One of the first Disney movies that came out when Shane was little was Tangled, and it quickly became one of our favorites. It played often at our house, I included a song from it as a major part of our wedding, and it was a regular during our family movie nights- and though we are yet to grow old of the movie or Rapunzel’s story, over the years we have definitely wished there was more to her story.
Luckily, we’re finally getting our wish- two-fold! First with Tangled: Before Ever After, a new Disney Channel Original Movie, and after with Tangled: The Series, where we’ll get to have lots more adventures with Rapunzel, Eugene, Pascal, Maximus, and more!
Tangled: Before Ever After premieres TONIGHT! Earlier this week I was able to chat with Executive Producer/Supervising Director Chris Sonnenburg and Supervising Producer Ben Balistreri and they told us all about the reason they decided to continue Rapunzel’s story, the inspiration for the different animation style, and more!
What made you decide to continue with Rapunzel and her story?
Chris Sonnenburg: There was this moment at the end of the movie where they meet and they fall in love. And then there’s the short, Tangled: Ever After, where they get married. And just looking at the two of those moments I was wondering- what happened? Did they get to know each other a little bit more? What happened in between that time? There’s this great line at the end of the movie where Eugene Fitzherbert says, “After years and years of asking and asking I finally said yes.” There’s a fun line that he says there which he might be joking about but I also think maybe there was some time in between there.
It started to become: “What do I have to say about this time in these people’s lives- and young people’s lives- about getting to know yourself, getting to know the people in your lives, getting to understand your relationship with your parents?” If the kids that had seen the movie in 2010 were maybe 10 at the time, then they’re probably getting to be about 17 years old and they might want to know how this character that [they] loved so much as a kid is coming to grips with this part of her life. And that was for me why to tell the story and how to tell the story.
Those teen years are kind of tough. Where are you getting your inspiration from?
Chris Sonnenburg: You mean when I go home at night at 7 o’clock and I hear the drama that is coming from my two daughters? In any kind of story. especially telling stories the way Disney always tells stories, there’s such a wonderful truth to the stories and there’s always magic and excitement and the fairytale aspect of our stories. But what really is the driving force between the best Disney stories is the truth of them.
When we’re telling these stories, of course we’re going to have the long hair and the mythology and the magic and what’s going to be happening in the fun part of it. But if we don’t tell that heart story and that real story about these real characters, then we’re missing our opportunity. Whenever I go home and my daughters are telling me about their friends and the boys they’re dealing with and they’re arguing with me about something and my wife and I are talking or disagreeing about how to do something with them, those are the things that hopefully we’re pouring into the stories. The kids are going to have fun watching the magic but the parents and hopefully the older kids will have a better view into the stories, the emotional sides of it.
Rapunzel is back to blonde. Why was that decision made?
Chris Sonnenburg: Ultimately her name’s Rapunzel, right, long blonde hair. If you’re going to tell a story about the Hulk you’re not going to tell it about a dog- he’s got to be big and green. I think Rapunzel has to have long blonde hair for it to kind of just read as the character. Really for me the trick about it and what ultimately was the trick for the filmmakers in the original movie was to give the hair a reason for being blonde and for being long and in our case, being uncuttable.
The big story, the big question that we always ask in the story was always why. Why do these things exist? Why are we telling the story? Her hair represents her personality- it’s bigger than life, it’s bright, it’s long, it shines, it’s magical. It’s pretty much who Rapunzel is. Then the added layer of it, which is it being unbreakable, has its own reason for being that we’re going to get into as we go along in the story. But it should always go back to serving the purpose of why does it exist this way.
The design style is much different than it is in the movie. What was the inspiration for the design for the series?
Ben Balistreri: Chris and I both come from old-school traditional, 2-D Disney background. We both started a little over 20 years ago, and so just our passion for that feeling of a good Disney traditional animated film really drove us early on. Then just from a bigger story point we really sat down and we were like, if this is Rapunzel telling her story, by the time this whole series is over, this should really feel like Rapunzel told us her story.
And how would she tell us that story? She’s not going to sit down in computer programs and be typing zeros and ones in getting mathematical equations down for our rig. She’s going to sit down and actually do it herself. So, we really embraced the whole ideological side of doing a 2-D series. There’s little dry brushstrokes that should feel like she painted it. The lines that surround everything and inside, we use a very rough line quality to really give a tactile sense of sketching. We lay off gradients as much as possible. They pop up here and there, but we kind of stayed away in place of feeling like it really feels like a storybook come to life just because we really want to make it feel like she is the person that’s telling you this story.
I love the journal aspect. Is there any special meaning behind that quote at the beginning?
Chris Sonnenburg: It’s two things. Number one, again, I’m very much fed by my daughters. My older daughter had gone on this trip to Mexico with a huge group of people to build houses for people, for kids in Mexico. She had just turned 14, and she was going on this big trip. I didn’t know if she was ready for it. I didn’t know if I was ready for it. And there seemed to be this kind of like questioning of, is she prepared for this? Is she ready for this life of traveling beyond the borders and all this huge life excitement?
And she went and she had come back and they had given her these journals to take notes and get to know people. When she had come back, the little journal was completely covered in drawings of the little girls that she met and how she learned how to put a hinge on a door and she learned how to do all this fun stuff and she dropped her phone in water. She kept all these drawings of her journey. And I was like- that’s what Rapunzel would do. She’s very creative. She’s very much a storyteller and that’s how she would do it. So, we immediately said well, let’s give Rapunzel a journal that she can keep record because she’s going to want to paint on the road.
So, we gave her this journal and then the added element of the inscription came very much from the movie. Glenn Keane, who created the character of Rapunzel for the film, had come and I was talking to him about what we wanted to do with the show and he had done this quick drawing for me. I said give me a drawing that’s going to encourage me years after we go into the show. And he had done this beautiful drawing of Rapunzel and on it he wrote, ‘Plus est en vous,’ and I was like, what is that? And he says “Well, in the movie, we had this phrase that we were using just in the story rooms. At the end of the movie, all of her magic is gone but she squeezes out one last drop of magic out of her.” He said the meaning behind that is that we all have more in us- that we can push through it. When you feel like you’re at the end of your ropes, if you can’t give any more, push through and there’s always more inside of you.
I thought that was such a beautiful sentiment and I thought that the mother would give it to Rapunzel as like, “Listen, everybody has these expectations of you of a princess, of a daughter, of a girlfriend. But there’s more in you than everybody else has expected of you. Show the world what that is and keep record of that in this journal.”
So, the phrase means there’s more in everybody. There’s more inside of Eugene. There’s more inside of Pascal. There’s more inside of Corona than everybody just sees on the surface. There’s even tunnels underneath Corona, and even the tunnels have that thing- there’s more in Corona. We try and put that in every aspect. So, the journal is very much a part of the large story for the show and for who Rapunzel is herself.
You can see the first five minutes of Tangled: Before Ever After right now! Check out the video below:
Be sure to catch Tangled: Before Ever After tonight at 8:00pm/7:00pm Central on Disney Channel- and keep an eye out for Tangled: The Series, coming March 24th at 7:30pm/6:30pm Central! Oh, and for some fun behind-the-scenes shots be sure to follow @FollowPascal on Instagram!