You know what maybe I’m just tired and feeling the existential dread of growing up, but actually my small, petty hill to die on is that I don’t think I will ever forgive Disney for abandoning the fairies franchise. I cannot even properly express what those movies were to me as a kid. They very well may have been my first hyperfixation. But come on beyond the sentimental value, those movies:
Encouraged kids to take an interest in nature and be nice to plants and animals.
Depicted a (mostly female) friend group that spent virtually every scene they had together onscreen building each other up and supporting each other.
Featured a female lead who is essentially a mechanical engineer, and is not treated as any less magical or important for it than her friends who can magically make flowers grow or bend light (except for the first movie wherein her feeling less magical and important is the central conflict).
Gave said female lead a “love interest,” I say in quotations because while they are definitely implied to have romantic feelings for each other, he is never called anything other than her best friend and the two of them ending up together is never treated as an urgent priority. Their friendship is incredibly important to both of them, but no one acts like it’s a problem that they’re just friends for now.
Redeemed the mean girl pretty damn successfully (in my opinion), Vidia never apologizes for most of her actions onscreen, but she does realize when she’s gone too far and makes an effort to fix her mistakes, and from that point on she is integrated into the friend group who, as I mentioned before, spend 90% of their screen time uplifting each other.
In The Lost Treasure, let Tink’s temper have consequences, a good lesson for kids in not taking their friends for granted and treating them kindly, but also teaching respect for boundaries and personal space through Terrence’s end.
In Secret of the Wings, demonstrated that sometimes rules are there for safety reasons, but you can try to think of a creative solution to do what you want while still keeping things safe for everyone.
In Legend of the Neverbeast (admittedly not the greatest movie in the series), depicted the fairies having to say goodbye to an animal companion permanently, something most kids will probably experience at some point.
Inspired a banger of an online game and several banger songs.
And what has Disney done with this franchise they spent 7 years on (longer if you count the books)?
Allowed a massive decline in quality on the last movie made (Legend of the Neverbeast) and then acted shocked when it didn’t do as well as the previous ones.
Cancelled all fairy projects after that.
Shut down the game in 2013.
Made a bunch of the songs from the soundtracks seemingly disappear off the face of the earth.
I know it doesn’t make the top 100 shitty things Disney has done, probably not even the top 1000, but I am still extremely salty about it, even though it’s been almost 10 years.
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