It would probably be very easy for me to sit here and complain about all the cheaply made direct-to-video sequels Disney has put out over the last 13 years. So I think I will…. at least for just a little bit longer. Did the world really need a sequel to “Atlantis” or “Brother Bear” Is it really possible to make a sequel to “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” After “Bambi II”, “Lady and the Tramp II”, and “The Fox and the Hound 2” are there any Disney classics that are going to be deemed untouchable? Maybe “Snow White” and “Pinocchio”, but who knows, since this year we’re going to be “treated” to both “Cinderella III” and “Peter Pan III”, which has an hi-lariously (mostly) fake cast list on Wikipedia…. godspeed Hax0rs. The one thing that we can be sure we’ll never see though is “Song of the South II: Racist Boogaloo“.

But getting to the matter at hand, “Cinderella III” specifically. First off, who knew that there was a “Cinderella II”? Apparently, “Cinderella II” didn’t even have a full story, instead giving three vignettes about life in the castle… which teach valuable life lessons, like

“Cinderella is put in charge of the palace banquets and parties, but realizes she doesn’t agree with the way it’s used to being run. With the help of other characters, Cinderella convinces everyone in the palace that everyone in the kingdom, including the peasants, should be allowed to participate in the next royal banquet.”

or

“One of Cinderella mouse friends, Jaq, thinks he’s too small to help Cinderella in the palace like he did in the first movie. The Fairy Godmother shows up to help him out, and turns him into a human so he can help out like everyone else. However, he soon learns to be happy with who he really is.”

I guess the money is the answer as supposedly, the video cost only five million dollars and earned 120 million in DVD sales. Kids… they’ll watch anything.

With “Cinderella II” being such a hit, it’s an obvious choice to continue the story where they left off, if by left off, you mean left off after the original, completely ignoring the existence of the sequel. Basically the story is that Cinderella’s stepsister and stepmother find a magic wand that belongs to the Fairy Godmother… heartache, and mild humor possibly ensue. Time gets reversed, people turn into stone, or frogs, or have their memories erased, and Doc and Marty have to stop Old Biff from giving Young Biff the almanac, all because the magic wand doesn’t need a security code or training to operate it. In fact, I’d venture to say that this “Fairy Godmother” is just some random nutjob who found this wand and took it upon herself to grant wishes to unsuspecting minors. I wonder if all this time-shifting stuff would confuse a kid who has seen both other movies. Heck, if the Children’s Theatre workshop said that the Classic Sesame Street DVDs might not be suitable for kids because of the disconnect between characters from the 70’s and now, I would think that messing with “Cinderella”‘s whole space-time continuum would mess with kids’ heads. But the most insane thing about the DVD… a music video featuring a song sung by the Cheerleader from “Heroes”. I guess somebody else is getting on the “acting starlett jumping into music” bandwagon, like Hilary Duff and her mortal enemy Lindsay Lohan.

Supposedly, Walt Disney made it public that he didn’t want sequels of his movies made, other than “Fantasia“. But why, then is there a need to create these sequels, possibly tarnishing the memories of the classics? It would be one thing if they were given the time and budget to at least make them look good, but quick, cheap, and foreign-made don’t seem like the best way to honor the past. Why couldn’t the Disney company create direct-to-video cartoons that have an entirely new set of characters, with an original story? It’s all in the branding and marketability. The characters are so well-known, and so well-tied to the company, that now, most ties to the original stories they’re based on are forgotten. That, and the fact that anything with princesses will appeal to little girls and the parents of little girls. It’s the easiest way to tap into a market with a built-in fanbase. I can’t blame them for being smart businessmen, but I guess I can blame them for devaluing the past. I bet you never thought you’d hear someone compare Cinderella to Pro Wrestling, but you’re about to.

What do you think Victor Hugo would say if thirty years after he wrote “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” someone else came along and wrote a sequel? I would venture to guess that the original artists and writers of these theatrical movies would feel the same way about how the direct-to-video business devalues their work. I don’t want to sound like an old man about this, but when I was their age there were at MOST, four cartoon movies that came out in the theatre each year and were heavily promoted. Look at this list. Now, take out all the cartoons with red links, the ones that were released in foreign countries, and the ones that were direct-to-video. In 1989, three; 1990, three; in 1991, it got upped to a generous five (I’m counting ‘Rover Dangerfield’ even though it tanked). Heck, other than “Nightmare Before Christmas”, Disney didn’t even release an animated film in 1993… I would guess because they were spending all of their feature film energy on “The Lion King”. 2006 saw the release of 14 major cartoon movies. FOURTEEN! (And all of them were CGI, but that’s a topic for a review that I probably will never do, ’cause standing on that soapbox is even nerdier than this one.) That’s more than one per month. No wonder kids need everything immediately. I think that’s part of my biggest complaint about Cinderella III, and the others is that they’re not major events. Without any sort of waiting, or time without a child-aimed movie, how can one of these movies be more than mediocre, run-of-the-mill entertainment. Not that the ones in the 80s weren’t, because “All Dogs Go to Heaven” was far from a great movie. But because there were only three cartoons that came out that year, it was an actual “event” for kids, which is more than I can say for “Doogal“, “Arthur and the Invisibles” and “Everyone’s Hero“, and especially “The Ant Bully” and “Flushed Away“, the movie that made Dreamworks end its partnership with Aardman animation, even after the “Wallace and Gromit” movie did so well and won the Best Animated Feature Oscar. Even if “All Dogs…” didn’t turn a huge profit, it was a fairly large pop-culture phenomenon for a month or so, which is way more than I can say about “Everyone’s Hero”. I think that the studios are going to have to realize sooner or later that this oversaturation is hurting the business in the long run, and someone needs to back off for a bit.

Time for the wrestling analogy. WWE used to run one pay-per view per month, before that it was less, obviously. But in the past few years, they’ve uped it to about 17 or 18, meaning there could be a point where there were two pay events in two weeks. Of course, because of the large amount of programming (in addition to the ppv’s, the core audience that buys them is expected to keep up with five hours of other programming per week) audiences are asked to consume, and the lack of quality content, the general viewership has decreased. The animation industry is, I believe, on that threshold. . There’s going to be a point where kids aren’t interested anymore, and that trend seems to have started this year, with the various high-profile animated films just doing disastrous numbers, and I think that the home-video market is watering it down further.

Yet I digress. The review is on the concept of the movie itself, and not of the entire industry, I know. But I think that Cinderella III is representative of the trends that animation in general is moving towards and it would surprise me if the movie was watchable at all, just as it would surprise me if the feature-film animation industry as a whole got back to the art and storytelling levels that it once was at. Call me lame, but I’m still hoping that it will.

The Concept of Cinderella III gets one and a half stars, for at least being somewhat original with the story idea, but generally just adding to the idea that these direct-to-video sequels are worthwhile ventures, when in reality they water down the market for future 2-D animation, and devalue the ground-breaking work done on the theatrical originals that they milk for all they’re worth.