as a studio. Not long after, Disney would have a crisis of its own on Amer- a ican Dog I mentioned earlier the emergence of a serial killer story- line, which while we prided ourselves on always remaining open to new ideas-seemed a tad dark for a family film. Despite our misgivings, though, we decided to give the movie a chance to evolve. Finding a movie's throughline always takes time, we told ourselves. But after ten months of Story Trust meetings-and very little im- provement we concluded that the only option was to restart the project. We asked Chris Williams, a veteran story artist best known for Mulan and The Emperor's New Groove, and Byron Howard, then a supervising animator on Lilo and Stitch, to step in as its di- rectors. Immediately, they began reconceiving the movie. The serial killer was tossed, and the movie was renamed Bolt.

Another reason given as to why American Dog had to be reworked was an inability to rationalize Henry's actions.

Chris Sanders: It had a lot to do with rationalizing what this dog was. “Can he drive a car or can he not?” The answer was yes and no. He can make the car go but, no, he can’t drive. And that would become a big sticking point. In my mind, that idea wasn’t that weird, it was pretty simple; in other people’s minds at the studio, it wasn’t making any sense. Ultimately I was asked, “Does he know he’s a dog or not?” The answer I gave was, “He knows he’s a dog, but has a warped idea what a dog is and does.” That answer didn’t sit well. They wanted a “yes” or “no.” Later on I equated it to Buzz Lightyear, who did NOT know he was a toy. So the “yes,” or “no,” on that would have been a simple, resounding, “no.” Very clear. My dog was more subtle, like Stitch. And that wasn’t going to get through their system. So after a long, hard session with the exec, I was without a simple answer, and I was like, “Okay, I don’t know what to tell you.”

There have been also statements from Jim Hill that Lasseter "hated Lilo & Stitch", as well as a comment from animator Melody Izza about Lasseter not liking "Sanders sensibilities".

The story of Sanders being dropped off of American Dog spread far and wide, with many critiquing the move. No matter if the story is just one of these or a combination of the three, Lasseter needed to comment on why he had to rework the movie.

Asked about the episode, Mr. Lasseter abruptly interrupted an interview to confer with publicists, asking “What can I say here?” After a brief discussion Mr. Lasseter explained that Pixar often added or replaced a director if a film needed help. “Chris Sanders is extremely talented, but he couldn’t take it to the place it had to be,” he said carefully. Mr. Sanders, who is negotiating his exit from Disney, declined to comment. “John doesn’t force his solutions on you,” said Brad Bird, who directed “The Incredibles” and is close to Mr. Lasseter. “But that doesn’t mean he is going to go quietly.”

Lasseter said more about the situation afterwards in an interview with slashfilm

Sure, yeah. You know when the merger of Disney and Pixar happened and Bob Iger and Steve Jobs asked me to be the Chief Creative Officer at Disney, as well as Pixar, you know I came in and there was a handful of movies that had been kind of started down here. "American Dog" was one of them. And I always thought that the premise of that had a lot of potential for heart, you know the character that it is a dog that stars in this kind of action TV show. And he thinks he has these real powers, and so he gets separated from the TV show and learns that he, in fact, doesn't have any powers and he's just a regular dog. But he has no idea about how to be a regular dog, and so he's taught how to be a regular dog by a cat. But it's a deeper story about this friendship, and loyalty and unconditional love that dogs have for their owners. And I think that I had put great possibilities. It's one of those difficult situations where we've done this a couple times before with "Toy Story 2" and with "Ratatouille", where the potential of film, it's just we were having kind of creative differences with reaching that potential, and so we brought on Chris Williams and Byron Howard, two young guys here to direct it, because they're so funny, but they also have a tremendous amount of heart in them. And it's always a difficult situation, because I love Chris Sanders. He's a great guy and brilliant talent, and it's always sort of difficult, but it's the right thing to do for the movie.

And so, Chris Williams and Byron Howards were put on to become the film's new directors. Several changes to the project were made afterwards. The first and main one was de-anthropomorphizing the main trio, as making the animals behave more like real animals was seen as key for Lasseter in order to fulfill a compelling suspension of disbelief. Henry no longer starred in a James Bond/Ocean's Eleven inspired spy show, now he was the star of a cheesy superhero adventure. The cat and rabbit also lose their radioactive past. The rabbit changed species into a hamster inspired by Lasseter's pet chinchilla and the cat changed genders. The trio also got new names, no longer were they "Henry", "Spig" and "Mr. Buttons", now they were "Bolt", "Mittens" and "Rhino". The main female characters, Jo Knight and The Lady in Black, were no more. Now the main female character was Penny, a teenage girl that Bolt gained a bond to, unaware that she was just an actor doing her part. This was also seen as important to Lasseter, to give a more compelling reason why the dog would want to return to Hollywood. The mid-west setting was also changed, in order to not cause fatigue with Pixar's own Cars, as both American Dog and Cars would have shared a similar setting with a similar premise around the same release time frame.

In fact, seemingly the only things not changed from the original production were the base concept: a celebrity dog, unaware that the show he's working for isn't reality, has to find the help of two other animals in order to reach home and learns about how real life works along the way. The casting of John Travolta as the main character also stayed, with the other two reported voice actors, Thomas Haden Church and Mario Cantone, being dropped off of the project. It is unknown why Travolta got to stay, but my best guess is that he was too expensive to drop once the project changed. Its also believed the train scene in the final movie

might have been an inside's homage to the train teaser or this piece of concept art.

Fan and animator reactions

Reception to the change within fan circles was full of criticism, not helped by the previews for the reworking, known as "Bolt", giving the animal characters radical redesigns that many felt were generic, especially compared to the art presented for American Dog.

A few of my favorite comments from the aint it cool forums for example:

by Ribbons Eesh. Bolt! doesn't look anything like American Dog used to. In fact it looks more like Krypto the Superdog than anything else. by R*tardo_Montalban Bolt looks like a tool of the man. He's the type of dog that plays off rebellious, but only rebels in socially and politically acceptable ways. "Let's all have an adventure fellas! But only to attain a lofty yet admirable goal, and we'll make friends along the way." by AndreZX Had to jump in on this. I just saw the production still from Bolt, looked it up and found that this is what happened to American Dog! I was devastated! This new look is 100% generic (although the painterly style of it is very impressive, I'm not impressed with the character designs at all.) I fell in love with the American Dog project the first time I saw that shot of him and the cat with the eyepatch in the convertible, and then they turned around and chopped it into this cookie-cutter crap. Lilo and Stitch is probably one of my favorite Disney movies, and it pains me to think of what they've thrown away to go with Bolt. Oh well. Only time will tell.

Many fans were also angry at the choice of Miley Cyrus as Penny, the human girl that had a bond to Bolt, due to Hannah Montana Mania at the time. The casting of Miley made many feel like Disney was trying to cash in more on the popularity of the show. The reveal that she had re-dubbed over another voice actress (Chloe Grace Moretz) for the majority of the film (Chloe's voice is used in the beginning of the movie) did not help matters much. Miley also reportedly turned away many young boys from Bolt according to some comments on Cartoon Brew:

By Annabel Cole This ties in to the point above about boys avoiding Bolt because Miley Cyrus was there. In the past ten years, Disney has shackled itself to highly visible "girly" brands: not brands that appeal to girls first but also draw boys, like Kim Possible, Pepper Ann, and Nickelodeon's Aex Mack before them, but brands that focus on girly-girls in hot pink dancing, dating, preening, shopping, and singing, either in "real life" (some Disney Channel series) or abstract fairy tale worlds. By Charles And then there was Miley Cyrus. Oh, she did a fine job; that’s not my problem. My problem was that I stood in the theatre lobby watching as Cyrus’ presence caused some older boys to change their minds about wanting to see the film. “It’s got Miley Cyrus; it’s a girl movie.”

Animators who worked on American Dog or saw its production that have spoken about it have been mostly positive. Daniel Chong felt like it was one of the great losses in animation history, but also discussed disbelief looking back towards how anyone would have thought the movie would have "made it" due to American Dog's more adult elements. Specifically the casino scene would have had Henry shot off a gun multiple times and the entire character of Jo Night was seen as questionable. Mark Anthony Austin described American Dog as "the movie that Disney were foolish enough to terminate" and thought its cancellation was "a sad thing". Melody Iza saw a tour of the studio and a slew of concept art for American Dog and thought it was silly, fun and interesting. Dan Platt described one of his models as such: "This high res CG production model of a Ford Thunderbird was originally created for American Dog but ultimately scrapped when the scenes, um…, movie changed." Perhaps I am looking too much/deep into this sentence, but to me it seems like negatively critiquing the film's plot in a way that wouldn't set off too many employer alarm bells.

However, many critics and audiences loved Bolt. The movie was also reportedly amazing in 3D according to wdwmagic. While Bolt had a lousy box office opening with tough competition, Bolt made enough money afterwards in DVD sales to please Lasseter and move forward in the future of Disney. Leading to the Disney revival era. If not downright kick-starting it.

Aftermath

Sanders was reportedly heartbroken and relieved after being kicked off from American Dog.

An individual who knows a lot about the situation wrote to take issue with the statement that Chris Sanders felt "relief" at being taken off AMERICAN DOG. Sanders had apparently been informed before last Wednesday that he was no longer going to be the director, and according to this source, was deeply disappointed, hurt and angered. The source also writes, "Chris felt like his heart had been ripped out, and he didn't expect if from someone (Lasseter) who always talks about a director-driven studio model. This was totally Chris' project from the start, he was pouring himself into it, and now he's fired."

Why was he relieved? Well, being kicked off from American Dog was the last straw for Sanders after a long time within the company thinking that the heads of Disney stifled creativity. Sanders would then leave Disney and join Dreamworks, where he would most notably work on How to Train Your Dragon and The Croods. He would then join Fox to work on a film adaptation of The Call of the Wild. During Sanders' free time, he kickstarted the webcomic Kiskaloo, a sort of Lilo & Stitch meets Calvin and Hobbes. Apparently the folks at Disney at least let Sanders keep the rights to the eyepatch wearing cat and the rabbit.

“After ‘American Dog’ changed directions I had breakfast with John Lasseter and we talked about that character and whether or not I could have that character back,” Sanders explained to us. “They actually officially released that character back to me, which had never been done before. We actually filed paperwork on it. It’s hard for me to reconcile that this character would wind up in a drawer somewhere and never be seen again. To me, it’s a living breathing thing. He said, ‘I totally get that,’ and so we figured it out…

-Chris Sanders

So the characters were lifted into becoming the main characters of the webcomic Kiskaloo, with the cat, now renamed into Ogo, having a backstory that still fits the world of American Dog.

Former Hollywood actor. Used to play the pet of an attractive middle-class family. Lost his eye at a craft-services table mishap. After that, he played the companion to an action-movie villain, and found that it suited him better. Once that franchise ran its course he was put up for adoption, but ran away. He began showing up on sets again. By using the pause function on a DVD player, you can find him lurking in the background of big-budget movies. He can be seen eating a cheese sandwich during the climactic volcanic explosion sequence of “The Last Days of Pompeii.” During a love scene in “Terror on Moonbase 12” he can be glimpsed outside a window, cleaning himself in a crater. And he shows up no fewer than seven times in the background of “Natural Corruption” – snoozing on a drawer in the morgue, toasting marshmallows on the beach during a murder, opening the lid of a mayonnaise jar with a letter opener in a police station, sleeping in the serial killer’s freezer, and fishing in a lobster tank during a grocery store shoot-out. After the studio bought a security dog to keep him away, he moved North...

The beginning of Kiskaloo also has some not so subtle references to a terrible 2007, perhaps a reference to Sanders' heartbreak of being let go from his passion project.

Meanwhile, Bolt has been largely forgotten by most. However, its legacy of kick-starting the revival era of Disney, the Iger era, and its shaky past still lives on within some fan circles.

Would it have been good?

Part of why I brought this to tumblr was due to the recent discovery of the Gibby pilot. In many odd ways, there's a lot of similarities to Gibby and American Dog. Both have been built up in fans heads, at least the fans who were aware of their existence, that they would have been the better product than what was released. But once you go deep into finding out more about "what could have been", the more you realize how bad the alternative could have been. While I believe American Dog would have been the better movie over Bolt artistically, it wouldn't have been the better movie story wise, where it really matters. Part of me wants to be wrong, and that Chris Sanders could have made the plot work, but part of me also remembers that the Croods exists.

The main problem I have with American Dog's plot, from what is out there, is how much of it seems like Sanders throwing whatever he found cool or funny to the wall without thinking of how much matches together. The concept of a celebrity dog, going cross-country with two commoners and finding the truth about reality is a very strong one. I can even see it working with the more anthropomorphized animals American Dog brings, but once you throw in stuff like visiting area 51, zombie girl scouts, and radioactive animals, the more questionable the story becomes. If the overall message of American Dog was an environmental one, where at first the radiation seems to only have cartoony effects on the world, Such as making animals larger than they should be and rising the dead. Then over time you learn the serious effects it has and Henry must choose to either keep pretending the issues don't exist at Hollywood or stay in the real world and help the effort, then it could have been a great movie, better than Bolt. But if it had the same message as Bolt does, about appreciating the real world, then its dampened due to how supernatural the real world is in this movie's world, making the fake world Henry acted in look more normal and realistic in comparison.

I am still very interested in finding American Dog despite story issues, or else I wouldn't have spent so many hours researching this movie and reuploading this story wherever I could. But I am not expecting a masterpiece.

What now?

The next best thing to do, is look more into the credits of Bolt and see if any of the other animators not listed on the Lost Media Wiki's gallery page have anything related to American Dog saved in their portfolios. I suggest not to contact them, as mass contacting causes more pain than discovery more times than not, but it would be helpful to gain more images at least for now for more insight into the lost movie.

According to an interview with Chris Sanders, he is thinking of making a movie based on his Kiskaloo webcomic, so you may see the one-eyed cat star in a feature film in the future. Just like that cat would have oh-so many years ago.

Still, many wonder "what could have been" with American Dog. The chances of any future revival or release of the movie may seem low, but hey this random internet user can dream.

*The movie he is referring to is the first Twilight movie

[fancylala4]

It’s no secret that I hate tangled. However, I love to look at the concept art of the movie. It’s so beautiful, and most of the things in production were ten times better than the final movie. It also makes me sad because the movie could have been great, but Disney decided that they wanted the movie to be as marketable as possible rather than the movie being good. Like replacing the crossbow with a frying pan because they didn’t want Rapunzel to be taken seriously with a weapon. They wanted her to appear strong, but not be actually strong in the movie. Along with a shit ton of stupid decisions, they made for the final movie because of their sexist beliefs.

I would trade the final movie for Rapunzel unbraided and glen’s Rapunzel. Ok, maybe Rapunzel unbraided was going to be trash, but I still would trade it for t. The prince looked so much better than that cradle robber who looks like he’s addicted to plastic surgery.

It’s a fucking tragedy. John Lassiter needs to pay for his crimes!

[theartoftangled]

Concept art by Lisa Keene

[princess-ibri]

I realized that the three Gothel Daughters I have in the DisneyVerse fall in with the Maiden Mother Crone archetype, so here’s all three together

(Og post for Azalea)

(Og post for Ginevra)

[theepsizet]

The other cut song from Rapunzel — the darker, earlier version of Tangled. This song was scrapped and replaced with When Will My Life Begin?, similar to how All That I’ve Done for You was replaced by Mother Knows Best (for obvious reasons).

What’s interesting to note is that she wonders what it would be like to have a father; she never once once asks for a different mother...

(Credit goes to Christopher Curtis. Images are concept art by various people who worked on the film; too many to name.)

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

WISH Teaser, Paramount CinemaCon Presentation Thoughts

Well now, our teaser for WISH is finally here... Been here for a few days...

And my reaction took a while to type up, because I spent most of my day out and about, namely seeing another movie in theaters that happens to star Chris Pine... and being up to other stuff earlier today.

I've ready spilled my thoughts on WISH's visuals on an earlier post, but I'll repeat... This does look like a cool next step for Disney's CG animated movies. Sure, it's pretty much the TANGLED/FROZEN/MOANA/etc. house style and character models with a 2D linework overlay and subtle textures/tones, but it looks very nice and if this is the baby step to even more experiments and equally cool-looking movies? I'm down. I particularly love the color work of this world that it's set in, the architecture is eye-catching, along with the stylized forests that look to be channeling Mary Blair and Eyvind Earle even. Very, very classic-like FX on the star character. The brief taste of the song shows promise, too. Not much else for me to say, other than... It looks like a typical Disney animated movie, but sure to be served up quite nicely and with fantastic visuals that will *pop* on the big screen. I know, it's not actual pure 2D, but I'll take what I can get. Alan Tudyk's goat character Valentino is a standout as well.

The trailer's proclamation of the film being a story a century in the making is utterly silly, though... As if Disney, stretching all the way back to the day Walt and Roy founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923, had this thing sitting around... and it sat and sat and sat and sat for decades until the current administration decided to go through with it... I mean, c'mon... What does that even mean? I'm pretty sure, per what I hear from the trenches, that this thing was pitched around 2018... Ahhhhh marketing. It's not dissimilar to how director Chris Buck's own FROZEN was touted by Disney's marketing machine as a film that was over 70 years in the making, when it really... Wasn't. FROZEN, as you and I know it, came into existence around 2008 as ANNA AND THE SNOW QUEEN. The early 2000s SNOW QUEEN project and the short segment that Walt was going to do for a scrapped Samuel Goldwyn movie about Hans Christian Andersen in the 1940s do not count. They are merely separate stabs at the source material, whose only link is said source material. I extend the same to something like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, or RAPUNZEL/RAPUNZEL UNBRAIDED/TANGLED.

What *is* cool is the trailer not only saying "From the creators of" the more recent WDAS movies like FROZEN, MOANA, and ENCANTO... But also THE LION KING, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, and... CINDERELLA??? Wow, we're going way back! Surprised PINOCCHIO and THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, actual Disney animated movies with a wishing star in them, weren't mentioned. You can tell Disney's not going to take the marketing of this one lightly, they need a not-sequel hit big-time, as they haven't had such a thing at the box office since MOANA aaaaall the way back in 2016.

The typography nut in me also noticed that they used the original poster and home video logo for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. CINDERELLA's logo, curiously, comes from the 2012 Blu-ray and DVD release. Not the more recent DMC exclusive 4K disc release.

So yes... WDAS' WISH... I'm there! I mean, they had me at WDAS, and the style, so, I'm expecting a fun ride with great visuals.

--

Paramount presented at CinemaCon yesterday, dropping plenty of animation news... Though Paramount Animation's future is largely IP-based stuff...

More word on next summer's all-animated TRANSFORMERS Cybertron-set prequel, which now carries the title TRANSFORMERS: ONE... Okay then, if you say it as that, people might think you're referring to the first of Michael Bay's TRANSFORMERS movies, the first one from way back in 2007. Nope, TRANSFORMER: ONE, as in the animated prequel. Josh Cooley, director of TOY STORY 4, has been attached to this one, so that made me pretty excited for it. I mean, an animated TRANSFORMERS movie in this day and age is also exciting to me given that it all started as a cartoon series. And said cartoon series spawned a theatrical animated movie in 1986. What's a little concerning is how star-studded the voice cast is. I'm sure they'll do great as the various bots, and I get that these are younger versions of the Transformers, but... I dunno, I don't want to sound like one of those people who complains all the time about voice actors not getting to voice these legacy characters, but... Why not? Either way, I'm looking forward to this movie... Does it function as a prequel to the Michael Bay movies? The BUMBLEBEE-verse movies? Or is this starting its own all-animated TRANSFORMERS universe?

The Smurfs musical they have set for Valentine's Day 2025 is now called THE SMURF MOVIE... As if, five Smurfs movies later, this is *the* one. Chris Miller, director of SHREK THE THIRD and PUSS IN BOOTS, is confirmed to helm the picture. Good to see him directing again, long after his PUSS IN BOOTS sequel got canned. Despite earlier reports saying this is an all-animated Smurfs movie, there appear to be some conflicting reports on this one being a live-action/animation hybrid much like the first two Sony Animation Smurfs movies... I'd rather it just be all-animated, myself, like THE LOST VILLAGE was. I wonder if, since this is a Paramount Animation film, they'll push the visuals even harder than LOST VILLAGE did and really make this dynamic, 2D-looking translation of Peyo's original comics? Rihanna voices Smurfette, much like how a pop singer voiced her in both the hybrid movies and the all-animated one.

The first of the new wave of AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER movies is still on and going full steam ahead, so that's nice. The 4th theatrical SPONGEBOB feature is titled SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: THE SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS... Kind of a mouthful of a title there, but a big epic is promising, one involving the Flying Dutchman. Wonder what visual style it takes on, given that the previous three movies all tried on different looks. The original 2004 movie resembling an upscaled version of the show, the 2015 sequel having sequences where it's a hybrid/CG movie, and the 2020 movie being all CG but in its own unique style.

But... My burning question... All this talk about MUTANT MAYHEM, PAW PATROL 2, TRANSFORMERS: ONE, THE SMURF MOVIE, SPONGEBOB 4, AVATAR: TLA MOVIE #1...

What's going with... UNDER THE BOARDWALK?

UNDER THE BOARDWALK, directed by David Soren (TURBO, CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS), was announced as a "GREASE with crabs" musical set on the Jersey Shore. For a while, it carried a summer 2022 release date, until Paramount out of nowhere kicked it out and threw in a movie they acquired the distribution rights to: PAWS OF FURY: THE LEGEND OF HANK, formerly known as BLAZING SAMURAI... That movie came and went last summer, and there's been radio silence on UNDER THE BOARDWALK. Soren has spoken a few times every now and then, indicating that the movie is finished, but Paramount was figuring out a release plan for it...

I have a feeling they'll just offload it to Paramount+, like they did with RUMBLE, which was originally set to be a theatrical release and even had trailers rolling in theaters. That's how last minute that decision was. There's next to nothing for UNDER THE BOARDWALK other than previous announcements and maybe a piece of concept art... Where is it at? Are there still plans to give it a theatrical release?

For that matter, there was no word on THE TIGER'S APPRENTICE, either. That film - directed by Raman Hui, Paul Watling, and YongDuk Jhun - carries a 1/19/2024 release date, but Paramount said nothing about it during their presentation. Maybe they wanted to prop up the franchise movies, to whet the appetites of CinemaCon's audience... Theater business people. Of course sequels and IP movies would get them excited for potential profits and attendance... Because, outside of animated movies, what else did Paramount strut around? SMILE 2, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING, PART ONE, A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, a Bob Marley biopic, and Martin Scorsese's KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON. Outside of the Scorsese movie, it's all IP (SMILE, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, A QUIET PLACE) or something immediately recognizable to the public (Bob Marley).

Either way, I still wonder what's going on with those two particular pictures, being that they aren't entries in long-running movie franchises. UNDER THE BOARDWALK is an original story that takes inspiration from GREASE and other musicals and named after a song by The Drifters, while THE TIGER'S APPRENTICE is based on a book that wasn't adapted elsewhere. I'd at least like to know if the former is even being released or not.

[the-type-a]

In a very early version of Disney's Tangled, the movie was going for a more "Shrek-like" feel with a witch transporting two San Francisco teenagers named Claire and Vince that hate each other into the roles of Rapunzel and her prince while the actual Rapunzel and Prince became a dog and a squirrel. It was gonna be called Rapunzel Unbraided, with some concept art and a video of the movie's opening and ending available on YouTube.

While I'm glad they scrapped that version of the film, the bickering teens becoming fairytale icons and falling in love with each other has Duncney AU written all over it. It even has a princess theme to it!

Lmao that concept is actually pretty entertaining ngl— definitely fits the Duncney role, as well as the actual Tangled storyline too.

[nerdasaurus1200]

Claire was heavily inspired by Claire from Rapunzel Unbraided. Me and my friends are still working on her backstory but right now she grew up in Corona living paycheck to paycheck after her father died. She gets hired by Rapunzel as a lady in waiting a couple months after the series. Claire quickly becomes close with Eugene and Rapunzel as a result, and is considered part of the friend group. Unfortunately, Claire was another hard one to design. Originally I gave her short hair like her concept counterpart but that didn't look right so I gave her a braid instead. I also liked the idea of her having a crop top blouse, something that looked a little revealing but not inappropriate. Also, I dunno why but when I was thinking of what her "color" could be my mind just went "PINK MAKE IT PINK!" XD You may guess this but she ends up going barefoot after spending so much time with Rapunzel