A Swan Princess Christmas

This is the third direct to video sequel to the cult classic animated movie, The Swan Princess, directed by former Disney animator, Richard Rich. The first film would spawn the direct to video sequels The Swan Princess II: Escape from Castle Mountain, released in 1997, and The Swan Princess III: The Mystery of the Enchanted Treasure, released in 1998. For those who've read my Animation in Obscurity review of The Swan Princess, you'll know that I absolutely
love the movie for a well written and sweet story, pretty animation, memorable and funny characters and really great songs. This Swan Princess Christmas movie was released as a direct to video in 2012 as a reboot to the series (was anyone actually asking for this?), but now, all of your favourite characters like Odette, Derek, Jean Bob, Puffin and Speed are in CGI! You heard right! Not the classic 2D animation, but in computer animated and how is it? Well, take a look at the animation section! So can this reboot sequel show Christmas can be as beautiful as a swan, or is there a reason why nobody asked for this in the first place? Let's find out!

Story: The plot...*sighs* oh God the plot! It's about Derek and Odette celebrating their first Christmas at Uberta's castle where they celebrate something called Ornament Day, where all they literally do is just put ornaments on a Christmas tree because it's supposed to be the main thing about Christmas (yeah, because family, peace on earth and goodwill to all men aren't that important!). Anyway, Odette has to come up with her own Christmas dance for a pageant which she's nervous about, which I guess is meant to be filler or some kind of conflict because the ghost of Rothbart comes back to try and suck up Christmas spirit by making people become jerks so he can be revived (wow, Derek and Odette really can't take a break from him). Oh yeah, and there's another pointless plot with Jean Bob using mistletoe to force someone to kiss him so he can become a prince (because the first movie didn't already acknowledge it wouldn't work(!)) The main problem I have is that it feels nothing like a fairytale, it feels really gimmicky and uninspired, and of course, it's unbelievably cliched and predictable! Another problem that I have is Richard Rich seemed to forget his own franchise before this with the plot! I mean, Derek and Odette act like they've just gotten married like when he mentions his mother being crazy during Christmas, but it's clear they've been married for at least a year? And wouldn't he have told her this already instead of acting like it's Odette's first time meeting her (because you know, 20 years of seeing each other every summer since being children wasn't important!) Also, if you think about it, Rothbart's plan makes no sense whatsoever, because Christmas spirit is something that really can't be taken away, I mean, he'd have to go all around the world to take Christmas spirit away instead of one kingdom he terrorized! The ending is exactly the same as the first movie, but with Derek dying and Odette reviving him, of course, with the power of love! God, it's just cliched and terrible, with clumsy dialogue, inconsistent pacing, unfunny jokes, uninteresting conflict and I hate it!

Animation: Here's another problem with the movie (in case you haven't noticed from the stills already) the animation looks terrible! Firstly, the character designs do not look good in CGI (ESPECIALLY Odette and Derek) and it's up to the point that they're unrecognisable! The quality is almost like that of a video game from 20 years ago, in a sense that the environments and the characters don't have much detail, prominently in the textures and character animation. Speaking of the character animation, it feels very stiff and whenever characters touch each other (like whenever Derek and Odette kiss) it doesn't actually feel like they're interacting with one another. The lip synching is off, and it doesn't even match to what the voice actors are saying! Also, for some reason they'd stop a bit and cut to the next shot before the character moves again, or would speed it up to try and make it look fluid. The backgrounds look very generic and unappealing, and even though they try to make it look like the past movies like the castle, they forgot some pretty important bits (the ballroom looks empty for some reason) The only reason why it's in computer animation is because it's jumping on the band wagon! Oh yeah, and whenever Odette smiles, she just looks creepy! Seriously, just look at one of the stills and tell me she doesn't look creepy without cracking a smile!

Characters: Wanna see some good and memorable characters be horribly butchered? Well, this is the movie for you! Remember when Odette was brave, kind and actually had a personality? Well now she's the generic ditsy princess with no positive qualities and is just boring! It doesn't help that she's only a swan for about 2 minutes and her only conflict is that she has to come up with a number for the Christmas pageant (which isn't really much, considering what she did in the other movies) Poor Michelle Nicastro, she must be rolling in her grave with Odette's new voice actress who sounds nothing like her (and her singing voice)! Derek (now voiced by Yuri Lowenthal AKA Ben 10) is even more boring and for some reason is now snowboarding (LAZY!) instead of doing archery! Bromley is also annoying and boring, and immediately assumes a cat had something to do with Ornament Day being ruined and is a dick. Speaking of Number 9... he's just a rip off of Fife from Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. Jean Bob (who sounds nothing like John Cleese) is now entirely pointless except for his whole mistletoe subplot (I don't get it, it's the 4th time, shouldn't he realize by now he's not a prince?!) Speed and Puffin are also pointless besides being comedy relieves, but they're never funny nor do they actually do much! Rothbart, the villain who's now a ghost, is somehow worse and his plan is stupid and idiotic! Seriously, even Care Bears would come up with something better than what he does! Uberta is just a Christmas fangirl, which can be good, but in this case it's just annoying!

Songs: Remember when the songs were like a Broadway musical and were actually good? Hope you've said goodbye to them because the songs in this are atrocious! The genre for some reason is crappy pop, which sounds like something out of High School Musical! Seriously, did Richard Rich forget his movie's own music before the reboot? Anyway, they are either pop versions of public domain songs, like Jingle Bells, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Deck The Halls, Joy To The World and, probably the weirdest one of all of them they could pick, Hark The Herald Angels Sing (WTF?! And the scene is entirely pointless) or even worse original songs! Starting with Season of Love, the melody and lyrics are cheesy, insufferable, annoying and painful to listen to (I had to mute my TV, it was that bad!) Angels We Have Heard on High and Christmas is the Reason are also terrible and cliched! Another point I'd like to add is the singing voices sound nothing like the characters, or even their ages (seriously, a kid who sings Away In A Manger sounds about 20! WTF?!) The songs are just terrible & made me wanna hang myself with tinsel!

ARGH!

This film is just painful! It completely ruined one of my favourite non Disney animated films and this movie has no regards to it whatsoever! I mean, my God! The story is terribly cliched and unengaging, the animation is some of the worst I've ever seen, the characters are bland, annoying and boring, and the songs...ugh, don't even get me started! I highly recommend avoiding this movie, especially those who love the first 3 movies, because quite frankly, I'm gonna go and watch it now to get this crap out of my head! I wouldn't even recommend this to children with how stupid and bad this is. Parents, this is just a waste of time and money, so I say you get the jump of not buying it, before you even consider giving it to your daughters as a Christmas present! Richard Rich, I'm sorry, but you just killed your own franchise! And hopefully this movie is now washed away by the sands of ti-

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Story: 2/10

Animation: 1/10

Characters: 2/10

Songs: 1/10

Overall: 1/10