Disney's Tangled 15th Anniversary
In 1996, while working on Tarzan (1999), lead animator and Disney Legend, Glen Keane, started to develop the idea of an animated adaptation of the classic fairytale of Rapunzel. The story is most well known as written by the Brothers Grimm but it has had many different influences, including an ancient myth of a dawn goddess and the story of Saint Barbara of Nicomedia. These had the basic premise of a young woman who was trapped in a tower. The first written version of the tale was written by Giambattista Basile. Since then, the tale and its characters have become iconic in the world of fairytales.
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The story has been adapted into many different mediums, for example, it was used as part of the story of the classic musical Into the Woods. Similar to The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, in the 1930s, Walt Disney planned to make a feature animated film based on the story of Rapunzel but found it too difficult to adapt. The main problem is that it’s a very static story since it’s about a woman waiting in a tower. But, years later, animator Glen Keane thought that the story was perfect for a film about a character with a deep desire to do the impossible. When the idea was pitched to Michael Eisner in 2001, he immediately green lit it because he thought another animated fairytale was what Disney needed at the time.
However, Michael would agree to approve of the project if it was done in computer animation. It was then Glen put production on pause for a few years until he thought computer animation was better prepared for the project. The initial version of the story was quite different from the finished film. Since DreamWorks’ hit film Shrek (2001) was a phenomenon during its release, the Disney executives attempted to copy its success with a comedic send up of Rapunzel. The story was to be about 2 teenagers who were transported from modern day San Francisco to the classic fairytale. While the script was viewed as witty and funny, Glen Keane knew in his heart that the proper way to make this story work was to tell it as a sincere story. When the film was put back into production in 2006, Glen was still attached to co-direct and this version was to have a more mature tone. For example, Rapunzel was to use a crossbow instead of a frying pan used in the final film. But Glen had a non-life threatening heart attack during production and had to step down. In his place was Nathan Greeno and Bolt (2008) and future Zootopia (2016) and Encanto (2021) co-director, Byron Howard. They decided to lighten the tone of the movie and decided that the reason Rapunzel would leave her tower was to see the floating lanterns. As for the animation, Glen still worked as the lead animator for the film and essentially taught the computer animators how to apply the charm and aesthetic of traditional animation to the computer and to achieve a classical style of oil paintings. This would become the template for future computer animation at Disney Animation.
After close to 15 years of production, Disney’s 50th animated feature, Tangled, was released on November 24, 2010 to critical and commercial success. It became the first Disney animated film since Dinosaur (2000) to be one of the 10 most successful films of the year and would pave the way for Disney’s success up until Frozen II (2019). Tangled would also spin off into a TV series that ran for 3 seasons. Thus, the story of Rapunzel and her dream will continue to be ever popular for another 15 years. As for Glen Keane, in 2012 he retired from Disney and started his own studio. He would soon win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film with Dear Basketball and he would direct the Netflix film Over the Moon in 2020.
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