Disney's Rapunzel

It's the popular thing to do now to rag on Disney for "watering down" the classic fairy tales and fables, as if Disney's somehow ruined those stories so that they can never be enjoyed again. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the original, darker versions of these stories too, but there's no reason that they shouldn't be tamed a bit to give young children a safe way to try them out. My five-year-old son is still uncomfortable with parts of Disney's Snow White and The Jungle Book, so dumping the originals on him is out of the question. I'd rather his introduction to these stories be a positive experience so that when he's ready, he can be excited about exploring the original versions on his own terms.

So, I say all that to say that I'm excited that Disney is apparently not only getting back into the 2D animated feature game, but that it looks like they might be doing it with another classic fairy tale: Rapunzel.

Update: John from The Disney Blog clarifies in the comments to this post that when Rapunzel's all done, it'll look like a 3D CGI film, even though they've used traditional animation in the process. But he also says that Disney is returning to 2D with The Frog Princess.