Tangled

This is the story of how animation died. And it began with the words, "This is the story of how I died."

Tangled, the movie that would truly begin the Post-WGA Strike Era of Disney, was written by Dan Fogelman. Most of Fogelman's works tend to be given middle-of-the-road scores on IMDb, only sometimes scoring a 7, most of the time scoring a 5. It's appropriate since this movie feels very... average. Unremarkable, even. But then, what is anymore?

All I really know about this one is that they attempted to have this movie look like a watercolor painting, like 2D and CG merged into one. I don't really see it; the movie looks as generic as ever. I keep hearing the story that they wanted to go all the way, but the animation was too expensive to fit in feature length, in other words, pretty much the same problems they overcame with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Keep in mind that that was done in 1937, so they really should've taken a page from their own creator, as opposed to parading his corpse in Disneyland and pretending he's president-for-life.

Describing the story will be difficult, but since this is our first time, I'll be gentle. In order to do that, though, I need to show you something. Here, boy!

Always there when I need him. ^_^

This is the Checklist. The Checklist counts exactly what is in a movie, what tropes are being used in the film. The Checklist deals in objective facts; it's hard to dispute "this happened" when you can look at the work yourself and see, yes, this did in fact happen. The whole subjective part of things is where this text comes into play. I'll be explaining to you why these things shouldn't happen as best I can. So, let's get started.

After the new, fancy Walt Disney Animation Studios logo fades away, we see this:

What those of you playing at home can't see is the reason I'm groaning from the first second. That's because it's not something you see; it's something you hear. And what I'm hearing is a whole bunch of words talking over this beautiful scenery.

Assembly Line Productions, starting from I think Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs have typically started with first-person narration at the start of the movie. This is the most basic and simple method of communicating information to the audience. It's also something Writing 101 tells you not to do.

You see, this is violating the principle of "Show, Don't Tell," quite possibly the first thing you learn in writing, right after "Avoid As You Know." Audiences typically like to figure these things out themselves, or at least read opening text if they can't do that. The crawls those text comes from tend to be very short, too.

If this were an Assembly Line production, it'd be five paragraphs long, double spaced, in Times New Roman 12 pt.

I don't even need to look at a live-action production to illustrate this concept. I can look to Disney themselves.

A picture is worth an entire musical number.

Handling the information by just splurging it all out to us in words words words is just cluttering up the movie and taking our eye off the visuals. Need I remind you that this isn't an audio book? If I were to translate this entire monologue into text in comic book format, it might look something like this: 

You'd trust a child's attention span to actually read all this and not just flip the page, right?

So in the end, that's our first mark on the list, from the first second. We'll be getting a lot of those...

While we're at it, let's discuss that pink elephant parading in our room: The Checklist has grown larger. You see, there are moments in animated movies where one element leads to another. It's not enough that the movie has narration at the beginning and the end; it can also qualify for the Assembly Line Narration, wherein this first person speaker follows a set pattern.

How does this work for us?

It works for and against the movie.

I can explain with math. Assume there are two entries on this list. One of them is filled. One more will make the Cliche Count 100%. However, our current total is 50%.

However, the entry we've filled in had modifiers, additional parts of the formula that form the cliche. That changes our number of entries from two to, say, four. However, we still only have one entry on the list. That means we are on 1/4, so our total has been brought down to 25%.

But if things go badly, and more tropes are used, then we can increase that number to 2/4, or 50%, and if we use another one of the two modifiers, we reach 75%. Once again, we're only one number away from 100%, but the current number is even higher than where we started.

And guess what? One of the modifiers we checked? Also has a modifier! That means we're at either 2/5 at 40%, or even 3/5 at 60%. But when we check off another modifier, we reach a total of 4/5 at 80%! That makes for a movie that doesn't just use cliches, but is also formulaic about them as well. This is where we truly enter problem territory.

So while that number may be low now, don't expect that to stay the case for this review.

Now that I've explained why it's a bad idea to use narration, let's discuss the narration itself.

The very first line is "This is the story of how I died," which immediately tells me that someone is going to die, but be brought back to life. You know, like in every animated movie ever ever since children couldn't handle the war between Autobots and Decepticons being an actual war with people they like dying.

We'll get to your death when it happens. I can't just penalize you for a crime you haven't committed yet.

The second thing we learn from this is our story is about a girl. Now where have I heard that before? Oh yes! Every Disney Movie ever.

I'm not kidding on this one. Sometimes it's about a boy, in the 80's animals were the rage, but most of the time it was about some kind of girl, starting from The Little Mermaid, even in the classic era with Cinderella and Snow White. I'm not sure if Walt intended his female protagonists to become the merchandising juggernaut known as the Disney Princess line, but ever since the line's inclusion, Disney has been absolutely pushing it. Tiana isn't even a princess, but she still gets counted as one for an outfit she had in one scene! And last I checked, Mulan was a peasant, and a warrior, too, not a girly-girl geisha!

But it doesn't matter. The addition of another princess adds to the stable, and creates another new character to make toys, books and lanyards out of. I could easily substitute the Disney Princess line for an Ice Cream shop, and I'd probably have a unique flavor for each girl! (My favorite's the Tiana Chocolate, in case you're curious.)

On top of that, this is going to be about this girl growing up, which is the most common plotline for animated movies. I'm sure you're all familiar with Joseph Campbell's Hero of A Thousand Faces (and if you're not, you've seen it if you've seen Star Wars.) This is a story that has resonated with the public for some time now, and it usually goes in one of two directions:

1. The growing character has a bad relationship with a family member they need to resolve.
2. The growing character's parents are absent or dead, and they must survive without them.

I guess we'll just have to keep watching to find out how it goes, but keep in mind, it's probably going to be entering familiar territory.

Now look at that! Just by that, we've already entered the double digits! Although, if I were truly counting based on amount of tropes, we'd have 41, right?

Not really, see, movies tend to be either a Coming of Age Story or a Misunderstood Character Story. It's rare for both to be the case. As such, it's more fair to the final total when it doesn't follow either formula, showing it could've taken those routes, but didn't. Right now our question is, how well does this handle as a Coming of Age Story?

Might I mention something this movie does badly? Not something cliche, just bad. We've been treated to some amazing visuals in this sequence, stuff that truly shows off the art direction of the movie. This is the kind of stuff that gets people hooked...

...or at least it would be if it didn't come attached to so many words words words! In fact, most of the words being told are simply describing actions onscreen. Something happens in the movie, then our narrator says it happens! This is Telling, Not Showing, and is the reason animated movies shouldn't universally start with narration!

I believe Leonard Maltin referred to this as "Illustrated Radio," and last I checked, that was a bad thing.

The nail that seals the coffin is when Mother Gothel appears, she gets called out as important. Gee, thanks for not letting us take Chekhov's Gun off the mantle, might as well do it for us!

Clearly Dan Fogelman learned the wrong lesson from Writing 101.

What about that flower, anyway? Well, it heals youth, which that old lady has been doing to make herself stay young. But one night, the local queen falls sick, so she needs the flower to heal her. Then, the queen passes off the flower's genetics to her daugher, who, because this is an animated cartoon, gains the power to heal people by singing in her hair. (Not that I'm complaining. Animation can totally get away with it.)

Obviously, the hag doesn't want to die of old age (You might wanna remember that. It's kind of important.), so she tries to cut the hair off, but it turns brown and loses its power. (You might wanna remember that. It's kind of important.) So what's an evil old hag to do when faced with this problem?

Well, remember when I said these entries end with the family members being absent or dead? Well, that's how it goes here, only instead of adoption, it's kidnapping. I will admit, it's a good twist on the formula, something I wouldn't have thought of (mostly 'cause I wouldn't do it at all), and doing something at least partially out of the ordinary is a good start.

Nevertheless.

You didn't misread, the number is 41. We've got a modifier!

You might have also noticed certain entries are missing from the list. This is also no accident. Typically, a movie will be one of two things in this situation, either Dysfunctional Family, or Lost Family. Once again, it's rare for it to be both at once. I don't feel like judging things based on something that usually doesn't happen, so I'm just moving the total to 41 to account for the two additions and one subtraction.

So, our bitch of a witch has a child of her own, and she didn't even need to pay the adoption fee! But the king and queen aren't to content of this, so they send out the vaguest Amber Alert possible by floating lanterns in the sky. Mind you, if I were in charge, I'd probably start a manhunt and have those floating lanterns read something like "Lost child. Responds to the name Rapunzel." or "Have you seen this girl? She looks like this." You can do amazing things with pixels, I should know.

This is here because I can't find the Japanese Whale PSA. In retrospect, it's a good thing I couldn't.

So we skip time, (and by the way, I've got a backlog of movies here, and if I see so much as one more with the first part of the movie taking place in the protagonist's childhood, I'm adding it to the Checklist) and now Rapunzel's 18. Exactly 18, since it's her birthday. And now she looks like this.

And you may not realize it, but JUST this image gives me a LOT to talk about. And a lot of marks, too.

The adult Rapunzel is portrayed by The Disney Princess Archetype. You may remember her from her roles in every Disney Princess movie. She's as prolific as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tina Fey. She's got extreme devotion to the school of acting, and is primarily a method actor. She's done a Robert Downy Jr. and dyed her skin black to play Tiana, she's taken on every hair color in the world including some unusual ones, and in this movie she's taken on the task of growing her hair out! I'm serious, that's not a wig, that's all real!

I can usually tell The Disney Princess Archetype for a number of reasons. You see, while she is indeed very capable, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, she's got a very distinctive face and voice. The voice especially comes out in her singing.

Here's her in the part of Jasmine:

And this is her as Ariel:

This is her in Pocahontas:

And of course, this is her in our current feature, Tangled:

Her crowning achievement? Playing both Ana and Elsa in Frozen, AND doing a duet of them in the same room!

The other thing that makes it easy to tell it's her is in her face. Even when she makes small alterations to it, I can usually tell on first glance it's her. Here's her facial structures outlined in some of her roles for Disney.

I think the last time I saw this kind of entertainment being mainstream was the 1920's.

And here's those faces stripped of their flesh.

Beauty is only skin deep.

Really though, I've just seen her in too many movies with that face and that voice, I've grown sick of her. This wouldn't be a problem if she just worked for Disney; all studios have a stable pool of talent they draw from. The problem is that she works for just about every animation company on the planet.

This is her after her brief stint with DreamWorks as Astrid.

This is her after gaining a few pounds to play Helen Parr.

And this is her after losing several ounces to play Penny.

And guess what, Helen Parr is the ONLY time she changes her voice.

Quite frankly, I'm sick of her just walking over the other members of the industry. We need other actresses, not just her in every role!

Oooh, but I'm not done. I haven't even gotten into her contractual obligations. You see, under Disney, The Disney Princess Archetype is usually required to have a scene taking place on a balcony.

Someone actually did this for me so I didn't have to do it myself. Thanks!

Wanna know how bad this is? It's even in Disney's self-parody!

Proving once again that even Disney is sick of Disney.

Just to complete our trifecta, we have this cute creature.

In the late 90's, he'd be played by Jim Carrey.

This is Pascal. He's Rapunzel's goofy animal sidekick. No, he doesn't talk. I'm sure he hangs out with Pocahontas and Mulan's non-talking animal sidekicks, with Raja sometimes joining in if he's had a good apatite.

So, what does that bring us down to? Let's consult the Checklist!

Do you see how far we've shot up? What's scary is that this is just the first two minutes!

So after Rapunzel gives her princess musical number (fairly generic, but at least it's composed for the movie), we get introduced to our other main protagonist, Flynn.

Given the choice between the three of you, I'd take those two seasick crocodiles.

Flynn's smarmy and smug, but he grows out of it over the course of the movie. This is standard character development and I don't count it against the movie. I will say that he reminds me a little of Aladdin, but then, Aladdin was just another Guy Who Wants A Better Life those were a dime a dozen in the 90's.

Come to think of it, maybe I should be looking at this as a 90's Disney movie...

After he steals the tiara, we cut back to Rapunzel, who meets up with the old lady. We get her name, Mother Gothel, and an inkling of her personality: she's rude, abusive, cruel, and is obviously pulling off a con. However, the characters in universe still trust her despite having the attitude that screams "Hot damn I'm evil!" Though, if it weren't for the expository prologue, I think we could figure this out ourselves just by looking at her.

9 out of 10 Disney Villains recommend black and red!

Really, though, there's another clue that Mother Gothel is evil incarnate. Something which should make any daughter in a fantasy kingdom very suspicious.

She's a stepmother.

Really, if you're a mother in a Disney movie, you're either:

1. A corpse buried in an offscreen grave.
2. Nonexistent because the father reproduces asexually.
3. The sole parent because she reproduces asexually.
4. The worst kind of evil imaginable.

However, if you're a stepmother, you only have that last option of pure evil. Let's look at some examples in Disney fiction. So far, we've had...

Queen Grimhilde from Snow White, whose plan to give her stepdaughter food poisoning was her second idea, her first to hire an assassin to Kano her and giver her the poor girl's still-beating heart in a box.

She is one of the only two characters who doesn't get a song. The other's the assassin she hired, and he stopped before he killed Snow White.

 Then there's Lady Tremaine, who has eyes that can stare into your soul.

This look could kill Captain Planet.

And of course, Narissa, who is the combination of every Disney Villainess into one... except maybe Cruella.

Though given the nature of the movie, it wouldn't surprise me if she skinned a doe for one of her capes.

It doesn't just seem to be stepmothers either. I mean, somehow, someone in Hollywood thought this was a good idea:

It's easy to be #1 Comedy of the Year when there's only one comedy in theaters this year.

And it doesn't just stop here. Here's John Connor's foster mom:

Not pictured: John Connor's actual foster mom.

And here's his real mom.

One of these two will kill you. The other will commit identity theft then kill you.

Need I go on?

It's downright annoying, and absolutely rude. Considering how we've become incredibly politically correct, I'm surprised we don't have any good adoption parents in movies. They've all been either boring or bastards. If you don't think this is a problem, well, tell that to Little Jimmy and his foster mom and see how you fare in court. It's annoying, it's rude, and worst of all, it's predictable. And here I was showing this movie mercy by not counting both formulas.

Ironically, this guy would give his opponent another chance to walk away... which he blew again.

Or, if you want the short form:

Just to warn you guys, we have entered a Level 1 Danger Zone. You may notice the yellow tint on the number. We're getting ever the closer to the phase where a movie is just cliched and unoriginal.

And yes, 46. There's a modifier.

I do apologize for being so on the nose with this, but you guys are just learning the ins and outs of the extended process, while I've been doing this since last August. Don't worry, I'll just leave it assumed that there's an additional modifier and then if it's our first time, show you the modifier.

Well, since I've been so negative, can I just have a moment to talk about something I like? That would be Mother Gothel's first villain song. Poor Unfortunate Souls was the best innovation 90's Disney had, giving the villain a chance to shine in her own unique musical number. The best part about villain songs is that the actors playing them usually have a great set of pipes that you'd expect from the A-list talent known for playing villains, and Mother Gothel's song, Mother Knows Best, is no exception. She has a wonderful singing voice that comes out like a Broadway musical. She knows how to present and has an excellent stage presence, combined with the awesome visuals. It's a real treat, and I'd highly recommend catching the song when you have a chance. I'd link it, but then I wouldn't be using it for the purpose of commentary, and that'd defeat Fair Use.

Anyway Flynn has a gag where people can't seem to draw his face right on wanted posters. And quite frankly, I prefer some of these faces. Some make him look more distinguished. Like this one here.

Then again, it's not really good for a criminal to not blend in with a crowd.

As he's running away from the guards who should've though better to face any direction other than the tiara he stole, and somehow haven't found the missing child and her abductor in 18 years, he leaves his partners behind. They must really want to make him into a Kuzco type figure.

Along the way, he comes across this bloodhound, who has such an iron will he makes Shining Armor spew waterfalls of liquid pride.

Ah don't care whatcho traila's say; you're the one wearin' the saddle in this relationship!

This is Maximus, who is so much a Captain of the Horse Guard he can actually give commands to horses. Clearly this world works on a different stream of logic than I do, or is this where Comedy Network's staff got their ideas?

Maximus will become our second Goofy Animal Sidekick that can't talk, though he demonstrates a different aspect of the trope. A lot of times in animation, they will give the characters exotic pets that are unusual as pets. So exotic, in fact, no one has ever actually had them as a pet. No one owns a pet horse, or tiger, or cockroach. Since most of the choice animals assume a crawling stance, usually on four legs, that means the writers need to, when developing their goofy character, come up with a model that can simulate something the audience will understand. That pretty much leaves us with dogs and cats, and cats are generally less friendly to humans. And not as active, either.

It is a well-known fact that all cat memes sound better if you imagine them talking like Alan Rickman.

Thus the default is immediately shifted to dogs. The problem with this setup, however, is two-fold. One, it's the easy way out. Rather than try and figure out the psychology of what a horse, tiger, or cockroach would really act like as a pet, they, as humans are wont to do, go for the path of least resistance. Writing dogs is easy, so more animals act like dogs.

The other reason is simpler: everyone's done it and it's gotten old. But then, isn't that the reason this series exists?

And yes, you can have multiples of the same mark, like two Goofy Animal Sidekicks That Can't Talk. However, this does not lower the final number. In fact, you can actually Overload with enough doubles. Before you all panic, just know that this is relatively rare. So rare that it's never happened to me in my writing in advance.

So Flynn finds the tower, and climbs to the top. where he's promptly socked in the head with a frying pan by Rapunzel. She's scared at first, but she eventually gets a good look at his face and...

Well stop me if you've heard this one before, Rapunzel's eyes shift to his face, the camera lingers on what she sees, and she feels flush. Yup, it's the dreaded enemy of literary critics everywhere, Love at First Sight. You probably know all about this one since even Live-Action works love it. As such, I have no reason to go over what you doubtlessly already know. Just know, yup, it's on the list.

Why yes, this rabbit hole does run deeper! All in due time, all in due time.

After a brief interlude with Mother Gothel where she loses her temper but not her credibility...

This is a face I'd trust immediately. That my death would be slow and painful.

Flynn and Rapunzel talk. Here's the deal: Flynn wants the Tiara. Rapunzel also wants the Tiara. In addition to that, Rapunzel wants to be at the location where the lanterns light up. Flynn doesn't want to go to the city because they (kinda) know his face. So, if Flynn takes Rapunzel to see the lanterns, she'll give him the Tiara. And any objections will be filed under, "SHUT UP I HAVE A FRYING PAN!"

So, Rapunzel gets to go outside. She's so happy about it that she sings. Then she has second thoughts. Then her second thoughts have second thoughts. It goes like this.

All you need is a message and your PSA is complete!

And don't think I didn't notice Rapunzel crying for dramatic effect. I'm letting it off with a half-mark now because of the preceding scenes, but I'll get to the reasons why it's bad when we get to the worse example.

But Maximus has found the Wanted poster, and he's hot on the trail!

Okay, I'm just gonna break cover and say these are hard to make. Content Aware doesn't often cooperate for me.

And also hot on the trail is Gothel, who would rather not be cheated out of immortality.

And now we come to the dumbest scene in the movie. It's not that it's predictable that it's the problem, in fact the exact opposite. This scene comes completely out of left field and leaves me scratching my head as to this situation could've possibly turned out the way it did, not just in universe, but that someone actually had to approve this. This has to be seen to be believed.

So the duo come to a tavern.

Still not quite as marketable as Red Lobster.

In animated fantasy movies, especially those by Disney, taverns are bad news. They often contain the worst of humanity all in one location, including bandits who talk about how awesome they are, pirates who show off all the gold they stole, and bounty hunters who will kill just about anyone if you pay them high enough. Also, taverns have associations with alcohol, which kid-friendly works often go out of their way to associate as bad.

What's a swig of beer cost? Your humanity.

Now any sane person would want to stay away from any tavern, but since Rapunzel has never seen one before, and Flynn's kind of an idiot, they go inside.

Once they go inside, they're greeted by these guys:

Remmy's over in the corner telling those guys to take a bath.

He couldn't find a part in How to Train Your Dragon and has to play a Disney Bit Character to pay the rent.

Now, if I saw these guys, I might panic and head straight back out the door I came. That's because these characters have been designed to appear completely hostile. Too lean, too muscular, too many teeth, not enough teeth, a character design tells us what to expect out of the character that is onscreen, and these guys are sending signals that tell me "These guys will kill Flynn and hold Rapunzel hostage."

Not only that, this is whole bar full of them. Remember what I said about taverns being bad news? Well they don't like it when some squeaky-clean schmoes, one of whom is a cute girl who's just about legal, barge into their grunge fest. I count two protagonists, and twenty enemies, and since our protagonists have no combat experience, I'd place their life expectancy at somewhere around twenty seconds.

Our situation only grows worse when they see the Wanted poster. Since even they can tell it's Flynn despite the Pinocchio nose, they decide to take him in to cash the bounty. Great, now are protagonists aren't just conspicuous, they're targets. Life expectancy decreases to ten seconds.

So, our heroes are outnumbered. They are overpowered. The question is, how can they get out of this one and survive past the ten seconds I gave them?

Here's Dan Fogelman's answer: Rapunzel asks the guys really nicely not to hurt them, playing to the sympathy of hardened criminals who likely have none. One key line is, "Don't you guys have dreams?"

We see this:

Chances are if a guy this big grabs you by the shirt collar, you're going to fall without style.

And then a musical number starts where these guys display completely unseen sides to them that're cute and funny.

These guys.

Hardened criminals.

Who have probably killed at least one person each.

Maybe some of them over five.

And they let them go.

It would appear Dan Fogelman has been doodling princesses into key pages of his Writing 101 textbook.

This makes no sense. It comes completely out of nowhere. It isn't foreshadowed, it isn't hinted at, it's not suggested by some aspect of their character designs; this entire sequence just seems to... happen out of nowhere.

In fact, the only reason I can think of why these guys didn't pulverize them right then and there is because if they did, the main characters would be dead and the movie would be over in 30 minutes, thus being unable to fulfill the contractually-obligated 90 minutes all animated movies must follow by law.

Try this against a gang of thugs. I dare ya.

I'm sorry, but... no. Every facet of writing is telling me that this is wrong. This is such a violation of the basic principles of writing, I have a feeling that if someone randomly searched "Basic Principles of Writing Rule 34" on Google or something, they'd get the IMDb page for Tangled!

A writer needs to carefully consider every single option available to their characters to get out of a difficult situation. Every single aspect of escape needs to be considered and tested by the principle of Cause and Effect. If something worked the last twenty times, there's a good chance it'll work this time. However, Cause and Effect can work against the characters, too. If these hardened criminals display all signs to the audience that they will kill them, the audience will predict the characters are in mortal danger.

Now, certainly a case can be made for limiting the protagonist's options. This gives the story an element of challenge the protagonists have to overcome. However, when you seal off all options, you are essentially condemning a character to DIE. No what ifs, no but maybes, the road ENDS. And it's something novice writers have difficulty with. Often times, novice writers grow attached to their characters, and the thought of them dying brings dread to them, so they want to prevent it at all costs. However, traps are cool! This is no doubt true. But when a novice writer both gets attached to a character and goes overboard with designing a trap, eventually the writers realize they just sealed their character into an adamantium gas chamber with no windows, no doors, and no ventilation and panic. That's when the lizard brain takes over and does the first thing that comes to mind.

If a character is placed into this kind of situation, the writer has to realize the horrible and quite-possibly permanent loss of access to that character they are committing to before they send them to die. Having someone rescue them who we've never seen before demonstrating powers we didn't know existed is cowardly, and it violates the audience's expectations! This isn't like subverting expectations, which is more like "You think this anime girl who got accidentally groped by the main character will turn violent, but they handle it like reasonable adults instead." Violating expectations is like eating a jelly bean that the box, paper, website, and color tell you is peach-flavored, and it turns out to barf flavor instead!

A friendly game of Candyland Roulette.

My final word shall come in the form of a metaphor: If the only way you can think of to save the protagonists from certain doom is a non-sequitur, then you have designed a trap that not even Houdini can escape. Unless your intent is to kill Houdini in front of a live audience, you need to scrap the trap and come up with something he can manage. Making it seem like Houdini will die only for you to unlock the trap yourself does not count as him getting out of peril. You helped him, the win was not legitimate.

Where was I?

Ah yes, the thugs in name only help the duo escape, and as an added bonus, they throw the guards off the trail.

Something tells me this nose design is intentional...

It pretty much doesn't work because even if the guards are complete idiots who can't save a little girl in 18 years, the Bloodhound sees through the deception and figures it out quickly. I'm thinking he used to work for the Equestria Royal Guard, and the only reason he doesn't talk is because he's actually speaking Pony Language.

After a conversation between Rapunzel and Flynn, they find themselves in a predicament with Maximus out for Flynn's blood on one side, and a cliff on the other. They need to cross the cliff, but need to deal with Maximus, whose got a sword. To combat them, and I kid you not, Flynn grabs Rapunzel's frying pan and engages with a sword fight with Maximus.

Now, it is possible to hold a frying pan over your head in real life, and, with some training, swing it like a sword. And because this is a fantasy environment I'm willing to let it slide that Maximus can use a sword. However... frying pans are made of cast iron, and I'm assuming that sword is made of steel, and steel is stronger than cast iron, so my question is why that frying pan hasn't been cut to ribbons.

It only works if you find all the clues.

I can tell this is bad writing, too. I can tell this because even the movie knows it's bad writing. Flynn actively calls out that this sequence makes no sense, and yet, the movie allows this to not only continue, but be played for suspense instead of comedy. This is another lesson from Writing 101 that Dan Fogelman doesn't know because he was watching cat videos throughout the entire class: If you have your characters call out that your sequence is badly-written, your sequence is probably badly-written and you shouldn't be writing it any further. Pull the plug and come up with something else!

After this nonsensical sequence, the two find themselves in a cave-in with water slowly filling up. That's where Flynn reveals his real name is Eugene, and just came up with Flynn because it sounds cooler. I'm still calling him Flynn because he's right. Rapunzel reveals her secret, that her hair glows when she sings, and she realizes she can use that to light their way. Yet, for some reason she's not singing when they escape.

I dunno, maybe it's working because she's singing in her mind. This film just makes up rules as it goes along.

After the escape, Gothel runs into the two actual thugs from earlier, who're looking for both the Tiara and the traitor. Now Gothel has the Tiara, and she uses it as leverage to get Rapunzel and Flynn for her.

Rapunzel and Flynn stop by, where Flynn reveals he has a would from earlier movie events. That hair can be used to heal wounds (its intended purpose), so Rapunzel uses it to heal the hand wound. She also reveals her brown hair strand that's her actual, powerless hair.

What she doesn't reveal, and hasn't revealed since the movie began, is an inkling of personality. Oh sure, we know what she wants and what she can do, but not who she is. She simply has no character. And because this relationship is now moving into a romantic one, her entire personality will solely be defined by her male love interest, and if that last part sounds wrong to you, then you can understand why I'm a little peeved.

Also, I need to point this out: The Disney Princess Archetype is typecast an awful lot. She often plays the role of a love interest who starts out in a rocky relationship with the protagonist, who ultimately forms a loving bond with him after previously having no interest, then the two get separated over a misunderstanding only to find out that the two really do love each other after all. They then kiss. Tale as old as time, really.

After the talk, Gothel shows up to talk to Rapunzel, tell her to come back to the tower. When she says no, this segues into a reprise of Mother Knows Best with a dark twist to it, which is still good because of the same singer playing the part, and, as we've established, Gothel's actress has a great singing voice as all Disney Villains do. Through this song she sends a warning to Rapunzel: Flynn is just using her and once he has the tiara, he'll throw her away like a used tampon. I only say that because this song has kind of a sexual subtext to it of boys only being interested in sex. I'm going to count that as our obligatory PG-13 reference to keep the parents interested and not likely to leave the kids alone in the theater out of sheer boredom.

A few things to note here. First of all, I'm sorry for showing off the full list here. I had to do that since it's hard to visually demonstrate dialogue or things like montages set to music. If you can think of a good method to quickly demonstrate it visually, let me know.

Also, you may have noticed an additional entry. Thing is... that's something that was there from the start. I just didn't show it because I forgot it, but was nonetheless adding it to my final total. I'm still learning this whole thing myself.

Third note: now you see the modifier for romance! This rabbit hole runs even deeper, though. We'll get to that when we need to.

The next morning, when Flynn wakes up, the first thing he sees is the best shot of the movie.

"HI! WHAT'S UP, GUYS?!"

Flynn doesn't immediately die because the Bloodhound recognizes Rapunzel, and what're dogs if not loyal to their master. Rapunzel manages to convince him to let Flynn go, and take them to the major city. Now all Flynn has to do is not get recognized in a town full of wanted posters of (an approximation of) his face.

At least he doesn't have to doodle on it to get people to catch the knockoff instead.

What follows is a montage that's thankfully not set to contemporary music of Rapunzel playing with the locals, none of whom recognize her as much as Maximus did. And yet, they can notice Flynn immediately despite the wanted posters being inaccurate. These people have very selective face blindness.

As Rapunzel and Flynn go out to see the lanterns, we get the best scene in the movie. 18 years have gone by, 18 years has the king and queen's daughter gone missing. They have never seen her once in that entire time. Not given her the childhood she deserved. Without saying a word, we get a loving relationship portrayed perfectly. The king has lost something very dear to him, and he is hurt.

The queen walks up to him, and lets him know it will work. This may be the one, the day where she gets the message! Even if it takes 18 more they will find her. But the king's tears? They are real. Very real. And this powerful scene takes the cake as the strongest in the movie.

The lanterns are released, an Rapunzel's quest is complete. She has finally gotten to see the lanterns. And, as promised, soon Flynn will get his tiara. But the song here, "I See The Light" indicates that while their original quests are complete, they have a new quest: each other.

Though I will comment it's similar to the other Disney Award Songs, like A Whole New World and Heaven's Light.

After the sequence, Flynn finds the two thugs waiting for him for the tiara. However, they seem to prefer cold-blooded revenge and bind him to the boat and turn him in. The way he is bound, standing up, causes his shadow to look like he's leaving of his own free will, causing Rapunzel to come running back to Gothel, as intended.

However, because she kept the handbag with the King's Seal, she realizes her true identity... somehow, and decides she's had enough of listening to Gothel. At the same time, the Thugs In Name Only and Maximus stage an escape, because the Bloodhound can easily sniff through bullshit.

Sorry ladies (and gentlemen), you're not his type.

So when Flynn enters the tower, we get to the climax, and this is where things start to fall apart.

First crime: Rapunzel is used as bait. In most animated movies (live-action ones had the decency to realize this is in bad taste), the female character in a romantic relationship is captured by the main villain. When this happens, she doesn't do anything to get herself out of it. She is completely helpless, and requires the male partner to rescue her. Even worse is that it doesn't matter if the character is powerful or not. If they could take care of themselves, they immediately lose their power of self-sufficiency, and are required to come crawling to the man to save her.

As you can see, the situation has already gotten worse, because we've entered a Level 2 Danger Zone. Around half of the movie is made of elements that were already in other movies. This is the part where a movie stops being "mostly original" and starts entering hackneyed territory. Don't expect this to get any better.

Because it doesn't. When Pascal tries to help Rapunzel, Gothel kicks him aside, literally. This is a cheap way of letting the audience know the villain is bad news, and I'll explain why. Animal cruelty is regarded as absolute evil by most parts of society. Saying someone abused an animal is to ascribe them a very dire sin. When this trait is ascribed to the villain, it's a cheap way of saying that this villain is pure evil, a way to emotionally manipulate the audience into turning on them, and a cue that this villain is about to die a horrible death. This is the reason for the Wicked Witch of the West's line "...and your little dog, too!" It makes it okay for the heroes to kill her because she's so evil, she'd threaten an animal, thus there is no redeeming her. And quite frankly, I'm tired of every movie using this cheap shot.

Flynn got stabbed, which is how he's going to die, there's even blood. And so, when Gothel makes an ultimatum for Flynn to never see Rapunzel again, Flynn responds by cutting Rapunzel's hair, turning it brown and making it lose its power. Thus, Gothel immediately turns so old she turns to dust, but not before falling out the window after being knocked out by Pascal.

And things continue to go clunk. Flynn dies, just as he said he would. And despite Rapunzel trying the song, it doesn't work. She also cries. Unlike the king's crying, a single, silent tear, Rapunzel lets out the waterworks.

There's a reason this is bad: this trait, loud, emotional crying is considered a sign of weakness. It's a trait associated with young children, and that someone hasn't grown out of it is to show that the person is a weakling who hasn't grown up. However, the default status for a woman in a Disney movie is a weakling who hasn't grown up, while the males are assumed to be strong and thus don't cry as emotionally. This sends a message that women are considered to be weak, and it's a stereotype that Disney has allowed for years, especially since the 1990s. It's an insult to both men and women, and that I see it here is sickening.

And don't believe even for a moment that Flynn is dead for real, and that this is an actual tragedy.

He isn't.

He's not allowed to be.

None of the others were.

This trend was set by Snow White and the Seven Dwarves: a character in the movie has an authentic death sequence near the end of the movie, to the point where the audiences reactions sell it to us that this character is in fact dead. However, this character is not in fact dead, or if they are, the character will be miraculously revived by something. When this resurrection happens, them music does an upwards crescendo to mark their survival, and things become much happier and heartwarming, usually culminating in a hug.

I used to be fooled by this. However, after seeing it several times in a row, I can tell that the character is not dead. It's simple emotional manipulation. And worse, it kills all the drama. Part of the drama in storytelling is the question of if the character will die in a situation. Thus, movies put their characters in death-defying stunts and give them heavy injuries to make the audience worry that death is near. Inability for the characters to either die or stay dead means these characters can survive any action, and death-defying stunt, so there is no reason to care. We know they're going to survive, so we have no reason to ask if they will, and it kills the drama instantaneously.

The worst part about this is that it puts us in a Level 3 Danger Zone. A noticeable majority of the movie is cliched and unoriginal. This is the point where I start thinking much worse thoughts about the movie.

After he gives a one liner on revival, the sunny atmosphere returns as Rapunzel returns to the kingdom. And she's not the only one who returns! The narration, who has been completely absent for the entire film comes back.

That's a bad thing. Narration throughout the movie gives the movie a book-like feel. It makes the movie feel like someone is telling a story. Having this narration only be at the start and end is like. "Hey, here's a great story... wasn't that a great story?"

And if you couldn't tell by the red number, we're in BAD territory. This is known as the Hazard Zone, and is indicative that over two thirds of the movie are derivative. Now the movie can truly be called "cliche."

Also, we get this:

You clearly don't see the brilliance in this. Maximus is just doing this to disarm the army so he can take over the kingdom from the inside. Why else would he downgrade their weaponry into complete nonworking ones?

And finally, the movie ends with one final thing that pisses me off: A 2D opening to a Contemporary Credits Composition. See, in the early days of film, animated movies ended the same way live-action ones did: with text on a black background. However, in this modern era, there is a segregation between the two, and now animated movies near-universally end with a creative 2D sequence that just begs the question of why the rest of the movie wasn't animated this way. To add to this, ending sequences are set to vocal songs by well-known artists to give them more fame, and add another thing to the stream of merchandising that the movie already has.

Because that's all animation is reduced to now: ninety minute commercials.

Picture offered without comment.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Tangled had a herculean task in front of it. The previous film Disney's animation department had released, The Princess and the Frog, did not do very well at the box office. Plus, there was the fact that Disney had foolishly fired the writers who participated in the 2008 Writers Strike on charges of treason. So not only did Disney have to make a successful product, they needed to do it without any of their stable talent. My gut tells me they could've pulled it off... had it not been for the recession of the same year. Even the giants took the hit, and Disney was forced to make do with anyone who would work for cheap, and judging by the reception of Dan Fogelman's other works, I'd say he works for pretty cheap.

As much as I criticize Fogelman's writing for this movie, he was just being put in a bad position. Unlike some of the writers on this show who're simply lazy, Fogelman clearly had no idea how to proceed. He was given a task of completely restarting Disney, leading the charge of the new generation of both writers and animated films. Needless to say, the task was too much for him, and the proof is in the very structure of the movie.

This movie uses a lot of tropes and elements that were common in Disney's older material, especially from the Renaissance. Fogelman is actually old enough to have been the target audience for those movies at one point, so it makes sense that, for the 50th anniversary he decides to do a movie that makes them proud.

Here's he problem, though: The Disney model is outdated. It's been done in so many theatrical productions in the 1990's by both Disney and its imitators that people eventually had enough of it. We live in a culture where Shrek had completely redefined what an animated film could by, and it did so by absolutely destroying Disney conventions. And this was released in 2010, where your other options were Toy Story 3, a fantasy movie about vikings, and a superhero movie with a surprising level of depth. As such, something that goes back to the old standards without incorporating modern sensibilities would be seen naturally as outdated.

This movie has two additional problems that hold it back from greatness, too. The first problem is the humor. The humor in the movie seems to rely on non-sequiturs and strange moments, like anything involving the frying pan. These problems suggest that Fogelman was trying to appeal to the younger members of the audience. This is a common method by people in the animation industry, where the line of reasoning is that kids will neither notice, nor care. Unfortunately, the truth is that not only will they notice, not knowing the production details will leave them scratching their heads.

You trying to tell me kids won't notice this...

...is not the same as this?

 Just because something's for kids doesn't mean it can still be bad, and kids need to grow up on quality products. If you feed a kid crap, they'll excrete crap. If you feed them good food, they'll drop fertilizer which can be used to plant something beautiful.

My other problem with Tangled is the emotional manipulation. If you look at any of the screenshots, you could probably be able to tell what the emotion of a specific scene is just by the color. However, I'd go as far as to call this bad storytelling, since by that point it forces the audience to react a certain way. The final minutes of the film fail this exceptionally, going through all five major emotional genres!

Can you guess the film's genre? Your guess should be, "Depends on what minute it is."

In contrast, a quality film will choose one dominant emotion and use that for its direction. It can garnish the film with other emotions, but the dominant emotion remains dominant. For instance, here's a comedy scene in a horror film.

For an undead mummified monstrosity, Freddy's one hell of a kisser.

Notice how the color palette is still the dark and dreary horror palette. The colors do not immediately shift to warm ones just because the current scene is comedic. The dominant emotion is still horror, and this is reflected in its visuals. In contrast, Tangled is trying to be all five emotions at once, and thus it falls into Buddy Syndrome: Because it's all dominant emotions, it has no dominant emotion. And that emotional manipulation is its biggest weakness.

There are good points to this movie, no doubt. Some scenes are well-directed, the Bloodhound is an entertaining character (quite possibly the best in the movie) and Mother Gothel's voice actress is the usual high standard for Disney Villains. That said, there must come a final score, and thus I have to give it...

2/5. I'm sorry, but the good points don't make up for the fact that a majority of this is bad. I can't honestly think of anyone to recommend it to.

There's also a section in these reviews where I talk about what can be done to make up for a movie's shortcomings, to fix any examples of sloppy form. Here's what we've got from the accumulated total:

So how can we fix all this? Problem is, we can't. These problems are deeply rooted in the movie's code, intrinsic flaws of its attempts to pander to children. The fact that the story is formulaic is another major problem that also drags it down. So the solution I would offer to fix Tangled is...

A Total Restart. I'm sorry, but if you want to do Tangled right, you'll have to not do Tangled.

So that's it, then. Our first entry in an extended edition of Assembly Line Theater. It was fun, if long, though most of that time was spent explaining the exact reasons these were problems. Now that we've got most of them out of the way, this should go by much quicker.

Next time we look at our first DreamWorks movie, and an example of the second most common type of story...