Disney’s Princesses are an important part of Disney’s tradition. And although the first princess has been around since 1937, the brand itself is relatively new, so the older members had to be added retroactively. Be that as it may, the Princess brand is one most recognizable and most popular brands Disney has to offer and because of that, we have decided to give you a chronological list of all the 21 movies that are part of the Princess brand.
There are 14 Princesses in total at the time of writing, and while each of them has had one major feature in which she appeared, some have also had other, minor appearances in other movies (usually direct-to-video sequels); this article is going to contain all of these appearances.
c. 300: Aladdin (1992)
Director: John Musker, Ron Clements
Screenplay: Ron Clements, John Musker, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio
Release Date: November 25, 1992
Runtime: 90 minutes
Setting: Agrabah, around the year 300
Synopsis
Poor boy Aladdin falls in love with Princess Jasmine. Pursued by Jafar, he finds an old lamp and, rubbing it, summons the genie that dwells inside it. In return for his release, he agrees to fulfill the young man’s three wishes.
In order for Jasmine to get married, her chosen one must be a prince, therefore Aladdin must turn into a prince in order for his chosen one to fall in love with him. Meanwhile, Jafar found a letter that says that if a girl does not choose a prince, she must marry Jafar.
When Prince Ali (Aladdin) arrives in the city, Jasmine at first dislikes him. She eventually falls in love with him and realizes that Ali is a poor boy she met earlier at the bazaar. Aladdin, however, says that he is a prince who sometimes pretends to be a poor man to get away from his daily activities.
Immediately after a hot kiss with Jasmine, Ali is hit on the head by Jafar’s servants and then thrown into the river. He is saved by a genie. When the Sultan states that Jafar should become Jasmine’s husband, Aladdin appears. While escaping, Jafar steals the lamp from the Djinn, who must now obey his orders.
Jafar becomes the new Sultan, imprisons Jasmine and her father, and sends Aladdin to certain death as soon as she explains the truth to Jasmine.
However, Aladdin manages to get out of the trap and begins to fight Jafar, who ordered the Genie to make Jafar the most powerful genie. It goes to the lamp and is sent to a strange cave. Aladdin creates a wish that frees the Genie forever. The Sultan changes the rule of marrying the princess, so soon Aladdin and Jasmine will be married.
c. 301: The Return of Jafar (1994)
Director: Tad Stones, Alan Zaslove
Screenplay: Kevin Campbell, Mirith J.S. Colao, Bill Motz, Steve Roberts, Dev Ross, Bob Roth, Jan Strnad, Brian Swenlin
Release Date: May 20, 1994
Runtime: 69 minutes
Setting: Agrabah, around the year 301 (one year after Aladdin)
Synopsis
At the end of Aladdin, Jafar had become a genie and consequently, imprisoned in a lamp along with his parrot Iago. The blue Genie had thrown that lamp away, and it ended up buried in a desert. The Return of Jafar begins with Aladdin attacking the thief Abis Mal and his gang, and taking the stolen treasures. Sometime later, Iago (still attached to the lamp) digs his way back to the surface.
Jafar asks Iago to release him, but the parrot, tired of being abused, decides to abandon the lamp with the old master in a well, and flies back to Agrabah. Having arrived, he finds Aladdin and saves him from an attack by Abis Mal’s gang. Aladdin decides to welcome the parrot beside him. Later, however, Abis Mal finds Jafar’s lamp and releases it, and decides to collaborate with his plans for revenge.
c. 305: Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996)
Director: Tad Stones
Screenplay: Mark McCorkle, Robert Schooley
Release Date: August 13, 1996
Runtime: 81 minutes
Setting: Agrabah, around the year 305 (unspecified time after the animated series)
Synopsis
All residents of Agrabah are preparing together for the greatest festivity – the long-awaited wedding of Aladdin and Princess Jasmine is about to take place. But first, the main character will have to stop the legendary gang of 40 robbers: after all, they want to steal a wedding gift – the all-seeing Oracle, with the help of which the villains are going to find and take possession of all the treasures of the world. Aladdin has to face the king of robbers himself.
The wedding is thwarted, but the robbers leave with nothing. However, from a conversation with the Oracle, Aladdin learns that his father, whom the young man never knew, is alive and is among the robbers.
Aladdin, along with his friends, goes on their trail to find out the truth. He has to fight face to face with the strongest of the robbers, Saluk, find his father Kasim, and, together with him, go in search of the mysterious Hand of Midas.
c. 900: Brave (2012)
Director: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman
Screenplay: Mark Andrews, Steve Purcell, Brenda Chapman, Irene Mecchi
Release Date: June 10, 2012
Runtime: 93 minutes
Setting: Scotland, 10th century
Synopsis
The main character of the film is Princess Merida, daughter of the Scottish king Fergus and Queen Elinor. Merida, as a real princess, should set an example for everyone in everything. Her life is scheduled by the minute: Elinor watches her every step, and rarely a day comes when Merida is left to herself and can do what she likes – ride a horse, shoot a bow and climb steep cliffs.
Merida’s father is a brave king who once fought a giant bear named Mor’du and lost his leg. Although Fergus does not see anything wrong with his daughter’s hobbies, he does not dare to contradict his wife. Traditionally, on the day of the princess’s majority, the sons of the leaders of the three main clans must compete for her hand. None of them like the princess, and besides, she does not want to get married.
But Elinor does not want to listen to her daughter and fears that if she is not married, a war may start. Having quarreled with her mother, Merida fled into the forest, where she noticed the dwelling of a witch, who hunted under the guise of a woodcarver. In exchange for her medallion, Merida demanded that she somehow enchant Elinor in order to change her fate. The witch agreed to witchcraft only when she heard that Merida would take all the wooden crafts.
Returning home, the princess treated Elinor to the cakes received from the witch, and the queen turned into a bear. Wanting to break the spell, Merida went with her mother back to the witch’s house and learned that witchcraft can be removed only if you pacify your pride and fix the tapestry cut with a sword during a quarrel with her mother until the second dawn.
Merida and the bear-Elinor learned about the prince, who, because of his pride, turned into the bear Muzzle (the one that caused Fergus to lose his leg), and his kingdom fell due to the outbreak of wars.
Elinor and her daughter return to the castle for the tapestry, but Merida’s father, Fergus, locks his daughter in a room, and he and his warriors chase the bear-Elinor in the forest, not realizing that this is his wife. With the help of her brothers, who turned into bear cubs after eating an enchanted cake, Merida gets out of the castle and sews a canvas on her way into the forest. Elinor kills Muzzle while protecting Merida.
The latter manages to cover the bear with a tapestry and removes the spell from her mother and brothers. Elinor calls off the wedding, and peace and harmony reign between the queen and princess.
c. 900: Moana (2016)
Director: Ron Clements, John Musker
Screenplay: Jared Bush
Release Date: November 14, 2016
Runtime: 107 minutes
Setting: Polynesia, around the year 900 (the film begins 3,000 years earlier, with the main plot taking place a millennium later)
Synopsis
Moana lives with her tribe on the island of Motunui in Polynesia. She is the daughter and designated successor of the tribal chief. One day, her grandmother shows Moana some forgotten sailing boats in a cave, which are equipped with a drum. As the drawings on the sails tell her, which tell of times long past, her ancestors used to venture out to sea.
Moana imagines what it must have been like when they drove over the sea together singing and orienting themselves by the stars at night. The island’s fishermen complain that they can no longer find any fish. Therefore, Moana wants to sail out to sea to find food. Moana has had a very special connection with the ocean since she was a child, but so far none of her tribal members have dared to venture beyond the nearby reef that surrounds the island.
On her first attempt, she is accompanied by her pig Pua, but the trip is a failure. Moana, however, does not want to give up, and after another attempt, she finds herself in the middle of the Pacific.
Moana learned from her grandmother that her’s and many other islands are threatened by darkness, as the demigod Maui once stole the “heart”, a magical artifact, from the goddess Te Fiti. With it, he can create new life.
Moana wants to track down Maui, and after she finds him, she can get him to bring the heart back with her. Maui can transform himself into different animals using a magic hook. Moana and Maui sail together on an eventful journey across the open ocean, fight against huge wave mountains and encounter sea monsters. When they reach the island of Te Fiti, they first have to fight the volcanic monster Te Ka.
Moana recognizes in this Te Fiti, who transforms herself back after inserting her heart. In battle, the magic hook of Maui breaks and he receives a new hook from Te Fiti. When Vaiana returns to her island, she is welcomed by her parents. In the big boats that have meanwhile been taken out of the cave, they go out to sea with the villagers.
c. 1300: Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Director: Clyde Geronimi (supervising), Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, Les Clark
Screenplay: Erdman Penner
Release Date: January 29, 1959
Runtime: 75 minutes
Setting: Europe, 14th century
Synopsis
In a distant fairyland, a holiday was announced in honor of the birth of Princess Aurora. The invited three fairies decided to present the little princess with magical gifts: Flora endowed her with beauty, Fauna with a beautiful voice, but Merryweather did not have time to cast her spell.
Angry that she was not invited to the celebration, the sorceress Maleficent came to the palace, interrupting Merryweather. In retaliation for her insult, she predicts the princess’s death by a spindle on her 16th birthday and disappears into flames. Fairy Merryweather cannot remove the curse, but softens it: the princess will not die but will fall into a deep slumber, from which the kiss of true love can awaken her.
The fairies, with the permission of the king, take the princess to a forest house to raise her in ignorance of her origin and the curse imposed. Sixteen years later, the princess, considering herself a peasant Rose, meets a young man in the forest, and love arises between the young people. In the evening, the girl learns of her origin and that she has been engaged to Prince Phillip since birth and must return to the castle to her parents.
The young man in love, who is actually Prince Phillip, is taken prisoner in the forest house by Maleficent, whose raven, finally, for so many years was able to find out about the whereabouts of Aurora. In the dungeon, Phillip learns that a simple peasant woman, Rosa, is his bride Aurora. Maleficent brings his curse to fruition, and three fairies put the entire castle to sleep until Aurora wakes up.
Upon learning that Prince Phillip is Aurora’s beloved, they rush to his aid. Arming him with the magical Sword of Truth and Shield of Virtue, the fairies send the prince to battle with the sorceress. After defeating Maleficent, Phillip finds Aurora and wakes her up with a kiss of true love. The entire castle awakens with the princess.
c. 1400: Mulan (1998)
Director: Barry Cook, Tony Bancroft
Screenplay: Rita Hsiao, Philip LaZebnik, Chris Sanders, Eugenia Bostwick-Singer, Raymond Singer
Release Date: June 19, 1998
Runtime: 87 minutes
Setting: China, around the year 1400 (possibly a bit earlier)
Synopsis
The plot of the film takes place during the Huns’ invasion of China. The main character is a young girl named Mulan. When her ailing father is drafted by the army, the girl decides to run away from the house and pretend to be a man so she can take his place. The spirits of the family’s ancestors, wishing to save her honor, assign Mulan a guardian – the Great Stone Dragon.
As a result of an unfortunate accident, the dragon statue is destroyed by Mushu – a miniature dragon, the former guardian of the family. He sets out to help Mulan while plotting a ruse to return to his post of guardian of the family.
During the attack of the Huns, Mulan saves all soldiers, including their leader, Captain Shang, in a daring act of courage. During the fight with the enemy leader, she is wounded, and the doctor who examines her discovers the truth about her gender.
The unwritten penalty for impersonation is death, but the captain will spare her life because of her bravery on the battlefield. The army goes back to the imperial palace, leaving the girl alone in the mountains.
She witnesses the remnants of an avalanche army emerging from under the snowdrifts to take Shan Yu’s victory. Mulan heads to the imperial palace, where he saves the emperor, restoring honor to her family and herself.
c. 1400: Mulan II (2004)
Director: Darrell Rooney, Lynne Southerland
Screenplay: Michael Lucker, Chris Parker, Roger S. H. Schulman
Release Date: November 3, 2004
Runtime: 79 minutes
Setting: China, around the year 1400 (one month after Mulan)
Synopsis
A month after the events of the first film, Shang, who has become a general, asks Mulan, now revered as a heroine, for her hand in marriage and she enthusiastically accepts. Hearing of their engagement, Mushu is excited for them, but shortly afterwards the chief of the ancestors informs him that if Mulan gets married, he will lose his post as dragon guardian and will have to leave her: in fact, Mulan, getting married, will become part of Shang’s family and she will be protected by the guardians of his family.
To keep his job and his friend, Mushu tries to split the couple. Meanwhile, the emperor summons Mulan and Shang to escort his three daughters, the princesses Ting Ting, Mei and Su, across China to marry the three Qui Gong princes, in order to form an alliance between the two countries. If the mission is not accomplished within three days, the alliance will collapse and Mongolian troops will destroy China.
Mulan and Shang depart with Chien-Po, Ling, and Yao, to safely escort the princesses to their new kingdom. However, due to Mushu’s meddling and the fact that the three princesses are not happy with their arranged marriages and fall in love with Chien-Po, Ling, and Yao, Mulan decides to go against orders and stop the union of the two kingdoms. One night Chien-Po, Ling, and Yao take the princesses to visit a town and court them during the visit.
At the same time, Mushu tricks Shang into believing that Mulan wants to take his place. One day, as the group crosses a territory of bandits, Mushu regrets his actions and confesses to Mulan everything he has done. Lightened by the news, but also angry at her dragon friend, Mulan tries to talk to Shang when the bandits attack them. The princesses are safe, but unfortunately, Shang falls into a ravine. So Mulan continues the journey alone to Qui Gong.
Not wanting princesses to be forced to marry princes they dislike and since her betrothed is dead, Mulan offers herself as a wife to one of the Qui Gong king’s sons who accepts her offer (due to a courtier reminded the reluctant sovereign who he has before him: Fa Mulan, the Chinese heroine, and even added that she is worth more than the daughters of the emperor).
Meanwhile, Shang, who survived her fall, finds out after joining the others and attempts to stop her. At that point, Mushu decides to help them and, posing as the golden dragon of the union, forces the king to interrupt Mulan’s forced marriage to her son. So Mulan and Shang get married and the princesses are released from their obligations and marry Chien-Po, Ling, and Yao.
Eventually, Shang unites the temples of the two families. Mushu can keep her title and, in her happiness, then reveals himself to Shang, even though Mulan had already talked to her husband about her little dragon friend, without neglecting a single detail.
c. 1550: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs(1937)
Director: David Hand (supervising), William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben Sharpsteen
Screenplay: Ted Sears, Richard Creedon, Otto Englander, Dick Rickard, Earl Hurd, Merrill De Maris, Dorothy Ann Blank, Webb Smith
Release Date: December 21, 1937
Runtime: 83 minutes
Setting: Europe (probably Germany), around 1550
Synopsis
The beautiful, young Snow White grows up as a maid at the court of her father and her envious stepmother. She cannot bear the thought that her stepdaughter will always be more beautiful than her and assigns a hunter to take the girl into the forest and kill her there. He does as he is told, but does not have the heart to murder the innocent beauty and lets her flee into the darkness of the forest.
Snow White wanders through the night full of fear and finally falls asleep. She wakes up the next morning in the company of the animals of the forest, who lead her to a small house. Here she finds references to seven dwarfs who, however, have neglected order and house cleaning for a long time. She eagerly gets to work with the animals and brings the house up to scratch. In the Grimm version, however, the dwarfs are fairly neat – Snow White doesn’t have to take care of the housework.
A little later, the seven dwarfs finish their work in their gem mine in the nearby mountains and go home singing happily. They are amazed to find their house in the forest clean and tidy, even the food is on the table. Snow White is sleeping across her beds and is frightened when the dwarfs wake her up. However, you quickly become friends and decide that the young beauty can stay with the dwarfs and, in return, run the household.
However, the wicked stepmother found out through her magic mirror that Snow White is still alive. She creates a different appearance through magic, poisons an apple and makes her way to the dwarf hut, where her unsuspecting stepdaughter welcomes her kindly and accepts the apple. The dwarfs find Snow White lifeless and pursue the stepmother, who flees through the mountains in the midst of a thunderstorm.
She dies when the slope on which the dwarves place her is struck by lightning and thrown into the depths. The grieving dwarfs return and bury Snow White in a glass coffin when suddenly a young prince appears and kisses the beautiful woman, who then comes back to life. She affectionately says goodbye to the dwarfs and sets off with her admirer into her new life.
1607: Pocahontas (1995)
Director: Mark Gabriel, Eric Goldberg
Screenplay: Carl Binder, Susannah Grant, Philip LaZebnik
Release Date: June 10, 1995
Runtime: 81 minutes
Setting: Virginia, United States, 1607
Synopsis
England, 1607. A group of men, including the famous English adventurer John Smith, are assigned to explore the still young America on behalf of the Virginia Company. John Ratcliffe, leader of the expedition and self-appointed governor of the newly formed Jamestown, is particularly self-centered and tries to exploit the country. The rest of the crew also see the new world as a backward place that needs to be improved.
In this supposedly backward world, the Indian chief Powhatan promises his daughter Pocahontas the greatest warrior of the people, Kokoum, who, however, does not correspond to her personal wishes. Instead, she falls in love with the Englishman Smith while exploring with her friends Meeko (a raccoon) and Flit (a hummingbird). Although they do not understand each other at first, Pocahontas listens to the advice of her mentor, an old, speaking weeping willow, that she should listen to her heart and gets involved with Smith.
In the course of their acquaintance, which develops into a friendship and soon into a love affair, she gives him an understanding of nature and its culture, which makes the colonialist Englishman doubt his narrow-minded and intolerant views for the first time. A little later, the Native Americans and Europeans, whose ideologies of life could not be more different, clash in hostility.
Governor Ratcliffe believes that the natives are hiding the gold they are about to get from him, while Powhatan legitimately believes that the newcomers have come to destroy his country. The dispute between the two sides leads to Kokoum’s first human sacrifice, which is to be avenged.
Pocahontas now confidently acts as a mediator and, thanks to her affection for John, can build a connecting bridge between the two parties and settle the threatening dispute. Ratcliffe is not impressed by the peaceful outcome of the conflict and tries to shoot Powhatan.
John throws himself into the line of fire with the presence of mind and thus, seriously injured, saves the chief’s life. Now Ratcliffe’s men also see that their leader can no longer exercise his office and lead him away, rendered harmless. John Smith, however, has to return to London seriously wounded and Pocahontas makes the difficult decision to let him go.
1617: Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998)
Director: Tom Ellery, Bradley Raymond
Screenplay: Allen Estrin, Cindy Marcus, Flip Kobler
Release Date: August 25, 1998
Runtime: 72 minutes
Setting: England, 1617 (probably, based on actual historical events)
Synopsis
As an ambassador for peace, Pocahontas goes to England to meet King James I. Flit, the hummingbird, Percy, Ratcliffe’s old Pug dog, and Meeko the raccoon, dive into this exciting adventure hidden away on the boat they would travel to England. Pocahontas is excited by the news and her pleasure in learning about new things intensifies this feeling.
She participates in events of high society and English nobility, having the mission of showing the King what her land is like: that the Indians are civilized, but the evil Governor John Ratcliffe tells her the opposite of them. The story also has characteristics of Pocahontas’ true story life: her relationship with John Rolfe – Pocahontas must choose between John Smith (her first love) and John Rolfe.
c. 1700: Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Director: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
Screenplay: Linda Woolverton
Release Date: September 29, 1991
Runtime: 84 minutes
Setting: France, 18th century (before 1789)
Synopsis
In a fairyland, a young prince lives in his castle. One night, an old female beggar asks him to let her warm-up in his castle and says that, as gratitude, she can only offer a rose. The prince does not let her in (he was only 11 years old), because she seemed ugly to him.
She warns that true beauty is hidden inside and takes the form of a powerful sorceress. She decides to teach the prince a lesson and turns him into a monster, and puts a spell on the castle and all its inhabitants. Only true love can remove it, which the prince must experience before the last rose petal falls.
Meanwhile, the beautiful Belle lives in the town with her inventor father Maurice, but everyone considers her a freak. She refuses to marry the local enviable bachelor Gaston because she dreams not of the simple fate of a housewife, but of a life full of adventure. Once the frightened horse of her father returns without a rider, and the girl hurries to find him. The horse brings her to the enchanted castle, where the Beast agrees to free Maurice from the dungeon on condition that Belle takes his place.
Remaining a prisoner in the castle, Belle, contrary to her expectations, receives a warm welcome from its inhabitants. Over time, she finds understanding with the Beast, being able to discern a gentle soul under his unsightly appearance. Noticing her longing for her father, the Beast gives Belle a magic mirror that reveals that Maurice is sick. Belle wants to go to him, and the Beast reluctantly releases her from the castle.
In the city, an angry mob, incited by Gaston, goes to the castle to kill the Beast. Belle fails to convince people of his harmlessness, and she keeps pace with the already wounded Beast in the castle. Gaston, stabbing him with a final blow, falls from the tower and is smashed to death.
A moment before the last rose petal falls, Belle manages to confess her feelings to the enchanted prince. The spell loses its power, the Beast and the inhabitants of the castle take on human form. Belle and the prince are having a lavish wedding.
c. 1700: Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997)
Director: Andy Knight
Screenplay: Filip Kobler, Cindy Marcus, Bill Motz, Bob Roth
Release Date: November 11, 1997
Runtime: 72 minutes
Setting: France, Christmas, 18th century (sometime after Beauty and the Beast)
Synopsis
The movie’s plot (which is actually a retelling of an old event) takes place during the first movie, between the scene where the Beast rescues Belle from the wolves and the moment he lets her go. Belle still lives in the castle and the staff are desperate to make her and the beast fall in love to break the curse. Christmas is just around the corner and this seems like the ideal opportunity to bring the two closer together.
However, the Beast forbids Christmas because he was turned into a beast by the sorceress during Christmas and thus has bad memories of this holiday. Belle and the staff conspire to change his mind. Not all staff are happy with the plans to make the Beauty and the Beast fall in love.
Forte, a former court musician who has been transformed into a living pipe organ since the spell, wants to keep his new form as he will be immortal. He sends his sidekick Fife, a living bellhop, to disrupt the relationship between Belle and the Beast.
For a moment, Forte’s plans seem to succeed until Belle manages to unleash the Christmas spirit in him thanks to a book she herself wrote for the beast. Forte makes a last-ditch attempt to destroy the castle to disperse Beauty and the Beast, but the Beast defeats him.
c. 1700: The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning (2008)
Director: Peggy Holmes
Screenplay: Robert Reece, Evan Spiliotopoulos
Release Date: August 26, 2008
Runtime: 77 minutes
Setting: Atlantica (near Norway), probably the 18th century (before the main film)
Synopsis
King Triton rules the seas with his queen Athena. Nobody loved music more than Queen Athena, so the king gave him a music box to prove his love. But that same day a pirate ship ends up killing Athena. Every note played from the music box made her heartache, he couldn’t bear to hear it.
Because of this, the king forbade music in the kingdom. Ten years passed and the king’s daughters grew up, always doing the same things, taking orders from their stern father and the envious housekeeper Marina. Ariel the youngest never understood why music was banned, and why they did the same things every day. She discovers a secret underground club, a place where music plays every night, and she also discovers that Sebastian, her father’s right-hand man, is the head of the club.
She and her sisters begin to attend the club secretly, but Marina finds out and sees that Sebastian is also part of the club. This is her chance to take Sebastian’s place and tell the king everything. The king arrests everyone, confines his daughters to the castle, and destroys the place.
Ariel fights with her father and runs away with Sebastian and some members of the club. Sebsatian takes them to a place where the hope of changing the king’s heart is found by Ariel.
c. 1700: The Little Mermaid (1989)
Director: Ron Clements, John Musker
Screenplay: Ron Clements, John Musker
Release Date: November 17, 1989
Runtime: 83 minutes
Setting: Atlantica (near Norway), probably the 18th century
Synopsis
The Little Mermaid Ariel is the daughter of King Triton of the Sea, who is of the opinion that humans are dangerous. Ariel refuses to believe it and secretly visits shipwrecks to find human objects. Triton discovers this and gets furious and forbids her to be on the surface. But Ariel is still on the surface, rescuing a prince named Eric from drowning.
With the help of the sea witch Ursula, Ariel also becomes a human, but as payment, she has to give the sea witch her voice. To remain human, Eric must kiss Ariel before the third sunset, otherwise, Ariel will be Ursula’s slave girl. To help him, Ariel has her friends the fish Flounder, the crab Sebastian and the gull Scuttle.
In the beginning, it goes well and Eric begins to fall in love with Ariel, but he can not forget the woman with the fantastic voice that saved him. What Ariel does not know is that the sea witch Ursula has an evil plan. She declares herself human and takes Ariel’s voice to make Eric think that it was Ursula who saved him.
Eric quickly decides to have a wedding, but on the wedding day itself, Ursula is revealed. It will be a hard fight, but in the end, Ariel and Triton win over Ursula. Then Ariel explains that she loves Eric and Triton lets her be a human forever.
c. 1700: The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea (2000)
Director: Jim Kammerud, Brian Smith
Screenplay: Elizabeth Anderson, Temple Mathews, Elise D’Haene, Eddie Guzelian
Release Date: September 19, 2000
Runtime: 75 minutes
Setting: Atlantica (near Norway), probably the 18th century (12 years after the original film)
Synopsis
Prince Eric and Ariel have a daughter named Melody. When the baby met her grandfather, King Triton, Ursula’s sister, Morgana, appeared. She tried to kidnap Melody and blackmail (by feeding a shark named Thug) Triton in order to obtain a magic trident, but she failed, and the sea king turned Thunder into a mini-fish similar to a piranha, after which the castle of Eric and his family was separated from the sea with a large wall. Melody did not know that her mother was a mermaid, but love for the sea was in her blood.
She swam in the sea every day secretly from her mother and believed that she would never understand her. After 12 years, Morgana decided to win the trust of the young princess, and she did it. With the help of Melody, the sorceress obtained the trident of King Triton, but the girl, having unraveled the villainess’s plan, outwitted her. Morgana soon followed her sister, the “loser.” Since then, the underwater and terrestrial kingdoms have lived together in peace and harmony.
c. 1780-1850: Tangled (2010)
Director: Nathan Greno, Byron Howard
Screenplay: Dan Fogelman
Release Date: November 14, 2010
Runtime: 100 minutes
Setting: Europe, late 18th or early-to-mid 19th century (due to the possible connection with Frozen)
Synopsis
Escaping from prison after the theft of the royal tiara, Flynn Rider climbs into an isolated tower without any doors, where he seeks refuge. But soon it turns out that a princess is imprisoned in the tower. Rapunzel has a hair length of 21 meters, has magical healing and rejuvenating properties. She was abducted from the king and queen by an insidious and greedy villain named Mother Gothel, whom Rapunzel loves like a mother (she thinks Gothel is her mother).
The stepmother combs the girl’s hair to stay forever young. Every year, on her birthday, the princess sees flying lanterns from the window in the air. They are launched into the air and the Lantern Festival is celebrated annually in the Kingdom in memory of the disappearance of their princess. Rapunzel wonders what it is.
The princess takes the tiara from Flynn, promising to return it if he helps her escape from the tower and get to the Lantern Festival (Rapunzel has no idea that the stolen tiara is hers). Flynn agrees. Now she has a real extracurricular adventure – to escape from the evil witch, to return to her long-abandoned parents, to restore her royal heritage, and, of course, to find true love.
1843: Frozen (2013)
Director: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee
Screenplay: Jennifer Lee
Release Date: November 19, 2013
Runtime: 102 minutes
Setting: Europe, July 1843
Synopsis
Elsa is the elder daughter of the King and Queen of Arendelle, with the power to create ice and snow. While playing with sister Anna, she accidentally hits her in the head with a spell and she loses consciousness. Anna is taken to the Troll King, who saves her life and removes memories of Elsa’s magical powers.
The parents decide to isolate Elsa from the outside world until she learns to control her powers. She also gets gloves so she doesn’t freeze everything by touch. The years pass and the sisters lose touch. In their teenage years, they lose their parents who die in a storm. After another three years, on the occasion of Elsa’s crowning as the new queen, the gates of the castle are opened and a ball is held.
On it, Anna meets Prince Hans and agrees to his wedding proposal. Blessings are refused by Elsa, which leads to a quarrel between the sisters. Under the influence of emotions, Anna removes Elsa’s glove, revealing her powers.
The terrified guests consider Elsa a witch, and she, fearing harm to others, decides to flee the city and go to the mountains. There, she builds an ice palace for himself, brings back to life a snowman named Olaf, whom she and Anna built as children. Little did she know that by unleashing her power, she had brought eternal winter to the kingdom of Arendelle.
Anna decides to find her sister and bring back summer. During her trip to the mountains, she meets Kristoff and his companion, Sven the reindeer. Together, they go to where Elsa lives. The snowman Olaf helps them to reach their destination.
At the sisters’ reunion, Elsa admitted that she did not know how to bring back summer and would not return to the kingdom, and she ordered Annie to leave. In a fit of excitement, Elsa loses control of her power again and hits her sister’s heart with a spell, while conjuring up a giant snow monster to throw out guests.
On the way back, Anna starts to feel worse and the strands of her hair begin to turn white. Kristoff decides to seek help from his troll friends, but the Troll King is unable to help. Only a kiss of true love can save Anna. Kristoff decided to take Anna to Prince Hans to remove the spell.
During this time, Hans and his troops attack Elsa’s palace. The queen loses consciousness and is captured. Hans asks her to take off the eternal winter spell, but it turns out to be impossible, so he decides to kill her.
Meanwhile, Anna reaches Arendelle, where she learns that Hans did not love her, and that he wanted to make it easier for himself to take the throne of Arendelle by a declaration of love. He imprisons a sick Anna in a chamber and informs his subjects about her death. Olaf, who frees her, and Kristoff, who is in love with the girl, come to Anna’s help.
At the same time, Hans convinces Elsa of her guilt over her sister’s death. The despairing queen, due to the loss of her strength, almost dies, but Anna comes to her rescue, but she turns into an ice statue. Elsa, full of regret, hugs Anna, and the magic of her love allows her to disenchant her little sister and bring back summer in Arendelle.
The sisters reconcile, and Hans is sent to his homeland to be punished by twelve older brothers. Snowman Olaf gets his own snow cloud to keep it from melting in the summer, the reindeer Sven becomes the official “royal ice supplier” and Kristoff wins the heart of beloved Anna
1846: Frozen II (2019)
Director: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee
Screenplay: Jennifer Lee
Release Date: November 7, 2019
Runtime: 103 minutes
Setting: Europe, November 1846
Synopsis
The plot of the film begins with a story about the Enchanted Forest. Once the Northuldra tribe and the soldiers of Arendelle made peace, the latter built a dam for the indigenous people. But later a war broke out between the countries. The spirits of the Enchanted Forest, enraged, drove Arendelle’s troops out of the forest.
Three years have passed since the events of the first film. Elsa begins to hear a mysterious voice and, following it, she accidentally awakens the spirits of the Enchanted Forest, whose forces began to cause panic in the kingdom of Arendelle. Luckily, the residents have time to evacuate.
Pabbie’s grandfather asks Elsa to go to the forest, where she must pacify the spirits. Upon reaching the forest, Elsa, her sister Anna, Kristoff, the reindeer Sven and the snowman Olaf encounter an air spirit in the form of a tornado.
Elsa destroys the whirlwind with the power of magic, then the heroes are met by the people of Northuldra and the troops of Arendelle. Soon, the spirit of fire attacks the inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest. While trying to stop the natural elemental, Elsa sees that the spirit of fire is a harmless magical salamander.
Elsa calms it down and prevents the forest fire. Elsa, following the mysterious voice to the north, discovers the wreck of her parents’ ship and learns that they were trying to reach the Ahtohallan Memorial River. Elsa climbs across the Dark Sea on horseback – the spirit of water – and finally reaches the river.
The mysterious voice that beckoned her during all the events of the film was the call of Iduna, her mother. In the river’s memories, Elsa learns that her grandfather tried to harm the Northuldra tribe. The only way to free the spirits of the Enchanted Forest is to destroy the dam that Arendelle’s soldiers built many years ago.
Anna lures the stone giants to the dam, forcing them to throw boulders. The dam collapses, then all the water flow is directed to Arendelle. Elsa rides on horseback to the kingdom and saves it from the flood. Kristoff proposes to Anna, and she agrees. Anna is proclaimed the new queen of Arendelle, while Elsa remains in the Enchanted Forest.
c. 1850-1900: Cinderella (1950)
Director: Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, Wilfred Jackson
Screenplay: Ken Anderson, Perce Pearce, Homer Brightman, Winston Hibler, Bill Peet, Erdman Penner, Harry Reeves, Joe Rinaldi, Ted Sears, Maurice Rapf
Release Date: February 15, 1950
Runtime: 74 minutes
Setting: France, mid-to-late 1800s
Synopsis
Cinderella lives as an orphan with her stepmother and her work-shy daughters Anastasia and Drizella. Her stepmother can’t come to terms with the fact that her own daughters aren’t as pretty as Cinderella. They humiliate her and impose an inappropriately large amount of work on her.
But there is one thing she cannot take away from her, dreaming. Despite her fate, she sings and dances with her friends, the animals. These include, above all, the two little mice Gus and Jaq. One day a letter comes from the king’s castle and is invited to the ball.
The king is looking for a wife for his son, the prince, and every nubile girl has to appear. Cinderella also wants to go to the ball, but her stepmother tries to prevent that. She gives Cinderella so much work that she hardly has the opportunity to sew a dress for the ball.
But her friends, the mice and birds, are immediately there to help Cinderella. When her stepsisters finally see her in the beautiful dress, they are jealous and tear it to shreds.
Cinderella is infinitely sad, but a good old fairy comes to her aid and not only conjures up a new dress for her, but also a carriage so that she can appear in time for the ball. However, the spell only lasts until midnight.
Cinderella is dancing with the prince at the ball, and when the church tower clock strikes twelve, she just manages to escape, but loses one of her glass shoes in the process. The prince wants to see Cinderella again and even marry, so every girl in the kingdom has to try the shoe on.
The prince will say yes to those who fit the shoe. Since Cinderella seems to be very happy about it and the stepmother suspects that the shoe might fit Cinderella, she locks Cinderella in until the two mice Gus and Jaq get the key and free Cinderella.
She wants to try on the shoe quickly, but it breaks when the stepmother trips the prince’s servant, causing him to fall to the ground with the shoe. Cinderella pulls the other shoe out of her pocket, which of course fits, and so she is allowed to go into the lock. There she marries the prince.
c. 1850-1900: Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (2002)
Director: John Kafka
Screenplay: Jill E. Blotevogel, Tom Rogers, Jule Selbo
Release Date: February 26, 2002
Runtime: 73 minutes
Setting: France, mid-to-late 1800s (after Cinderella)
Synopsis
In the royal palace, Cinderella’s mouse friends Gus and Jaq go to a room where the fairy godmother reads the story of Cinderella to the other mice. To her great disappointment, Gus and Jaq arrive just as she ends the story. With their help, the mice set out to create a new book to tell what happened after Happily Ever After and to combine three story segments into one narrative.
In the first story, Cinderella and Prince Charming return from their honeymoon, and Cinderella reunites with her mouse friends and her dog Bruno. She is later responsible for banquets and palace parties while the King and Prince Charming are away. However, Cinderella is not happy with how they deal with traditions and decides to throw the next party in her own way. Although he seems shocked to see Citizens, in the end the King is happy with the party.
In the second story, Jaq believes he is too small to help Cinderella in the palace, as he did in the first film. The fairy godmother transforms him into a person named “Sir Hugh” so that he can help. However, this does not prevent Pom Pom, the palace cat, from chasing Jaq. After an incident with an elephant at a fair, he learns to be happy with himself.
In the last story, Anastasia, one of Cinderella’s half-sisters, falls in love with a baker who her mother Lady Tremaine and her older sister Drizella disapprove of. Unknown to anyone, Cinderella comes and secretly watches as Lady Tremaine berates Anastasia, leading her to help Anastasia prepare for the ball together.
Later at the ball, Anastasia thanks Cinderella for her help. Lucifer also has a meeting with Pom Pom, the castle cat he falls in love with. The mice finish their book and the movie ends when they gather with Cinderella in front of the fire who begins to read their story.
c. 1850-1900: Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (2007)
Director: Frank Nissen
Screenplay: Dan Berendsen, Margaret Heidenry, Colleen Ventimilia, Eddie Guzelian
Release Date: February 6, 2007
Runtime: 70 minutes
Setting: France, mid-to-late 1800s (one year after Cinderella)
Synopsis
It’s been a year since Cinderella and her prince charming were married. They have happy days alongside all their friends, including the mice. To celebrate this anniversary, the fairy godmother decides to secretly organize a party in the forest. Cinderella goes with her husband, Prince Charming, to the big country party given in their honor.
But Anastasia, Cinderella’s half-sister overhears a discussion between the fairy godmother, Cinderella and Prince Charming on this famous night where the dream has come true.
It does not take long for her to realize that the two spouses owe their happiness only to the magic wand of the fairy godmother. She then steals the magic wand, returns to her sister Drizella and her mother, Lady Tremaine, Cinderella’s stepmother, and tells them that “that night, everything was magic”.
Her mother and her sister Drizella do not believe her and are about to return when the fairy godmother arrives, who wants to recover her magic wand. A fight ensues in which Anastasia accidentally turns the fairy godmother into a stone statue.
Seeing that Anastasia has told the truth, her mother grabs the precious instrument. Then obtaining the full magical powers of the wand and a witch, she uses the magic of the magic wand of Cinderella’s fairy godmother to go back in time and thwart Cinderella’s love story by enchanting the slipper of Cinderella’s glass so that it adapts to Anastasia’s foot and that the latter can steal Cinderella’s place from Prince Charming.
Cinderella will have to try to regain the love of her prince charming without the intervention and without the help of her fairy godmother, but will be able to count on the help of her friends, the mice Jaq and Gus. She will also have to thwart the plans of her stepmother and her two half-sisters, Drizella and Anastasia, so that everything becomes as before.
1926: The Princess and the Frog (2009)
Director: Ron Clements, John Musker
Screenplay: Ron Clements, John Musker, Rob Edwards
Release Date: November 25, 2009
Runtime: 97 minutes
Setting: New Orleans, 1926
Synopsis
The waitress Tiana, who lives in New Orleans’ French Quarter, has loved to cook since childhood. Her father, James, instilled in her a love of cooking, and they often spent time together in the kitchen. The girl had a dream – to open her own restaurant, and she worked day and night to earn enough. Her father died, but Tiana continued to put in the effort as James had taught her. Naveen, a young and cheerful prince of Maldonia, comes to the traditional Mardi Gras ball.
He remains as a guest of honor, but contacts a voodoo sorcerer, Dr. Facilier, who turns him into a frog. Naveen later meets Tiana, disguised as a princess, and asks her to kiss him. Thus, the spell will dissipate, and he (that is, Naveen) will return to its previous state. Tiana kisses him, but since she does it without love in her heart, but simply out of greed for promises in exchange for help, the spell works the other way around, and Tiana herself turns into a frog. Together with Naveen, they escape from the dog chasing them.
Wandering through the swamps, Tiana and Navin meet the alligator Louis, who loves jazz and plays the trumpet, as well as the cheerful firefly Ray, in love with the star in the night sky, which he calls Evangeline. New friends find out about their problem and are happy to help them.
Together they head towards an old and surprisingly good-natured, but terribly strange voodoo witch, Odie, who lives in “the farthest, darkest corner of the Mississippi floodplain.” In the process of finding her, Navin and Tiana grow to like each other more and more. Tiana taught Naveen how to cut (after all, the servants used to do everything for him), and Naveen, in return, taught Tiana to dance.
In an old fishing boat suspended upside down from a giant tree, Mama Odie and her pet snake Juju remove corruption, conspiracies and spells for everyone in need. The sorceress finds a way to help Tiana and Naveen become human again. On the ferry, they return to New Orleans, because theoretically, according to the stories of Mama Odie, the kiss of Tiana’s friend from childhood – Charlotte, who is temporarily the princess of the parade, since her father, Mr. Eli La Buff, will be king, can break the spell.
Navin wanted to propose to Tiana, as he realized that he loved her: he made her an engagement ring and arranged a romantic dinner, but seeing that Tiana was so possessed by her dream, he did not dare to tell her about his feelings.
In the city, they are found by Dr. Facilier, seeking to obtain the blood of Naveen in order to disguise him as his assistant Lawrence – an envious former lackey Naveen. The sorcerer and his shadows are looking for heroes. Ray destroys the shadows with his light, but Facilier kills him and tries to persuade Tiana to side with him in exchange for her previous appearance and the fulfillment of her dreams, which she refuses. Then the sorcerer tries to kill the girl in the form of a frog, but she breaks the amulet of transformation, which Facilier borrowed from the spirits.
The latter arrive, intimidate him and take him to their underworld, leaving the last reminder of the sorcerer – a gravestone. At the end of the film, Tiana and Naveen have a wedding, remove the curse imposed by Dr. Facilier and set up the restaurant “Tiana’s Palace” together. Having fulfilled her old dream, Tiana becomes the owner of a restaurant where Louis plays jazz with other performers, and Ray joins his lover in the night sky – he himself became a star.
