DISNEY PRINCESS ENCHANTED TALES: FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS - DVD review

The other day, my five year old asked me if Princesses were real. It caught me by surprise, because that's a question normally reserved for Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. As I looked at her eyes and saw just how important it was for her to believe in these animated characters and the live-action models who pretend to be princesses on the Disney properties, I realized how culturally mythic Disney's fairytale women have become. In a way, that's scary, but it illustrates the archetypal power of the fairy tales that have sustained the House of Mouse since the very beginning.

They say that with great power comes great responsibility, and I'm gratified to see that the folks at Disney are realizing that they have an obligation to use their "properties" to teach our youngsters. Instead of emphasizing wishful thinking and relative passivity as they once did ("wishing upon a star," "dreams can come true," and "some day my prince will come"), Disney has gradually moved away from gender dependence and cultivated a more egalitarian view of princesses. As more than one film has reminded little girls in recent years, everybody can be a princess. In other words, they've progressed to using their Princess franchise as a metaphor for cultivating the values and character traits that make a person "royal." If you're a parent, you have to like that.

"Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams" continues down the teaching path, but also breaks new ground insomuch as the princesses are seen as being flawed and imperfect, and needing to find the resolve within themselves to succeed rather than being "rescued." Servants and princes are relegated to the background as Princess Aurora (in her first significant appearance since "Sleeping Beauty") takes over her father's duties for a day and finds a) how difficult it is being a ruler, and b) what it takes to summon the perseverance to succeed, as she promised her father she would. The same sort of thing happens in the second segment in this 56-minute DVD, as Princess Jasmine gets bored (now there's something all kids can identify with) and thinks that there must be something more to being a princess, something useful that she can do. As she tries to take over the royal class of schoolchildren, which has driven out the teacher with their rowdy behavior, Jasmine feels all the frustration of a parent or substitute teacher. But like Aurora, she summons the courage and resolve to find a way to succeed. In other words, these vignettes illustrate that dreams don't just happen. You have to take steps in the right direction, and you have to find the resolve and determination to pursue those dreams before they can be realized.

One nice surprise is the animation and backgrounds, which are rendered in the classic Disney style--plenty of rich detail and bright colors, and nothing at all that looks made-for-TV or direct-to-video. It's a real improvement over previous Disney Princess offerings. Another nice surprise is the music. Although the songs don't stick with you if you're an adult, my daughter was humming one of them the next day. That's also an indication that she liked this DVD. Another is that she's requested we put it on for her at least three times the first day. So Disney has most certainly reached its target audience.

My only complaint is that the stories themselves are pretty slight. And let's get one thing straight: there are animated features for the whole family, and animated features for children only. This one is strictly the latter, aimed at the little girls who will stand in line for 30 minutes to get one of the Disney Princesses to sign her autograph book, or pad their Christmas lists with Disney Princess dolls and accessories. If you have a little girl who's into Disney Princesses, she'll like this DVD.

Video:
This DVD comes packaged like a premier movie DVD, with full-color cardboard slipcase. It's an outward sign that Disney is serious about producing a high-quality series, and the video is certainly that. The colors are bright, the backgrounds richly textured, and the animation are classic rather than rough Saturday-morning specials. The two stories are presented in 1.78:1 "family friendly widescreen," meaning it's enhanced for 16x9 televisions so that it fills out the entire screen. There's practically no grain.

Audio:
The audio is another surprise, insomuch as there are three Dolby Digital 5.1 language options: English, French, or Spanish. Subtitles are only available in English for the hearing impaired. As with the video, the audio quality is quite good, with a robust sound filling the room, especially when the music kicks in.

Extras:
My daughter enjoyed both of the games that are included on this single disc. "Aurora Dress-Up" is the most familiar one. We've seen this sort of game in dozens of home videos for girls. This time, your little one tries to help Aurora select an outfit to wear at the royal banquet. Unlike some of these games, though, it doesn't seem to allow you to choose a wrong outfit . . . say, something Punky Brewster would wear.

"Find Sahara" is a little more unique and therefore my daughter's favorite. The sultan's favorite horse is lost, and players have to follow clues to help Jasmine find the steed.

The third feature is a music video, with Belle singing "You'll Never Lose This Love" and basically previewing the next Disney Princess Enchanted Tales DVD. Other sneak peeks are also included on the disc, which has the Disney Fastplay option. Pop it in and it starts by itself and plays continuously. Perfect for those early Saturday mornings, when a parent doesn't want to have to get up just to press a few buttons on the remote.

Bottom Line:
Because of the slightness in plot, I'd give this a 6 out of 10. But parents should know that "Follow Your Dreams" has excellent animation, strong messages to help young girls develop into strong young women, and enough music, humor, and narrative interest to make this a repeat-play entry in your home video collection. Little girls will give it a much higher rating than I did--probably an 8--so splitting the difference seems a decent thing to do, for the final rating.