The Princess Blog

There are precious few video games that allow you to play as a princess  who does something other than dress up or recover the royal jewels. Until recently, Child of Light was the only game I knew of for modern consoles that fit those criteria. That's why I was eager to play The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince when it went on sale in the PlayStation Store . Its storybook illustration aesthetic and sidescrolling gameplay look so similar to Child of Light that I mistakenly thought it was made by the same people at first. Once I actually started playing, it became clear that The Liar Princess has a much smaller budget and a more linear world. Instead of the colorful cast and robust battle command menus from Child of Light, The Liar Princess's story is told entirely by a single Japanese narrator accompanied by cutscenes of an illustrated storybook that depicting the story. I completed the entire game in a single evening, which made me question its $20 price tag. Story-wis...

Yesterday was November 18th, which was dubbed National Princess Day  in 2017 in honor of the anniversary of The Swan Princess . To celebrate the 25th anniversary of this underrated classic, the filmmakers got together to create a concept trailer that would give its fans an idea of what a live-action remake might look like. Don't get too excited though. There are no concrete plans for a live-action "Swan Lake" adaptation as far as we know. The team behind The Swan Princess  is extremely enthusiastic about the film, even 25 years later and are looking into every avenue they can find to keep its legacy going. Earlier this year, they released the ninth sequel  in The Swan Princess  franchise and are currently working on the tenth. Executive Producer Seldon Young  is eager to keep the fandom going through any means possible. Yesterday, he released this concept trailer for a live-action remake in the hopes that it might attract enough interest to set such a project ...

Did you know that today marks the actual 30th anniversary of Disney's The Little Mermaid ? To celebrate, I would like to share a book review of A.G. Marshall 's Princess of Mermaids  with you. I've read many other adaptations  of "The Little Mermaid" and even wrote one of my own , but I have never seen a book that managed to pay tribute to the fairy tale and the Disney movie while also telling a compelling original story so effortlessly. Princess of Mermaids  is the third book in A.G. Marshall's Fairy Tale Adventures series. Though it works as a standalone novel, I highly recommend reading the other two first. Not only are they fantastic books, but they also paint a clearer picture of the world and characters in this book. Princess Fiora first appeared in Princess of Shadows , originally called The Princess and the Pea  when I reviewed it. Her love interest, Gustave, was introduced in Princess of Secrets  (originally The Frog Prince ) along with some o...

Today is the day!  Disney's new streaming service,  Disney+ , is now available on smart devices everywhere. The highly anticipated launch did not go as smoothly as planned with the servers crashing earlier this morning, probably due to everyone wanting to be the first to access its content. That snag got fixed in a timely manner, but I can't say the same for the password issue. It seems like I need to reset my password almost every time I log on from a new device. Putting all of that aside, the app works exactly as advertised but with somewhat less content than expected. Initially, Disney claimed that they would be releasing their full library of movies, televisions shows, and specials, but it looks like we're going to have to settle for a decent-sized chunk of them instead. There were a few movies and shows added since the preview that launched in the Netherlands a couple months ago, but not quite as much as I was hoping for. I don't consider myself a Disney expert by...

I was fortunate enough to see an early screening of Frozen 2  this weekend thanks to  ASIFA Hollywood . Due to circumstances beyond my control, I missed the first few minutes of the movie, so my review will cover what I did see. For a Disney sequel  to a movie that I consider overrated , I tried to keep my expectations realistic. Frozen 2  was just as visually stunning as it looked in the trailers , but the story was all over the place and suffered from many of the same pacing issues that I had with the original. While the beginning and ending dragged on much longer than they needed to, the middle was the most engaging portion of the film with many tasteful throwbacks to the original as it expanded upon Anna and Elsa's past and future. Ultimately, however, the story had a lot of buildup with very little payoff. The first thing I'd like to address is the songs. There were so many songs. As someone who loves musicals , I never thought it would be possible t...

Just when you think a show has nowhere left to go, it throws you a curveball. I was prepared to have lots of fun this week with The Little Mermaid Live!  but not for the emotional roller coaster that the new season of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power took me on. The DreamWorks reboot was right on trend  with the latest theme of betrayal that has affected  every cartoon starring a princess this year . I hate to pick favorites , but She-Ra outdid every other princess series so far on the betrayal scale. That's not to say that Adora's broken relationship with Glimmer was quite as heartbreaking as Rapunzel and Cassandra, but doubt and deceit prevailed everywhere throughout Etheria as new and old characters abounded with malicious intent. Unlike the disappointing second season , which was mostly filler, season 4 of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power was packed with so much plot and character-driven drama that I don't even know where to begin. The only way I can think of ...

I can't believe this day finally came! My favorite movie was broadcast on television in front of a studio audience with live-action performers and Broadway-style sets and costumes. The Little Mermaid Live!  special was a long time coming. It was supposed to happen in 2017 , but it got postponed, leaving only my memories of seeing it performed  at the Hollywood Bowl  without the fancy costumes or sets. Now that the television production finally happened for real, I am pleased to say that they did it right. The transitions between the animated film and the live-action performances were on point, the songs were entertaining, and the spectacle was pure Disney magic. Of course, nothing is completely perfect, not even The Little Mermaid Live! The special was introduced by the one and only Jodi Benson , who hosted the movie's 30th-anniversary panel at the D23 Expo earlier this year. It seems like every time there's a Little Mermaid  event, Jodi is there to celebrate...

I'd like to expand a little on my  "Confessions of a Grown-Up Princess Fan"  to discuss how getting older has not only affected my perspective on princesses, but also my attitude toward the world in general. Thinking about how a live-action "Snow White" movie  would inevitably be different for a modern audience  sparked some of these thoughts. One of the biggest complaints about the "Damsel in Distress" stigma  that Disney has been working hard to overturn  is that princesses only smile and look pretty while their princes do all the hard work. I personally think that the movies from the Disney Renaissance have the best balance of proactiveness between the male and female protagonists. In today's movies , it's often the men who sit back and do nothing while the women lead the majority of the action for the plot, which creates an imbalance in the opposite direction. It also forces princesses to take on a lot more responsibility , which impedes t...