Why is Nala not a Disney princess?

[Bells]

No, seriously though...

I know she is actually a queen, but you know what i mean!

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Forget that, why don't we see more of Kida?

[Bells]

Probably because she is Disney's Chel methinks...

...Road to El Dorado anyone?

[Shyria Dracnoir]

El Dorado was a Dreamworks movie numbnuts

[Bells]

That's why i said she is Disney's Chel ...dragon........ face?

Kida was Disney, Chel was Dreamworks, just drawing parallel lines

Also im not a numbnuts!! I'm just sitting in this chair at work for long periods of time!

[Flarecobra]

Forget that, why don't we see more of Kida?

Isn't she a queen, thus not a princess?

[Shyria Dracnoir]

That's not stopping the gal from 'Frozen' any.

[Flarecobra]

Haven't seen Frozen so...

[Bells]

Well if only actual princesses can be princesses, than Venellope from Wreckt it Ralph needs her spot!

...Also Lilo i guess?

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Vanellope renounced her title and declared herself President though

[Flarecobra]

Besides, we all know the best Disney princess is Kuzco.

[Ryong]

Only female humans can be princesses, clearly.

And mermaids.

[mauve]

A) She's more of a background character. The story is about Simba, while most "princess movies" focus on the princess themselves. The only major exception to this rule I can think of is Jasmine, who's not a main character but still a major Disney Princess. But then, Jasmine has more screen time than Nala anyway.

B) Echoing Flare, Nala is never actually a princess. She's technically only royalty after she "marries (or the Disney lion equivalent)" Simba, who by then is a king. She's a queen, which is harder to market to kids. Frozen is KIND OF an exception to this rule, true, but on the other hand, Elsa isn't the main character. Anna is technically Frozen's Disney Princess.

C) She can't be marketed to little girls as a Barbie doll/ dress up tiara/etc so Disney doesn't care.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Pretty sure C) is Disney's main reason. Everything else is justification to them.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

C) She can't be marketed to little girls as a Barbie doll/ dress up tiara/etc so Disney doesn't care.

You haven't seen what the sparklelion creators over on DA or the Tumblrs can come up with

[Flarecobra]

There is a way to market her.

Plushies.

[Menarker]

There is a way to market her.

Plushies.

They did that before.

In fact, they made plushies of Simba and Nala, with magnetic noses/lips so they stick to each other when in kissing pose.

Used to be a fave of my little sis.

Heh, old times.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Haven't seen Frozen so...

Not missing much.

[synkr0nized]

You haven't seen what the sparklelion creators over on DA or the Tumblrs can come up with

When I first saw this thread, I was tempted to go looking for an image of her as a princess, but then I figured there'd be a lot of stuff I probably didn't need to see in the process.

[tacticslion]

A) She's more of a background character. The story is about Simba, while most "princess movies" focus on the princess themselves. The only major exception to this rule I can think of is Jasmine, who's not a main character but still a major Disney Princess. But then, Jasmine has more screen time than Nala anyway.

B) Echoing Flare, Nala is never actually a princess. She's technically only royalty after she "marries (or the Disney lion equivalent)" Simba, who by then is a king. She's a queen, which is harder to market to kids. Frozen is KIND OF an exception to this rule, true, but on the other hand, Elsa isn't the main character. Anna is technically Frozen's Disney Princess.

C) She can't be marketed to little girls as a Barbie doll/ dress up tiara/etc so Disney doesn't care.

^ This. That's pretty much exactly what I was going to write. Nala never actually went through a Princess "phase", whereas all of them, regardless of their final station, did so, politically speaking.

Is Elsa being marketed as a Princess? She was actually a princess earlier in the film (as a child, as a teen, and as a young adult), though that ended when she ascended, she had gone through that period of Princessdom, as an adult. In fact, since her ascension to queendom happened immediately before fleeing the kingdom, thus she did, technically, exist onscreen as a princess in the form we know her (more or less - not as the Ice Queen, but as adult Elsa).

Here's a quasi-official list (http://disneyprincess.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Disney_Princesses) for the curious (having just looked it up via google):

1) Snow White (born a princess/married a prince)
2) Cinderella (married a prince)
3) Aurora (born a princess/married a prince)
4) Ariel (born a princess/married a prince)
5) Belle (married a prince)
6) Jasmine (born a princess)
7) Pocahontas (uh... *looks at wiki* ... uh, she's a "Chieftain's daughter=princess")
8) Mulan (uh... um... er... not actually a princess)
9) Tiana (marries a prince)
10) Rapunzel (born a princess)
11) Merida (born a princess)
12) Anna (born a princess)
13) Elsa (born a princess; subsequently ascended)

There is an interesting list of "unofficial" princess that, frankly, Mulan should be on:
1) Alice
2) Daisy Duck (she actually played a princess in several shorts)
3) Eilinowy (really this is bizarre - she was an actual princess, or at least claimed to be)
4) Esmerelda
5) Faline (from Bambi, "not a princess because she's a deer"...?)
6) Giselle/Nancy (from Enchanted; uh... yeah, I... I don't know... "expensive"?)
7) Jane (Peter Pan)
8) Jane Porter (Tarzan... look, they counted Mulan...)
9) Kairi (from a game)
10) Kida ("because it wasn't a musical")
11) Kilala ("it wasn't a film")
12) Kneesa (from Ewoks; "Chieftain's daughter", but "Star Wars")
13) Lady (unofficial because she's an animal, but honorary because tradition)
14) Princess Leia (Star Wars)
15) Lilo (not actually a princess)
16) Maid Marian (animal = not princess, it seems)
17) Megara (because... uh... divinity =/= royalty?)
18) Melody (because... uh... confusion...?)
19) Minnie Mouse (she's played a princess before)
20) Nala (married to a King and is an animal)
21) Penny (from the Rescuers; not a princess)
22) Sofia (I know almost nothing about this character, but apparently she's not getting a theatrical release)
23) Ting-Ting, Su, Mei (probably because they were from a sequal movie, even though they are, technically, princesses)
24) Tinkerbelle (originally a princess, but cut because she has no status and, "wasn't mythical enough"... ?)
25) Vanellope (because of her... age...)
26) Wendy Darling (Peter Pan; she's not royal)

So, here's the criteria:
The following are all eleven official Disney Princesses and a brief explanation in chronological order.

Each has been certified an “Official Disney Princess” by Disney; some are born into the title (Aurora, Merida), some marry the son of a King (Cinderella), some marry a Reigning Prince (Belle) and some correspond to an equivalent title (i.e. Chieftain’s Daughter or Sultan’s Daughter), though some, such as Mulan, do not hold the actual title of Princess.

Each Official Disney Princess must: A) have a primary role in a Disney animated feature film, B) be human or closely human-like (i.e. Ariel), and C) not appear primarily in a sequel. The actual title of Princess (or equivalent) is not necessary, but certainly helps.

Regardless of any actual title(s) possessed, each Official Disney Princess is properly addressed (within the franchise) as: “Princess ________”.

Facts pertaining to the original fairy tales upon which the films are based are irrelevant to the versions appearing in the franchise.

EDIT: Some really arbitrary criteria. Basically, it boils down to criteria based on marketability, it seems, tough I'm pretty sure they're missing out in a number of cases.

---------- Post added at 12:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:55 PM ----------

Not missing much.

Ignore the miser who hates all things good! It's a great flick!

[Loyal]

I'm pretty okay with Mulan not being a Disney Princess and continuing to be a badass savior of China.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

in response to tactics because my phone is lame when it comes to editing large posts in quotes.

I say that because of the singing. Let's face it, the songs were terrible and extremely forced. There was no flow whatsoever that led into the sudden songs that punctuated at very odd times. just 'lah-dee-doo ABRUPT AND SEAMLESS SONG TIME!' resume as if song never happened.

The production values (animation, voice acting outside of songs, etc.) were quite good. If the movie had maybe one or two songs tops then I would have nothing to say. Bad songs brought the movie down to an okay movie instead of what could have been significantly better. K get it's aimed at kids, but come on. My four year old niece even said there's too many dumb songs in it.

[Magus]

Furries

[Krylo]

Ignore the miser who hates all things good! It's a great flick!

It was okay. Decent story, good characters, and a couple pretty good twists near the end.

However, it really did sacrifice too much characterization and story telling time to songs. The songs were fine, but they really needed to spend more time on Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff as people instead of vehicles for song. The entire Troll love song, for instance, seemed to serve no purpose.

You could say it was supposed to foreshadow Kristoff and Anna, but it didn't do a very good job of that, and it both started and ended very abruptly with none of the chemistry or tension between Kristoff and Anna you would expect if they were falling for each other.

In fact Kristoff and Anna being in 'love' was kind of a weak point over all as they didn't really do much with them together that made them seem like they even really liked each other in a platonic sense, much less a romantic one.

It's also never adequately explained why Hans bothered to save Elsa. He could have merely been a moment too late to stop that crossbow.

Given his motivations, this would have made far more sense. Of course we're still supposed to believe he's the good guy at that point, but we could have still done that if Elsa had managed to save herself, and cause an accident on her own with Hans being just a little too late. It's just a pretty glaring plot hole.

For everything he wanted, Elsa dying there would have worked out perfectly. Anna would have, believably, sought comfort in him, after he, of course, had the killer and his accomplice tried for treason and banished/executed, he could have been married and become the king in no time flat.

Then there's the giant snow monster Elsa made. Why would she create something, that she planned to use on Anna, which was willing to act so aggressively and kill?

Show also could have done with more scenes of Elsa attempting to control her powers instead of one song montage and then her parents are gone. Something of her after the parents died at sea attempting to figure out what to do, perhaps.

Basically all the characterization was weak, and it was riddled with plot holes.

It still wasn't a BAD movie but it was nowhere near what the internet lead me to believe it would be, and certainly nowhere near Tangled, in quality.

I don't know that the songs themselves were the problem, so much as the fact that they sacrificed every thing else--story, dramatic tempo, characterization--for them. Musicals, can, after all, be quite good.

Frozen, was, at the end of the day, not quite a musical, and not quite a 'normal' movie. The fact that it didn't seem to know which it wanted to be hurt it badly.

[rpgdemon]

I agree with pretty much everything Krylo said, and have one more thing to add:

It had this very sarcastic, ironic tone to the whole thing that made it really hard to actually appreciate the characters. It was like, "Oh, yeah, we don't WANT you to be heartwarmed, or anything. We just want you to look at how clever we the writers are. We're going to punctuate any moment that might make you feel anything with a sarcastic quip, to show how meta-aware we are and genre-savvy we are." In the end, it just felt unauthentic because of all of it.

Plus, the songs were just... Not great? I mean, they weren't bad, and some are catchy! But, it was like they all had a starting point, and an end point, and just wanted to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Almost every song that they went into felt jarring and really awkwardly written.

[Azisien]

It was a good movie, but I felt like the creators were trying to make it good, so I HATED IT!!!

I would also join the camp of "Frozen would have been better if it wasn't a musical" because I pretty much universally dislike musicals. All of them. But I still liked Frozen, so I think despite its flaws, its a pretty great Disney movie.

[rpgdemon]

No, I felt like the creators were trying to make themselves look good, and it was not a great movie. There is a big difference.

[Bum Bill Bee]

so uh wait, what are we on now? Re-reviewing Frozen or talking about Nala?

Well on the first, I liked Frozen. Not super dee dooper awesome, but better than I expected and I actually likied it better than Tangled.

As to Nala: Four legs good, two legs bad.

[Bells]

So far this is where we are at.

Nala > Mulan

http://i62.tinypic.com/5wc6lv.gif

Also, still haven't watch frozen, but i did like tangled quite a bit. So i'm expecting to like it too

[batgirl]

If you think about how lions work (which Disney researched big time for the movie, even bringing in live lions to sketch or models), there are one or two males in each pride, surrounded by many lionesses. The male(s) then mate with all the females. It didn't seem like Scar mated with anyone at the time while he was in the pride (not anyone inside the pride mind you, if you could the sequel then he mated with a nomad lioness, Zera), so we can assume that Mufasa mated with all the females.

Technically that means that all the kids are princes and princesses.

Technically that means that Simba and Nala are half siblings.

I just ruined Lion King.

[Krylo]

On the original topic, Nala barely did anything in the Lion King, while almost all the princesses are the protagonists.

Ariel: Protagonist of Little Mermaid.

Tiana: Protagonist of Princess and the Frog.

Rapunzel: Protagonist of Tangled.

Belle: Protagonist of Beauty and the Beast.

Meridia: Protagonist of Brave.

Cinderella: Protagonist of. . . Cinderella.

Pocahontas: Protagonist of Pocahontas.

Mulan: Protagonist of Mulan (and yes, she is an official Disney Princess)

Snow-White: Protagonist of Snow-White and the Seven Dwarves.

Aurora bucks the trend with Sleeping Beauty, but she's still the character the movie is named after.

Jasmine is the only real odd girl out, but she still gets a hell of a lot more screen time in Aladdin than Nala in the Lion King. She was also the primary motivator for all the conflict in Aladdin (Aladdin wouldn't have gone after the genie if not for wanting to meet her, Jafar wanted to marry her to be the Sultan, etc. etc.)

Meanwhile Nala, in the original movie (which seem to be all that matter for princessing purposes) tackled Simba twice and kinda growled at Scar a little?

Cut Nala from the movie entirely and literally nothing changes in the overarching plot.

There's ALSO the fact you can't sell a lion as well as a woman, but really, that's most likely secondary to all the OTHER reasons you can't sell Nala (she wasn't a particularly important character).

It's honestly pretty self-evident why she's not a Disney Princess.

[PyrosNine]

Mulan might not be a princess per say, but she was of noble birth, being a member of the prestigious Fa family, and as such was certainly eligible to be taken into the Emperor's house as a concubine, making her a "Princess" of an Imperial sort. Also, her actions gained her great merit, which could have pushed her to the front of the list. However, the emperor was an old methuselah, and no heirs were shown, and so she never got spirited away to be a possible "Empress."

Nala was a princess in the vein of The Princess Bride, in that being betrothed to a Prince made her a Princess. However, animals are hard to sell, unless they are cute. Adult Nala would not be as cute as say, lion cub Nala, and nothing's cuter than a plushy, and they already sell Nala plushies. Furthermore, Nala wasn't a particularly marketable character from the show- even Simba himself was less popular than Timon and Pumbaa, and thus was not likely to be featured in extended media- he was allowed to be an antagonist of sorts in the sequel, and had only a few cameos....in the Timon and Pumbaa TV show (also Nala never got to cameo). Timon and Pumbaa were more likely to become Disney princesses than Nala.

I agree with Krylo that Nala does really do much besides jump Simba's bones, guilt trip him into coming home, and attempting to eat Pumbaa (Also, Pumbaa > Nala, Nala tried to kill him, Audience is on Pumbaa's side, Nala loses popularity). She uses none of her pinning methods on any of the villains, and while Simba uses Nala's flip to kill scar, no one mentions it.

Also, Nala looks almost identical to Simba's mom, and the generic appearance of all the other Lionesses. Simba, Mufasa, Scar, (ignoring Lion King 2) are the only visually unique characters. Aurora in comparison (who does less, being comatose or puberty-ing off screen), due to both the art style and artist, is visually distinctive with a unique outline silhouette, and the scenes of her sleeping on her bed and/or walking towards the Needle are practically defining art masterpieces.

Nala would only get a chance at princess hood if they did a new Lion King series with young Simba and Nala or something and gave her extra character traits or stylization to sell her image.

A Nala action figure with pretty dresses and attachments suffers the same difficulties a bald My Little Pony character would suffer: No long hair to comb, brush/style/stick accessories into, no tail to do the same, and Nala plushies compete with every other kitty plushy everywhere. Including The GamerCat's plushie (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/celesse/the-gamercat-plush)

Long story short, not as popular with the masses with a few demerits, and $Money dear boy$.