Martina Rosazza
Story Analysis/ Notes for animated feature “Spellbound” by Skydance Animation
I think that this movie made a major mistake by deciding to introduce the main character Ellian as a teenager who is already perfect despite her age and her grown parents being flawed but yet make her despise her situation, vocally complain about it and vocally blame others (her parents) for her sorry situation. This setting makes it impossible for this character arc to work out neither as a flat character arc nor a dynamic character arc. For this to be a flat character arc in which the main character has great traits and strong believes from the beginning and is going to change the people and world around her (good examples of this are Cinderella, Pocahontas, Vivienne from Pretty Woman, Elle from Legally Blonde and Thoru Honda from Fruits Basket) she would need to display humbleness, resourcefulness, initiative and a non-victim mindset so this can’t work if the whole first song is her complaining about her situation and blaming others for it. If this wanted to develop into a dynamic character arc in which we see the main character having a flawed belief but growing and overcoming it through the events of the story, then we would need to see such flawed belief in her so that there’s room for growth (like we see in Aladdin initially thinking the way to get Jasmine isn’t through honesty but through lying about who he is). I particularly think the first song of the movie in which she sings about how miserable her life is because her parents are monsters kills the likability of Ellian and makes it so she can’t have neither a flat character arc or a dynamic one. This is to me like if the opening scene of Cinderella was her complaining about her chores and bashing her step mother and step sisters instead of displaying the great attitude and grace with which she faces her circumstances and the kindness she displays to everyone regardless of the situation she’s in. Or like Aladdin complaining about not having money and bashing the government for creating inequality instead of using his courage and ingenuity to steal to get by and then showing kindness by giving the bread he almost risked his life to steal to hungry children. Or like Rapunzel telling us how bored she is and how cruel Mother Gothel is instead of displaying great resourcefulness and initiative by showing us all the creative hobbies she has to keep herself busy and cheerful despite the horrible circumstances she’s in.
Because of Ellian attitude of ranting about her duties and bashing and blaming others for her sorry situation, we can feel sorry for her but not inspired by her. I think Cinderella’s step mother and Mother Gothel could be considered more “monsters” than Elian’s parents, considering one is being enslaved and the other has been kidnapped, and you never hear Cinderella or Rapunzel call them names and complain about it.
This major issue in the story’s initial setting and main character attitude makes it so it’s almost impossible to resolve the conflict of the story in a way that is inspiring.
I noticed an intention to add comedy in this movie and I think that’s something to applaud. I don’t think that the comedy was as funny as it could have been, but I still appreciate the effort as that seems to be completely lacking in recent animated movies like Raya, Strange World and Wish. Who remembers when Jane was drawing a picture of Tarzan to explain the encounter to her father and when blushing, he says “Should I leave you and the board… alone?”. I miss comedy in animated movies.
FIRST ACT
Long beautiful/peaceful first scene to present the world seems more suited to ending, not beginning of the story
For the sake of hooking the viewer in, I think it’s more beneficial to show the conflict and what’s at stake in the opening scene of the movie. Good examples of this are the boat wreck and tiger threat in Tarzan, the ship wreck in The Little Mermaid and the magic flower and kidnapping of Rapunzel in Tangled.
Ellian (main character) making own remarks about being a teenager and what that entails is strange
No teenager would have this amount of awareness about themselves and if the idea is that she’s basically already an adult because she had to grow fast, then no adult would make that remark either because they would be aware of just not being a teenager anymore.
Ellian has a bad attitude towards her duties and blames others for her situation and that doesn’t create a strong main character, it creates a victim
This is like if the opening scene of Cinderella was her complaining about her chores and bashing her step mother and step sisters instead of displaying the great attitude and grace with which she faces her circumstances and the kindness she displays to everyone regardless of the situation she’s in. Or like Aladdin complaining about not having money and bashing the government for creating inequality instead of using his courage and ingenuity to steal to get by and then showing kindness by giving the bread he almost risked his life to steal to hungry children. Or like Rapunzel telling us how bored she is and how mean Mother Gothel is instead of displaying great resourcefulness and initiative by showing us all the creative hobbies she has to keep herself busy and cheerful despite the horrible circumstances she’s in.
Because of Ellian attitude of ranting about her duties and bashing and blaming others for her sorry situation, we can feel sorry for her but not inspired by her. I think Cinderella’s step mother and Mother Gothel could be considered more “monsters” than Elian’s parents, considering one is being enslaved and the other has been kidnapped, and you never hear Cinderella or Rapunzel call them names once.
Decision to make it appear like her grown parents are flawed and she as a teenager is already perfect, but not humble about it (like Cinderella was), creates a problem for this to either develop into a flat character arc or dynamic one
For this to be a flat character arc in which the main character has great traits and strong believes from the beginning and is going to change the people and world around her (good examples of this are Cinderella, Pocahontas, Vivienne from Pretty Woman, Elle from Legally Blonde and Thoru Honda from Fruits Basket) she would need to display humbleness, resourcefulness, initiative and a non-victim mindset so this can’t work if the whole first song is her complaining about her situation and blaming others for it. If this wanted to develop into a dynamic character arc in which we see the main character having a flawed beliefbut growing and overcoming it through the events of the story, then we would need to see such flawed belief in her so that there’s room for development (like we see in Aladdin initially thinking the way to get Jasmine isn’t through honesty but through lying about who he is).
The entire first song is her ranting about her life situation
I think this would be like if in Tangled the whole first song titled “When Will My Life Begin”, in which Rapunzel talks about all the creative ways she has found to cope with her unfortunate situation of being locked in the tower would have been her bashing Mother Gothel and saying how unfortunate it is that she’s locked in a tower and her mother won’t let her go out.
Attempt to add comedy is great intention and I applaud it but the comedy didn’t deliver
Minister Nazara Prone coming up with a solution to make Ellian queen on her birthday moves plot forward but does nothing to help the main character feel like one
At minute 18 of the movie the main character has not taken any actions herself. The only active action she took is to sing a song to complain about her situation and say her parents make her life miserable. The birds were sent by the helper, and this solution of making her queen was thought of by her minister. For her to be inspiring we need to see traits of creativity, courage, ingenuity and initiative. She needs to be the one finding a good attitude towards her situation and thinking or trying to carry out the solutions to better her circumstances.
If we compare this to The Little Mermaid, in the first act alone Ariel has already saved Eric from the ship wreck, showed us her collection of forbidden items from land, been late to her father’s public gathering, escaped and decided to sell her voice to a witch for a chance at love.
Wand exchange scene is quite long and serves no purpose to story (if this wanted to be for comedy then that could have been a great addition, but it needs to be more funny)
The whole scene of the parents eating the helpers and her not getting the answer makes the viewer feel like we’ve just been tricked and wasted 10 minutes of our time for no reason and further creates the idea that Ellian is just a victim as yet again, she was not able to turn this failure into a success thanks to her personality traits like ingenuity, creativity or initiative.
By the end of the first act all we have seen is how unfair things are for Ellian and how she could not overcome or change any of that. The viewer would rather an Ariel that would run from home and sell her voice to a witch rather than give up, an Aladdin that would pretend to be prince rather than give up, a Rapunzel who would rather “hire” a guide and escape the tower than give up than a character who’s sorry for themselves but just doesn’t use her own personality traits like courage and ingenuity to get herself out of said bad situation. This is very reminiscent of the movie Luck, also by Skydance Animation, that has the same issue of the main character being a victim of events instead of an inspiring character that moves the plot forward with her courage and actions. I would consider the first act of Spellbound a failure in setting the tone for a great adventure with an inspiring and strong main character.
SECOND ACT
The beginning of the second act with the sheep chase and the arrest of the monsters feels again like the plot is being moved forward by the events rather the main character moving the plot forward with her actions
Ellian just calling the helpers back and them just now easily agreeing to help her when they run off so upset before is confusing and makes the viewer feel like we’re going around in loops to the same themes and situations that for some reason (that isn’t clear) have different outcomes than before
Ellian asking if she can go to them instead is first small initiative she takes which is great but just really not even close to enough to offset her attitude and lack of initiative in the first 35 minutes of the movie
At minutes 42 when Ellian learns that the helpers can’t break the spell she’s still asking “Someone can do this, right?”, and this is just too long of a time frame for the main character to be this passive
At minutes 43 she literally says “it’s hopeless” and the helpers say “nothing is hopeless”. This is backwards of how a main character and secondary characters should act.
The most inspiring moment in this movie so far (45 minutes) is the helpers singing about the spark in people and not losing hope. This gives out the intention of wanting to be a Hakuna Matata moment with Ellian being Simba and the helpers being a Pumba and Timon but in this case it doesn’t work as strongly because of how the story was set up in the first act. In the first act of The Lion King we have seen Simba being an extremely brave and active character (even too much, as he got himself and Nala in real trouble by going to the elephant grave dangerous area) and then we’ve seen his actions cause the literal death of his own father in front of him. Those series of events will make us understand why Simba has completely lost hope. First of all, it’s momentary (we saw that he wasn’t hopeless before, during the first act) and second of all, a tragedy so major happened that anyone in that circumstance would feel hopeless. This Hakuna Matata dynamic doesn’t work as strongly here because Ellian has been hopeless the whole movie and no major specific tragedy has happened now for it to justify her being so pessimistic and passive.
I think the song and message in the song here IS inspiring, but it still doesn’t help with the main character being a strong one. Yet again, she’s hopeless and someone is cheering her up.
Bolinar trying to get them caught and Ellian interjecting that and insisting the best plan is to break the spell is first great action taken by her
I wish we saw this Ellian from the start.
Cave moment with bubbles is artistically beautiful and creative
Parents fighting in cave and Ellian wanting to stop them is a great set up but it falls short because instead of her finding a way to make the situation better, her parents save her instead
We need Ellian to accomplish something, even just a small victory, by using traits of her personality.
Ellian choosing to save the little animal in the sea of sand and giving clear orders to her parents on how to accomplish this task is first great display of Ellian’s personality and initiative
It’s unfortunate this is at 1 hour and 10 minutes into the movie. Because this movie is being streamed I believe some of the audience may have already left before getting to this scene.
Bolinar having to eat a disgusting treat to save the situation further makes it so all the secondary characters are more proactive in moving the plot forward than the main character
As Ellian is just shot out from the cave literally on her mom’s back after the song sequence, this makes one wonder what purpose the whole scene and song about her having lost her parents was about
THIRD ACT
At one hour and 20 minutes when the light scene takes place, it feels like the movie could end here but there’s 30 minutes left to the movie.
This is creating a disharmony in the usual/expected first-second-third act dynamic in movies.
Parents not wanting to go back seems to add conflict when we thought we were solving it
This feels like if when Frodo throws the ring in the fire at the end, it bounces off and doesn’t quite get in the fire and all of a sudden we thought the movie was ending but it’s not.
Ellian getting angry at her parents not wanting to go back may be better than her usual reaction of being sad, but it still is not inspiring
Reacting to situations with sadness or anger isn’t inspiring. Pocahontas changed John Smith, her father, all the soldiers and her own village by showing them her true love for John Smith. Ariel changed her father perspective by risking her own life for a chance at love. This would have been less inspiring if they had gotten angry at their fathers for the way they thought instead of showing them a different way with love and courage. Ellian’s reaction may be understandable but it is not inspiring.
Parents coming around to wanting to become good people and everyone rushing to save, yet again, Ellian in the storm is yet again backwards on what a main character and secondary characters should be doing
At this point we’re starting to like even her parents because of the growth they are displaying and we still do not care so much for Ellian. Her parents have grown so much through the story and she has not. This is a problem.
Ellian singing to her little self and finally being positive saying “We’ll be fine” is first inspiring action she takes but it’s just not going to be enough for the main character to become one at the end of the third act
Overall happy ending does not feel like it was brought upon by specific positive traits of the main character
