Enchanted is a 2007 American fantasy-musical film, produced and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures in association with Right Coast Productions and Josephson Entertainment. Written by Bill Kelly and directed by Kevin Lima, the film stars Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, Idina Menzel, Rachel Covey, and Susan Sarandon. It premiered on October 20, 2007, at the London Film Festival before its wide release on November 21, 2007, in the United States.
This is the first Disney movie to be distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures instead of Buena Vista, due to Disney semi-retiring the name in May 2007, making all other future Disney movies permanently distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
The plot focuses on Giselle, an archetypal Disney Princess, who is forced from her traditional animated world of Andalasia into the live-action world of New York City. The film is both an homage to, and a self-parody of, conventional Walt Disney Animated Classics, making numerous references to Disney's past and future works through the combination of live action filmmaking, traditional animation, and computer-generated imagery. It heralds the return of traditional animation to a Disney feature film after the company's decision to move entirely to computer animation in 2004. Composer Alan Menken and lyricist Stephen Schwartz, who had written songs for previous Disney films, produced the songs of Enchanted, with Menken also composing its score.
Enchanted was well-received critically, and received two nominations at the 65th Golden Globe Awards and three nominations at the 80th Academy Awards. The film earned more than $340 million worldwide at the box office.
A sequel, Disenchanted, was released on Disney+ on November 18, 2022.
Plot[]
Giselle (Amy Adams) lives in the blissful and traditionally-animated fairytale world of Andalasia, where animals are talkative companions and musical interludes punctuate nearly every interaction, characters breaking into song and "happily ever after" a foregone conclusion. Prince Edward (James Marsden), her designated true love which he hears her voice in the forest, saves her from a troll and they plan to get married the next day. However, Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), Edward's evil stepmother, schemes to protect her throne, which she will lose her claim to the throne once Prince Edward is married which is why she sends him to capture monsters or trolls in the kingdom. The next day, when Giselle arrives at the palace, Narissa disguises herself as an old hag. She then throws Giselle down a well and into a magic portal that transports her to a world "where there are no happily ever afters" - Earth.
As Giselle falls down the well, she transforms into a live action version of herself and emerges through a manhole in Times Square in modern-day, live-action New York City, and after a turn of events, she meets Robert Philip (Patrick Dempsey), a hardened, yet friendly divorce lawyer who is at first reluctant to help her find her way home. At his daughter Morgan's (Rachel Covey) insistence, Robert lets Giselle stay at their apartment despite believing that she is crazy and worrying about the safety of his daughter. Following the ways of her fairy-tale world, Giselle recruits urban animals in the city – pigeons, cockroaches, and rats – to help her clean his apartment while she fashions a dress out of his curtains. Robert reaches the end of his patience when Giselle unintentionally causes an argument between him and Robert's fiancée, a fashion designer named Nancy (Idina Menzel), who misunderstands the situation and runs off after arguing with Robert.
At Robert's law firm, his secretary (Jodi Benson) tries to find Giselle transportation home, but cannot locate Andalasia. After getting told off by his boss and clients for the drama which is inadvertently caused by Giselle making a scene at work by crying over the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Banks are getting a divorce which is the straw that broke the camel's back, Robert decides he must part with Giselle in Central Park and then offers her some money. However, Giselle almost immediately gives it to an old woman who happened to have encountered Prince Edward slaying a city bus that morning, while searching for his lost bride. Deciding that Giselle needs his protection, Robert rejoins her. While walking through the park, Giselle questions Robert on how he displays his affection for Nancy and spontaneously starts the musical production number of "That's How You Know" with many performers in the park joining her. Giselle eventually helps Robert reconcile with Nancy by sending flowers to her with the help of two dove birds, along with tickets to the King's and Queen's Ball which Nancy loves.
Meanwhile, Narissa's henchman Nathaniel (Timothy Spall) follows Edward and a talking chipmunk named Pip, who have journeyed to New York to rescue Giselle. Nathaniel makes his first attempt to kill Giselle by giving her a poisoned caramel apple but is foiled when she inadvertently flings it onto the helmet of a passing bicyclist. Nathaniel and the prince then spend a night at a cheap motel, where Nathaniel questions his adoring but a servile relationship with Narissa after watching a soap opera. Finding Giselle and Robert at an Italian restaurant, Nathaniel serves her a poisoned apple martini. Although Pip is unable to speak coherently in the real world and has trouble alerting the Prince to Nathaniel's intentions, he foils Nathaniel's plot. Infuriated by these failures, Narissa goes to New York City to kill Giselle.
As Giselle and Robert spend more time together, Giselle discovers that the real world is much more complicated than she realized, while Robert is affected by her optimism and idealism. After a brief argument with Robert, Giselle realizes her own emotional growth and her growing feelings towards him. Edward continues to look for Giselle and eventually finding her at Robert's apartment. While Edward is eager to take Giselle home and marry, she insists that they first go on a date, which she has learned is customary in the real world. They end their date and attend the King's and Queen's Costume Ball which they go to after Giselle and Morgan spend the day shopping. After Nancy and Edward pair off to dance, Giselle dances with Robert. During their dance, Giselle realizes that Robert is her true love as he, very softly, sings the song's lyrics to her. Edward and Nancy seem to realize the attraction between Giselle and Robert and also discover a mutual attraction for each other. Unbeknownst to them, Narissa has traveled to New York from Andalasia. Narissa disguises herself as the old hag again and tricks Giselle into eating a poison apple. Giselle is rendered unconscious. Narissa tries to get away but is stopped by Edward in time before she can escape with Giselle's body.
Nathaniel exposes Narissa's plot, admits his deeds, and reveals that one must kiss Giselle by midnight to break the poison apple's spell, or Giselle will die. After Edward's kiss fails to wake Giselle up, Robert (with Nancy's permission and encouragement) kisses and revives her just in time. Giselle admits that she knew Robert has been her true love all along. Narissa uses the distracting moment to break free. Deciding to write her own ending to the story, she transforms into a dragon. When Robert protects Giselle, Narissa takes Robert hostage, luring Giselle out the window and up to the top of the Woolworth Building to kill her. However, with Pip's involvement (that happened earlier in the movie), Narissa falls to her death, gets impaled and is in flames near where Edward, Nancy, and Nathaniel see at, and exploding into magic dust at street level. Giselle catches Robert, and they manage to keep from sliding off the roof, ending in a romantic embrace.
Edward finds Giselle's discarded shoe and places it on Nancy's foot (like Cinderella), it becomes a perfect fit. They happily leave for Andalasia to be married. Giselle uses her magical dress-making talents to run a successful New York boutique, assisted by both humans and animals. Both Nathaniel (in New York) and Pip (in Andalasia) become successful authors, writing self-help books based on their experiences. The last scene shows Giselle, Robert, and Morgan playing and living happily ever after together as a family.
Cast[]
Amy Adams stars in Enchanted.
- Amy Adams as Giselle. A princess-to-be who ends up almost having her dream of meeting her prince a reality. Adams was announced to have been cast in the role of Giselle on November 14, 2005. Although the studio was looking for a film star in the role, director Kevin Lima insisted on casting a lesser-known actress. Out of the 300 or so actresses who auditioned for the role, Adams stood out to Lima because not only did she look like "a Disney princess" but her "commitment to the character, her ability to escape into the character's being without ever judging the character was overwhelming." Hailing from Andalasia, Giselle displays similar traits to the Disney Princesses; Lima describes her as "about 80% Snow White, with some traits borrowed from Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty... although her spunkiness comes from Ariel a.k.a. The Little Mermaid." She is "eternally optimistic and romantic" but is also "very independent and true to her convictions". Over the course of the film, she becomes more mature but maintains her innocence and optimism.
- Patrick Dempsey as Robert Philip. A cynical, New York City divorce attorney who doesn't believe in true love or happily-ever-after, or understands his daughter, Morgan. Lima cast Dempsey after Disney was satisfied with the casting of Adams but had wanted more well-known actors in the film. Dempsey, whose starring role on TV series Grey's Anatomy had earned him the nickname "McDreamy", was described by Lima as "a modern-day Prince Charming to today's audience". The role was challenging for Dempsey because he had to play the straight man to Adams' and Marsden's more outrageous characters.
- James Marsden as Prince Edward. A narcissistic and athletic prince who ends up confused with the world of New York once entering it. Marsden was announced to have been cast on December 6, 2005. At the time Marsden was auditioning, the role of Robert had not been cast but he decided to pursue the role of Prince Edward because he was "more fun and [he] responded more to that character." Edward is the Prince of Andalasia and stepson of Queen Narissa. He is "very pure, very simple-minded and naive, but innocently narcissistic."
- Timothy Spall as Nathaniel. Nathaniel is a servant of Queen Narissa, who controls him through his infatuation with her and his own lack of self-esteem. He initially does Narissa's bidding, but ultimately realizes her true nature and rebels against her. He has a penchant for disguises. This is the first of two Disney films Timothy Spall has been in, the other being Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in which he was the voice of Bayard the Bloodhound.
- Idina Menzel as Nancy Tremaine, Robert's fiancée. Once Giselle falls in love with Robert, she falls for and leaves with Edward. Menzel, who is well known for her Broadway musical roles in Wicked and Rent, was offered the role of Nancy Tremaine. Since the role did not require any singing, Menzel said in an interview that "it was a compliment to be asked to just be hired on [her] acting talents alone." Nancy is a fashion designer and Robert's girlfriend. She is named after Lady Tremaine, the stepmother from Cinderella. Like Adams, Benson, O'Hara, and Kuhn before her, Menzel went on to play a Disney Princess: Elsa in Frozen, which she worked with director Chris Buck, who previously directed Tarzan with Lima in 1999.
- Rachel Covey as Morgan Philip. Morgan is Robert's 6-year-old daughter. Despite her father misunderstanding her and telling her otherwise, she believes in fairy tales and believes that magic exists.
- Susan Sarandon as Queen Narissa. She is the ruling Queen of Andalasia and an evil sorceress with a hatred for Giselle; Edward's stepmother and the film's main antagonist. Sarandon had been attracted to the project prior to Lima's involvement as director. Since Sarandon's on-screen time was relatively short, it took only two weeks to film her scenes. Narissa's mannerisms, characteristics, powers, and physical features were inspired by such classical Disney villainesses as the Queen Grimhilde and Maleficent. Sissy Spacek, Anjelica Huston, and Mary Steenburgen were in close competition for the part.
- Jeff Bennett and Kevin Lima as Pip. Bennett provided the voice for the 2D-animated Pip in the animated scenes while Lima provided the voice for the computer-generated Pip in the live-action scenes. Pip, a chipmunk friend of Giselle who has no trouble expressing himself through speech in Andalasia, loses his ability to speak in the real world and must communicate by acting.
- Jon McLaughlin as himself, singing "So Close" at the ball while Robert and Giselle dance.
- Fred Tatasciore as the Troll from Andalasia who tried to eat Giselle.
- John Rothman as Carl, Robert's boss
- Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Ethan Banks, a male client during a divorce case
- Tonya Pinkins as Phoebe Banks, Banks' ex-wife and Robert's client
- Marlon Saunders as a calypso singer in Central Park
- Emma Rose Lima as:
- Bluebird, a young female bluebird who is one of Giselle's animal friends.
- Fawn, a young female deer who is one of Giselle's animal friends.
- Rapunzel, an unnamed background little girl portraying the character Rapunzel during the "That's How You Know" musical number in one scene.
- Teala Dunn as Bunny, a young rabbit who is one of Giselle's animal friends.
- Frank Welker as Destiny, Prince Edward's horse from Andalasia.
- Several actresses who have played characters in Disney films have cameos:
- Paige O'Hara as Angela, a soap opera character. O'Hara provided the speaking and singing voice of Belle in Beauty and the Beast.
- Jodi Benson as Sam, Robert's secretary. Benson provided the speaking and singing voice of Ariel in The Little Mermaid as well as the voices of the various Barbie dolls in Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3.
- Judy Kuhn as a pregnant woman with kids. Kuhn provided the singing voice of the title character in Pocahontas and its sequel.
- Julie Andrews as the narrator. Andrews played the title character of Mary Poppins, as well as appearing in The Princess Diaries series as Queen Clarisse Renaldi.
Production[]
Development[]
The initial script of Enchanted, written by Bill Kelly, was bought by Disney's Touchstone Pictures and Sonnenfeld/Josephson Productions for a reported sum of $450,000 in September 1997. However, it was thought to be unsuitable for Disney because it was "a racier R-rated movie". To the frustration of Kelly, the screenplay was rewritten several times, first by Rita Hsiao and then by Todd Alcott. The film was initially scheduled to be released in 2002 with Rob Marshall as director but he withdrew due to "creative differences" between the producers and him. In 2001, director Jon Turteltaub was set to direct the film, but he left soon after, later working with Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer on the National Treasure franchise. Adam Shankman became the film's director in 2003, while Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle were hired by Disney to rewrite the script once again. At the time, Disney considered offering the role of Giselle to Kate Hudson or Reese Witherspoon. However, the project did not take off.
On May 25, 2005, Variety reported that Kevin Lima had been hired as director and Bill Kelly had returned to the project to write a new version of the script. Lima worked with Kelly on the script to combine the main plot of Enchanted with the idea of a "loving homage" to Disney's heritage. He created visual storyboard printouts that covered the story of Enchanted from beginning to end, which filled an entire floor of a production building. After Lima showed them to the chairman of Walt Disney Studios, Dick Cook, he received the green light for the project and a budget of $85 million. Lima began designing the world of Andalasia and storyboarding the movie before a cast was chosen to play the characters. After the actors were hired, he was involved in making the final design of the movie, which made sure the animated characters look like their real-life counterparts.
Filming[]
Enchanted is the first feature-length Disney live-action/traditional animation hybrid since Disney's Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988, though the traditionally-animated characters do not interact in the live-action environment in the same method as they did in Roger Rabbit; however, there are some scenes where live-action characters share the screen with two-dimensional animated characters, for example, a live-action Nathaniel communicating with a cel-drawn Narissa, who is in a cooking pot. The film uses two aspect ratios; it begins in 2.35:1 when the Walt Disney Pictures logo and Enchanted storybook are shown, and then switches to a smaller 1.85:1 aspect ratio for the first animated sequence. The film switches back to 2.35:1 when it becomes live-action and never switches back, even for the remainder of the cartoon sequences. When this movie was aired on NBC in 2010, the beginning of the movie (including the first animated sequence) was shown in standard definition; the remainder of the movie was shown in high definition when it becomes live-action. Lima oversaw the direction of both the live-action and animation sequences, which were being produced at the same time. Enchanted took almost two years to complete. The animation took about a year to finish while the live-action scenes, which commenced on location in New York City during the summer of 2006 and was completed during the animation process, were shot in 72 days.
Animation[]
Out of the film's 107 minutes of running time, ten of the approximately 13 minutes of animation are at the beginning of the film. Lima tried to "cram every single piece of Disney iconic imagery" that he could into the first ten minutes, which were done in traditional cel animation (in contrast to computer-generated 3-D animation) as a tribute to past Disney fairy tale films, such as Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was the first Disney film theatrically released in America to feature traditional cel animation since Pooh's Heffalump Movie (2005). This film, although quite different in terms of plot from any previous Disney film, also contained obvious homages to other Disney films of the distant past, such as Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog, Swiss Family Robinson, Bon Voyage!, and Savage Sam. As most of Disney's cel animation artists were laid off after the computer graphics boom of the late 1990s, the 13 minutes of animation were not done in-house but by the independent Pasadena-based company James Baxter Animation, which was started by noted lead animator James Baxter. Baxter had previously worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation, bringing to life many memorable Disney animated characters like Jessica Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit), Belle (Beauty and the Beast), Rafiki (The Lion King), and Quasimodo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame).
Although Lima wanted the animation to be nostalgic, he wanted Enchanted to have a style of its own. Baxter's team decided to use Art Nouveau as a starting point. For Giselle, the 2D-animated character had to be "a cross between Amy [Adams] and a classic Disney princess. And not a caricature." Seeing Giselle as "a forest girl, an innocent nymph with flowers in her hair" and "a bit of a hippie", the animators wanted her to be "flowing, with her hair and clothes. Delicate." For Prince Edward, Baxter's team "worked the hardest on him to make him look like the actor" because princes "in these kinds of movies are usually so bland." Many prototypes were made for Narissa as Baxter's team wanted her face to "look like Susan [Sarandon]'s. And the costumes had to align closely to the live-action design."
Lima brought in costume designer Mona May during the early stages of the film's production to maintain continuity between the two media so that the costumes would be aligned in both the animated and live-action worlds. He also shot some live-action footage of Amy Adams as Giselle for the animators to use as a reference, which also allowed the physical movement of the character to match in both worlds. Test scenes completed by the animators were shown to the actors, allowing them to see how their animated self would move.
Live-action[]
Principal photography began in April 2006 and ended in July 2006. Because of the live-action sequence setting, all live-action work was filmed in New York City. However, shooting in New York became problematic as it was in a "constant state of new stores, scaffolding and renovation".
The first scene in New York, which features Giselle emerging from a manhole in the middle of Times Square, was filmed on location in the center of the square. Because of the difficulties in controlling the crowd while filming in Times Square, general pedestrians were featured in the scene with hired extras placed in the immediate foreground. Similarly, a crowd gathered to watch as James Marsden and Timothy Spall filmed their scenes in Times Square. However, the scene Lima found the most challenging to shoot was the musical number, "That's How You Know", in Central Park. The five-minute scene took 17 days to finish due to the changing weather, which allowed only seven sunny days for the scene to be filmed. The filming was also hampered at times by Patrick Dempsey's fans. The scene was choreographed by John O'Connell, who had worked on Moulin Rouge! beforehand, and included 300 extras and 150 dancers.
Many scenes were also filmed at Steiner Studios, which provided the three large stages that Enchanted needed at the same facility. Other outdoor locations included the Brooklyn Bridge and The Paterno, an apartment building with a curved, heavily embellished, ivory-colored façade located on the corner of Riverside Drive and 116th Street, which is the residence of the film's characters Robert and Morgan Phillip.
Costume design[]
All the costumes in the film were designed by Mona May, who had previously worked on Clueless, The Wedding Singer, and The Haunted Mansion. May spent one year in pre-production working with animators and her costume department of 20 people to create the costumes, while she contracted with five outside costume shops in Los Angeles and New York. She became involved in the project when the animators were designing the faces and bodies of the characters as they had to "translate the costumes from two-dimensional drawings to live-action human proportion". Her goal was to keep the designs "Disneyesque to the core but bring a little bit of fashion in there and humor and make it something new". However, May admitted this was difficult "because [they're] dealing with iconic Disney characters who have been in the psyche of the viewing audience for so long".
For the character of Giselle, her journey to becoming a real woman is reflected in her dresses, which become less fairytale-like as the film progresses. Her wedding dress at the beginning of the film directly contrasts her modern gown at the end of the film. The wedding dress served to provide a "humongous contrast to the flat drawings" and to accentuate the image of a Disney Princess. In order to make the waist look small, the sleeves were designed to be "extremely pouffy" and the skirt to be as big as possible, which included a metal hoop that holds up 20 layers of petticoats and ruffles. Altogether, 11 versions of the dress were made for filming, each comprised 200 yards (183 m) of silk satin and other fabric, and weighed approximately 40 pounds (18 kg). On the experience of wearing the wedding dress, Amy Adams described it as "grueling" since "the entire weight was on [her] hips, so occasionally it felt like [she] was in traction".
Unlike Giselle, Prince Edward does not adapt to the real world and James Marsden, who plays Edward, had only one costume designed for him. May's aim was to try "not to lose [Marsden] in the craziness of the outfit... where he still looks handsome". The costume also included padding in the chest, buttocks, and crotch, which gave Marsden the "same exaggerated proportions as an animated character" and "posture – his back is straight, the sleeves are up and never collapse".
May was delighted that Lima "went for something more fashion-forward" with Susan Sarandon's Queen Narissa. She decided to make her look like a "runway lady", wearing something that is "still Disney" but also "high fashion, like something John Galliano or Thierry Mugler might design". Since Narissa appears in three media: 2D animation, live-action, and computer animation, May had to make sure that the costume would be the same throughout in terms of "color, shape, and texture". The costume for Narissa consisted of a leather corset and skirt, which looked "reptilian", as well as a cape. Working with the animators, May incorporated parts of the dragon's form into the costume; the cape was designed to look like wings, the layers of the skirt wrap around like a tail, and a crown that would turn into horns during Narissa's transformation into a dragon.
Music[]
- Main article: Enchanted (soundtrack)
The film's score was written by accomplished songwriter and composer Alan Menken, who has worked on a number of Disney films previously. Fellow composer Stephen Schwartz wrote the lyrics for six songs, also composed by Menken. Menken and Schwartz previously worked together on the songs for Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Menken became involved with the film in the early stages of the film's development and invited Schwartz to resume their collaboration. They began the songwriting process by searching for the right moments in the story in which a song moment was allowed. Schwartz found that it was easier to justify situations in which the characters would burst into songs in Enchanted than in other live-action musicals as its concept "allowed the characters to sing in a way that was completely integral to the plot of the story." The three songs Giselle sings contain references to earlier Disney films. The first song played in the film, "True Love's Kiss", was written to be "a send-up of, and an homage to, the style of those Disney animated features", namely, "I'm Wishing" (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) and "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" (Cinderella), during which Disney heroines sing about the joy of being loved. It posed a challenge for Menken and Schwartz because of the "many preconceptions with that number"; it had to be reflective of the era of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Cinderella. Accordingly, Amy Adams performed the first song in an operetta style in contrast to the Broadway style of the later songs.
Both "Happy Working Song" and "That's How You Know" also pay tributes to past Disney songs. "Happy Working Song" pays a lyrical homage to such songs as "Whistle While You Work" (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), "The Work Song" (Cinderella) "A Spoonful of Sugar" (Mary Poppins) and Making Christmas (The Nightmare Before Christmas), and a musical homage to the Sherman Brothers (with a self-parodic 'Alan Menken style' middle eight). "That's How You Know" is a self-parody of Menken's compositions for his Disney features, specifically such big production numbers as "Under the Sea" (The Little Mermaid) and "Be Our Guest" (Beauty and the Beast). To achieve this, Schwartz admitted he had to "push it a little bit further in terms of choices of words or certain lyrics" while maintaining "the classic Walt Disney sensibility". However, Menken noted that the songs he has written for Disney have always been "a little tongue-in-cheek". As the film progresses, the music uses more contemporary styles, which is heard through the adult ballad "So Close" and the country/pop number "Ever Ever After".
Out of the six completed songs written by Menken and Schwartz, five remained in the finished film. The titular song "Enchanted", a duet featuring Idina Menzel and James Marsden, was cut from the movie.
Effects[]
The majority of the visual effects shots in Enchanted were done by Tippett Studio in Berkeley, California, who contributed 320 shots. These shots involved virtual sets, environmental effects, and CG characters that performed alongside real actors, namely the animated animals during the "Happy Working Song" sequence, Pip, and the Narissa dragon during the live-action portions of the film. CIS Hollywood was responsible for 36 visual effects shots, which primarily dealt with wire removals and composites. Reel FX Creative Studios did four visual effects shots involving the pop-up book page-turn transitions, while Weta Digital did two.
Out of all the animals that appear in the "Happy Working Song" sequence, the only real animals filmed on set were rats and pigeons. The real animals captured on film aided Tippett Studio in creating CG rats and pigeons, which gave dynamic performances such as having pigeons that carried brooms in their beaks and rats that scrubbed with toothbrushes. On the other hand, all the cockroaches were CG characters.
Pip, a chipmunk who can talk in the 2D world of Andalasia, loses his ability to communicate through speech in the real world, so he must rely heavily on facial and body gestures. This meant the animators had to display Pip's emotions through performance and make him appear like a real chipmunk. The team at Tippett began animating Pip by observing live chipmunks, which were filmed in motion from "every conceivable angle", after which they created a photorealistic chipmunk through the use of 3D computer graphics software, Maya and Furrocious. When visual effects supervisor Thomas Schelesny showed the first animation of Pip to director Kevin Lima, he was surprised that he was looking at CG characters and not reference footage. During the filming of scenes in which Pip appears, several ways were used to indicate the physical presence of Pip. On some occasions, a small stuffed chipmunk with a wire armature on the inside was placed in the scene. In other situations, a rod with a small marker on the end or a laser pointer would be used to show the actors and cinematographers where Pip is.
Unlike Pip, the Narissa dragon was more of a fantasy character while still looking like a living character and a classic Disney villain. When filming the scene which sees the transformation of Narissa from a woman into a dragon, a long pole was used to direct the extras' eyelines instead of a laser pointer. Set pieces were made to move back and forth and have a computer-controlled lighting setup and a repeatable head on the camera that was all synchronized together. In the film's final sequence, in which Narissa climbs the Woolworth Building while clutching Robert in her claws, a green screen rig was built to hold Patrick Dempsey in order to film his face and movements. The rig was a "puppeteering" approach that involved a robotic arm being controlled by three different floor effects artists.
Distribution[]
The film was distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures to 3,730 theaters in the United States. It was distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International to over 50 territories worldwide and topped the box office in several countries, including the United Kingdom and Italy.
Home media[]
- Main article: Enchanted (video)
Enchanted was released on standard DVD and Blu-ray Disc by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on March 18, 2008, in the United States. While Enchanted topped the DVD sales chart on the week of its release in the United States, narrowly defeating the DVD sales of I Am Legend, the Blu-ray Disc sales of I Am Legend were nearly four times the number of Blu-ray Disc sales of Enchanted. The DVD was released in the United Kingdom and Europe on April 7, 2008, and in Australia on May 21, 2008.
The bonus features included on both the DVD and Blu-ray Disc are "Fantasy Comes to Life", a three-part behind-the-scenes feature including "Happy Working Song", "That's How You Know" and "A Blast at the Ball"; six deleted scenes with brief introductions by director Kevin Lima; bloopers; "Pip's Predicament: A Pop-Up Adventure", a short in pop-up storybook style; and Carrie Underwood's music video for "Ever Ever After". Featured on the Blu-ray disc only is a trivia game entitled "The D Files" that runs throughout the movie with high-scoring players given access to videos "So Close", "Making Ever Ever After", and "True Love's Kiss". In the United States, certain DVDs at Target stores contain a bonus DVD disc with a 30-minute long making-of documentary titled Becoming Enchanted: A New Classic Comes True. This DVD is also sold with certain DVDs at HMV stores in the United Kingdom.
For a long time, the film was unavailable for streaming except on Movies Anywhere. The film was added to Disney+ on November 12, 2021 to coincide with Disney+ Day. Less than a year later, on October 26, 2022, the film was upgraded to 4K on Disney+.
Reception[]
Critical response[]
The film received mostly positive reviews from critics. The movie review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes tallied the film at an overall 93% approval rating (based on 169 reviews, with 158 "fresh" and 11 "rotten"), while Metacritic gave it a 75% rating based on 32 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes ranked the film as the ninth best-reviewed film in wide release of 2007 and named it the best family film of 2007.
Positive reviews praised the film's take on a classic Disney story, its comedy, and musical numbers as well as the performance of its lead actress, Amy Adams. Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, describing it as a "heart-winning musical comedy that skips lightly and sprightly from the lily pads of hope to the manhole covers of actuality" and one that "has a Disney willingness to allow fantasy into life". Film critics of Variety and LA Weekly remarked on the film's ability to cater for all ages. LA Weekly described the film as "the sort of buoyant, all-ages entertainment that Hollywood has been laboring to revive in recent years (most recently with Hairspray) but hasn't managed to get right until now", while Todd McCarthy of Variety commented, "More than Disney's strictly animated product, Enchanted, in the manner of the vast majority of Hollywood films made until the '60s, is a film aimed at the entire population – niches be damned. It simply aims to please, without pandering, without vulgarity, without stops to pop-culture fads, and to pull this off today is no small feat." Enchanted was the Broadcast Film Critics Association's choice for Best Family Film of 2007, while Carrie Rickey of The Philadelphia Inquirer named it the 4th best film of 2007.
Rolling Stone, Premiere, USA Today, and The Boston Globe all gave the film three out of four, while the Baltimore Sun gave the film a B grade. They cited that although the story is relatively predictable, the way in which the predictability of the film is part of the story, the amazingly extravagant musical numbers, along with how Disney pokes fun at its traditional line of animated movies, outweighs any disputes about the storyline or being unsure of what age bracket the film is made for. Michael Sragow of Baltimore Sun remarked that the film's "piquant idea and enough good jokes to overcome its uneven movie-making and uncertain tone", while Claudia Puig of USA Today stated that "though it's a fairly predictable fish-out-of-water tale (actually a princess-out-of-storybook saga), the casting is so perfect that it takes what could have been a ho-hum idea and renders it magical."
Amy Adams herself garnered many favorable reviews. Reviewers praised her singing ability and asserted that her performance, which was compared by some to her Academy Award-nominated performance in Junebug, has made Adams a movie star, likening it to Mary Poppins effect on Julie Andrews' career. Similarly, film critics Richard Roeper and Michael Phillips, who gave the film positive reviews on At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper, emphasized the effect of Adams' performance on the film with remarks like "Amy Adams is this movie" and "Amy Adams shows how to make a comic cliché work like magic." However, both agreed that the final sequence involving the computer-generated dragon of Narissa "bogged down" the film.
Empire stated that the film was targeted at children but agreed with other reviewers that the "extremely game cast" was the film's best asset. It gave the film three out of five. TIME gave the film a C-, stating that the film "cannibalizes Walt's vault for jokes" and "fails to find a happy ending that doesn't feel two-dimensional". Similarly, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian commented that the film "assumes a beady-eyed and deeply humorless sentimentality" and that Adams' performance was the "only decent thing in this overhyped family movie covered in a cellophane shrink-wrap of corporate Disney plastic-ness". Bradshaw gave the film two out of five.
Box office performance[]
Enchanted earned $7,967,766 on the day of its release in the United States, placing at #1. It was also placed at #1 on Thanksgiving Day, earning $6,652,198 to bring its two-day total to $14.6 million. The film grossed $14.4 million on the following day, bringing its total haul to $29.0 million, placing ahead of other contenders. Enchanted made $34.4 million during the Friday-Sunday period in 3,730 theaters for a per-location average of $9,472 and $49.1 million over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday in 3,730 theaters for a per-location average of $13,153. Its earnings over the five-day holiday exceeded projections by $7 million.
Enchanted was also the #1 film in its second weekend, grossing a further $16,403,316 at 3,730 locations for a per-theater average of $4,397. It dropped to #2 in its third weekend, with a gross of $10,709,515 in 3,520 theaters for a per-theater average of $3,042. It finished its fourth weekend at #4 with a gross of $5,533,884 in 3,066 locations for a per-theater average of $1,804. Enchanted earned a gross of $127,807,262 in the United States and Canada, as well as a total of $340,487,652 worldwide. It was the 15th highest-grossing film worldwide released in 2007.
Awards[]
In total, Enchanted was nominated for 19 awards presented by various critics associations and movie industry groups, five of which it won: Best Live Action Family Film at the 8th Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards, Best Family Film at the 13th Critics' Choice Awards, notably beating out Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and three Saturn Awards: Best Fantasy Film, Best Actress for Amy Adams, and Best Music for Alan Menken.
Enchanted dominated the Best Original Song category at the 80th Academy Awards with three nominations but did not win either one. The nominated songs were "Happy Working Song", "So Close", and "That's How You Know", all three of which were written by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Stephen Schwartz. "That's How You Know" was also nominated at the 65th Golden Globe Awards for Best Original Song and the film's lead actress, Amy Adams, was nominated in the category of Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
At the 13th Critics' Choice Awards, Adams was nominated for Best Actress, Menken was nominated for his film score in the category of Best Composer and "That's How You Know" was nominated for Best Song. Enchanted received two nominations at the 12th Satellite Awards: Best Actress – Musical or Comedy for Amy Adams' performance and Best Visual Effects for the visual effects work done by Thomas Schelesny, Matt Jacobs, and Tom Gibbons. Gibbons, along with James W. Brown, David Richard Nelson, and John Koester, were nominated for a Visual Effects Society Award in the Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Motion Picture category for the animated chipmunk, Pip. Costume designer Mona May received a nomination in the category of Excellence in Fantasy Film at the 10th Costume Designers Guild Awards but lost to The Golden Compass, while music editors Kenneth Karman, Jeremy Raub, and Joanie Diener were nominated for a Golden Reel Award in the category of Best Sound Editing: Music in a Musical Feature Film.
The film also received three nominations at the MTV Movie Awards and four nominations at the Teen Choice Awards, which are voted upon by the general public. The three MTV Movie Award nominations were Best Female performance (for Amy Adams), Best Comedic Performance (for Amy Adams) and Best Kiss (for Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey). The nominations at the Teen Choice Awards were Choice Movie: Chick Flick, Choice Movie Actress: Comedy (for Amy Adams), Choice Movie Actor: Comedy (for James Marsden), and Choice Movie: Villain (for Susan Sarandon). Menken and Schwartz were nominated twice at the 51st Grammy Awards in the category of Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media for "Ever Ever After" and "That's How You Know". For its trailer, the film received a 2008 Golden Trailer Award for Best Animation/Family feature film preview.
Disney references[]
According to director Kevin Lima, "thousands" of references are made to past and future works of Disney in Enchanted, which serve as both a parody of and a "giant love letter to Disney classics". It took almost eight years for Walt Disney Studios to greenlight the production of the film because it "was always quite nervous about the tone in particular". As Lima worked with Bill Kelly, the writer, to inject Disney references to the plot, it became "an obsession"; he derived the name of every character as well as anything that needed a name from past Disney films to bring in more Disney references.
While Disney animators have occasionally inserted a Disney character into background shots, for example, Donald Duck appears in a crowd in The Little Mermaid, they have avoided "mingling characters" from other Disney films for fear of weakening their individual mythologies. In Enchanted, characters from past Disney films are openly seen, such as the appearances of Thumper and Flower from Bambi in the 2D animation portion of the film. Disney references are also made through camera work, sets, costumes, music, and dialogue. Obvious examples include the use of poisoned apples from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and True Love's Kiss from Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Dick Cook, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios, admitted that part of the goal of Enchanted was to create a new franchise (through the character of Giselle) and to revive the older ones.
Allusions[]
- The storybook opening of Enchanted is a tribute to the openings of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Cinderella, The Sword in the Stone, Sleeping Beauty, and others.
- The "Walt Disney Pictures Presents" opening credit seen at the very start of the film is written in the same medieval-style font as seen in the opening credits sequences of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, and The Sword in the Stone.
- Giselle's initial personality is based on multiple Disney Princesses; director Kevin Lima describes her as "about 80% Snow White, with some traits borrowed from Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty... although her spunkiness comes from Ariel of "The Little Mermaid". In fact, of all the Disney Princesses created before her, Giselle bears the most striking physical resemblance to Ariel, right down to her red hair.
- Prince Edward's personality shares traits with Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty and Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid, with some humorous and narcissistic traits borrowed from Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.
- Robert Philip's personality shares traits with the strict George Banks from Mary Poppins and George Darling from Peter Pan and cynical Eddie Valiant from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
- Nathaniel's personality shares traits with the meek Huntsman from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Mr. Smee from Peter Pan, and Mr. Snoops from The Rescuers.
- Giselle's original home is in a cottage in the woods, similar to Aurora's cottage while hiding during her years as a peasant girl named Briar Rose in Sleeping Beauty. In addition, her cottage bears a striking resemblance to that of the Seven Dwarfs' cottage from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
- Giselle has loads of animal friends from the forest, similar to Snow White and Aurora. Again like Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora before her, Giselle is deprived of contact with the outside world prior to her banishment to New York, and therefore finds friendship in the animals around her due to living in the forest for most of her life.
- Giselle sings to her dream prince, just as Ariel does with the statue of Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid.
- The statue that she builds strikes the same pose as the Eric statue.
- Giselle recreates the prince from her dream with her animal friends – a reference to the scene where Aurora's forest animal friends use Prince Phillip's cape, hat and shoes to pretend to be the prince from her dreams in Sleeping Beauty.
- When one of the frogs jumps into Giselle's tub, he comes out wearing suds resembling a crown, a nod to The Princess and the Frog, which was still in production at the time of the film.
- Giselle, prior to her scheduled marriage to Prince Edward, originally wears pink, which is the same color as Ariel's first dress as a human in The Little Mermaid. Co-incidentally, both Ariel and Giselle are redheads.
- Prince Edward uses a sword as his go-to weapon, just like Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty.
- When Nathaniel comes up with his plan to try to stop Edward from finding Giselle by letting the troll chase him, he closes the locket with Narissa's picture the same way Professor Ratigan did in one scene of The Great Mouse Detective.
- Robert and Morgan's last name is Philip, a reference to the prince from Sleeping Beauty.
- The scene were Giselle and Prince Edward ride off into the sunset to get married by the end of the musical number "True Love's Kiss" is identical to the ending shot of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs where both Snow White and her prince ride off to the latter's castle.
- As Giselle heads over to the chapel to get married to Prince Edward, the birds gift her a tiara similar to how Aurora was gifted a tiara by her three aunts prior to her marriage to Prince Phillip in Sleeping Beauty.
- Giselle is initially upside down when she falls through the fountain and lands upright in the manhole, a reference to the scene in Alice in Wonderland where Alice falls down the rabbit hole and lands upside down in Wonderland. However her emergence from underground into the real world is closer to that of the first appearance of Princess Eilonwy in The Black Cauldron, when she emerges from beneath Taran's prison cell.
- Giselle's transformation from animated to live-action after getting pushed down the fountain by Narissa in hag form is similar to that of Ariel's human transformation courtesy of Ursula's dark magic in The Little Mermaid, albeit in slow-motion. In addition, that scene in question is also a tribute to Pinocchio's "real boy" transformation at the ending of Pinocchio.
- Pip's personality is very similar to that of Timon from The Lion King.
- When Pip arrives into live-action, he loses the ability to speak and therefore has to communicate with acting, similar to how Ariel loses her voice when she got legs in The Little Mermaid.
- Giselle appears as a fish-out-of-water with no idea on how a normal person acts like in live-action New York, similar to how Ariel, a mermaid who became a human by trading her voice for legs, appears as a fish-out-of-water with no idea on how a normal person acts like in the human world in The Little Mermaid.
- Prince Edward is first seen hunting trolls, similar to how Gaston is first seen hunting wild game at the beginning of Beauty and the Beast. In addition, Prince Edward quotes him when he questions "thinking" in one scene.
- The troll's loincloth consists of remnants of the Disney princesses' pre-royalty dresses: Snow White's rags, Belle's village dress, Aurora's peasant dress, and Cinderella's maid outfit. Also, his earrings are the shells from Ariel's seashell bikini top.
- The ballroom scene is a homage and a tender reference to the classical ballroom scenes from Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty and the Beast.
- Prince Edward wanted to marry Giselle and find her for her voice like Prince Eric and Prince Phillip.
- An ecstatic Prince Edward briefly dances with Nathaniel when expressing his desire to marry a beautiful girl in song much to the latter's annoyance, similar to how an ecstatic Prince Philip briefly dances with his father King Hubert when expressing his desire to marry Aurora in song much to the latter's annoyance.
- When Giselle first meets Prince Edward when she lands in his arms, she quotes Belle's line "It's you" which she says upon recognizing the Beast's human form Prince Adam after the Enchantress' spell is broken at the ending of Beauty and the Beast. In addition, in that same scene Giselle caresses Prince Edward's face the same way as Belle caresses Prince Adam (formerly the Beast)'s face as in the ending of Beauty and the Beast.
- Nancy's last name is Tremaine and is Robert's wife-to-be for a second time round marriage, a reference to the surname of Cinderella's stepmother (Lady Tremaine) and stepsisters (Anastasia and Drizella). Except that Nancy's personality is the polar opposite to that of Lady Tremaine; Nancy is kind and selfless while Lady Tremaine is selfish, cold-hearted, and cruel.
- Narissa is both an evil queen and a stepmother, just like The Evil Queen of Snow White.
- Narissa disguises herself as a hag, just as the Evil Queen does.
- Narissa's lair is similar to Ursula's lair.
- Narissa's motives of still wanting to keep her throne out of jealousy towards Giselle whom Prince Edward wants to marry is similar to Yzma's power-hungry nature from The Emperor's New Groove.
- Giselle looks through a pair of blue gems while constructing her dream man. One of the Seven Dwarfs in Snow White, Dopey, can be seen looking through a pair of gems as well.
- At the very beginning of the musical number "True Love's Kiss", Giselle is seen combing her hair the same way Ariel combs her hair with a fork when having dinner with Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid.
- When Giselle's animal friends give Giselle various items to finish constructing the lips of her dream man, one of the items handed to her is a red crab, a possible nod to Sebastian the crab from The Little Mermaid.
- Giselle says that she made her wedding dress by spinning silk into thread on her spinning wheel, which is a reference to the infamous spinning wheel from Sleeping Beauty.
- During the musical number "True Love's Kiss", Giselle kisses a tortoise on the forehead which makes the latter blush in response, similar to how Snow White kisses the dwarfs' foreheads which makes them (especially Bashful, Doc and Dopey) blush in response in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
- Prince Edward stabs the top of a bus thinking it's a "steel beast", an exaggerated spoof of Prince Phillip impaling dragon Maleficent with his sword in Sleeping Beauty and Prince Eric impaling the giant Ursula with his ship bow in The Little Mermaid.
- The bus driver's hair is shaped like Mickey Mouse's ears.
- The law firm that Robert appears to work for is named after the composers of the music from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Frank Churchill, Leigh Harline, and Paul J. Smith.
- Thumper and Flower from Bambi are seen with Giselle in the 2-D animated part.
- The troll, while being flung into the next kingdom, does the Goofy holler (pitched down), heard in many other Disney films and shorts; this is a reference to Goofy.
- The Goofy yell as well as the infamous Wilhelm Scream can be heard during Narissa's dragon transformation during the King & Queens' Ball.
- Giselle arrives at the chapel in a coach resembling the pumpkin coach from Cinderella.
- Similarly to Cinderella, Giselle wears a white dress. In addition, Giselle's puffy white wedding dress looks similar to that of Ariel's wedding dress from the ending of The Little Mermaid.
- Queen Narissa turns into a hag to trick Giselle like the Evil Queen does to Snow White. In addition, the scene where the hag form of Narissa takes advantage of the heartbroken Giselle by appealing to alleviate her pain is reminiscent to the scene in The Little Mermaid where Ursula's eel minions Flotsam and Jetsam take advantage of a heartbroken Ariel after her grotto gets destroyed by King Triton by appealing to alleviate her pain.
- When Pip yells, "Yeah, but who is gonna rescue me?!", he spoofs the refrain from the opening song "The Journey" from The Rescuers.
- When Giselle is looking at the fish in Robert's workplace before meeting the couple who want to divorce, an instrumental version of Part of Your World is heard, a nod to the fact that Giselle is partly inspired by Ariel.
- Giselle cleans up Robert's apartment with the help of animals, similar to how Snow White did it.
- An exhausted Giselle sleeps on the couch in the Phillip family's apartment on her first night there, similar to how an exhausted Snow White sleeps on all the seven dwarfs' beds after cleaning their cottage in Snow White.
- "Happy Working Song" is an homage to "Whistle While You Work".
- Giselle's animal call ("Ahhh-, Ahhh-Ahhhhhhhhhh....") sounds almost similar to Snow White's vocalizing ("Ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh") during the song "I'm Wishing".
- Giselle's temporary animal friends while in New York are basically birds and vermin (mice, flies, cockroaches), similar to how Cinderella's animal friends are mostly mice and birds in Cinderella.
- During the musical number "Happy Working Song" some friendly pigeons tie up Giselle's dress into an apron the same way birds tied an apron on Cinderella at the end of the musical number "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes" in Cinderella.
- When Giselle is scrubbing the floor in the bathroom, her reflection is seen in bubbles like in during the song "Sing, Sweet Nightingale" from Cinderella.
- When Giselle leaves the shower, the birds give her a beige towel. The way the towel lies down on her when she accidentally falls on Robert during Nancy's visit is reminiscent of Ariel's attire mainly composed of beige cloth being tied up by ropes. In addition, the first shot showing Giselle in the shower is reminiscent to the scene where the birds give Cinderella a bath at the beginning of Cinderella.
- Giselle uses Robert's curtains and Morgan's rug to make her dresses, a reference to the dress that Cinderella's mice friends make for her from things that her stepsisters aren't using.
- Hidden Mickeys, a recurring easter egg found in various Disney films, shorts, and TV shows, can be spotted on the pink flower pattern on Giselle's blue dress she made herself on her second day in New York.
- Bella Notte, the Italian restaurant where Giselle, Robert and Morgan eat, is a tribute to the song from Lady and the Tramp.
- Nathaniel chases Pip when he spots the chipmunk in the kitchen of the café Prince Edward eats lunch at as well as at the Italian restaurant Bella Notte, which is a reference to the Chef Louis vs Sebastian chase scenes from The Little Mermaid.
- Giselle pulls Edward's sword from the ballroom floor; this is a reference to The Sword in the Stone.
- Upon learning that Giselle and Edward will marry, Narissa called Giselle as a "forest rat", similar to how Aladdin is called a "street rat" in Aladdin.
- The Jamaican musicians that kick-started the song "That's How You Know" upon hearing Giselle singing is a homage to the song "Under the Sea", which, co-incidentally, is sung by Sebastian, a Jamaican crab from The Little Mermaid.
- In one scene during the song "That's How You Know", a woman appears dressed as a candelabra, which is a reference to Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast.
- Jodi Benson guest stars as Sam, Robert's secretary. Benson provided the speaking and singing voice of Ariel in The Little Mermaid and was the voice of several Barbie dolls in Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3, as well as Weebo from Flubber. In addition, Sam herself is named after Prince Philip's horse Samson from Sleeping Beauty.
- Poisoned apples are used like The Evil Queen has. In addition, this poisoned apple also rolls away after Giselle falls much like it does when Snow White eats the poison apple.
- Narissa's appearance in the soup pot when talking to Nathaniel is a reference to the Disney Channel Original Movie, Return to Halloweentown, when Debbie Reynolds' character, Aggie Cromwell, is talking to her daughter, Gwen Piper, in the same type of soup pot at the beginning of the Halloweentown film.
- When Nathaniel hands Giselle the poisoned apple, the caramel covering it makes the same skull pattern seen on the poisoned apple in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
- During the "That's How You Know" sequence, when Giselle and Robert are swimming on a boat in the pond is reference to the "Kiss the Girl" sequence from The Little Mermaid where Ariel and Eric are also swimming on a boat in a pond.
- While singing "That's How You Know," Giselle runs up a knoll in a similar fashion to Belle as she sings her theme song in Beauty and the Beast. Co-incidentally, Giselle's dress in that scene in question is blue, like Belle's peasant dress in that song sequence.
- In the Namburg Bandshell in Central Park during "That's How You Know", Giselle joins a little girl (played by director Kevin Lima's daughter Emma Rose) on stage portraying Rapunzel, a reference to Tangled, which was still in development under the interchanging titles "Rapunzel" and "Rapunzel Unbraided" at the time of the film.
- Morgan owns a doll of Belle from Beauty and the Beast and a Cinderella storybook. In addition, a plush toy of Max the Sheepdog from The Little Mermaid could be spotted in the Phillip family's apartment's living room sofa when Nancy first arrives at their place to pick Morgan up for school in the morning.
- Prince Edward refers to the hotel television as a Magic Mirror.
- While Giselle constructs her Dream Man, a rose with a glass cover just like the one featured in Beauty and the Beast can be seen.
- Robert mistakes Edward's name as 'Charming'- a reference to Prince Charming from Cinderella.
- Giselle's second hand-made dress, which she wears during breakfast with Robert and Morgan, is a pink and white off-the-shoulder dress, resembling Ariel's dress in the dinner scene with Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid.
- Giselle seeks help on wardrobe ideas from Morgan Phillip, dressed as a fairy princess, which is a reference to the Fairy Godmother giving Cinderella her classic ball gown in Cinderella. In addition, both Giselle and Morgan mention fairy godmothers and their magic before midnight, just before they go out shopping.
- The Grand Duke Hotel is named after the Grand Duke character from Cinderella.
- When Edward flips through the channels on the TV, references are made to Robin Hood, Dumbo (the fanfare from "Pink Elephants on Parade" is heard), and Fun and Fancy Free. The Spanish dialogues heard at some point were from the Latin American dub of Mickey and the Beanstalk, specifically the part where Mickey tries to convince Willie the Giant into turning into a fly."
- As Nathaniel is watching the soap opera, "Beauty and the Beast" is heard in the background. In addition, the scene shown in the soap opera is reminiscent to the argument scene where Belle tends the Beast's wounds after the latter saves the former from a pack of wolves in Beauty and the Beast.
- Paige O'Hara guest stars as a soap opera character named Angela, whom is named after Angela Lansbury, who provides the voice of Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast. She provides the speaking and singing voices of Belle from Beauty and the Beast.
- The other soap opera character Angela has an argument with, Jerry, is named after Jerry Orbach, the original voice of Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast. Also in that same soap opera scene, Angela and Jerry are having an argument because the former had an affair with a man named Ogden, whom is named after David Ogden Stiers, the original voice of Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast, Govenor Ratcliffe and Wiggins from Pocahontas, and Jumba Jookiba from Lilo & Stitch.
- The news reporter that interviews Giselle is named Mary Ilene Caselotti, a tribute to the voice actresses of Aurora - Mary Costa, Cinderella - Ilene Woods, and Snow White - Adriana Caselotti.
- When Giselle and Prince Edward both reunite in New York, Prince Edward holds Giselle up in his arms the same way Prince Eric holds a human Ariel up in his arms when they reunite at the ending of The Little Mermaid.
- Edward checks out his reflection just like Gaston does in Beauty in the Beast.
- Giselle catches Robert's eye from the staircase at the ball the same way Cinderella catches Prince Charming's eye at the ball in Cinderella.
- The "So Close" ball sequence references the "Beauty and the Beast" dance sequence from Beauty and the Beast. In addition, this musical number is a romantic ballad sung by an onscreen character, similar to how Mrs. Potts sang the song "Beauty and the Beast" during the iconic ballroom dance sequence from said film, and this scene also incorporates the same sweeping overhead chandelier shot, like in that iconic ballroom scene with Belle and Beast from Beauty and the Beast. Robert also wears the Beast's costume from this sequence.
- True Love's Kiss is needed to wake the princess up like in Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
- Queen Narissa transforms into a dragon like Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty.
- Giselle loses her shoe as she runs out of the ball to save Robert, similarly to Cinderella. One slipper gets left behind and Nancy tries it on after encouragement from Prince Edward and it fits – an obvious reference to the Prince found Cinderella (in the original film), his true love by using the slipper on her foot and Anastasia (in the third film), much like how Prince Edward found his true love by using Giselle's slipper on Nancy's foot.
- Judy Kuhn guest stars as a Pregnant Woman with Kids. Kuhn provided the singing voice of Pocahontas in Pocahontas and its sequel.
- Julie Andrews plays the part of the Narrator. Andrews played Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins and appeared in The Princess Diaries Series as Queen Clarisse Renaldi.
- Clara, the woman on the bus later seen selling birdseed in Central Park asks Giselle if she would like to "Feed the birds? It's only a dollar a bag," like the Old Birdwoman.
- Robert is working a divorce case for a woman with the surname of Banks, a reference to George Banks from Mary Poppins.
- Harvey Evans, the man dressed in yellow seen during "That's How You Know", also played one of the chimney sweeps from Mary Poppins.
- When Giselle accidentally covers a man with her dress, she mistakenly identifies him as Grumpy after seeing his size and attitude towards her.
- The effect of the poisoned apple is meant to fully work as the clock strikes twelve - a reference to the time limit imposed on the Fairy Godmother's magic and Cinderella's curfew.
- The way Narissa (as the dragon) and Robert fall from the Woolworth Building, with Narissa falling to her death but Robert managing to land on the building on a lower level, is similar to what happened with Claude Frollo and Quasimodo, respectively, during the final battle in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
- Nathaniel turns against Queen Narissa due to her treachery and defects over to Prince Edward's side by the film's climax, similar to how Iago betrayed Jafar due to his treachery and defects over to Aladdin's side in The Return of Jafar.
- Robert's quote to an unconscious Giselle "Please don't leave me", is a reference to Belle mourning the Beast's death near the end of Beauty and the Beast.
- When dragon Narissa refers to Giselle as "the girl that started it all", it is an allusion to the tagline of the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which is referred to as "the one that started it all".
- The final fight scene at the top of Woolworth Building is a homage to similar climaxes in Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Beauty and the Beast.
- Pip being the one who defeats Narissa is reminiscent of Bernard tripping McLeach to his death into Crocodile Falls at the end of The Rescuers Down Under, with similar allusions to Gurgi stopping the Horned King at the end of The Black Cauldron and Basil knocking Ratigan off Big Ben at the end of The Great Mouse Detective.
- When Narissa falls to her death, a small part of the Woolworth Building falls with her, similar to how a giant rock fell with the Evil Queen when she died.
- At the end of the film, in Giselle's shop, we see a mouse in a pink shoe being used to carry thread. This is similar to the scene in Cinderella where the mice are making Cinderella's pink ball gown.
- Pumbaa from The Lion King makes a cameo appearance at the end as one of the animals waiting in line for Pip's autograph.
- When Giselle climbs the tower to battle Narissa, there is a brief shot of her standing with her sword on the tower. This shot is nearly identical to a shot featured in the scene when Mulan is battling Shan-Yu. In addition, Giselle defeats Narissa with a little help from her animal sidekick Pip, similar to how Mulan defeated Shan-Yu with a little help from her dragon sidekick Mushu.
- The final face-off between Narissa and Giselle had rain pouring down, similar to the final face-off between The Evil Queen and the Seven Dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the face-off of Eric and Ursula in The Little Mermaid, and the face-off of Gaston and Beast in Beauty and the Beast.
- A poster of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End could be seen advertised on a billboard.
- At the end of this movie, Nathaniel is signing copies of his book in a bookstore. As the camera pans in on the exterior of the shop, you can see a poster advertising a cookbook called "Merryweather's Guide to Baking". Merryweather was the name of one of the good fairies in Disney's Sleeping Beauty, and there is a scene where she has a magical argument with Flora over the baking of Briar Rose's birthday cake.
- By the end of the film, once Giselle marries Robert, she herself becomes a mother to his daughter Morgan, similar to how Ariel herself became a mother to her daughter, Melody in The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea. Ironically, Giselle ends up becoming a stepmother, rather than a birth mother, reversing the stereotype of evil stepmothers in the Disneyverse as first established in films, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella.
- Giselle, Narissa, Nathaniel, and Prince Edward have both live action and animated forms – a reference to James and the Giant Peach when James climbs into the peach.
- The movie employs an aspect ratio switch from 1:85:1 to 2:35:1, just like in Brother Bear.
- During the end credits, several silhouetted illustrations depict, in order of appearance, events from Snow White, The Princess and the Frog (which, as mentioned before, was still in production at the time), Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, and The Sword in the Stone.
- A couple of hindsight nods, since at the time, 20th Century Fox was still a studio, but it now counts as a Disney reference since Disney merged with Fox. Giselle making a dress out of Robert's curtains and the shot of Giselle running up the hill in Central Park and spinning around during "That's How You Know" is a reference to The Sound of Music.
Merchandising[]
Disney had originally planned to add Giselle to the Disney Princess line-up, as was shown at a 2007 Toy Fair where the Giselle doll was featured with packaging declaring her with Disney Princess status, but decided against it when they realized they would have to pay for lifelong rights to Amy Adams' image. While Giselle is not being marketed as one of the Disney Princesses, Enchanted merchandise was made available in various outlets with Adams' animated likeness being used on all Giselle merchandise. Secret Honey, a small Japanese women's clothing brand has released several versions of her curtain dress and a limited dress based on her outfit on her date with Edward. Giselle led the 2007 Hollywood Holly-Day Parade at Disney's Hollywood Studios. She was also featured in the 2007 Walt Disney World Christmas Day Parade in the Magic Kingdom with the official Disney Princesses.
A video game based on the film was released for Nintendo DS and mobile phones in addition to a Game Boy Advance title, Enchanted: Once Upon Andalasia, which is a prequel to the film, about Giselle and Pip rescuing Andalasia from a magic spell.
In 2022, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the film, several products were released to ShopDisney, including a Legacy Sketchbook ornament featuring Giselle in her animated form, a "Spinner Pin" with one side depicting Giselle's fall into the well and the other depicting Pip and Edward falling into the same well with Narissa bordering, as well as an exclusive D23 pin depicting Giselle approaching the castle from the casino billboard.
Sequel[]
- Main article: Disenchanted
A sequel to the film, entitled Disenchanted, was released to Disney+ on November 18, 2022. The film had Adams, Dempsey, Menzel, and Marsden reprising their roles, with newcomer Gabriella Baldacchino replacing Covey as Morgan, though Covey has a brief cameo. The songs were once again written by Menken and Schwartz, and the film was directed by Adam Shankman.
Trivia[]
- This is the fourth Disney hand-drawn animated film to feature Skywalker Sound. The first three are Hercules, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and Lilo & Stitch.
- Part of the Pink Elephants' parade from Dumbo was heard playing, the scene where Edgar Bergen was comforting Mortimer Snerd when he was crying because of Willie's supposed death from Fun and Fancy Free, and the scene where Robin Hood and Friar Tuck were fighting off the Sheriff of Nottingham and his men from The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men were seen on T.V.
- Like in Frozen, the main heroine falls in love with the prince, and after a disaster, has to spend time with someone else, and finds out at the end that her true love is actually not the prince, but the person whom she spent more time with. Both heroines also have a duet with the prince and want to marry a day after meeting each other.
- Unlike Frozen, the prince in Enchanted is a hero, rather than a villain.
- Co-incidentally, Idina Menzel, who portrays Nancy Tremaine in this film, provided the voice of Elsa in Frozen.
- When Giselle transforms into live-action, the film's aspect ratio switches from 16:9 to 2:351:1 CinemaScope. In many HDTV versions, this is done, albeit with 4:3 becoming 16:9.
- The 4:3 pan-and-scan version of the film seen on earlier DVD versions and standard-definition TV airings such as Disney Channel SD however doesn't have this aspect ratio switch, due to the aspect ratio consistently staying at 4:3.
- This is the only unofficial Disney Princess film to be in a hybrid movie.
- Advertisements for Rent and Wicked are seen in the background. Ironically, Idina Menzel, who played Nancy Tremaine, was the original Elphaba in Wicked. She was also in the film version of Rent.
- Also, an ad for Hairspray is seen in the background of the same scene; James Marsden had earlier played Corny Collins in the film adaptation of the musical, released in the same year.
- Also, so are ads for The Producers, The Wedding Singer, and Jersey Boys.
- The movie features at three actresses who had voiced Disney princesses at the time, Paige O'Hara (Belle), Jodi Benson (Ariel) and Judy Kuhn (Pocahontas). Funnily enough, actress Idina Menzel would later go on to join the princess line-up as Elsa in Frozen.
- The animated version of Giselle doesn't have earrings, but the live-action version does.
- The man dressed in yellow during "That's How You Know" is veteran performer Harvey Evans, who also appeared as a dancing chimney sweep during the "Step in Time" sequence in Mary Poppins.
- At the end credits, there appears to be a silhouette of a princess kissing a frog, which is a reference to The Princess and the Frog, which was still in production at the time this film was made.
- By co-incidence, the film's plot heavily resembles the original plot of Tangled back when it was known as Rapunzel Unbraided. Just like with Enchanted, the film focused on normal people in a modern day setting interacting with people from a fairy tale world.
- By co-incidence, the film's plot is very similar to that of the universally-panned Don Bluth animated film, A Troll in Central Park (1994) which was distributed by rival studio Warner Bros. when released the same year as The Lion King, as both films feature a relentlessly cheerful and optimistic protagonist who get banished by an evil queen to New York under the assumption that they'd be miserable over there, only to befriend two New York residents of different ages (one cynical older male, one cute younger female) after some fish-out-of-water struggles upon arrival there at New York, successfully wins them over with their cheery philosophies, optimism and musical numbers (with the little girl character being the first of the duo to befriend said protagonist), and confronts the evil queens responsible for their respective plights when their respective evil queens pursue them and their respective allies over at New York. Co-incidentally, A Troll in Central Park is currently under ownership of Disney following the studio's acquisition of 20th Century Fox (who currently owns said film as well as other Don Bluth films, such as Thumbelina (1994) and Anastasia (1997) since 2002) in 2019.
- Near the Hairspray advertisement, there is a picture of Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Green from the sitcom Friends (season 10) which was produced by rival studio Warner Bros.. This could imply that this movie is set in 2004, when the final season of Friends aired and ended.
- Co-incidentally, Jennifer Aniston provided the voice of Galatea in the Hercules: The Series episode "Hercules and the Dream Date", while her fellow Friends cast member Lisa Kudrow had a recurring voice role in the same cartoon series as Aphrodite.
- After two years of unavailability on Disney+ from 2019-2020, as of 2021 the film is available on Disney Plus since Disney Plus Day.
- Ironically, its sequel premiered on Disney Plus in 2022.
- Throughout the film, there are several subtle references to the animated films: The Princess and the Frog (2009) and Tangled (2010) , which were still in production at the time the film was made.
- This is one of the last animated Disney movies to have a fullscreen version on DVD, despite also having an alternate original widescreen version on the same DVD release.
- The film was originally released in theaters in 2007, which co-incidentally was exactly 70 years since the original theatrical release of Disney's first ever animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
- According to Humane Hollywood, no animals were harmed during the making of this film. The scene in which Giselle spits a fish out of her mouth was made up of two shots. The fish in Adams' mouth was actually an edible betta fish, while the fish in the cup seen after Jodi Benson's reaction shot was a real fish.
- During "That's How You Know", in the boating sequence, Giselle holds a parasol. The parasol was actually Amy Adams' idea since it was a very bright, sunny, and hot day when that sequence was filmed.
- Costume designer Mona May makes a cameo as a saleswoman during the shopping montage.
Gallery[]
Promotional Images[]
Screenshots[]
References[]
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