Blu-Ray Review And Inside Look At Disney The Pirate Fairy #PirateFairy

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The Pirate Fairy

• Blu-ray/DVD Release Date: April 1, 2014
• Rated: G (General Audience)
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Number of discs: 2
• Language: English (DTS-HD High Res Audio), French (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Studio: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
• ASIN: B00H5RYN5Y

SYNOPSIS – From the world of “Peter Pan” comes “The Pirate Fairy,” a swashbuckling new adventure about Zarina (voice of Christina Hendricks), a smart and ambitious dust-keeper fairy who’s captivated by Blue Pixie Dust and its endless possibilities. When Zarina’s wild ideas get her into trouble, she flees Pixie Hollow and joins forces with the scheming pirates of Skull Rock, who make her captain of their ship. Tinker Bell (voice of Mae Whitman) and her friends must embark on an epic adventure to find Zarina, and together they go sword-to-sword with the band of pirates led by a cabin boy named James (voice of Tom Hiddleston), who’ll soon be known as Captain Hook himself. With laughter, heart, magic and thrills, “The Pirate Fairy” sets sail April 1, 2014.

A little over a week ago I had the good fortune to be able to go into New York City to have lunch and participate in a roundtable discussion with Disney The Pirate Fairy producer Jennifer Magee-Cook. Since most, if not all, of us had seen the movie, it was a treat to be able to get some quality one on one time with one of the women behind the movie.
The most commonly asked questions all had to do with the actual making of the movie. They worked long and hard in group meetings to decide what the storyline would be. They made extensive use of the Disney Animation Library to envision both the forward and backward stories, as well as locations and character appearance. The feeling behind this, and other Disney projects, is that the “world” of the movie is very important. Folks involved with the movie had to learn about the topics it involved in order to have sufficient knowledge to put together a solid story.

Pirate scenes in this movie were obviously key. A pirate expert was hired. The crew visited a pirate ship in order to make sure pirate scenes were as authentic as possible. The biggest challenge with the scenes with pirates and on the pirate ship was scale. Keeping 6 inch fairies in proper scale to life size real men was a challenge. To meet the challenge, they relied on 3D camera images shot with a 3D camera while visiting the pirate ship.
We touched on the subject of the cast. For example, we learned that actor Tom Hiddleston was very passionate about this project. In order to bring some of Hiddleston’s character to the character of James (later known as Captain Hook), the crew relied on voice recordings and live reference recordings. Hiddleston was very animated when recording. The crew was able to transer some of that to the character of James by watching the live reference recordings so they could observe and use some of Hiddleston’s movements for the James character.
Here’s a clip of Tom Hiddleston recording one of the songs where you can see what I’m referring to.

We learned that a lot of thought went into the fashion of the movie. In Pixie Hollow everything is organic. By leaving Pixie Hollow, Zarina became the first fairy whose costume included man-made materials. Disney worked with designer Christian Siriano to get just the right look.

The other big topic we discussed was animation. For example, Crocky is a young Tic Toc Croc. They knew that they wanted to connect Crocky with the original Tic Toc Croc we all know from Peter Pan, but they wanted him to be cute. Crocky was intentionally designed to move like a baby waddling in a diaper. In the end they kept the teeth of the original Croc and altered everything else.

By the way. Ever wonder how Tic Toc Croc got that clock inside hi? Here’s how.

I really enjoyed hearing about all of the time, work and energy that went into Disney The Pirate Fairy. I also really enjoyed watching the movie. This is the fifth installment in the Disney Fairies movies collection. It’s a lot of fun. It’s very different from the others in that it introduces the fairies to the pirates, something we know happened because let’s face it, we’ve all seen Peter Pan. Also by involving the pirates not only do we get our conflict of good vs bad, but we also get characters that both girls and boys will enjoy. The color, cast and animation are all spectacular. The positive messages of accepting your mistakes, being a good friend and forgiving are all subtle and well-delivered. This movie is a must have for all Disney fans both young and old.
If you click the picture below you’ll be taken to a neat Pirate Fairy and Peter Pan Infographic.

Have you seen The Pirate Fairy? Who was your favorite fairy or character? if you haven’t seen it yet, are you planning on seeing it? I’d really like to know, please leave a comment!