The Swan Princess 11 Gets a Trailer and Release Date

There has been much rumor and speculation about the upcoming prequel to The Swan Princess, and the wait is finally over. The Swan Princess social media team announced this morning that the latest installment will be released in exactly three weeks on May 23rd. That means we don't have much longer to wait to learn about the events leading up to Derek and Odette's birth. There's something a little fishy about that date, and that is it is the same week that Disney will premiere their live-action remake of The Little Mermaid in theaters. Maybe that's just a coincidence, but honestly, I don't think so. Direct-to-DVD sequels like this have a lot less buildup, and it seems like they are trying to ride off the coattails of another popular princess fandom to get people to watch this while they're waiting. Either that or someone has a lot more faith in a direct-to-DVD sequel outshining what is probably the most highly anticipated Disney remake of all time than they probably should.


The Swan Princess: A FairyTale Is Born is the 11th installment in The Swan Princess franchise, so they needed to dig deep to come up with something fresh, and a prequel fit the bill. We've already seen Odette and Derek's adoptive daughter, Alise, come of age in the 9th installment, Kingdom of Music but know very little about Uberta's experience becoming queen. According to the trailer below, this new movie will be a series of flashbacks that cover Uberta's past after she decides to pass on the crown to Odette and Derek. Long-time fans of the franchise will be excited to see Derek's long-absent father and Odette's long-absent mother for the very first time onscreen. It's also a musical, of course. Has there ever been one that wasn't? Check out the trailer below before we take a deeper dive into the new film.


Uberta wanting to throw Odette and Derek a big coronation seems very in-character, but when it cuts to a flashback of her living like a peasant and baking with her husband despite apparently already being a princess, things get a little confusing. Not to mention the fact that she's had grey hair her entire life, but I guess that's to make sure the audience will recognize her. Then it cuts to a bunch of musical clips of Uberta learning about how to be royal in the style of The Princess Diaries or Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper. What's really interesting about this sequence is that Uberta becomes best friends with Odette's mother, Queen Aubri, while training to become queen. This explains why she was so close with Odette's father and later made the decision to merge their kingdoms. Odette is also shown in the present day interacting with her mother's ghost, which might be a little too fan servicey depending on the situation.

The villain of the movie named Wixom, a rival queen who appears to be inspired by Cruella de Vil. I'm surprised they didn't make her Uberta's mother because she looks so similar that I thought she was Uberta at first. After Aubri helps Uberta defeat Wixom in a dog show, the trailer shows the next sequence of events, where both couples announce the birth of their children, Odette and Derek. It was cute to see Derek as a toddler and learn that he became such a great archer from his father, Maximilian, who appears to be a sloppy peasant and not at all the type of person I would have pictured Uberta with. It's pretty long for a trailer and looks like it encompasses the entire movie right up to the ending. I'm not sure what will be left for the element of surprise at this point.

While I'm not thrilled that The Swan Princess has had 11 movies now with 3/4s of them in hideous CGI, it's nice to see that it is going back to its roots and exploring Odette and Derek's family history instead of continuing to move further away from the "Swan Lake" fairy tale. I also like that addresses the missing parents of both characters, something that rarely ever comes up in animated fairy tales. It's nice to know that we don't have to wait very long to can fill in the gaps that weren't included in the trailer since its release is only three weeks away. Are you looking forward to The Swan Princess: A FairyTale Is Born or are you tired of the franchise and hoping to move on to something else? Let me know in the comments!

I have always dreamed of being a writer and creating the next great fairy tale princess heroine. Princesses inspire us to be our best selves. While you're here, feel free to follow my page on Facebook, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and check out my books. I'm also on Instagram and Twitter.

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