Customer Reviews

Disney Princess Stories - Beauty Shines From Within (Volume 3)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

What a waste of money! Mind you, I buy almost anything that has a Disney Princess on it for my daughter, but this one tops everything! My 5 year old refuses to watch it and doesn't like Ariel and Jasmine anymore! The princess's introductions to their stories are very choppy and poorly edited. The Cinderella story is fine but the Ariel and Jasmine ones are NOT! Basically, if Ariel laughs, she destroys everything around her (her home, for one!) and Jasmine gradually turns into this really scary looking snake, like a cobra with a hood and tongue and all! I don't know what possessed Disney to use THESE stories, but I know I will not buy anymore 'Princess Stories' DVDs. I still will buy all sorts of princess stuff in the future and spend enough money on Disney that I should own at least half of the company, but I think everyone should get a fair warning to stay away from this one!

My daughter is now into the Disney princess thing, and we thought this video might be a nice expansion of the disney universe based on the three "princesses" mentioned on the cover: Ariel, Cinderella, and Jasmine. Turn out this is yet another rush job from disney to take people's money away.

Disney is a marketing juggernaut and they've figured out that their characters have such strong appeal that merchandising them in many ways is immensely profitable. And I don't blame them. However, this includes releasing countless numbers of DVDs aimed at the children that are really nothing more than mixing and splices of previous cartoons. In the disney princess series, it's basically a focus on the female characters from different movies.

This DVD is #3 in the series and is themed "the inner beauty", a positive message, but in reality very loosely tied to the stories on this DVD.

The first story is about Arial, the Little Mermaid. This is a "new" cartoon (not splices of the movie) and clearly low budget animation; about on the level of a Saturday morning cartoon. The story is ok, and is about what I'd expet for this product. Arial, Sebastin, and Flounder return in this story and have an encounter with a magical "blow fish" which casts an bad spell on her, making bad things happen whenever she laughs. Long story short, she helps turn around the bad fish to be positive and laughter is once again safe to partake in. The most positive note was an original score about laughing by Sebastin along the same lines as "Under the Sea" score from the original The Little Mermaid.

The second story is about Cinderella who recaps her own story... which turns out to literally be splices of the movie Cinderella turned into video clips and video stills bordered by a cheasy graphic border. Seriously, nothing new is added other than a womans voice that sounds like Cinderella summary narrating her own story. My 2.5 year old daughter, whose favorite movie happens to be Cinderella, actually got bored with this, as the original movie Cinderella is so much better. It seemed like even she was thinking, "what's the point?"

The third story is about Jasmine. Essentially a further adventures cartoon, this one is poorer quality than the Arial one and REALLY reaks of a bad Saturday morning cartoon. This one is about Jasmine encountering an evil spirit who tricks her into taking a magic potion (salve) that takes away her outward beauty by turning her into a huge cobra snake, but of course Aladdin loves her anyways and true love prevails. This one is downright creepy and scary, especially for my 2.5 year old. Disney could have written a story accomplishing the same thing without the demons and freakishly scary cobra-Jasmine. At one point, snake-Jasmine actually poisons Aladdin accidentally with one of her many sharp spines and he almost dies. What were they thinking?!? This is a PRINCESS VIDEO yet this story is so dark and sinister, and left me with a really bad taste.

I'm extremely disappointed with this video. I had expected a more light hearted and dreamy and at least original story expansions about the three princesses, and instead they gave us Saturday morning cartoon about Arial (with a reasonable attempt at a new score), a ridiculous splice and dice of the original Cinderella movie (and if you already own Cinderella, this 2nd story is pointless), and a freakish dark story involving Jasmine and Aladdin.

We have other Disney videos besides the Classics including Disney Christmas specials, and even the "education" series (which was a splice and dice itself). But this Princess #3 stories was not only a splice and dice, the end result is horrible and doesn't even follow the Princess theme very well at all. Big thumbs down on this one and I hope no one else wastes their money on it.

Well, I thought this would be a good movie for my daughter. I didn't like it at all. My wife and I were very disappointed with this movie. After watching this dvd once we decided NOT to let our daughter watch it again. The cover, title and commercials made it look appealing and delightful. It was terrible! I would expect alot more from a Disney film, especially one made for young girls.
I think you should stay away from this one!!

I agree with the other customers who rated this DVD very low. This DVD is such a big dissapointment to me. My daughter hated it and both my husband and I watched it with her the first time (and the last) and thought that it was completely inappropriate for this age group. It had no educational value and was not fun to watch. I wish I could return it and get my money back on this. I expected more from a Disney product.

I completely agree with the other reviewers. My daughters (5 & 2) received this as a gift and we were all completely shocked by the horrific storylines. They were so negative and disturbing that my husband and I decided they are not allowed to watch this DVD. The title "Beauty Shines From Within" is totally deceiving, as the stories are anything but beautiful. The only one that was even decent was the Cinderella one, which was of poor quality and "pieced together." I ended up giving my girls a very early Christmas present of the Cinderella DVD to replace this one, and it is so much better it's not even comparable. Our whole family enjoys the Cinderella one. It's just too bad Disney has put so much other garbage out there - it makes me really think twice before buying any more Princess DVDs.

This was the first DVD we bought in this series, and it will definitely be the last. The stories are horrible and the animation is awful. Disney is really trying to build this "Princess" market and cash in on whatever they can make no matter how poor the product is. Disney should be embarrassed putting their name on this garbage.
My daughter like other kids love the "Princess" products, and she really wants to watch Belle, Ariel and Snow White, but because of the ridiculous Disney moratorium on the original movies, we have to resort to buying these horrible DVDs. What I don't understand... my daughter really wants to see the original movies and by the time they are out, she'll probably be over her Princess phase, and she won't care anymore. I have never understood why Disney refuses to sell what people want to buy. I understand they build up excitement and demand, but in the process if they wait too long, many kids just won't care any more.

My mother purchased this for my four year old, princess-obsessed daughter. We had to stop watching during the third story, a bizarre and disturbing anime-type piece in which Jasmine turns into a snake, since my daugther was CRYING and TOO FRIGHTENED to continue watching. I comforted her and assured her that Jasmine was OK at the end. She asked me, "Mommy, Why did they make this for children?" I really have no answer for that. Disney seems to have grown so greedy for cash from Princess-related products that they are not doing ANY quality control. If I had the money, I would send a copy of this to each member of the Board of Directors of the company so that they can see what kind of garbage is being released in the Disney name. My daughter wants to send this DVD to Mickey and ask him why they would make such a terrible thing for children. I doubt we would get an answer, but at least this review (and the others) may keep other kids from being exposed to this awful film.

My daughter, age 2 1/2, is really into the princesses. I bought the first DVD and she really enjoyed it, so we added Beauty shines from within, thinking that it would be a very empowering, positive message type of stories. Wow, Disney really missed a great opportunity. This DVD was just ridiculous and a little scary. I was pretty angry when we watched it. What a complete waste of $20. I definitely wouldn't recommend it. It has "disappeared" from my daughter's movie drawer into the trash, where it belongs.

My little girl loves anything with the Disney Princesses, so for Christmas we bought her a large set of the dvds. Last night, we finally got around to opening this particular one and I could not believe how low quality it was. I really wanted to like it because I think Disney had a good opportunity with the "beauty from within" theme, but the Jasmine story was completely inappropriate. They could have done this so many other ways. But a snake? It isn't even so much that Jasmine turns into a snake...it is the look on her face and the scary eyes and tongue. The worst part of all of it is when she hisses at and turns on Aladdin. Now every time our daughter sees Jasmine in anything, she says, "Ewwww." Thanks a lot for ruining one of my little girl's favorite things for her! They know these Princess movies are especially loved by the tiny princesses in their audience, so why scare away your target crowd??? Someone at Disney really dropped the ball on this one. On a happier note, however...we all love the other princess dvds, especially the Enchanted Tea Party. Don't be afraid to try the others.

My three-year old is a devoted princess fan, and we got this for her so that she could watch a princess movie without spending an hour and a half in front of the TV. Both the Ariel and Jasmine sections are from the Saturday morning TV shows, and Cinderella is a retelling of her own story. Yes, *I* think it's boring and low-budget, but my daughter loves it and that's what matters. Plus, since each section is only 20-minutes or so long, she doesn't spend as much time in front of the TV.
As for it being too scary, I don't think there's anything scarier in these stories than in the original disney movies. Jafar turns into a snake, Maleficent turns into a seriously scary dragon (not to mention those goblins), Ursula grows to enourmous size then gets stabbed in the stomach....if your kid isn't scared by those things, I doubt they'll be scared by this.