Tangled

**Tangled**is a 2010 American 3-D computer-animated musical fantasy-comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Loosely based on the German fairytale "Rapunzel" in the collection of folk tales published by the Brothers Grimm, it is the 50th Disney animated feature film. Featuring the voices of Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi, the film tells the story of a lost, young princess with long magical hair who yearns to leave her secluded tower. Against her mother's wishes, she accepts the aid of a handsome intruder to take her out into the world which she has never seen.

Before the film's release, its title was changed from Rapunzel to Tangled, reportedly to market the film as gender-neutral. Tangled spent six years in production at a cost that has been estimated at $260 million, which if accurate, would make it the most expensive animated film ever made and the fifth most-expensive film of all time. The film employed a unique artistic style by blending together features of computer-generated imagery (CGI) and traditional animation while using non-photorealistic rendering to create the impression of a painting. Composer Alan Menken who had worked on prior Disney animated features, returned to score Tangled.

Tangled premiered at the El Capitan Theatre on November 14, 2010, and went into general release on November 24. The film was well received by critics and audiences alike. The film earned $591 million in worldwide box office revenue, $200 million of which was earned in the United States and Canada. The film was nominated for a number of awards, including Best Original Song at the 83rd Academy Awards. The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 29, 2011; a short film, Tangled Ever After, was released later in 2012. A television series will premiere in 2017.

## Plot

The movie begins with Flynn Rider narrating, explaining how hundreds of years ago, a single drop of sunlight fell to Earth and bloomed into a magical golden flower. The flower is found by an old woman named Mother Gothel, who sings the song "Healing Incantation" to it, causing it to restore her youth and beauty. In this way she lives for hundreds of years, keeping the flower hidden and never sharing it with anyone.

Flynn goes on to tell how the king and queen of the land were expecting a child, but the queen became very sick, and the king sent out his people to search for the legendary golden flower, which was rumoured to possess powerful powers that had the ability to heal. Gothel soon realises what they are looking for, and hides the flower under a false shrubbery, as she is unwilling to share it with anyone. However, Gothel knocks the shrub away by accident when fleeing, causing the flower's glow to be visible in the darkness. The king's guards uproot the flower and bring it back to the palace, where it is fed to the queen, who survives and gives birth to a daughter, princess Rapunzel. The little princess is born with beautiful golden hair that glows with the magic of the flower. In honour of her birth, the king and queen release a floating lantern into the sky.

That night, an already-aging Gothel sneaks into the palace and cuts a piece of Rapunzel's hair to use instead of the flower. Though when she cuts it, the lock of hair turns dark brown. Gothel realises that cutting Rapunzel's hair causes it to lose its power, and so she kidnaps the princess, escaping out the window with her. Flynn's narration explains that she locked her away in a hidden tower and raised her as her own child, having Rapunzel sing the healing song to restore Gothel's youth. Every year afterward, on the princess' birthday, the kingdom would release hundreds of flying lanterns as a symbol of hope that the lost princess would return to them.

Eighteen years later, we cut to an older Rapunzel, who still lives in the tower with her only friend, a chameleon named Pascal. Rapunzel is cheerful but clearly bored with her dull life, which she describes in the song, "When Will My Life Begin?" Her hair has grown to be seventy feet long and extremely strong, and she loops it through a system of pulleys and hooks to hoist herself up and get around the tower. One of the things she does to occupy her time is painting, and her entire tower room is covered in pictures that she's drawn. One of the pictures she paints is of herself looking up at hundreds of glowing lights, which are the lights she sees in the sky every year on her birthday. She tells Pascal that today is the day and she's finally going to do it.

Outside, Gothel has arrived at the base of the tower, and she calls up to Rapunzel to let down her hair. She has Rapunzel loop her hair to make a sling to pull her up and in, and proceeds to emotionally abuse Rapunzel; putting her down and making fun of her and then laughing it off. Rapunzel believes that Gothel is her real mother and that she loves her, but it is clear that Gothel only cares about her magical hair.

Rapunzel mentions that her birthday is the next day, and what she really wants is to go see the lights in the sky because she believes that they're connected to her somehow. Gothel tells her they're just stars and gets angry at her for wanting to go out, and sings, "Mother Knows Best", a song about how the world is a horrible and dangerous place and how she only wants to protect Rapunzel, who is too gullible and helpless to defend herself. She ends the song by harshly telling her to never ask to leave the tower again, to which Rapunzel agrees, her earlier courage having faded. Gothel then leaves the tower.

Meanwhile, Flynn is sneaking across the palace roof with two other thieves, the twin Stabbington Brothers. They lower Flynn in through the roof and he steals the crown of the lost princess, although he is seen and they end up being chased out of the palace and through a forest. They find a tree covered in wanted posters of the three of them, and Flynn takes one and acts upset, but it turns out to have been only because his nose was drawn incorrectly. Still being chased, they reach a steep wall that appears to be a dead end, and Flynn tells the twins to give him a boost over the wall. They suspect he's just going to run off with the crown and leave them to be caught, but he convinces them to trust him, and then does exactly that. Flynn then runs through the forest being chased by both the guards and the twins, as well as the leader of the guards' horse, Maximus. Maximus has an elevated sense of smell and can track Flynn by scent, and catches up to him evn when he outruns the others. In the resulting struggle, the satchel with the princess' crown inside of it nearly falls over a cliff, catching at the last minute on a branch sticking out of the side of the cliff. In trying to receive it, Flynn and Maximus both fall off the cliff.

Neither are hurt, but Flynn still has to escape Maximus. He finds what appears to be a rock wall, but turns out to just be a very thick curtain of vines covering the mouth of a small cave. He uses the cave to hide while Maximus searches outside, and then escapes through the tunnel, ending up in a small clearing, with Rapunzel's tower standing in the center. Deciding that it looks like a perfect place to hide, he scales the side using arrows and ends up right in Rapunzel's bedroom. He opens his satchel to look at the crown he just got away with, right as Rapunzel hits him in the back of the head with her frying pan, knocking him out.

Rapunzel has never seen anyone other than Gothel before, and at first, she's convinced he's one of the monsters her mother said lived outside the tower. Once she realises that he's just another person, she hides him inside of her wardrobe, with some difficulty. After she finally gets him stuffed inside, she finds his satchel with the lost princess' crown, although she has never seen a crown before and doesn't know what it is. She tries to wear it in a few different ways before setting it on her head, just as she hears Gothel calling to her from outside. She hides the crown and satchel and brings Gothel up the tower.

She plans on showing Flynn to Gothel as proof that she's not helpless and should be allowed outside, but she starts out by mentioning their conversation from earlier and Gothel flips out and screams at her that she is never leaving the tower, ever. Rapunzel realises there's no way Gothel will ever let her leave, so she tells her instead that she changed her mind about what she wants for her birthday, and asks for paint made from white shells. Gothel really doesn't want to give her that, because the shells are three days' travel away, but she thinks it will keep Rapunzel from asking to leave and so she agrees.

Once Gothel has set out, Rapunzel takes Flynn (still unconscious) out of the wardrobe and uses her hair to tie him to a chair. Pascal wakes him up by sticking his tongue in his ear, and Flynn, not seeing Rapunzel at first, immediately freaks out. When she steps into view, however, he realises that she's beautiful and starts hitting on her, much to her confusion. She assumes he's there to kidnap her and steal her hair, but he has no idea what she's talking about. When she realises he's telling the truth (after whacking him with the frying pan a few more times), Rapunzel decides that this is her chance, and she forces Flynn to agree to her deal, they'll leave the tower together, and he'll take her to see the floating lights the next night, then bring her back gome the next day before Gothel returns. In exchange, she promises to give him back the crown and let him leave, and says that she never, ever, EVER breaks her promises. Flynn doesn't know why the lanterns are so important to her, but it's the only way to get the crown back, so he agrees.

Flynn gets down the tower wall the same way he got up and calls for Rapunzel to come down. Rapunzel, taking her frying pan for protection, uses her hooks and pulleys to lower herself down on her hair, though she begins to have doubts once she's actually outside. She alternates between running around and screaming for joy and wallowing in crushing despair and guilt for betraying her mother. Flynn is exasperated but tries to encourage her guilt, thinking that he can get her to give up and go back to the tower, and he can get away without having to take her to see the lanterns. He suddenly has an idea and says he'll take her to lunch, and drags her out of the clearing.

Elsewhere, Gothel hasn't gotten very far before she runs into Maximus, still searching for Flynn. She recognises him as a horse from the palace, but without a rider. Suddenly suspicious, she runs back home and calls for Rapunzel, with no answer. She digs out the bricked-up door and runs up to discover that Rapunzel is gone. In a rage, she also discovers the crown Rapunzel had hidden, along with the wanted poster that Flynn had taken earlier. She assumes that Flynn has kidnapped Rapunzel, so she grabs a knife and sets out after them.

Meanwhile, Flynn has taken Rapunzel to a pub with a sign outside that says "The Snuggly Duckling". Rapunzel is excited, she does like ducklings! but when they actually enter, she sees that the pub is full of angry tough-looking men. Flynn lies and tells her that this is considere a five-star establishment in the real world, trying to scare her into going back to her tower, but before they can leave Flynn is recognised from his wanted posters. One of the thugs is sent to fetch the guards while the rest of them leap on Flynn and fight over who should get the reward money. They look like they're going to tear him apart when Rapunzel hits the hook-handed one in the face and demands that they let him go because she needs him to fulfill her dream of seeing the lanterns. She implores them to find their humanity and asks if they've ever had a dream.

The Hook-Handed Thug looks like he's going to kill her, but instead, he admits that he too has a dream, to be a concert pianist. This kicks off the song "I've Got a Dream" amidst the entire pub, where we find out that although the thugs are a cruel and bloodthirsty bunch, they also dream of true love, enjoy sewing and baking, and making tiny ceramic unicorns. One of them does miming in his spare time. Flynn is forced to join and sings that his dream is to retire with tons of money on a sunny island somewhere with no one else around. Rapunzel gets excited and joins in too, singing about how happy she is that she left her tower and how she never wants to go back.

Unfortunately, she sings this line right as Mother Gothel looks in the window. Gothel is furious, but before she can do anything, the thug who went to get the guards return. The guards are right behind him, with the Stabbington twins in chains. Now that they've bonded, Hook-Handed Thug decides to help him escape, and he opens a secret tunnel in the bar floor for Rapunzel and Flynn to flee through. Although they seem to escape without a problem, Maximus enters the pub and tracks Flynn's scent to the secret tunnel. The guards give chase, while outside, Gothel threatens one of the pub thugs with her knife to tell her where the tunnel lets out. The Stabbington twins also give chase, having escaped their chains.

The tunnel leads to a dam, where Rapunzel and Flynn appear to have cornered until Rapunzel uses her hair to swing across to a ledge. She leaves Flynn her frying pan, and he uses it to fend off the guards and swordfight with Maximus while declaring that this is the strangest thing he has ever done (and it is a pretty strange scene). Rapunzel lassoes him with her hair and pulls him off as Maximus kicks against a beam, breaking the dam and causing a huge flood of water to come crashing down on everyone.

Rapunzel and Flynn try to outrun the wave and hide in a small cave, which a falling rock blocks the entrance to. The water slowly fills up the cave as they realise it's a dead end and there's no escape. They try to pull at the rocks to no avail, and Flynn only manages to cut his hand. They both try to look for an escape under the rapidly-rising water, but there's no light in the cave and they can barely see each other above it. As they think they're about to die, Rapunzel cries and apologises to Flynn for dragging him into this, and Flynn admits that his real name is Eugene Fitzherbert, because he thought someone should know before he died. Rapunzel tries to make him feel better by admitting that she has magic hair that glows, only to realise that they can use her hair to search for escape in the dark water. She sings the magic song just as their air pocket disappears, and they end up underwater, where Rapunzel's hair illuminates the cave.

Flynn freaks out about her hair but sees it drifting towards a small opening in the rocks, indicating an air current. They quickly dig their way through and are just about to run out of air when they break through to the outside, the landing in a river. They drag themselves up onto the bank, where Flynn proceeds to really flip out about Rapunzel's hair being magic.

Meanwhile, Gothel is waiting at the tunnel exit for them, but instead of Rapunzel and Eugene, she gets the Stabbington twins. She gives them the princess' crown but tells them that she could give them something worth one thousand crowns and that they can take revenge on Eugene while they're at it.

Back with the other two, Eugene is still shocked about Rapunzel's hair, so she tells him that's not all it can do and, after making him promise not to freak out, wraps her hair around his injured hand and sings the healing song. Eugene tries very hard not to freak out but is still really weirded out when his injury disappears completely. Rapunzel explains to him that Gothel told her when she was young, people tried to cut her hair and steal its magic. She shows him a short lock of brown hair by the nape of her neck, the lock that Gothel cut when she was a baby, and says that when her hair is cut, it loses all of its power. Gothel told her the reason she locked her away from the outside world was to protect her from the people who wanted to steal her hair.

Having given Eugene her background story, she wants to know his too, but Eugene says there's not much to tell, he was an orphan who became a thief and changed his name to Flynn Rider after the hero in a book. He leaves to get firewood, and then Mother Gothel appears behind Rapunzel and tells her to come back to the tower. Rapunzel tells her she wants to stay with Eugene because she likes him and thinks he likes her too. Gothel gets angry and tells her that she's invented the whole romance and that there's no way Eugene could possibly like her. She gives her the satchel with the crown in it and tells her that's the only thing he wants, and that the minute he gets a chance to take it he'll leave her behind. Rapunzel says she's going to give it back to him right then to prove that he won't, and Gothel leaves just as Eugene returns with firewood. Rapunzel starts to give him the satchel, but begins to doubt herself at the last minute, and hides it from her.

The next morning, the two of them wake up to find a dripping-wet Maximus standing over them. Maximus attacks Eugene, but Rapunzel manages to calm him down and begs Maximus to leave him alone for just one day, so he can take her to see the floating lanterns. Maximus is charmed by her, and when she mentions that it's her birthday, he gives in, although he doesn't like it and continues to antagonise Eugene when she isn't looking. They all head out to the island city the palace is in, where Rapunzel gets her first taste of being in a crowd; she keeps bumping into people, and Eugene has to convince some little girls to do Rapunzel's hair up in a braid so she can move around without people stepping on it. Once that's over with, they go around the city, waiting for night to fall. Rapunzel has the time of her life, dancing around and drawing on the street in chalk. As a momento, Eugene buys her a little purple flag with the royal crest on it. As dark begins to fall, they leave Maximus with some apples and Eugene takes her out on the water on a boat so she can get the "best view" of the lanterns.

The king and queen, still heartbroken over their lost daughter after all these years, set out the first lantern, and then everyone in the city does the same. The lanterns float out over the water, and Rapunzel and Eugene are soon surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of beautiful glowing lights. They set off two of their own while singing "I See the Light", a song about how they're beginning to realise their feelings for each other. Rapunzel finally gives Eugene the satchel with the crown, and he reassures her that he won't leave her. He's leaning in to kiss her when he catches sight of the shore behind her and sees the Stabbington twins, who turn and walk off. He doesn't tell Rapunzel what's going on, but he brings the boat up to shore, tells her he'll just be a minute, and goes off with the crown.

He finds the twins, gives them the crown and apologises (albeit in a snarky way) for backstabbing them earlier. Instead of accepting the crown, the twins say they'd rather have the girl, Gothel has told them all about Rapunzel's magical hair. Back on shore, Rapunzel is getting worried at how long Eugene is taking when she sees a silhouette coming out of the fog. She assumes it's him and jokingly says she was afraid he was going to take the crown and run, then the twins emerge from the fog and tell her he did exactly that. They point out a boat heading towards the city with Eugene at the wheel. Rapunzel runs from them, but her braid catches on a branch and she's unable to escape. When they don't come after her, she finds that Mother Gothel has has appeared and hit them with a heavy branch, knocking them out from behind. She's obviously double-crossed them so she can look like she's saving Rapunzel, but Rapunzel doesn't know that. Heartbroken from Eugene's supposed betrayal, she lets Gothel take her home. Meanwhile, the boat with Eugene in it reaches the city dock. Eugene is tied to the wheel with the crown in his hand so that he would be unable  to escape while his silhouette would appear to Rapunzel that he was steering the boat. He is arrested and thrown into prison, facing a sentence of death.

Back at the tower, Rapunzel is laying on her bed, miserable, while Gothel is just happy that things will now go back to the way they were. While she makes dinner, Rapunzel pulls out the little flag Eugene had bought her and looks at the sun-shaped royal crest. Suddenly she realises that the same shape is all over her tower walls, all of her paintings incorporate it somewhere. She has a hazy memory of the shape on a mobile over her crib, of her parents' faces, and of the familiar feeling she'd had when she wore the princess' crown. She realises that she is the lost princess and that Gothel has lied to her this whole time. She storms out of her room and she and Gothel fight. Gothel tries to convince Rapunzel that she's being silly and attempts to pat her head, but Rapunzel firmly grabs her wrist and insists angrily that she will never let Mother Gothel use her hair again. After she wrenches her wrist free, Gothel staggers backward into a mirror, and falls over and shatters. Rapunzel, refusing to back down, turns to leave the tower. Furious, Gothel tells her that if she wants her to be the bad guy, then she can be the bad guy.

Back in the city, Eugene is taken out of his cell to be hanged for his crimes. As they take him down the hallway, he happens to see the Stabbington twins in a cell, they were caught after being double-crossed by Gothel. He knocks away the guards and demands that the twins tell him what happened to Rapunzel, and they tell him the old woman (an aged Gothel) took her. Realising that she's in danger, Eugene tries to escape, but more guards come in and subdue him. They drag him out towards the gallows, but along the way, he catches sight of a tiny ceramic unicorn in a little alcove on a wall. Suddenly the doors slam shut behind and in front of him, are the thugs from the Snuggly Duckling appeared to help Eugene, fighting away the guards. They get him out to the courtyard and using a wagon to catapult him over the jail wall, where he lands on Maximus' back. It turns out Maximus was the one who went to get them, and he will help Eugene find Rapunzel instead of arresting him. They leap off of the palace roof and set off the for the tower.

When they reach the tower, Eugene stands at the base and calls up for Rapunzel. Just as he starts to climb up himself, Rapunzel's hair comes tumbling down, and he uses it to climb up. When he reaches the top, though, he finds Rapunzel chained and gagged, and Gothel appears behind him and stabs him in the stomach with her knife. Gothel kicks open a secret passage and behind to drag Rapunzel out of it, telling her that she's going to take her somewhere where no one will ever find them ever again. Rapunzel gets the gag off and says to Gothel that she will fight her every minute for the rest of her life, but if she lets her use her hair to heal Eugene, then she will go with Gothel quietly, and do whatever she says, and never try to escape. A bleeding-out Eugene protests, but Rapunzel doesn't back down.

Gothel finally agrees and chains Eugene up, too, in case he tries to fight again after being healed. Although he's still protesting and telling her not to throw her life away like this, Rapunzel starts to wrap her hair around his wound in preparation to heal him. He leans in like he's going to give her a last kiss, but just before he doesn, he cuts her hair off with a shard of the broken mirror from earlier. Her hair instantly "dies" and turns brown, and Gothel screams and tries to gather up the rest of the hair, but it loses all its power. She begins to age rapidly and pulls her hood down over her face so no one will see her without her youthful beauty. She can't see where she's going, though, and stumbles blindly around the room; Pascal uses Rapunzel's cut-off hair to trip her and send her tumbling out the window, where she dissolves into dust on the way down.

Meanwhile, Rapunzel is trying to heal Eugene anyway, although with her hair cut the magic won't work. He stops her and tells her that she was his new dream, and she tells him that he was hers. As Eugene dies, Rapunzel sings a longer version of the healing song "The Tear Heals". As she sings, she weeps onto Eugene's face; her tear is absorbed into his skin and begins to glow. Light shoots out from where she cried onto him, and he wakes up again, healed. He tells her he's "got a thing for brunettes", and they finally kiss each other.

At the palace, a guard runs into the room where the king and queen are to tell them that the lost princess has finally been found. They run out to the balcony, where a short-haired Rapunzel and Eugene are waiting. Rapunzel and her parents share a tearful hug, and as Eugene watches, they drag him into it, too.

Eugene narrates the ending, explaining how Rapunzel ruled the kingdom as wisely and benevolently as her parents had, and after years and years of asking, he finally agreed to marry her. Rapunzel's voice cuts in and corrects him, and Eugene admits that it was he who actually asked her. The movie ends with a shot of floating lanterns surrounding the palace, and everyone living happily ever after.

## Cast

* Mandy Moore as Rapunzel
	+ Delaney Rose Stein as Young Rapunzel
* Zachary Levi as Eugene "Flynn Rider" Fitzherbert
* Donna Murphy as Mother Gothel
* Brad Garrett as Hook-Hand Thug
* Ron Perlman and John DiMaggio as The Stabbington Brothers
* Jeffrey Tambor as Big Nose Thug
* Richard Kiel as Vladamir
* M. C . Gainey as Captain of the Guard
* Paul F. Tompkins as Short Thug

Non-speaking animal characters include Rapunzel's pet chameleon Pascal and Maximus, the horse of the head of the palace guard. Other non-speaking roles include Rapunzel's parents (the King and Queen of Corona) and Ulf the Mime Thug.

## Production

On September 10, 2009, it was announced that actress and singer-songwriter Mandy Moore had been cast as the voice of Rapunzel, and actor Zachary Levi would provide the voice of Flynn Rider. Mandy Moore approached the project through auditioning, when she heard that a film about the story of Rapunzel was being made. Moore later expressed that she had dreamed to be a Disney princess since she was young and said that with the role of Rapunzel, she had fulfulled her "ultimate childhood dream". She described herself as a "girly fan" of Disney classics like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King, and that it was an honour for her to be part of this "legacy", the lineage of such Disney icons. Since the film was going to be a musical, it was required that all auditionees had to read several scenes and perform a song of their choice, to ensure that the voice actors could both act and sing. For this singing section, Moore chose "Help Me" by Joni Mitchell, a song that she herself had covered on her fourth studio album, Coverage (2003). Moore revealed that she had to attend several audition sessions and described the experiences as "pretty fun" but didn't put much hope in getting the part because she believed there would be much competition for this role; she just performed her best without any anxiety. When she received a callback from Disney telling that she got the part, Moore described herself as being "over the moon", "I was working in New York at the time. I was with some friends and my husband, and I screamed as soon as I found out the news."

The film reportedly cost more than $260 million to produce.

### **Recording**

In Tangled, as with most animated films, all voice actors had to record their dialogue separately from one another to avoid bleeding into each other's tracks. Mandy Moore later recalled that during recording, she had never met Donna Murphy and only met Zachary Levi once when they recorded "I See the Light". Moore thought that this was "a good exercise in employing your imagination". When recording action scenes, the voice actors had to job a little in place in order to make their voices sound realistic. For the songs, Moore and Levi recorded on a soundstage with a 65-piece orchestra under the supervision of composer Alan Menken. They sang live with the orchestra for several times in order to help everyone "get a vibe" and a feel for the music and the singing, then were asked to go in isolation booths to record the actual tracks. In order to aid animators in animating the characters, the filmmakers did interviews with the voice actors and filmed their facial expressions throughout the recording sessions. Disney animated films are usually animated to synchronise with recorded dialogue rather than asking the vocal talent to synchronise their delivery to animation after it is rendered. Thus, Moore felt that the recording process was challenging because at that time she had no animation to look at except for a few sketches.

Due to scheduling conflicts with other projects (Moore had to travel to different places like London or New York, and Levi could only record on weekends for five hours once every six weeks), they did not necessarily record dialogue in the same order as in the final film. "(When I came in), maybe that sequence or scene had been recorded by Mandy already, maybe it hadn't. We'd end up doing the same scene five times, depending," Levi said. After watching the finished film, Moore was disappointed because she felt that her voice sounded "shrill", while Levi thought that his performance sounded "incredibly nasally".

### **Animation**

The film was made using computer-generated imagery (CGI), although Tangled was modelled on the traditional look of oil paintings on canvas. The Rococo paintings of French artist Jean-Honore Fragonard, particularly The Swing, were used as references for the film's artistic style, a style described by Keane as "romantic and lush." To create the impression of a painting, non-photorealistic rendering was used.

Glen Keane originally wanted the film to be animated using a tradition 2-D animation process. However, Disney executives David Stainton and Dick Cook announced that they would only approve the film for production if it were created using the 3-D computer graphics. In response to that demand, Glen Keane held a seminar called "The Best of Both Worlds", where he, with 50 Disney CGI artists and traditional artists, focused on the pros and cons of each style. After the meeting, it was decided that the film would be made in 3-D CG animation, but in a way as to become an extension of the traditional 2-D Disney "aesthetic", a term which referred to the naturalistic animation that conforms to the fundamental principles of animation as documented by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in the book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation.

Due to limitations in computer technology, especially regarding attempts to capture the compexity of a human form, many basic principles of animation used in traditionally animated movies had been absent from earlier CGI films; but technological advancements have made it easier to blend the two, combining the strengths of each style. Keane stated repeatedly he was trying to make the computer "bend its knee to the artist" instead of having the computer dictate the artistic style and look of the film. By making the computer become as "pliable as the pencil", Keane's vision of a "three-dimensional drawing" seemed within reach, with the artist controlling the technology. Many of the techniques and tools that were required to give the film the quality Keane demanded did not exist when the project was started, and Walt Disney Animation Studios had to create them on their own. Keane said, "There's no photoreal hair. I was luscious hair, and we are inventing new ways of doing that. I want to bring the warmth and intuitive feel of hand-drawn to CGI."

One of the main goals of the animators was to create movement that mimicked the soft fluidity of the hand-drawn art found in older Disney animated films. Keane credited Disney 3-D animator Kyle Strawitz with helping to combine CGI with the traditional hand-drawn style. "He took the house from Snow White and built it are painted it so it looked like a flat painting that suddenly started to movie, and it had dimension and kept all of the soft, round curves of the brushstrokes of watercolour. Kyle helped us get that Fragonard look of that girl on the swing... We are using subsurface scattering and global illumination and all of the latest techniques to pull off convincing human characters and rich environments."

Rather than focusing on realism, the 3-D team used an aesthetic approach. Robert Newman, the film's stereoscopic supervisor said that "We're using depth more artistically than ever before, and we're not as concerned with the literal transcription of depth between camera and projector as we are the interpretation of it." To do this, they used a new technique called multi-rigging, which is made up of multiple pairs of virtual cameras. Each pair is used individually on each separate element that adds depth to a scene, like background, foreground, and characters, without adjusting for the relation with the other pairs. When sandwiched together later in production, the result was something that would be visually impossible in the real world, but which created an appealing look to the film.

As a counterpart to the appealing and cute design of Rapunzel, the directors wanted to make Flynn Rider "the most handsome, most attractive male lead Disney has ever had." They held a large "Hot Man Meeting" where they gathered about 30 women from the studio and asked them what they considered attractive in a man. They brought in hundreds of images of their favourite male actors and celebrities, which were torn and pasted back again. After much deliberation, his look was eventually narrowed down to one concept drawing.

#### **Technology Development**

Existing technology continued to present difficulties, in particular, animating hair turned out to be challege. Senior software engineer Kelly Ward spent six years writing programs to make it move the way they wanted. As late as January 2010, the directors were still not sure if the Rapunzel character's length of hair was going to work. These problems were finally solved in March, an improved version of a hair simulation program named Dynamic Wires, originally developed for Bolt, was eventually used. To make hair float believably in water, and to surmound other similar challenges, discrete differential geometry was used to produce the desired effects, freeing the animators from executive these specific tasks directly, which would have taken days instead of minutes.

### **Development**

Glen Keane, the film's original director, first began working on the story for what became Tangled about 14 years prior to its release, then directed the film's development from 2002 to 2008. In October 2003, the film was announced as Rapunzel Unbraided, as a computer animated feature scheduled for a 2007 release which Keane described as "a Shrek-like version of the film" that revolved around an entirely different concept. Keane said of the original plot, "It was a fun, wonderful, witty version and we had a couple of great writers. But in my heart of hearts I believed there was something much more sincere and genuine to get out of the story, so we set it aside and went back to the roots of the original fairytale." In November 2005, Unbraided was pushed back to a summer 2009 release in order to give Keane "more time to work on the story." According to Ed Catmull, at one point Michael Eisner himself had proposed using modern-day San Francisco as the initial setting at the start of the film and then somehoew transporting the heroine into a fairytale world, but Keane could not make that idea work. The film was shut down about a week before Catmull and John Lasseter were placed in charge of the studio in January 2006, and one of their first decisions was to restart the project and ask Keane to keep going with the film. It had originally been announced in April 2007 that Annie-nominated animator and story artist Dean Wellins would be co-directing the film alongside Glen Keane. On October 9, 2008, it was reported that Keane and Wellins had stepped down as directors due to other commitments, and were replaced by the team of Byron Howard and Nathan Greno, director and storyboard director, respectively, of Disney's 2008 animated feature Bolt. Keane stayed on as an executive producer and animation supervisor, while Wellins moved on to developing other short and feature films. After the film's release, Keane revealed that he had "stepped back" from the role of director because of a heart attack in 2008.

### **Writing and Character Development**

When asked about the character of Rapunzel, Mandy Moore said that Rapunzel was a relatable character and called her a "Renaissance, bohemian" woman rather than a typical Disney princess, "She doesn't know she's a princess (until the end of the film). She's just really sort of motivated to find out what else is out there beyond this crazy tower she's lived in for 18 years," and that" she's very independent, she can take care of herself, and she's definitely come up with really entertaining ways to keep herself busy". Moore also stated that she herself had little influences on Rapunzel, "The character was developed way before I had anything to do with it."

According to Greno, one of the most difficult problems during the development of the film's plot was how to get Rapunzel out of the tower without immediately ending the movie, in that she had thereby escaped Mother Gothel and did not have any other specific objectives to pursue. At a meeting one day, animator John Ripa floated an idea which turned out to be the solution they had been looking for, a mysterious floating lanterns.

### **Music**

The original score for the film was composed by Alan Menken with lyrics written by Glenn Slater.

Menken said he attempted to blend medieval music with 1960s folk rock to create the new songs.

Several songs were written, but eventually cut from the final film, "When Will My Life Begin?" replaced an earlier version called "What More Could I Ever Need?". Menken reported that the opening number went through five or six different versions.

Elsewhere, Menken reported that there was originally a love song called "You Are My Forever" that Mother Gothel sang to Rapunzel in a motherly way, but was reprised later in the film by Flynn Rider in a romantic way. This idea was apprently replaced with the two songs "Mother Knows Best" and "I See the Light".

The song "Something That I Want" performed by Grace Potter from Grace Potter and the Nocturnals is featured in the closing credits. This version features some of the lyrics that were re-written and sung by Potter herself. The Latin American Spanish version of the song, titled "Algo quiero querer", was recorded by Columbian pop-singer, Fanny Lu.

The soundtrack peaked at number 44 on the Billboard 200, number 7 on the Soundtrack chart, and number 3 on the Kid Albums chart.

## Release

### **Home Media**

See Also: Tangled (Video)

Tangled was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment as a four-disc combo pack on March 29, 2011. The combo pack includes a Blu-ray 3-D, standard Blu-ray, DVD and digital copy. A two-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo pack and single DVD are also available. Bonus features for the Blu-ray include deleted scenes, two alternate opening sequences, two extended songs, and an inside look at how the film was made. The DVD includes only the two Original Storybook Openings and the 50th Animated Feature Countdown.

Sales of Tangled in the U.S. and Canada exceeded $95 million in DVD and Blu-ray sales, the highest grossing DVD of the year 2011; its home video sales exceeded the film's earnings in its first week in theaters. The film sold a record 2,970,052 units (the equivalent of $44,521,079) in its first week in North America, the largest opening for a 2011 DVD. It dominated for two weeks on the DVD sales chart and sold 6,657,331 units ($102,154,692) as of July 18, 2012. It has also sold 2,518,522 Blu-ray units ($59,220,275) by May 29, 2011. As of January 20, 2016, the film has earned a total of $215 million in home video sales in the United States and Canada ($155 from DVD sales and $60 million from Blu-ray sales).

## Reception

### **Box Office**

Tangled premiered in Paris on November 17, exclusively screening at the Grand Rex theatre two weeks in advance of its French wide release. With over 3,800 tickets sold on its opening day, it set a new record for films showing in a single theater. It had a worldwide opening weekend of $86.1 million, and reached the summit of the worldwide box office once, on its eleventh weekend (February 4-6, 2011) with $24.9 million. Tangled earned $200,821,936 in North America, and $390,973,000 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $591,794,936. It was the third Disney film appearing in the Top 10 films of 2010. As of 2016, it was the fifth highest-grossing film worldwide produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, behind Frozen, Zootopia, The Lion King and Big Hero 6.

Tangled earned $11.9 million on its opening Wednesday, breaking the record for the largest pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday opening, a record previously held by Disney Pixar's Toy Story 2. In its first weekend of release, it earned $48.8 million (the highest opening for Walt Disney Animation Studios, surpassing The Lion King ($40.9 million), and later surpassed by both Wreck-It Ralph ($49 million) and Frozen ($67.4 million), placing second for the period behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1, which earned $49.1 million. Tangled had the sixth highest opening weekend for a film that did not debut at #1. Over the traditional Wednesday-Sunday Thanksgiving holiday period, it tallied $68.7 million, again finishing in second place. Tangled also marked the second largest 3-day and 5-day Thanksgiving opening after Toy Story 2. During its second weekend (post-Thanksgiving), Tangled declined 56% to $21.6 million, although it jumped to first place at the box office. With a final gross of $200.8 million, it is the tenth highest-grossing film of 2010, and the tenth 2010 film to pass the $200 million mark; it was the fourth slowest film to pass this mark. Unadjusted for unflation, it is the sixth highest-grossing film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, behind The Lion King ($422.8 million), Frozen ($400.7 million), Big Hero 6 ($221.3 million), Beauty and the Beast ($219 million) and Aladdin ($217.4 million).

On its opening weekend, it earned $17.4 million in eight territories and ranked second for the weekend behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 ($117.3 million). It reached first place at the weekend box office outside North America three times in 2011. It marked the seventh highest-grossing 2010 film and the third highest-grossing 2010 animated film. In Russia and the CIS, it set an opening-weekend record among non-sequel animated films (first surpassed by Rio) and among Walt Disney Animation Studios films (surpassed by Frozen). Its highest-grossing markets outside North America was Germany ($44.2 million), where it is the highest-grossing 2010 animated film, followed by France and the Maghreb region ($39.4 million) and the UK, Ireland and Malta ($32.9 million).

### **Critical Reception**

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 89% based on 216 reviews and an average score of 7.5/10. The site's consensus is, "While far from Disney's greatest film, Tangled is a visually stunning, thoroughly entertaining addition to the studio's classic animated canon." Another review aggregator Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score from 0-100 out of reviews from mainstream film critics, calculated a score of 71 based on 34 reviews. According to CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, the average grade cinemagoers gave Tangled was an "A+" on an A+ to F scale.

A. O. Scott of The New York Times positively reviewed the film as "the 50th animated feature from Disney, and its look and spirit convey a modified, updated but nonetheless sincere and unmistakable quality of old-fashioned Disneyness." Time film critic Richard Corliss wrote that Tangled "wades into the DreamWorks style of sitcom gags and anachronistic sass," while praising the film for achieving "the complex mix of romance, comedy, adventure and heart that defines the best Disney features." Corliss included Tangled at 19 in a list of top 25 All-time Best Animated films. Kenneth Turan from The Los Angeles Times awarded the film four stars out of five; he described the film as a "gorgeous computer-animated look that features rich landscapes and characters that look fuller and more lifelike than they have in the past." Sandie Angulo Chen of Common Sense Media gave the film five out of five stars, writing, "Fantastic princess adventure is fun, with great messages." Gael Cooper of NBC News expressed that Tangled may be the best Disney film of all time.

James Berardinelli commented on his review website ReelViews that the film is "entertaining and enjoyable, but not groundbreaking." He also stated Rapunzel is "not as memorable as Snow White, Ariel or Belle" as well as stating "the songs are neither catchy nor memorable." Todd McCarthy, film reviewer for The Hollywood Reporter opened his review with, "It would have been nice if Disney's self-touted 50th animated feature were one of its best, a film that could stand with the studio's classics, but the world will have to make do with Tangled, a passably entertaining hodgepodge of old and new animation techniques, mixed sensibilities and hedged commercial calculations.

#### **Music**

Music in the film received mixed reviews. Bill Graham from Collider.com praised them for their variations to the tempo and tone, memorable lyrics, and "blending old with new," however, he also stated that "the film's constant mixture of tones can feel a bit off-putting for some." Roth Cornet from ScreenRant was positive towards them, saying that "Alan Menken's music is as catchy, uplifting and effecting as one would expect." Scott of The New York Times positively reviewed the music, saying that it "takes you back to a charmed world of swoony longing and sprightly mischief," with a slick and efficient atmosphere and grace notes of self-conscious classicism. Corliss from Time was also positive to the songs, noting that though "don't sound on first hearing like top-drawer Menken," the songs still "smoothly fill their functions." He described the opener "When Will My Life Begin?", as the "heroine's 'I wanna' song," a Disney tradition that stretches back to Snow White's "Some Day My Prince Will Come." "I See the Light" was described as "a generically tuneful love ballad, which is sure to be nominated for a Best Song Oscar."

James Berardinelli, on the other hand, negatively commented the songs as "neither catchy nor memorable." Tim Tobey from The Daily Telegraph gave a negative review, saying that they were only "OK - there's nothing you want to whistle on the way home." Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian, who gave the movie two out of five stars, described the songs as "sporting a laboured selection of Broadway-style show tunes," and hence are actually added for profit.

#### **Title Change Controversy**

When first put into production, the film was promoted as having the title Rapunzel Unbraided, which was later changed to Rapunzel. Disney's previous animated feature The Princess and the Frog in 2009, while being well-received by various critics and taking in nearly $270 million worldwide was not as successful as Disney had hoped. Catmull would later admit in writing that Disney Animation's faith that The Princess and the Frog's excellent quality would bring in all audiences notwithstanding the word "princess" in the title was their version of "a stupid pill." In order to market the film to both sexes and additional age groups, Disney changed the film's name from Rapunzel to Tangled while also emphasising Flynn Rider, the film's prominent male character, showing that his story is just as important as Rapunzel's. Disney was criticised for altering the classic title as a marketing strategy. Floyd Norman, a former Disney and Pixar animator and story artist, said, "The idea of changing the title of a classic like Rapunzel to Tangled is beyond stupid. I'm convinced they'll gain nothing from this except the public seeing Disney as desperately trying to find an audience."

Justin Chang of Variety compared it to changing the title of The Little Mermaid to Beached. Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle's blog, Margot Magowan accused Disney of sexism, writing, "Can you imagine if Disney... switched a movie title so it wouldn't risk highlighting a male star? It's awful that this kind of radical gender discrimination exists for our smallest people - little kids who come into this world with huge imaginations and aspirations, big dreams that get squashed by a bunch of billionaire guys who run massive entertainment franchises."

On November 24, 2010, the day of the film's release, directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard disputing reports that the title change was a marketing decision. They said they changed the title from Rapunzel to Tangled because Rapunzel is not the only main character in the film. They went on to say that you cannot call Toy Story "Buzz Lightyear," and they really needed a title that represented what the film is, and that it's a duo, and it stars Rapunzel and Flynn Rider.

In March 2014, executive producer John Lasseter explained that Disney had changed the name to improve the film's appeal to the four quadrants, "There was an audience perception that these movies were just for little girls, but when boys, men, whatever actually see these movies they like them. So on Rapunzel... we changed the name and we called it Tangled. We did marketing that made the people who would not normally show up say, 'Hey, this looks pretty good."

### **Awards and Nominations**

The film has been nominated for a number of awards. Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominated Tangled for two Golden Globe Awards, for Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Song for "I See the Light", but lost to Toy Story 3 and Burlesque respectively. The film also received two nominations for the Broadcast Film Critics Association in the same categories, though lost to Toy Story 3 and 127 Hours, as well as nominations for two Annie Awards, for Best Animated Feature Film and for Writing in a Feature Production.

Tangled was also nominated for two Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards, Best Animated Film and Best Original Song for "I've Got a Dream," which it lost to Toy Story 3 and Burlesque. "I See the Light" has been nominated for Best Original Song at the 83rd Academy Awards, but lost to "We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3. It has also been nominated for 37th Saturn Award for Best Animated Film.

Tangled won best 3-D scene of the year at the second annual International 3-D Society Creative Arts Awards.

Tangled was also nominated for favourite film in the British Academy Children Awards for Favourite Film, competing against films like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Parts 1 & 2, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Cars 2 and Kung Fu Panda 2.

## Merchandise

A video game based on the film was released on November 23, 2010, for Nintendo DS, Wii, and PC platforms by Disney Interactive Studios.

## Other Appearances

### **Short Film**

Disney released a short film in 2012 titled Tangled Ever After. The plot revolves around Rapunzel and Eugene's wedding day.

### **Television Series**

A television series, Tangled: The Series will premiere on Disney Channel on March 24, 2017, after it was preceded with a television movie titled "Tangled: Before Ever After" on March 10, 2017.

### **Musical**

An abridged stage adaptation entitled Tangled: The Musical premiered on board the Disney Magic of the Disney Cruise Line in November 2015, featuring three new songs wrote by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater.

### **Cancelled Sequel**

In December 2014, Tangled's producer Roy Conli revealed that the production team had been "heavily pushed" for a feature-length sequel to the film, but when the writers and directors got together to develop one, they realised "she cut her hair. It's over!" Conli explained that at Disney Animation under John Lasseter, it is always the filmmakers who decide whether they are ready to make a sequel (not marketing or merchandising). In January 2015, Conli again provided a similar explanation when pressed on this point, and also mentioned that directors Greno and Howard ultimately "weren't really interested" in following up on the story.

**Films:** **Tangled** | Tangled Ever After | Tangled: Before Ever After
**Television:** Tangled: The Series
**Locations:** Rapunzel's Castle | The Snuggly Duckling | Corona | Corona Castle
**Music:** Tangled (Soundtrack)
**Video Games:** Tangled (Video Game)