Watch a Barbie movie?

[worlebird]

Mattel (I think that's the company that owns Barbie) has several computer animated movies about Barbie. My two daughters love them. Just recently, I rented the newest one, "Fairytopia", and guess what I dicovered to my surprise? The little film was written by Elise Allen and Diane Duane.
Check it out:
IMDB entry for Fairytopia

[Agent M]

Worlebird! haven't seen you in a looooooooooooooong time.
*jaw drop* DD helped write a BARBIE movie????? Who wants to ask her at the next chat about that? I probly won't make it... I never do.
A barbie movie? DD? Scary...

[Gryphon]

Heh, in the space of a few minutes, Worlebird turned into a monument. XD I pointed the topic out in Chime, and WF and I both tried to figure out what we remembered you from. Because I don't think you were posting when I joined, and you definitely weren't when WF joined.

So, about the Barbie movie... wow. But hey.

I'll bring it up at the next DD chat! If I make it.

[Agent M]

Worlebird's been here since before me. Or maybe just after me... not sure. You used to post so much worlebird, now, nada.

[Lady Rhiannon]

Yeah, I noticed that too. Only reason I sat through it. XD I was wondering if that was her...

[kaiba4ever]

DD wrote a BARBIE movie?? Really? Are you sure??

That's....er....how should I put it?... UNSUSPECTED, maybe. Or, I dunno, I just never saw DD, the writer of YW, to be writing Barbie movies! It's just rather surprising... and maybe slightly unnerving...

[worlebird]

*chuckles*
Yeah, it's been something like a year and a half since I've been on this board... Still, it's nice to be remembered when I come back!
Just for the record, I decided to check, and according to our profiles, I joined just under a month before you did, AgentM. Back when we got avatars for being among the first 100 members, or something like that.

As I said, my daughters love the Barbie movies. I sat through this one yesterday. It was decent, but IMHO, it wasn't as good as the previous ones. (I can hear you all now, "You WATCHED the other ones?!? Yes, I've seen them all, far too many times! That's what happens when you live with young children!)
I think this film suffered from having too many elements of the story pre-defined by the toys that had already been released. You see, Mattel has had "Fairytopia" Barbie dolls in stores for some time now, and I get the impression that the movie was a bit of an afterthought -- something to boost sales of the dolls. I'm sure DD had some stiff limitations on what she had to work with.

As for being out of character for DD, I don't know about that. There are only a few full-time writers who have the luxury of only working on the material they want to work on. Diane has written several Star Trek novels, some Spiderman pulps, at least one Star Trek episode, not to mention a whole bunch of stuff for television animation, including the Batman and Spiderman cartoons and the old Transformers cartoons from the 80s. So writing a Barbie film shouldn't be so surprising.

I'm just glad she has the time to work on Young Wizards novels every now and then. That, and I'm glad the publishers are asking for them. If the whole Harry Potter craze dies down, the Young Wizards books may not get so much attention from the publishers anymore.

[Agent M]

"Diane has written several Star Trek novels, some Spiderman pulps, at least one Star Trek episode, not to mention a whole bunch of stuff for television animation, including the Batman and Spiderman cartoons and the old Transformers cartoons from the 80s." -worlebird

Uh yeah, I get what you're saying kinda... but I can actually see DD writing Star Trek and comic book tv series , especially Star Trek, what with Dairiene's obsession with Star Wars. But Barbie's completely different from Spiderman if you know what I mean....

[worlebird]

Have you ever read Diane's book "Stealing the Elf King's Roses"? The story for "Fairytopia" isn't so terribly out of character when compared with that. A Barbie movie isn't exactly an example of her greatest work, but hey, writers need to eat too.

Incidentally, Diane also wrote episodes for the "Gargoyles" cartoon series, as well as "The Glo Friends" and "Dinosaucers" from the 80s and "Scooby and Scrappy-Doo" in the 70s. How's THAT for out of character?

(Ok, so, "Dinosaucers" was actually Japanese, and Diane was a story editor. Not quite the same thing.)

[Agent M]

Oh... Good point. I read like half of Elf King's Roses and then kinda forgot about it... I need to find it and read it again....

[Peter Murray]

Are we all deliberately avoiding mentioning <span class="ev_code_WHITE">DD's episode of My Little Pony</span>, or is it a secret ?

I haven't seen Fairytopia, so I don't know what it's like, but Elf King's Roses doesn't seem much like a fairy story - it starts with detectives/lanthanomancers investigating a murder, and gets more and more serious from there.

[Agent M]

My little pony?! what?! Someone has GOT to ask DD about this stuff...

[Gigo]

Ok...I am scared.

Gryph: you changed your avvie! It looks...different.



But: what's wrong with DD co-writing/writing a film about Barbies/Ponies/who-knows-what?

[Lady Rhiannon]

I've only seen it once, personally, but there are some elements of it that I could definately recognize as DD. It credited another writer as well, so she may not have had all that much influence over it, you know?

It might very well be her though. IMDb is crediting her, so...*shrugs*

[Gryphon]

Gigish:
Gryph: you changed your avvie! It looks...different.

It's my old avie. Reaeealllly old. I had it for the longes time until I changed it to that other Gryphon avatar. Then the Christmas one with the hat. And then the spikey hair, followed by the blue hair/ yellow eyes.

I think my first might've been the avie of the tiger.

Well, I don't feel insulted about the movies. Shock kinda, and now I think it's really funny. I'm gonna bring it up at the next DD chat if someone reminds me. Reminds me to do that and _come_ to the chat. XD