Trailer Tuesday: The Princess and the Frog

We have quite a wait for The Princess and the Frog, Disney's long awaited return to 2D animated musicals. The film is currently set for release during the Christmas period 2009.

Unfortunately for Disney though, their return to their creative roots may not be as triumphant as they were hoping. So far, The Princess and the Frog, which is set in New Orleans during the 1920s Jazz Age, has been dogged by controversy.

This was the film's original plot synopsis:

A musical set in the legendary birthplace of jazz -- New Orleans -- "The Frog Princess" will introduce the newest Disney princess, Maddy, a young African-American girl living amid the charming elegance and grandeur of the fabled French Quarter. From the heart of Louisiana's mystical bayous and the banks of the mighty Mississippi comes an unforgettable tale of love, enchantment and discovery with a soulful singing crocodile, voodoo spells and Cajun charm at every turn.

Since then, the film, based on the old fairy tale, The Frog Princess (though the trailer looks more like The Frog Prince!), has been renamed. You see, calling Disney's first African American heroine a "frog princess" was deemed insulting. Her character has also been renamed - from the stereotypically black lower class "Maddy" to the much more regal "Tiana." She is also no longer a chambermaid.

Then, of course there are all the people upset by the cliched treatment of Creoles and the dabbling with voodoo that forms part of the film's storyline - the villain, Dr. Facilier, is a black voodoo magician/fortune teller.

Sigh.

Personally I'm very opposed to Hollywood's trend of constantly bowing down to public complaints. In the end all it does is dilute artistic vision and impact. No film should be made with continual references to focus groups and test screening results. They never work.

Anyway, I'm willing to give The Princess and the Frog the benefit of the doubt... for now. For one thing, I'm dying for some stunning traditional animation again, especially since everyone and their grandmother seems to be making mediocre CGI animated films these days.

For another thing, The Princess and the Frog is directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, who helmed The Little Mermaid and Aladdin back in the late 1980s-early 1990s period of Disney animation revival.

Unfortunately, though, I can't get excited about the fact that The Princess and the Frog's songs are composed by Randy Newman. God, I can't stand that man's "samey" music. Haven't his painful warblings in dozens of Pixar films been enough already?