Even though it's based on a classic fairy tale, like many other Disney princess stories, The Princess and the Frog is being kept secret from the public, even 10 months before its release. But at New York Toy Fair today, to promote the new line of toys and other products based on Princess Tiana, Disney revealed some exclusive footage from the film, giving us an idea of what to expect from Disney's first black princess.
The footage was in very, very rough form-- some shots were nothing more than animated sketches, while others had fully-realized backgrounds with sketchy, black-and-white-characters moving around in them. But between the rough scenes and some concept art, we got a good sense of the story's main characters, and where Tiana-- not a princess in the beginning-- goes from those introductory scenes.
The first scene-- which may or may not be the first in the film-- shows Tiana and her friend Charlotte listening to Tiana's mother Eudora (voiced by Oprah Winfrey) tell the original fairy tale of The Frog Princess. Charlotte is white and wealthy, the daughter of New Orleans businessman Big Daddy LaBouff (voiced by John Goodman), while Tiana lives with Eudora and her dad James (Terrence Howard) in a line of shotgun houses on the edge of town. But given that Oprah is her mom and her dad repeatedly tells her to dream big and become whatever she wants to be, Tiana doesn't exactly have it bad.
We saw Tiana grow up in a series of sketches and become a waitress, harboring a dream of opening her own restaurant. When exotic Prince Naveen is set to visit town, Charlotte set her sights on him, and asks Tiana to bake beignets for the Mardi Gras ball she'll have in Prince Naveen's honor. The money Tiana gets from that job will be all she needs to open up her restaurant at last. But things don't go as expected for Tiana, whose business loan application is turned down, or Prince Naveen, who stops by a voodoo master on this way to the ball and is transformed-- you guessed it-- into a frog.
In the second clip we meet Tiana, now voiced by Tony-winner Anika Noni Rose, in the pose we've all seen in promotions for the film. She's wishing, once again, upon a star to help her make her dreams come true-- but instead she gets a mouthy frog with a French accent who claims to be Naveen. He convinces her to kiss him, breaking the spell, but we didn't get to see what happens next-- the clip ended just as their lips locked.
Well, we can kind of guess what happens. Two of the toys on display were a bride and groom frog, suggesting Tiana will be joining Naveen as a green jumper. We also saw a still from what seems to be the last scene of the film-- Tiana and Naveen, in human form, on a horse-drawn carriage looking very much like they were just married.
One of the most charming moments of the presentation came after the footage screened, when Rose herself came up to talk about the film and how excited she was to see the footage. As a surprise, Mattel representatives stepped up and presented Rose with her very own Princess Tiana doll, wearing a green confection referred to as being from the wedding scene. Rose burst into very real, very genuine tears, as if she were a four-year-old girl getting her first Barbie. Probably a sign that Rose is a perfect choice to represent Disney and its princesses.
In all, The Princess and the Frog seems to very deliberately be hearkening back to the older days of Disney cartoons, evoking a style and tone far from the hipness of Bolt or the adult melancholy of Pixar's best. The opening scene, in which Tiana and Charlotte are dressed like princesses while listening to the story, practically gives the game away: This is a movie designed to sell princess fantasies. If it's a good movie in the meantime, which seems very possible, that'll be an added bonus.
Below are some images from the film as well as of the Princess Tiana costumes that were on display. The Princess and The Frog comes out Christmas Day.
