Let's start with the statement of purpose: Disney Princesses have been getting cooler. Time was, their main job was to stand around and sing to woodland creatures and do the housework while the prince got on with the job of fixing whatever needed to be fixed in Fantasyland, but these days it's only suckers who wait for someday when their prince will come. These days, Disney Princesses have agency, they can fight...heck, they even have superpowers!
...wait a second...
I want to see "Disney's Avengers". Team up Merida, Rapunzel (she'd need to get her magical hair back, but hey, how hard can that be), Elsa, Mulan and Ariel (who would get her tail back when she went into the water, same as Rapunzel gets her magical hair back, because this is a reconceptualization of them as a team of superheroes and that means Ariel gets to be the Aquaman/Namor figure) to fight together against an epic Disney villain. (Or villains--maybe we could see an evil cabal of history's darkest sorcerers, Ursula, Jafar, Facilier, Maleficent and Gothel?)
Every second of this sounds like it would be awesome. The only way I could see to make it better would be to make it a time-travel story (yes, those five characters probably aren't in exactly the same time period, but they're close enough to make it fit if you don't sweat the details) so that you can bring in Lilo and Stitch for the grand finale. Because while Lilo is technically not a princess, I'm pretty sure she would tell you she was one if you asked, and her dog would be happy to back that up with all six fists.
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4 comments:
As the dad of a daughter who loves both, I'd be all over this franchise. Now that Disney owns Marvel, it's a possibility.
I tried to do it on my own a while ago, but picked the wrong pantheon to align the princesses with.
http://dogfoodforchairs.blogspot.com/2011/11/once-upon-timein-hall-of-justice.html
You have any costume ideas?
You're thinking too small by limiting yourself to just the canon powered princesses. Go back to the beginning subvert the patriarchal narratives of the early princess movies.
Snow White: Directly shown to be able to communicate with woodland creatures. It's not hard to extrapolate that into some cool powers.
Cinderella: She's a bit harder to work with. That said her rags to riches story leaves us a potential plot hook though. Someone who so seamlessly was able to take to the roles of servant and nobility is such a wonderful cipher they could probably blend in anywhere, making her a potential infiltrator/spy. Especially when combined with a network of sentient mice as informants and a Fairy Godmother handler.
Alice: Disney's branding is never really certain if she is a Disney Princess or not but I got a good hook for her so meh. Years after her adventure in Wonderland she starts to discover that her own world isn't quite as rational as she once thought, full of faeries, Gods, and witches among other weirder things. She took to this weirdness with an unusual grace, essentially becoming a Doctor-like figure who butts her head into unusual goings on and blunders about saving who she can. When she says run, you run.
Aurora aka Sleeping Beauty: I got nothing to work with here from a feminist perspective. She didn't have enough characterization in her own movie to give me anything to latch onto. So we got two options. One we got with the Aurora from the reimagined Maleficent movie who became Queen of not only the human Kingdom but the Fairy populated Moors, where she no doubt came into some magic of her own or use her as a plot device weapon who's curse can be reactivated to put entire kingdoms to sleep. Neither of which is particularly satisfying.
Wendy: Not a Princess at all but who cares. WWII started not that long after her trip to Neverland. Facing the onslaught of Nazi's Wendy begins to pursue the lost magics of the world, effectively becoming the Nick Fury who brings everyone together.
Belle: Her father was a mad scientist who just wasn't quite mad enough. Belle on the other hand has access to magic to back up her own inventions later in life. Someone needs to keep the non-powered badasses like Merida and Mulan armed after all.
Jasmine: It'd be easy to just give her access to Genie as her powers but we're not going to do that. Mostly because she as part of the Aladdin animated series was shown to be just as capable as her boyfriend as an athlete and occasional fighter. She could probably match pace with Mulan and Merida.
Tianna: If you think she didn't start looking into voodoo after being turned into a frog and then being the only witness as dark spirits consumed Dr. Faciler, you're sadly mistaken. She read up on that shit and her restaurant is one of the safest places in the world from dark magic. She's not going on any adventures herself, she's got a business to run, but she offers her backroom as a stronghold for the other Princesses.
Megra: She worked for Hades for who knows how long. I'm sure she picked up a few tricks on dealing with the restless dead living in the Underworld. Not to mention if Hades had an interest in her services she needed to a Hell (pun intended) of a sales/con woman. Every team can use a grifter, especially one who can talk to Ghosts and knows her Greek monsters.
Kida: Now that Atlantis has it's magitek back it's time to go kick ass. Although she probably has a hostile relationship with Ariel.
Not mentioned: Nala (she's a lion...), Maid Marian (she's an anthromorphic Fox...), Vanellope (sentient video game characters is a bit too high tech for this), Leia (too easy and she goes by General now anyways), Pochantes and Esmerelda (I am not remotely qualified to fix the many racist issues with those characters).
Not strictly princesses, but my own analogies for Avengers-Disney went something like this...
Kuzco - Tony
Sgt. Calhoun - Tasha
Elsa - Thor
Stitch - Hulk
Merida - Hawkeye
Snow White - Cap
You could just watch Once Upon a Time, where they've basically been doing it as a TV show for the last five years. I don't watch it, but when I asked a friend who watched it with his wife if it was basically Disney's Agents of P.R.I.N.C.E.S.S., he said "Pretty much, yeah!"
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