DisneyToons review: The Pirate Fairy

DisneyToon’s 45th film.

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My opinion right after watching the film

My opinion right after watching the film is that I like it that they brought in Captain Hook, the Crocodile, and Dr. Smee. I wanted a stronger tie-in to the Peter Pan franchise the entire time, and to finally have that made me feel great. I do think that the plots in these films are getting more and more simplistic, and that they are using new characters in each film to distract from the stagnant growth from the main characters.

Production

This film was entitled Quest for the Queen, before it was re-titled to the name we currently know the film as. Disney managed to get Project Runway winner and fashion designer Christian Siriano to design the new character Zarina. This film was supposed to be released in the fall of 2013, but it was pushed back in favor of Planes.

Story

The story starts off with a dust fairy named Zarina (Christina Hendricks), who is obsessed with the capabilities of dust dairies, and wants to figure out everything about pixie dust, to a dangerous point. She is always questioning why instead of accepting the fact that things are the way they are, and is called the Tinkerbell of dust fairies, which….. says enough. Zarina goes to Tinkerbell (Mae Whitman) to show her that she made orange pixie dust, since she wants to know all that pixie dust is capable of, which even makes Tinkerbell nervous.

Apparently different colors of pixie dust represents the different talents of fairies. After using too much pink dust (garden talent), the plant ends up destroying a bunch of Pixie Hollow. Dust fairy leader Fairy Gary (Jeff Bennett) tells her that she is no longer a dustkeeper. This causes Zarina to run away, and we fast forward to a year.

The movie than skips a year, where the Winter fairies join everyone for the Four Seasons Festival, which makes Rosetta (Megan Hilty) happy to see her boyfriend, and Tinkerbell happy to see her sister again. While the festival is taking place, Zarina is flying around above in a pirate outfit, where the crew sees and identifies her. She grows a bunch of poppies with the pink dust that causes everyone to fall asleep. Rosetta tells everyone to hide, so they will not be forced to fall asleep. Clank (Jeff Bennett) was late to the show, so he is the only other one who is awake, as he tells them where she went.

Iridessa (Raven Symone) has a panic attack about how dangerous it is for her to steal the blue pixie dust (Zarina ran out after a year), so she leads them to follow Zarina, which leads them to the pirates. They follow the pirates, and there is of course a long chase scene that erupts.

Zarina throws a bunch of colorful set of pixie dust on the girls, which causes them to fall, and wake up hours later to discover that they are not normal. Tinkerbell becomes a water fairy, Silvermist (Lucy Liu) becomes a wind fairy, Fawn (Angela Bartys) becomes a light fairy, Iridessa becomes a garden fairy, Rosetta becomes an animal fairy, and Vidia (Pamela Adlon) becomes a tinker fairy.

Around this time, we are introduced to the two-handed Captain James Hook (Tom Hiddleston), Mr. Smee (Jeff Bennett), and the rest of their crew. The infamous crocodile from Peter Pan becomes imprinted to Rosetta. Vidia ends up making a raft to tie to Silvermist to, so they can catch up to the boat. Apparently, Zarina is the true captain on the boat, but of course, the crew cannot understand fairies. We learn that their ship went astray a year ago, and she saved them, so she is going to help their ship fly to the second star on the right. I think it is obvious what is going to end up happening with the rest of the story.

Zarina is using the dust to create a pixie dust tree at Neverland, and the other fairies follow them, clearly instructing Iridessa to not touch anything that will get them noticed. A bee causes her to fail, and for the entire pirate crew to lock them up, after Tinkerbell fails to get Zarina to come home with them.

Zarina teaches Captain Hook how to fly, an after reassuring him of everything he needs to know about pixie dust, he traps her, and reveals that the entire crew were using and kissing up to her just for the dust, and now they are going to toss her. I honestly do not know if this is supposed to be suspenseful or not, since it IS Hook. This makes Tinkerbell look really horrible in the 1951 film, since she has even more of an in depth knowledge of how he works, but still sold everyone out.

Hook (in his full outfit) is planning to cross the second star to take over the world. Rosetta argues with Iridessa, as she accuses her of ruining the plans, while the latter accuses Rosetta of not helping her with the bee, in order for the plan to work. The crocodile climbs on the boat to reunite with Rosetta, and she is convinced to use the baby crocodile to help them escape.

Vidia comes up with an idea to steal the blue dust, while escaping, but Hook sees them, and threatens them that he will drown Zarina if they do not give the dust back. Of course Tinkerbell gives it back, and he throws Zarina in the lake anyways. Of course they save Zarina, and then go after the blue dust, and after a battle scene, they defeat Captain Hook and the crew. They convince her to come back to Pixie Hollow, and they wake up everybody to continue the Four Seasons festival, and the six fairies perform their excellent routine, with the help of Zarina.

This film is better than some of the more recent ones I will give it that. Zarina is a pretty well-developed and strong character in her own right, the connections and nods to Peter Pan was clever and refreshing, and there was a bit more going on in the plot. I am calling the film out for introducing new characters so the old ones won’t have to develop, which is kind of a cheap shot if I were to be honest. I am curious about how this franchise ends.

Characters

The old characters……. stayed exactly the same. Nothing changed whatsoever, and my complaint just a few sentences earlier still stands. The new characters are fine enough, though I liked seeing the younger versions of some of the Peter Pan characters.

So she is pretty much a more reckless Tinkerbell, without all of the anger issues. She runs away, and ends up being taken in by the pirates. I didn’t really find her boring, though she never really admitted that she made mistakes here and there. We have had worse new characters in the Tinkerbell franchise.

Captain Hook is like 30 years younger here, so he is not as over-the-top as he was in his previous renditions. He still has both hands, so he hasn’t met Peter yet. Despite that, I could not really invest in him as a villain, since he is a shell of his later self.

I am only adding her because she is the only one that gained something out of the others in the film…….. which is a man from the Winter forest. Should I have expected anything different or less/more?

Since she is the worryrat of the group, she was put in the weirdest positions in the film, such as when she accidentally blew her cover to the pirate crew. She panics more in this film than the others, and argues with Rosetta a lot more.

I am not even bothering to add Tinkerbell, since she is not doing much of anything, or leaving an impact in her own movie.

Animation

The animation has improved slightly during these Tinkerbell films, and there is more texture and details added into this film in comparison to some of the earlier ones.

Music

The music was a lot closer to the music in Peter Pan in some aspects, which partially has to do with the fact that Captain Hook and his crew are in this movie. The music overall did its job fine, but nothing is memorable.

Reception at Release

When the film was released on February 13th in Europe, and April 1st in North America, it made $64,942,074, and received positive reviews from the few people who did release it.

Reception Today

I have not really seen much reception for this film, and not a lot of people talk about it. Maybe it was because the Tinkerbell franchise may have become redundant, or the earlier films are just more remembered.

Story: 7.5/10

Characters: 6.5/10

Animation: 7.5/10

Music: 7/10

28.5/40 = 71%

Next time…

Review: June 5th, 2016. I already reviewed Planes 2, so it is straight to this film.

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