--Gregoriancant's Connective Threads Series--: "Rapunzel" (Part One)--Disney's 2009 Film Adaptation and New Uses of Non-Photorealistic Rendering Techniques

It's always seemed interesting to me that Walt Disney never took on the fairy tale of "Rapunzel" during his life and career. I would have rather seen him tackle that complex story in animation over say his 1959 widescreen epic of "Sleeping Beauty." And, of course, the fairy tale has been off-limits for the Walt Disney Feature Animation division since "Beauty and the Beast" when the formula became too predictable for the fickle masses in the modern era. Now, though, Disney appears to have been re-inspired thanks to a new CEO, an acquisition of Pixar and once and for all finally realizing that it doesn't matter what type of animated movie they do: It's all about creating a great script. While Disney's animation was pioneering up to a time--the scripts in Walt's era were what made their movies work with expertly written, clever dialogue and plot points. That was lost on Disney in the post-Walt years until recently trying to get things turned around. With several big animation features coming out of the studio in the next few years (including a beautiful-looking adaptation of "Rapunzel" in 2009)...it could be that the animation in these films may bring back a high level of script and visual sense we saw in the classic Disney era thanks to the simple concept of consolidation.