Long ago, on an untouched Earth, giant lizard-like animals walked, grazed and hunted in their millions. Can you imagine a more awesome sight?

Disney couldn’t, hence their first non-Pixar CGI project: Dinosaur, a computer-animated film that integrates CGI characters with real life photography and footage. To make sure it was as convincing as possible, Disney dropped songs, showed some wounds and even dinosaur meat during the film, and very nearly kept the characters mute in a documentary style. With this in mind, you would think the rest of the details would be as true to life. And therein lies the problem.

Dinosaur films are notorious for bending the rules of timescales, their behaviour and even appearance, the main reason being that the only “facts” rely on whichever remains are available for study at the time, as well as whichever theories are currently doing the rounds. This can change year on year and even month on month as new discoveries are unearthed, so to a point it’s unfair to expect any film to be able to keep up.

This might sound like Disney have carte blanche to do what they like here, but even with the above there are some well established facts and theories that, sadly, were just as ignored as the film was. (Seriously, people, it’s dinosaurs. What’s wrong with you all?! End rant.)

Disclaimer: As with the previous entry, I’m not referring to the fact that the dinosaurs can all talk. This is about comparing their behaviour and other traits with what we believe they were like at the time of writing.

Synopsis

Millions of years ago, in what one could call a land before time, an Iguanodon egg is separated from its nest and dropped on a remote offshore island. A family of lemurs hatch the egg and decide to raise the baby inside, naming him Aladar, and together they live for many peaceful years in their mini tropical paradise. Unfortunately, this all comes to a grinding halt when the infamous comet falls from the sky, destroying their island and forcing the adult Aladar to ferry them across to the mainland on his back. On arrival, they find it’s full of deserts, vicious Velociraptors and other carnivores. Luckily they also come across a herd of veggie-loving dinosaurs who are heading to the safety of the Great Valley Nesting Grounds, and decide to join up with them on their dino road trip.

The leader of the herd is a big gruff Iguanodon named Kron who takes Darwinism to an extreme even before it’s invented – if you can’t keep up with the herd or get injured, it’s your funeral, literally. This is at odds with Aladar and the lemurs’ caring mentality, and so they end up pally with Baylene, Eema and Url, older dregs of the herd who are having trouble on their journey. Eventually, Aladar’s indomitable spirit, even in the face of vicious Carnotaurs, wins the hearts of the rest of the herd as well as Kron’s sister, Neera, resulting in a showdown with Kron (if you can call a bit of shoving about a “showdown”) and him guiding the herd back to the safety of the Nesting Grounds via a safer route, resulting in the unintentional deaths of Kron and the last Carnotaur on their trail. Once at the Nesting Grounds, it’s babies galore, followed by a hopeful voiceover about the future.

At least their optimism didn’t go extinct.

What They Got Right

Eema, Url and “Pompadour”

The comet that ended the dinosaurs’ reign struck the Gulf of Mexico about 65 milion years ago, which places Dinosaur during the Late Cretaceous period in Earth’s history. During this time,  Styracosaurus, Ankylosaurus and Parasaurolophus were all doing their respective dinosaur things in what is now North America, and may even have mixed occasionally.

Probably to out-ugly eachother.

The Iguanodon Herd

Iguanodon, by Raul-Martin

Iguanodon were like the rabbits of the Early Cretaceous period, at least in numbers. They were found pretty much everywhere, and their bones were often discovered in large groups. Conventional wisdom holds that this wasn’t due to some mass cult suicide and that they must have therefore formed herds when grazing and travelling.

The Lemur Family

Another social arrangement true to life is that of the lemurs – specifically, a group of Verreaux’s sifakas. Plio is the mother and implied leader of the troop (not that this counts a jot when the comet hits and she absconds with her nearest and dearest), and the courtship dance, spectacularly failed by Zini, takes place annually: sifakas are matriarchal and only breed once a year. They must save a fortune on contraception.

I’m guessing if you have any knowledge about dinosaurs you can already see the (decidedly small and furry) elephant in the room, but first let’s look at some of the things we can let Disney off the hook for.

What They Got Away With

Life After the Comet

Given the sudden drop off of dinosaurs (in evolutionary terms), and the high amount of iridium found in rocks during this period, the comet is considered the prime if not only suspect of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction. In which case, you may be wondering why the Nesting Grounds appears untouched and why plenty of animals seem to be alive and well during the film. The impact certainly finished off a great deal of them, but for the rest it was only the beginning of the end – there is no accurate indication of how long it took for the dinosaurs to die out afterwards. It could have taken days, months, weeks, even hundreds of years or more, so life did still go on during this time. Basically, Disney get a free pass here because we honestly don’t know the answer yet.

Featherless Foes

I don’t know about you, but I think this chap looks even creepier with feathers.

It’s now generally accepted that most predators like Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus had feathers for insulation, but this is a very recent theory and one that wasn’t fully recognised when Dinosaur was in production (between 1996 and 2000). Also, they had enough trouble rendering the grass and the lemurs’ fur, so I don’t think we should begrudge them a couple of dino headdresses.

Feathers weren’t the only omission in the designs.

Iguanodon Beaks

Dinosaurs in the Iguanodon family eventually gave way to the duck-bills, and so they had jaws ending in a beak. This was removed from the design for Dinosaur due to expression and animation constraints. On the Collector’s Edition DVD there is some test footage of this but it makes the characters look like they only ever have one expression, as if after a bad facelift. As far as we know they didn’t have eyebrows or eyelashes either, so you can understand why Disney made this tweak.

Ah. It seems I was being a bit generous with “things” (plural) we can let slide, because a good deal of the other changes aren’t quite so forgiveable.  Have you got 65 million hours to spare?

What takes the 

The Velociraptors

Thanks to Jurassic Park, any mention of Velociraptors being smaller and spindlier than their kitchen-stalking counterparts makes people clap their hands over their ears and shout loudly (or yawn loudly, but if that’s you then you probably shouldn’t be reading this post). The truth is, they were about the size of wolves, but Disney have gone and made them even larger – up to about 10ft high compared to Jurassic Park‘s now modest 6ft. This is even sillier considering that there actually is a type of raptor about this size. Known as Utahraptor, it was discovered while Jurassic Park was being filmed, so unlike with this film Disney had no excuse not to use it instead of Velociraptor, especially as Utahraptor was found in the U.S. and Velociraptor only rampaged across Mongolia and other parts of Asia. You’ll notice that geography isn’t Disney’s strong point either.

Carnotaur-U.S.

On the one hand, props to them for choosing such an awesome (and until then unknown) carnivore for their villain. Carnotaurus really did have horns like that – its name means “meat-eating bull” – and it’s a refreshing change from good old T-Rex. However, its killing ground was in fact Argentina and other parts of Central and South America.

At one point Kron does mention that Carnotaurs “never come this far north” and his lieutenant Bruton chimes in that the “fireball must have driven them out”, but this doesn’t account for the one that attacks Aladar’s mother in the Nesting Grounds at the beginning of the film. The way it attacks its prey is also up for debate, as we’ll see from the next point.

Charge of the Bite Brigade

(Sorry.)

Thanks to Kron’s stubborn direction, the herd ends up cornered in a ravine with a hungry Carnotaur at the other end of it. The dinosaurs panic as the carnivore rushes towards them, which makes no sense on two fronts. First of all, the herd is cornered, so a leisurely pace would be equally as effective at catching prey. Secondly, notice how some of the dinosaurs have spikes and horns? If a predator had rushed them like this, this is what would have likely happened:

It’s possible that such stupidity made Carnotaurus extinct, but despite Kron’s objections it doesn’t look like the weak or idiotic dinosaurs come a cropper at all.

Badass Baby Iguanodons

During the march we see no less than two dinosaurs drop down dead from exhaustion, and Eema almost succumbs when they don’t get enough water at the halfway point. These are all adults who have presumably made the trip before, but these two baby Iguanodons trump them entirely. Even before Neera decides to help them, they manage to keep up with the herd, are somehow the first dinosaurs to reach the dried up lake, and the absolute last dinosaurs to have a drink of water.

If you are an uber dinosaur geek like me then you have no doubt noticed some other discrepancies in the film after looking at the composition of said herd. If not, then sit up straight and you may learn something. You never know, it might come up in a pub quiz or something.

The Fallacious Cretaceous

As I mentioned earlier, the comet shows that the events of the film take place near the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, or K-T boundary, 65 million years ago. This represents only a tiny part of the dinosaurs’ reign; they lived on Earth for about 140 million years in total, and in that time there were various species with various adaptations.

To help get your (and my) head around the timescale involved, imagine that every single person in Greater London or New York City represents one year. Now imagine 8 Greater Londons or New York Cities. That number of years takes you back to the time of the comet and the K-T boundary, i.e. the Late Cretaceous period.

Now, this motley crew,

Iguanodon	Pachyrhinosaurus	Stygimoloch
Pteranodon	Carnotaurus	Microceratops
Oviraptor

were, long, long dead before the comet hit. They all hail from the Early-Mid Cretaceous period, up to 80 million years before the beforehand, ergo, 18 Greater Londons or New York cities ago.

And the last two were from Mongolia, so yet another geography fail.

An even (literally) bigger offender is Baylene, the second most amazing CGI Brachiosaur.

She is “the last of her kind”, which is good going considering the rest of her species died out about 100 million years earlier, i.e. 27 Greater Londons or New York Cities ago. The gap between Baylene and the comet is also more than twice the gap between it and us. So saying it’s okay because she’s the last one is like saying there could be a real life T-Rex among the other animals at your local zoo, probably in the cage next to the aforementioned elephant in the room:

The Lemurs

Sifakas, leaping superfluously into a dinosaur movie near you!

This…is an odd choice for a family unit. I understand the idea of having some kind of mammal in the story that the audience can relate to, but a lemur? A mouse, possum or even a raccoon-like creature would be nearer the mark as there were similar mammals scurrying about at the dinosaurs’ feet in this period, but a primate makes no sense this far back in the fossil record. The sifakas also look like modern-day sifakas, so we’re not dealing with a more primitive species here either. It’s one thing to bung lots of dinosaurs together from different periods, but inserting a modern day creature into a film that was only a few steps away from being a prehistoric documentary smacks of laziness, or Disney were more lax with their research than first thought.

Not only is the time difference between the first ever primates and the comet about 7 Greater Londons or New York Cities, but between the primates and Aladar it’s about 11. Again, more than the gap between the comet and us.

Since we’re dealing with gargantuan numbers it’s all too easy to dismiss it as “eh, it’s pretty much the same”, but imagine if the person doling out your Lottery winnings had the same opinion. These animals didn’t coexist and to say so makes the story about as realistic as the Flintstones.

Conclusion

As far as social behaviour goes, Disney have stuck to the accepted theories about dinosaurs and also read up about sifakas. A couple of designs have understandably been tweaked, and there are a couple of points where their guess is about as good as any other. This is not the case for pretty much everything else.

When it comes to time periods, Disney are no further forward than their earlier rendition of dinosaurs in Fantasia. There seem to be two distinct groups – one from the Late Cretaceous when the comet struck, and another from the Early Cretaceous, as if they researched both periods independently and assiduously and then gave up and decided to throw them into the mix. It would have been so easy to just remove one group and/or the comet and make the story much more accurate, but instead they toss in a bunch of lemurs as well.

To be fair, this has been the crime of virtually every dinosaur film ever put to celluloid. Outside of younger children, an interest in dinosaurs is quite niche (as an example, when I announced I was doing my MA dissertation on palaeontology everyone laughed. Seriously.) and so to attract as wide an audience as possible they will throw the most popular and recognisable dinosaurs together. But Disney have also chosen some lesser known species, and every effort seems to have been made to shoot a film that looks realistic and portrays dinosaurs as they were. In the end, this suggests an Aladar-Kron-like struggle over realism versus marketability.

In short, Dinosaur is like the infamous shot of Nessie. It looks real, but if you go a bit deeper you’ll find one person trying to act convincingly while the other is using it to sell tickets.

Accuracy Rating: 3/10

Sources

1) Dinosaur, 2000. Film. Directed by Eric Leighton and Ralph Zondag, U.S.A. Walt Disney Pictures.

2) Brusatte, Steve. Dinosaurs.Quercus, 2008 (Great Britain). ISBN: 978-1-84724-286-6

3) Gardon, Tim and Milner, Angela. The Natural History Museum Book of Dinosaurs. Carlton, no year (Great Britain). ISBN: 1-85227-486-7

4) Haines, Tim. Walking With Dinosaurs: A Natural History. BBC, 1999 (Great Britain). ISBN: 0-563-38449-2

5) Mehlling, Carl. Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals. 3C Publishing Ltd, 2009 (Great Britain). ISBN-13: 978-1-906842-0301

6) Norman, David. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs. Salamander Books, 1985 (Great Britain). ISBN: 0-86101-225-9

7) Parker, Steve. The Complete Book of Dinosaurs. Apple Press, 2004 (Great Britain). ISBN: 1-84092-456-X

8) Walking With Dinosaurs, television programme, British Broadcasting Corporation, England, 1999.

9) http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Propithecus_verreauxi/

10) http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/census/popcur.shtml

11) http://www.londonhigher.ac.uk/population.html

12) http://science.nationalgeographic.co.uk/science/prehistoric-world/prehistoric-time-line/

13) Header image: http://walkingwithdinos.wikia.com/wiki/Iguanodon?file=Image4_-_Copy.jpg

I’ll be looking at the species of the main characters only, and, as an obvious disclaimer, I am well aware that animals can’t really talk/use magic/choreograph big musical numbers. This is solely to compare their behaviours and diet etc. as animals.

Let’s start with the (in my opinion) underrated Brother Bear.

Synopsis

When a bear kills his oldest brother, Sidka, Kenai the hunter seeks revenge by ramming a spear through its chest. The spirit of Sidka – embodied by the northern lights – responds by changing him into a bear, either for a laugh or to teach him about perspective. While travelling to the home of the spirits to ask for his human form back, Kenai comes across a cub named Koda who has lost his mother. He was heading to the yearly salmon run, and since this is in the direction of Kenai’s destination, the older bear grudgingly agrees to let him tag along.

They form a close bond in between being hunted by Kenai’s remaining human brother, Denahi, but when they reach the congregation of bears at the salmon run, Kenai finds out that the one he killed was actually Koda’s mother. Unsurprisingly, Koda isn’t impressed at this news and runs away, but later returns having forgiven him, just in time to save Kenai from being speared by Denahi. Then Sidka and the other spirits intervene, and Kenai agrees to remain a bear as penance and to look after Koda. Koda is briefly reunited with his mother’s spirit, and then all four brothers, human, spirit and bear, make amends and live in peace with one another.

Aside from all the spirit magic, would things have been much different if Kenai had been a real bear?

What They Got Right

Food

The first thing on Kenai’s to-do list would have been to eat a shed load of food. Bears are such badasses that if they don’t get enough, they’ll effectively start eating themselves – they can lose a staggering 1,000,000 calories during hibernation, so most of their time has to be spent stuffing their gullet with berries, nuts and of course salmon, which our main characters are seen  eating throughout the film. Fresh meat can also form a key part of their diet, and there is an allusion to this too - moose brothers Rutt and Tuke are initially terrified of Kenai in case he devours them on sight, which is a reasonable length to go to to stop their annoying banter.

In fact, the largest recorded bears are the ones whose diet consists primarily of meat, sometimes even other bears, so Kenai’s reaction to meeting Tug is also entirely accurate.

Family Life

“Ugh, no good. Get Mamma’s pryin’ broom.”

As for Koda, he’s lost his mother and is all by himself. Father fail?

No, not really. Bears are serially monogamous, so they only enjoy one booty call at a time during mating season, but the males don’t stick around for the aftermath. If they do hang around their cubs, it’s for another reason entirely, which I’ll touch upon later.

True to form, in Brother Bear we never see a mother, father and cub unit at any point in the film, even during the montage at the salmon run. However, mother bears are extremely protective of their offspring and Koda’s is no exception, dealing out not one but two hunter smack-downs during the course of the film.

This brings us to one of the main aspects of the story.

Human and Bear Relations

Unlike humans, bears will only really attack humans if threatened, protecting their young or starving – they don’t have a designated “let’s stuff our face with people” season. Having said this, they’re not the kind of animals you want to walk side by side with. A case in point is the story of Timothy Treadwell.

A word to the wise: be careful searching for “Timothy Treadwell” on Google images. Even on a safe search I came across some very graphic images, and let’s just say they weren’t exactly the “bow-chick-a-wow-wow” type.

A self-proclaimed “custodian” of grizzly bears, he lived periodically in the wilderness in Alaska, studying and even interacting with the bears, occasionally bringing his girlfriend Amie along. Although there was an ominous feeling to the bears’ presence, there was little outright aggression from the animals, but in 2003, Timothy and his girlfriend were both killed in a bear attack. It’s assumed that the bear shown in the last few hours of footage – which had failed to catch enough salmon and was starving hungry – was responsible, so we’re not really talking about Steve Irwin levels of danger here.

Regardless, they were in close proximity to the bear and in its territory, and opinion is divided as to whether this was too much of an intrusion.

Simply put, normally Mr. Bear won’t deliberately come to get you.

Not required.

The same is true of Koda’s mother – she only fights because (human) Kenai keeps poking her with an unwanted stick, and he actively seeks her out both times.

What’s more, despite the film’s ending, we only see Kenai and Koda among the human tribe during the celebration. This courtesy hasn’t been extended to the other bears, and so this reinforces the message of humans and bears living peacefully, but also entirely separately, which is surprisingly realistic for a film about spirits turning people into animals and moose hitching a ride on a mammoth.

We’re doing well so far, but there are a couple of points that raise an eyebrow.

What They Got Away With

Kenai and Koda

To Mr. Bear, a cub means a light snack followed by a much improved chance of boning Mrs. Bear. This is one of the reasons why most cubs don’t reach adulthood, so in any other situation Koda would be flattened in as much time as it takes him to form a boastful story about it.

However, Disney get a free pass here because Kenai was originally a human, and since we can assume he wasn’t equally as adept at killing the children of his own tribe, there would be no reason for him to attack Koda.

On a more tenuous note, sub-adult siblings will sometimes travel together, so if Kenai and Koda were genuinely “bros” then this would also be possible.

Kenai’s human origin also explains such behaviour as helping hunters (to a point) and the aforementioned mammoth riding. However, this doesn’t excuse the behaviour of the other bears.

Brown Bears in Mist, Russia, by Michael Melford

What takes the 

That song. You know which one I mean.

If not, you can “enjoy it” here.

While it’s true that brown bears congregate at the salmon run each year,  singing a song about how they are one happy family that share their fish is a step too far. Why?

Social Behaviour

Despite the sheer abundance of salmon, there is fierce competition for the best fishing spot. Or indeed, any fishing spot whatsoever.

Imagine for instance turning up to the only restaurant in town to find that every single table is reserved, and if you go home, you’ll die of starvation (see the Bear Weight-Loss Plan above). If you so much as walk past another person at their table you’ll likely get a smack round the chops, and if you dare ask when they’ll be going, on a good day you’ll be laughed off the premises, and on a bad day you’ll end up staring at the ceiling with a broken jaw and no teeth left. That’s if the restaurant even let you in in the first place without punching you in the head.

Brown bears face a similar dilemma at the salmon run. Large adult males are at the top of the hierarchy, usually followed by mother bears and their mouthy teenage offpsring, and some bears aren’t even allowed to go near the run at all at the risk of an intense slap-o-rama or full on brawl.

Image by Charles Glatzer

There’s also the aforementioned risk of cubs, a.k.a. entrées, being snapped up by the larger bears if mum doesn’t pay attention. There’s no way that Koda would have survived an encounter with Tug, who we’ve established must be so huge because he has eaten a crap-load of meat.

Plus it’s an awful, awful song.

Conclusion

Brother Bear actually ticks most of the boxes for bear behaviour. They are portrayed as solitary, there are no family units, they eat the right types of food and they do gather to fatten up on salmon. In addition, the relationship between bears and humans is realistic – they won’t bother each other if kept separate, and will usually only attack in defence or to protect their young. The fact that the film reinforces this message by only having Kenai and Koda meet the human tribe, rather than having all the bears and humans mix, is one of the reasons why I think this film is underrated; Disney aren’t known for their subtlety with these kinds of messages.

Any bizarre behaviour is also explained away by Kenai having been turned from a human into a bear. And, you know, by it being a children’s film.

Regarding the salmon run scene, Disney could have made this a comedic struggle between the bears to get the best fishing spot, or Kenai could have been challenged to an epic battle to prove his worth among the others. Instead they show them coming together to swap stories, without any punch-ups or baby-eating, to soften the blow when Kenai decides to remain in his animal form for the rest of his life – it looks so much fun we want him to stay as a bear. But given that most people would swap a life of weaving fish baskets and sibling rivalry for one where you get to stuff your face with food, sleep for half the year and then wake up for the odd sexy liaison, this probably wasn’t necessary.

Accuracy Rating: 7/10

Sources

1) Brother Bear, 2003. Film. Directed by Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker, U.S.A. Walt Disney Pictures.

2) Uhlenbroek, Charlotte, Animal Life: The Definitive Visual Guide to Animals and their Behaviour. Dorling Kindersley, Great Britain, 2008. ISBN: 978 1 4053 22157

3) The Life of Mammals, television programme, British Broadcasting Corporation, England, 2002.

4) Stornorov, Derek and Stokes, Allen W., Social Behaviour of the Alaskan Brown Bear (unknown year), Department of Wildlife Resources, Utah State University. http://www.bearbiology.com/fileadmin/tpl/Downloads/URSUS/Vol_2/Stonorov_Stokes.pdf

5) Grizzly Man, 2005. Film. Directed by Werner Herzog. Lions Gate Films.

6) http://beartrust.org/brown-bear

7) Header image: Grizzly bear and cub by James Galletto http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/wallpaper/photography/photos/animal-mothers-babies/grizzly-bear-greeting/

Okay, that’s an equally slight exaggeration, but Rapunzel formed part of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s most famous work, Die Kinder und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales), which was banned from many a classroom in the west after World War II. It was feared that the stories contained therein had desensitised children to violence and paved the way for extremism, so at least we know it’s not just video games that turn kids evil. Despite appearances, just as Tangled is as happy-go-lucky as Hercules, Rapunzel is actually one of the less traumatic offerings from the Brothers Grimm.

In case you’ve only heard their names and not a lot else, the Brothers Grimm are heralded as the fathers of modern German literature studies, and with good reason. During the 19th Century, Germany was in a bit of a mess due to various political squabbles, and so to help preserve the country’s identity, the brothers set about collecting German folk tales and fairy stories as well as researching the roots of their own language. Since their adaptation is the first story that carries the name “Rapunzel”, I have chosen this version as our source text.

Based on the German translation of Mademoiselle de la Force’s Persinette, Rapunzel actually has two iterations, from 1812 and 1857 respectively. The one from 1857 is the most well known, but this was after some conservative editing – when the Grimms realised how popular their stories could be with children, they decided to clean them up accordingly. Sounds familiar.

So, are we going to look at the unedited 1812 version? Of course we are.

Flower Power

Disney version

In a far away land, a good king and queen (who still hang people for stealing) are in a spot of bother. The queen is pregnant but gravely ill, and the only thing that can cure her is a legendary flower made from a drop of sunshine. The king sends out his soldiers on what they probably thought would be an epic, dragon-filled, swash-buckling quest to find it, but it turns up pretty quickly beside an up-turned basket on a cliff, and so they whisk it away to make a potion to cure the queen. Result!

The chameleon: evil omen for Disney children everywhere.

Unfortunately, the owner of the up-turned basket is Mother Gothel, who may or may not be a sorceress.  She has been using the flower for its magical youth-restoring properties, and she is none too pleased at the thought of reverting back to wrinkle cream like the rest of us. By the time she reaches the castle to retrieve the flower, it has long since been digested by the queen and its powers now have a new home in the luxuriant blonde hair of the baby princess.

Out of desperation, Gothel resorts to something even more extreme than botox and cosmetic surgery: kidnapping and emotional abuse. She sneaks into the castle, steals the princess and then raises her as her own for the express purpose of cheating old age.

After a fruitless search for their daughter, the mournful king and queen make a pact to release hundreds of lanterns every year on her birthday in the hope that one day she will return to them. Because “missing” posters would be too obvious.

Grimm version

Both sides show a distinct lack of effort here.

After many years of trying for a baby, a married couple finally conceive, and one day the pregnant wife has a particular craving while looking out of the window. She spots a patch of rapunzel (lamb’s lettuce) in the lush and verdant garden next door, and decides there’s nothing else in the world she would rather eat. Unfortunately, it belongs to a fairy, and so no one dares to go inside. Clearly unable to do her own shopping, or, you know, ask the fairy’s permission, the wife falls into a deep depression and becomes ill.

This is what “rapunzel” looks like. Totally worth your first born.

Worried for her health, her husband steals some of the rapunzel for her, but when he returns the next day to pilfer more, he is caught red handed. Doing his best to avoid fertilising said garden, he apologises profusely to the fairy, Gothel, and explains that he can’t refuse his wife anything when she is pregnant. Gothel is utterly reasonable and says he can take as much rapunzel as he wants as long as they give her the child afterwards. In his terror the husband agrees, and when their baby daughter arrives, the fairy whisks her away. As an extra slap in the face, or because she has no imagination, she names the girl “Rapunzel”.

The parents are never heard of again, because after swapping their first born for a bunch of salad leaves, they then trade their organs for a sackful of carrots. Probably.

Disney took all of the elements of Rapunzel’s origin and gave them a cinematic upgrade. A tasty piece of garnish and a rather extreme punishment for stealing become a life-saving magical flower and a royal tragedy due to an inconvenience. There is also the hope that the princess will one day be reunited with her family, whereas in the Grimm version there is no question of this because the parents must take responsibility for their mistake. This seems to be the only motivation of the fairy in this case, whereas Disney’s Gothel takes the child so that she can continue her way of living. So what do these charming ladies do with their newly acquired offspring?

Life in the Tower

Disney version

Realising a basket isn’t the best hiding place after all, Gothel decides to confine the newly-named Rapunzel to a tower in the middle of the woods for the rest of her life. After a certain age she only visits the girl a few days at a time, shouting out for her to throw her long hair out of the window so she can use it as a ladder, with a clear disregard for hygiene. Her visits are fleeting; she only stays long enough to humour Rapunzel and replenish her youth.

Despite this, Rapunzel has been making the best of a bad situation and spends her days baking, painting, reading or playing with her pet chameleon. Although usually afraid of leaving the tower, she can’t help but be intrigued by the strange lights that appear in the sky every year on the night of her birthday. Demonstrating Sherlock-like skills of elimination, she has worked out that these lights are not stars or any natural phenomena, and since her 18th birthday is fast approaching, hopes Gothel will give her permission to go and see them up close. Her response?

Yes, it seems that Gothel went to the same parenting classes as Frollo (less the sideline in genocide and religious fundamentalism), and has manipulated and emotionally blackmailed Rapunzel into staying in the tower for her own safety, becoming sarcastic and snide whenever the subject is breached and baulking at the idea of Rapunzel surviving on her own. She then launches into a passive-aggressive song and rounds it up with veiled threats if she ever asks to leave again. So, that would be a no.

However, Rapunzel isn’t quite as downtrodden as it appears, and she is about to be presented with an opportunity to shine.

Grimm version

Obviously too difficult to fly up. You know, for a fairy.

Beautiful young Rapunzel is only confined to the tower from the age of 12, so we can assume that she was living with the fairy up until this point. Next door to her real parents. Who thought it perfectly acceptable to break the rules for a few salad leaves, but not in order to see their missing daughter. Hmm, perhaps the fairy had more sense than to leave the girl with those two idiots.

However, this Gothel’s actions aren’t exactly model either; like the Disney version, she makes Rapunzel stay in the tower indefinitely and visits her every day, shouting for her to throw down her hair and use it as a makeshift ladder. There are no details about what Rapunzel does with her time when Gothel is away, except for singing at the window, so we have no idea whether she is happy with her predicament or not.

The key difference here is that the tower in the Disney version is Gothel’s way of protecting her secret, whereas the one in the Grimm version is just a huge stone chastity belt. Grimm’s Rapunzel also offers no resistance to her captivity as far as we know, and has as much personality as the usual damsel in distress in a fairy tale. Gothel’s attitude towards her is also a mystery at this point. Conversely, in a bid to make her less of a victim, Disney have made their Rapunzel much more active, intelligent, and unwilling to while away the days despite her confinement, and their Gothel is much more manipulative and sinister in order to keep her in check.

The key to her escape comes in the form of a handsome young man, but each Rapunzel will find that the road to love and happiness is a tricky one indeed.

Easy Rider

Disney version

To fund his pipe dream of owning his own castle, wanted thief Flynn Rider steals what would have been Rapunzel’s crown from the palace and takes off into the wilderness. While fleeing his jilted robber friends and the royal guards (including the most awesome Disney horse since Samson), he stumbles upon the valley of Rapunzel’s tower.

No one apart from Gothel has ever come across this tower in 17 years, which means that this:

was somehow much more obvious than this:

Despite the sheer walls, Flynn manages to climb up and into the window, thinking it would be a superb place to stash his loot.  He is rewarded for this ingenuity with several blows from a frying pan, courtesy of a terrified Rapunzel.

The girl, astonished at her own bravery and resourcefulness, further surprises herself by making a deal with Flynn (when he has regained consciousness). If he takes her to see the lights in the sky, she will give him back his satchel, which clearly held something important.

Only Gothel would be less impressed by this turn of events, but Flynn agrees anyway, at first trying to talk her out of it – even turning the knife about how heartbroken Gothel would be if she found out – but then warming to the girl after they help each other out of various scrapes on their way to the lights. After revealing the magical healing properties of Rapunzel’s hair, and an earnest heart to heart about their respective upbringings and dreams, the pair realise they have much more in common than first thought.

It turns out that Flynn Rider was formerly known as Eugene Fitzherbert, a down-on-his-luck orphan who took to stealing so he could become an adventurer. He hasn’t let his status or situation restrict him, and this is part of the reason why he and Rapunzel click – he tells her she can’t live her life by Gothel’s rules, and that rebellion and independence are part of growing up. He also inadvertently shows Rapunzel the world she has been missing, amazingly without the need for a magic carpet.

Regardless, he and Rapunzel go up to the brink of a kiss on a boat while finally watching the flying lanterns. Ahh.

All we need now is a conga eel.

Our original Rapunzel, on the other hand, would be left tapping her foot impatiently in this situation.

Grimm version

Rapunzel, by Granger.

Rather than a thief, this handsome young man is a prince, who happens to wander past the tower one day while Rapunzel is singing at the window. He’s somewhat less cerebral than Flynn and doesn’t know how to climb up without a ladder or stairs, but luckily, after a couple of days of moping about, he sees the fairy and hears her call out “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”

That same day, when it gets dark, he calls out to Rapunzel using the same words. For some reason she doesn’t notice  that the fairy’s voice has suddenly grown a pair of testicles, and throws her long hair down to him.

The prince pulls himself up, and although Rapunzel is scared at first she doesn’t resort to frying pan-related violence. In fact, the pair hit it off so well that they arrange to see each other every day when the fairy isn’t around, and in the words of the original “lived in joy and pleasure for a long time”. So we can conclude that being locked in a tower was a popular medieval aphrodisiac, and that in the original, Flynn’s “smoulder” actually worked.

As with the Disney version, our mother figure is none too pleased with this development and ends up playing gooseberry.

In an interesting role reversal, Disney have made Flynn a peasant whose dream of living in a castle could technically be granted by Princess Rapunzel. Their relationship is also a slow-burner (in fantasy terms at least), starting with a bout of assault, a mind game or two on the part of Flynn, and a heart to heart talk inspired by proximity to death. But then onwards it starts warming up into a genuine romance. Conversely, the Grimm couple don’t even have to leave the tower before they get it on. Neither are also the sharpest tools in the box, as the prince couldn’t work out how to climb up the tower, and Rapunzel demonstrates worse voice recognition than your average Sat Nav, but they seem happy as a couple from the outset.

How is their illicit affair discovered? By good old fashioned stupidity, that’s how.

Mother Knows Best…Apparently

Disney version

After an expert diversion by Rapunzel, Gothel has left for three days and is blissfully unaware of her escape. At least for the first twenty minutes, until she finds the aforementioned awesome horse without a rider and dashes back to the tower in a panic. Finding it empty, Gothel somehow stumbles across Flynn’s satchel, complete with royal crown. This would be no help to her at all, if the narcissistic Flynn hadn’t identified himself by putting one of his own “wanted” posters in the bag as well.

Now knowing who to look for, Gothel sets off in search of her absconded prisoner offspring. She manages to track the pair down, but rather than drag the girl screaming back to the tower (at least at this point), she flexes her manipulative muscles. After planting seeds of doubt in Rapunzel’s mind about Flynn’s true loyalty – Gothel warns he will dump her as soon as he has the crown back – she then enlists the help of the thief’s jilted robber friends.

Together they create a situation where Flynn appears to betray Rapunzel for the crown, and then Gothel rescues her from the thieves. The thieves aren’t privy to the second part of this plan, so while they and the unfortunate Flynn are shipped off to prison for a bout of hanging, Rapunzel goes sheepishly back to the tower with her “mother”.

However, Rapunzel has put various subliminal messages together and worked out that she is the missing princess. She angrily confronts Gothel with this information, who reacts as any reasonable parent would do: she chains her up and says this time she will take her away somewhere where they will never be found.

Flynn has also realised this and is broken out of prison by some chums they met on their adventure, dashing heroically back to the tower to save his lady love. However, after climbing up her hair, he is greeted with a knife in the back by Gothel.

As he lies dying, Rapunzel promises to let Gothel lock her up forever if she just lets her heal him. Amazingly, Gothel obliges, at least she would do if Flynn didn’t take a knife and cut Rapunzel’s magical hair off.

“I learnt this move from Mulan. Except the ‘dying’ bit.”

This makes Gothel rapidly age, trip rather suspiciously over the pet chameleon, tumble to her death out of the window and turn into a heap of ash. Flynn turns into a heap of hurt and expires, so Rapunzel has lost her hair, her guardian and her new boyfriend in one fell swoop. Wow, Disney, you really can be bastards sometimes.

Grimm version

Gothel finds out about Rapunzel’s affair in a way that is much less dramatic but much more hilarious, in a car-crash sort of way.

One day when she visits Rapunzel, the girl asks her why her clothes don’t seem to fit her anymore. While she is utterly mystified at her bulging abdomen, Gothel realises something is metaphorically cooking, and, disgusted at her actions, cuts off her long blonde hair and throws her out of the tower (not literally this time), effectively disowning her.

For some reason Gothel holds on to the hair, and when the prince turns up for another visit, she throws it down to him so he can climb up. When he arrives, she rudely tells him that his Rapunzel is long gone and he will never see her again. In his grief, the prince throws himself out of the tower window and loses his eyesight in the fall.

Although Disney Gothel is angry and inconvenienced by Rapunzel’s escape and her new boyfriend, this isn’t the revelation that makes her snap – it’s the fact that Rapunzel has discovered her true identity, and no amount of chiding or manipulation can change the girl’s mind. For Grimm’s Gothel, it’s Rapunzel’s pregnancy, the one condition she was presumably hoping to avoid by locking her in a tower from the age of 12. She is also much less brutal in admonishing the party responsible; although she does trick the prince with Rapunzel’s hair and speak rudely to him, it’s by the prince’s own volition that he injures himself.

The Gothels also react differently to the revelation – the Disney version wants to limit Rapunzel’s freedom even more than before, whereas the Grimm version can’t wait to be rid of her once she has broken her rules. Now the Grimm version is finally free, let’s see how her time outside the tower compares with Disney’s.

Life in the Wilderness

Disney version

Skipping back to a happier part of the story, as soon as Rapunzel’s feet touch the grass outside the tower she becomes deliriously happy and devastatingly guilt-ridden, depending on whether an odd or even number of minutes have passed. She soon decides that she likes the outside world, despite being afraid that hooligans and sharp-toothed men will jump out at her at any minute. Flynn decides to reassure her by taking her to an inn that is full of said hooligans and sharp-toothed men.

His plan to scare the girl home again backfires, because being part pure sunshine means that even the hardiest and villainous of ruffians can’t resist engaging in a sing-a-long, talking about dreams and even baking you sublime cupcakes.

They also break your boyfriend out of prison thanks to a horse that’s either telepathic or versed in human sign language.

It’s not all pastries and parties though; soon after Rapunzel and Flynn are pursued by the royal guards, bringing down a dam in the process and ending up trapped in a flooding cave. Fortunately, Rapunzel remembers her hair glows when she sings  and this allows them to find the way out, as well as heal Flynn’s hand and utterly blow his mind.

Even Flynn’s most relentless pursuer, Maximus, said awesome horse who puts the entire army to shame, can’t resist Rapunzel and grudgingly agrees to call off his pursuit for 24 hours while they visit the lights. The three then find themselves bonding while shopping, dancing or eating apples (whichever is appropriate) in the main town before Flynn rows his lady love out on to the lake to watch the lights. Maximus, left behind with a sack of apples, is later able to warn their ruffian chums about Gothel and also rescue Flynn from prison, so Rapunzel’s influence seems to have affected everyone around her. What’s more, various signs around the town have left their mark on Rapunzel and allow her to piece together her origin.

Given that Disney Rapunzel has left the tower of her own choice rather than being thrown out for joining a certain club, it’s beyond evident that Grimm’s Rapunzel is not going to have so jolly a time, and likewise her prince.

Grimm version

Homeless, pregnant, with no real life experience and a bad hair cut, Rapunzel has a rough time alone in the woods. However, she must have salvaged her survival instinct from somewhere, as she is able to give birth to and look after a pair of twins. This is also without the help of any fairies, so take that, Sleeping Beauty.

The prince has an even worse time of it; injured in the fall and now blind, he now literally rather than metaphorically eats shoots and leaves everyday as he stumbles through the woods, mourning his lost love.

To inject more action into the film, Disney make Rapunzel leave the tower early on in the story, and life on the outside is both challenging, exciting and rewarding for her, mainly due to her inherent sunshine power. Although the reverse is true for Grimm’s Rapunzel, she is still able to survive despite her confinement and condition, and so both Rapunzels beat the odds by being able to take care of themselves without their guardian, growing up in the process. Both Flynn and the prince end up inconvenienced, either by knife or self-inflicted injury, after Rapunzel has left the tower, but this time it’s our respective ladies to the rescue.

Family Reunion

Disney version

Now that Rapunzel’s hair has been cut, she no longer has the power to heal Flynn – or so she thinks. A tear drops on to his face, and for some reason this proves to be just as powerful as her hair, reviving him.

Finally free of Gothel and reunited with her true love, Rapunzel now only has one last task – to double check that she is actually the lost princess and to meet her real parents.

“Thank you for finding our daughter. And, er, sorry about the execution thing.”

For an equally unknown reason, Flynn is allowed back into the kingdom with Rapunzel and even granted access to the palace. The king and queen swarm her, recognising her as their daughter despite the lack of long golden locks, and the entire town rejoices for several days.

Several of the loveable ruffians find new and respectable jobs in the kingdom, and thanks to Maximus, the crime rate plummets, showing that a good ruler always makes their horse a public official.

Eventually, Rapunzel and Flynn (now known by his real name, Eugene) get married and live happily ever after.

Pictured on the right: the town’s peeping tom.

Grimm version

Rapunzel, by Simon Kozhin

It turns out that the prince has a better ear than his lover, because several years later, while stumbling through the forest, he hears and recognises Rapunzel’s voice.

Rapunzel goes to him and her tears of joy restore his eyesight to as good as before.

That’s all you’re getting from the original, so we don’t know if the prince is happy or mortified at the sudden appearance of their two children. But we can probably assume the reception the couple gave each other afterwards.

The original therefore clarifies a rather contrived plot point in the Disney film – Rapunzel’s tears are enough to restore eyesight or bring someone back to life.

Sorry Simba, you’re just not magical enough.

Both families are also reunited happily ever after, but this happens sooner rather than later in the Disney version. Rapunzel’s return also affects the entire kingdom, whereas in the Grimm version, she, the prince and her children are very much alone and isolated in their group, in a decidedly non-extravagant setting. All they have is each other, but the implication is that this is all that they need.

Conclusion

Rapunzel is one of those fairy tales where bugger all really happens, so it’s no surprise that Disney decided to add more fantastical elements and action. In addition, there is more of a clue as to Rapunzel and Gothel’s motivations and feelings; Rapunzel is your average intelligent teenage girl verging on adulthood who wants to test her boundaries, and Gothel tries to keep her confined, both mentally and physically, in order to exploit her power (although what she does with her eternal youth is never fully explained). The love interest roles are also reversed, in that Rapunzel is the royal figure and Flynn is the peasant who sometimes needs rescuing. Regardless of their situations, neither character allows themselves to be a victim or dwell on the negatives, and this allows them to attain their respective dreams. The more severe version of Gothel is therefore a counterbalance to this success, and another example of Disney making their version slightly darker than the original.

Grimm’s Rapunzel is more about taking responsibility for your actions, albeit the parents stealing the rapunzel in the first place, or Rapunzel keeping her torrid love affair from the fairy. It is also about the effects of love, as the prince tries to kill himself when he finds out Rapunzel is gone, and his lover’s tears restore him again. Their relationship is also what makes Rapunzel break Gothel’s rules in the first place. However, by enduring through pain and tough times all by themselves, they are rewarded with happiness.

In essence, both versions of the story are about rebellion being a natural part of growing up. Each Rapunzel is a teenage girl who breaks a set of firmly defined rules due to her own curiosity. Despite her inexperience, and the disapproval of her parental guardian, she triumphs over adversity and in the end attains what she (presumably) wants out of life, simply by relying on herself and her own strength. This in turn helps those around her, especially the people she loves.

We can therefore conclude that you should never be afraid to spread your wings and try new experiences, as you are more than likely capable of handling any situation.

Even on a bad hair day.

Sources

1) Tangled, 2010. Film. Directed by Nathan Greno and Byron Howard, U.S.A. Walt Disney Pictures.

2) Ashliman, D.L., Rapunzel by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, a comparison of the versions of 1812 and 1857, 2000, http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm012a.html

3) Connolly, Kate, 2012, Grimm’s Fairy Tales: 200th anniversary triggers a year of celebration, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/19/grimm-brothers-anniversary-german-culture

4)  Davis, John K., The Origin and History of Rapunzel, 2009, http://suite101.com/article/the-origin-and-history-of-rapunzel-a148496

5) Grade, Ananda, The Brothers Grimm: Freaks or visionaries? 2012, http://www.dw.de/the-brothers-grimm-freaks-or-visionaries/a-16465915

6) Header image: http://static.zerochan.net/Rapunzel.%28Character%29.full.1150659.jpg