The Swan Princess: Princess Tomorrow, Pirate Today!
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 Sony, when will you learn to stop milking these Swan Princess sequels for money?
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The Swan Princess: Princess Tomorrow, Pirate Today! is a 2016 American computer animated film produced by Crest Animation/Streetlight Productions, Nest Family Entertainment, and Sony Wonder and released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. It was also the 6th film in the Swan Princess franchise.
Plot
Inhabited on a mysterious island are strange creatures called Boggs who love meat. Unbeknownst to them, it is also inhabited by a shipwrecked boy. He scavenges for some food by distracting the Boggs with animal noises. Far away from the island, Odette and Derek are on their way to help the people by building a bridge leaving Alise in the care of Queen Uberta, Lord Rodgers, and their animals friends: Speed, Jean-Bob, Puffin and the Scullions. Queen Uberta begins to prepare Alise to learn how to be and act like a princess. But Alise doesn't want to be a princess in this way but to be a modern princess. Lord Rogers says that Alise needs adventure but Queen Uberta disagrees.
While fighting once again, Alise uses her chance to swim in the lake with her friends but she was quickly sent back to the palace to learn to be proper. Queen Uberta is very strict with Alise, trying to teach her everything, but instead she falls asleep and sent to bed. That same night, Lord Rogers, Jean-Bob, and Speed sneak Alise out of her room to go on an adventure.
The next morning, before Queen Uberta enters Alise's room with yoga lessons, she notices that Alise has gone with Lord Rogers. Queen Uberta chases after the group all the way to the port but they escape on a ship. Queen Uberta is furious but nervous about Alise so she sent Puffin and the Scullions after them.
On the ship, Alise changes into a pirate costume, making Lord Rogers realize that Uberta was right; he turned Alise into a pirate just when Alise wanted to have fun. On the first night they see the Polar Star and Lord Rogers says that sailors always used this star to guide the way back home.
In the middle of the open sea, a typhoon was coming, forcing Alise, Lord Rogers, Speed, and Jean-Bob to fight against the big wave. They are suddenly forced to leave their ship because it was engulfed in flames. The group got separated in the storm. When the storm passes, Lord Rogers regain consciousness on a mysterious island but can't find Alise anywhere. The Boggs find Lord Rogers but before they can eat him, he uses his brilliant mind to delay them. He tricks them into thinking he is a chef and begins a game by splitting in two groups: One is the Starfish Group and the other is the Coconut group, by wearing kitchen clothes.
Elsewhere on the island, Alise and Speed find each other. Scully, in his ghost form, helps Alise to escape the Boggs and meets a boy named Lucas. They quickly become friends. Lucas helps Alise to build a ship with wood but not making any sounds since the Boggs have good hearing. So while they are mute, they use hand signals and Alise understands everything. She discovers that Lucas had run away from home because his parents are poor. His father was too weak to continue his work and was about to send Lucas to an orphanage. Alise wanted him to go with her but he refuses by saying that he belongs in this island.
Alise finds Lord Rogers and Jean-Bob and helps them escape. Together, along with Puffin and the Scullions, defeat the Boggs and sail home with an unhappy Lucas. But once they are on the port, Lucas runs away. Alise chases after him.
While Odette and Derek are on their way back to the palace, after receiving word that Alise is not in the palace, they meet Scully. He tells them that she's fine and guides them to Lucas’s parents who are also on their way to find their son. Scully also guides Alise to Lucas. She tells him that running away is not getting him anywhere. Alise and Lucas hear their parents talking. Lucas’s parents explain what really happened. Overjoyed, Lucas and Alise are reunited with their parents. The four parents are so happy their children are now home safe and sound and look towards the Polar Star in a sign of gratitude.
Why It Sucks
- The only thing relating to pirates in this film is that Rogers teaches a pirate class and has a pirate ship.
- Speaking of Pirates, it was established that Rogers didn't want to teach Alise how to be a pirate, so it can be implied that he shanghaied the ship from some pirates, so if that's the case, once the pirates catch up with Rogers, he's a DEAD MAN.
- Just like the other CGI Swan Princess sequels, some characters are still flanderized ever since the release of the Swan Princess Christmas and still haven't been recovered.
- Odette and Derek are both reduced to minor filler roles who spend the movie helping two old men with the bridge.
- The Squirrel army, since the last movie, work for the royal family and they are completely useless, such as not knowing how to sail a ship when the queen can just simply hire some human guards and sailors, a great example is while going after Alise and Rogers, Puffin and the Squirrel army had to rely on the two electric eels who are knock-offs of the Poopsies from The Little Mermaid to save them from a sea monster.
- Scully's ghost randomly appears on the island with no reason how he is able to talk to Alise to move plot along.
- Alise, just like in the previous movie, is once again a Mary Sue since she acts like she has no remorse about running away and act like she's been out to sea before, when she's never done so in any point before now and can master sign language in less than a minute, she also took over Odette as the protagonist of the first five films of the franchise.
- Queen Uberta is at her worst her as she’s not only an annoying old nagging woman just like the CGI sequels, but also a total manipulative woman who lacks any interesting characterizations by simply forcing Alise to stay in her princess boot camp and trying to sabotage Lord Roger’s pirate boot camp.
- Rogers has been severely flanderized like in the CGI Swan Princess sequels, becoming a comic relief who tries to escape being eaten by turning his subplot into a Hell's Kitchen parody.
- Lucas, one of the new characters in this movie, is a carbon copy of Sir Peter from Happily N'Ever After 2 as he's a bland Gary Stu who only serves as a love interest to Alise.
- Misleading Title: Despite the title having "The Swan Princess", Odette appears as a minor role; only in the beginning, when she and Derek were about to leave, and the ending when they came back. It feels more like a spin-off staring Alise than an actual sequel.
- Random pop culture references, such as Rogers making a challenge exactly like Hell's Kitchen and a character who is literally Bob Dylan.
- Just like in the Christmas movie and other CGI Swan Princess films, this movie has signs of anachronism. When Alise said that she wanted to be a modern princess, the only thing that is considered "modern" for her time was the usual classic princess trope, with the fancy dress, sparkling crown, posh behavior, etc. Also, the monsters are using leaves as hoverboards despite the fact that the movie franchise takes place in the low-fantasy themed medieval times.
- Not only that, but Queen Uberta is seen wearing modern yoga clothes when Lord Rogers, Alise, Puffin, Speed, and Jean Bob escape the kingdom to go on a pirate ship.
- Since they mentioned hoverboards, they try to make movie weirdly little Science Fantasy for no good reason just make monsters faster catching up.
- The Maya CGI animation is still extremely cheap and ugly just like the CGI Swan Princess sequels, to the point where it still looks like a late PlayStation 2, Original Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, Wii, and 3DS cutscene, especially compared to the first three films' timeless hand drawn animation. It’s no surprise that Streetlight Animation is behind the animation of this movie mainly due to Crest Animation's bankruptcy in 2013.
- Just like the last two CGI sequels, many plot points and assents are lazily rehashed from not only the first three movies but also Crest's other films as well, only with minor differences.
- Loads of padding that only serve to pad out the running time of the movie, such as the aforementioned Hell's Kitchen parody.
- Very poor writing that takes away most of the charm that the first three movies had, resulting in several plot holes such as Jean-Bob somehow being the monsters' god just because he's green. It is unknown why or how the monsters like to worship green things.
- Forgettable soundtrack with the music doesn't really fit the era but that is to be expected with this franchise.
- Poor direction by Richard Rich whose takes are always static just like the Alpha and Omega films and the other CGI Swan Princess movies.
- The movie later shows Derek's underwear shown when his pants get ripped.
Redeeming Qualities
- The voice acting is decent and is a huge improvement over the voice action in the pervious film.
- Just like the CGI sequels, the backgrounds are nice, which is surprising, considering that the animation was very cheap.
Reception
The film currently holds a 4.4/10 on IMDb.
