[Warning – Contains spoilers if you have not watched the series.]
Over its 7 seasons, the series Once Upon a Time has introduced many Disney characters, both beloved and reviled. I found the concept to be an inspired idea – bringing all of the most-beloved fairytale characters into one place and giving them their own individual stories and challenges to face.
Set in a town called Storybrooke, Main, the characters started with no memory of who they actually are, due to a curse cast by the Evil Queen, Regina. With the help of the saviour – the child of Snow White and Prince Charming – they set about trying to thwart the curse and save everyone.
Throughout the first few seasons, this seemed like a brilliant idea; every season introduced new characters, plot twists, and perils which the town had to face. It was also fascinating, as we were given flashbacks to each character’s history – an insight into how they became who they are. However, as you get into the later seasons, you do start to get a little sick of the number of times they re-use the initial plot twist of cursing everyone to forget. It is a shame that the writers couldn’t come up with a different concept to move the storyline forward; if they had, then maybe it would still be on the air now.
Unfortunately, I found the last season (season 7) to be an utter disappointment. Not only did they curse the town to forget – yet again – but they also moved the town to a different location and disappointed fans by removing many of the original characters that they loved (a choice which would prove to be the final nail in the coffin). To keep cursing people with the same curse over and over was a big mistake. It lost them a lot of ratings because people lost interest in the series due to the unimaginative and repetitive premise.
Negative points aside, on the whole, I found the series to be great! It has a wonderful array of characters whom you easily grow to love, the storylines are brilliant (bar the above of course – although the whole forgetting curse tends to be how they end a series or put it on a break, so it’s minimal really). I also love how each series presents a new set of Disney characters, both heroes and villains. I used to look forward to them bringing out the DVD so that my family and I could watch the latest instalment (unfortunately it was not aired on TV in the UK until much later).
Now to the juicy bit – how they portrayed each of the Disney characters. On the whole, I commend them for their unique character portrayal. Some of the characters they developed are truly fantastic, like Rumpelstiltskin (played by Robert Carlyle), Hook (played by Colin O’Donoghue), Regina, aka the Evil Queen (played by Lana Parrilla), and so many others. The life that these characters bring to the role, while also retaining the essence of the original Disney characters, is amazing; it makes me wish that Disney would bring out more films focusing in on these characters with their complicated backstories. Take, for example, Rumpelstiltskin, arguably a nonentity character in the Disney world, and yet the character that they build in this series is fantastic and rich with backstory, as well as full of depth, with fantastic sayings and quips like ‘deary,’ ‘the dark one,’ and ‘magic always comes with a price.’
It is true that they have also taken a lot of poetic licence with some of the characters – changing their backstories to fit within the world that they have built, but in doing so they give the viewer something different to watch; rather than the same old stories we’ve already been told. I find this breath of fresh air approach to be refreshing and effectively done on the whole, especially as they always retain the essence of each character’s origins. I believe that they’ve done very well with a lot of the backstories – giving a new perspective on why exactly the characters are who they are, and allowing the writers to rewrite some of the characters in a new light – turning villains into heroes. Take Regina, for example, even when she was evil in the beginning, you still felt sorry for her on some level, as she had clear and justifiable reasons to be the way she was.
In fact, in my opinion, there are very few characters which I think they have not been represented well in this series. I only have a couple of complaints on that score. My first complaint would be when they chose to depict Mulan as a lesbian. I have no issue at all with them doing this with Red Riding Hood and Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz – neither of whom have historic love interests – but Mulan was very much in love with Shang in the original Disney, and I found this sudden change to be too much of a break from the original Disney character for me. My second complaint would be that their interpretation of Pan was a little on the dark side – effective and different, but a bit depressing and dark for any lovers of this classic Disney tale.
There are a few other questionable character choices that they make, mostly to do with how they develop the existing characters over the series – such as adding a touch of darkness to some of the heroes and a touch of light to the villains. However, I believe that on the whole, this degree of artistic license added a more realistic touch to the characters, and allowed the writers to explore them with more believable depth.
Although the essence of original Disney characters is usually very black or white, the newer films produced by Disney seem to be going in a slightly different direction – with characters not being paragons of good or evil, but rather a degree of more relatable shades in between; Maleficent, for example, is portrayed as being both hero and villain. I think the writers of this series decided to move in this direction in order to create a more believable, fallible, and realistic set of characters.
Overall, I think that Once Upon A Time has managed to successfully build upon our beloved Disney characters. I love how they have interlaced the backstories of these characters, so that they all know each other (or at the very least know of each other) – not an easy feat when you have such a diverse range of characters and storylines. Although this, in itself, is a break from the original Disney stories, it doesn’t detract from the essence of these classical tales – good triumphing over evil, happily ever after (to a degree), heroes and villains, right and wrong, true loves kiss, etc.
If you haven’t already watched this series, or if you gave up on it early on, I would highly recommend watching it through. It is a great little series and one which I feel is well worth the effort. Personally, I would recommend watching only up to and including season 6 – the storyline up to this point (bar the curses) is interesting and engaging – there is even a musical episode, which does not disappoint! But I would leave Season 7 on the shelf as it was a bit of a letdown, probably as they knew that they were close to cancellation.
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F&F Winter 2019: Disney