Elena of Avalor (TV Series) Elena and the Secret of Avalor (2016) User Reviews

Colourful but bland

[neil-476 · 6/10 · 24 February 2018]

Princess Elena tells a friend the story of her imprisonment in an amulet for 41 years by way of evil enchantment, until Princess Sofia from another kingdom sets out to free her.

This is offered on DVD as a standalone Disney princess movie, but it is actually taken from a TV series. This explains why it assumes a degree of familiarity with continuity which doesn't appear. However, it's easy enough to figure out.

Set in a mythical latin/Caribbean world, it is bright and colourful. The CGI is adequate, albeit modelled with less sophistication than Disney's theatrical CGI features. The voice cast is OK (Jane Fonda was the wicked queen is the only name I knew). The story serves its purpose, although it is a bit cookie-cutter. Little Princess Sofia is irritating unless you are a small girl to whom she is intended to appeal.

It passes the time for tinies.

Sofia the First's bolivian coup.

[agof · 6/10 · 15 May 2022]

Coming up next: Sofia the First's operation condor.

This supposed to be the traditional disney's pilot movie to the series. But it was postponed and aired later. I think it's because of that it has an envelope on top of the envelope resulting in a triple-nested flashback. And in the case of it being a rushed addition it would explain why the outermost envelope has such terrible framerate.

Furry seagulls stealing giros.

Disney and the dead parents. All in a day's work.

Elena was locked only for 41 years so she couldn't harvested that many princesses. Sofia's country saw only the dead queen and the stepsister before Sofia. And this means nothing went good for the stepsister. Also the last time the king said that the amulet is very special and gave Sofia the conditions. And here he said that he picked it up by accident and doesn't know what it does. Did they retcon something during the series?

So the chosen princess was chosen because she has scammed and swindled her parents into going to Avalor. All kids do that, but usually they don't exercise their political power and get involved in corruption scandals. King clearly stated that the goal is trade, and instead what he got is being almost invaded and overthrown. That's not counting the moral implications of being involved in international coups. Also our chosen princess is a master pickpocket. But i was happy that everything went according to plan instead of having a stupid "second act" and padding the runtime. On the other hand Elena screwing up is right on point - while Sofia was leveling and spending points in her pickpocket and swindle skills during the serial, Elena was already a sheltered princes before she was sheltered, so she has no field experience at all. And she is a feisty hothead hell-bent on revenge and not an experienced strategist.

So how old is the queen inside, if all she wants is a retirement home? Oh, it's n+41. Wait, so sexy man Esteban is like at least almost 50. Also the queen isn't that smart and it's Esteban who does all the thinking.

No cellphone in sight just people living in the moment, your kid just disappearing into the unknown for unknown period of time instead of dropping you SMS that it just stepped out to play with kitties. The past was the worst.

The film has some exotic creatures and is rather colourful. There is no cell-shade at all, but the models are still kinda weird and their faces are too animated. Some of the assets are kinda low-res, and half of the backgrounds are layered 2D sprites made in a mismatching to the film art-style.

Seems like these two IPs are weirdly political. Instead of open confrontations they have to deal with opposition and subterfuge inside the ruling body. The wizard from Sofia movie was not exposed and here Esteban is left in power. And from what i gathered from the wiki he continues to plot plots.