Disney’s “Rapunzel”

Rapunzel was to be Disney’s much-anticipated return to animated fairy tales. When Disney and Pixar split, we were told that Rapunzel would be computer generated. This would be Disney’s ANSWER to Pixar. This would be the proof that Disney was still king of the cartoon hill.

They paraded Glen Keane, master animator (and director of this new film), in front of the media. He promised that Rapunzel would be not only a film of “astonishing beauty” but the world’s MOST gorgeously rendered animated film ever produced. It's images would have the kind of lush detail you’d see in the paintings of Jean-Honore Fragonard:

However, in a recent (and superb) article on Jim Hill Media we learn that this high profile film is actually getting bogged down and pushed back because… they’re still trying to come up with a workable script.

Huh.

Not only that, the new head honcho of Disney animation, Pixar's John Lasseter, has given Glen Keane until June to fix the script or he may be off the project. Or dare I say it? The plug may be pulled.

Hmm.

Let’s consider the story, shall we?

(This is a short summary from Wikipedia.)

A young couple wanted a child more than anythig. They lived next to a walled garden which belonged to an enchantress. To their great joy, the wife became pregnant, and one day, she noticed some rapunzel (or, in some versions of the story, blue radishes), planted in the garden and longed after it to the point of death. For two nights, the husband went out and broke into the witch's garden to gather some for her, but on the third night, as he was scaling the wall to return home, the enchantress (Dame Gothel) appeared and accused him of thievery. He begged for mercy, and the old woman agreed to give him some, on condition that their child will be surrendered to her when it is born. Desperate, the man agreed. A girl was born. The enchantress appeared, and the child was taken away. She named her Rapunzel. When Rapunzel reached her twelfth year, the enchantress shut her away into a tower in the middle of the woods with neither stairs nor door and only one room and one window. When the witch went to visit Rapunzel, she stood beneath the tower and called out:

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,
so that I may climb the golden stair.

Upon hearing these words, Rapunzel would wrap her long, fair hair around a hook that sat beside the window, and drop it down to the enchantress, who would then climb up the hair to Rapunzel.

One day a prince rode through the forest and heard Rapunzel singing from the tower. Entranced by her ethereal voice, he went to look for the girl and found the tower, but no door leading in, and no stairway leading up. He then returned often, listening to her sing, and one day saw the enchantress visit, thus learning how to gain access to Rapunzel. When the witch was gone he bade Rapunzel let her hair down, and he climbed up, made her acquaintance, and asked her to marry him. Rapunzel agreed.

Together they planned a way to get her out of the tower: he would come each night (thus avoiding the enchantress who visited her by day), and bring her silk, which Rapunzel would gradually weave into a ladder. Before the plan came to fruition however, Rapunzel accidentally revealed her relationship to the prince to the enchantress. In the first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, Rapunzel innocently asks why her dress was getting tight around her belly, alerting the witch. In subsequent editions, she asked the witch one day (in a moment of forgetfulness) why it was easier for her to draw him up instead of her. In anger, Dame Gothel cut short Rapunzel's braided hair and cast her out into the wilderness to fend for herself.

When the prince returned and called out to her, the enchantress let the braids down to haul him up. To his horror he found himself staring at the witch instead of Rapunzel, who was nowhere to be found. When she told him in anger that he would never see Rapunzel again, he leapt from the tower in despair. He fell into a patch of thorns that pierced his eyes and blinded him.

For months he wandered through the wastelands of the country. During this time, Rapunzel gave birth to the prince's twin children, a boy and a girl. One day, while Rapunzel sang as she fetched water, the prince heard Rapunzel's voice again and they were reunited. When they fell into each other's arms, her tears immediately restored his sight. The prince led her and their children to his kingdom, where they lived happily ever after.

Wow.

I might actually puke.

So tell me, guys, what’s wrong with this story and how would you fix it?