The first five minutes of Disney’s The Princess and the Frog is online, and here’s the great thing about it: It’s better than the trailers. It’s not an entirely finished five minutes, some of it is temporary footage composed of storyboards or missing color, but watching it really does feel like stepping into the past when Disney still dominated animation with fairy tale retreads which had a magic all their own. In particular there’s a great scene at the beginning involving a cat that just feels right. It doesn’t hurt either that the Tiana we see in the first five minutes is not the one you’re used to from the trailer. This appears to be a flashback, with Tiana as a little girl learning the story of the Frog prince for the first time, and sticking up her nose at the notion of kissing an amphibian.
If like me you’ve been waffling on The Princess and the Frog, then maybe this will help. The movie’s entire first five minutes are embedded in the two clips below.
