After the first teaser trailer showed up recently for The Princess and the Frog, Disney's return to traditional hand-drawn-style animation, a lot of the blogosphere was labeling the film potentially racist. Hopefully the political correctness circles have died down a bit, though (or are at least concentrating too hard on Tropic Thunder), and we can appreciate some beautiful new artwork from the film without wondering how it might be reflective of stereotypes and whatnot. Over at DisneyAnimation.com, there is a gallery of "visual development" images that give us more of the background depicting 1920s New Orleans and its vicinity. For someone like me, who just recently revisited the Big Easy, the artwork is enough to get me excited about the movie, which unfortunately I must wait for until Christmas 2009.

The Princess and the Frog is a jazzy musical fairy tale based on the classic story "The Frog Princess" and features the first ever African American Disney princess (voiced by Anika Noni Rose). Other characters include a trumpet-playing alligator and a love-sick Cajun firefly. And clearly, from what these new images show us, it's set in New Orleans' French Quarter, as well as the Garden District (or maybe the mansion in this image is further outside the city) and on the bayou, where apparently someone lives in a shipwrecked boat, Swiss Family Robison style. Hopefully, since the story takes place during Prohibition, we'll get to see some swamp-set bootlegging going on.

Be sure to also visit the other project pages on DisneyAnimation.com, for minor info on 2010's Rapunzel and the Phillip K. Dick adaptation King of the Elves, set for a 2012 release. I'm sure there will be more artwork added for those titles in the future, so keep the site bookmarked.

I'm as big a fan of Pixar movies as anyone, but I honestly miss the old-fashioned 2-D style animation from Walt Disney. I think there's definitely room for both hand-drawn and computer animated films, because as brilliant as movies like Toy Story, Ratatouille and Wall-E may be, they're a completely separate kind of filmmaking from the traditional Disney films. They shouldn't be compared to nor should they replace the kind of beloved fairy tale classics we've enjoyed from the Mouse House for 70 years. So, before commenting on the new teaser trailer for The Princess and the Frog (available here if the YouTube version is removed), let me just say, welcome back, 2-D!

OK, so what do I think? Well, upon seeing the New Orleans setting, my first response was unfortunately one of fear: what if Disney one-ups its Hunchback of Notre Dame pole-dance debacle with a scene involving Mardi Gras beads? Well, obviously Disney knows better than to be so blatantly naughty, though I wouldn't doubt that animators will find some way to slip in a hint of Big Easy-style debauchery.

To go along with their recent announcement, Disney/Pixar have released a bunch of promo images for all of their upcoming projects, including WALL-E (June 27, 2008), Bolt (November 26, 2008), Up (May 29, 2008), The Princess and the Frog (Christmas 2009), Toy Story 3 (June 18, 2010), Rapunzel (Christmas 2010), Newt (Summer 2011), The Bear and the Bow (Christmas 2011), Cars 2 (Summer 2012) and King of the Elves (Christmas 2012). In between all of these new releases, Disney/Pixar will re-release Toy Story (October 2, 2009) and Toy Story 2 (February 12, 2010) in 3-D.

For more on this announcement, as well as additional information on each of these films (casts, plots, directors, etc), check out our original post over here. To take a look at all these images, head to the gallery featured below.

Which film are you anticipating the most? Should they even make a sequel to Cars? Talk amongst yourselves ...

After some concept art, a name-change, the voice of our heroine, and the voice of the villain, Disney has finally released the first official image from The Princess and the Frog, which you can see to the right, and check out in all of its glory over at Coming Soon. This flick is a pretty big deal as the studio has headed back to traditional animation for the film, but more importantly, because star Tiana will be the first African-American princess and leading lady from the studio that has brought us the likes of Aurora, Snow White, Jasmine, and Mulan.

The animated film should be interesting. It's a musical (of course) set in New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. This could be cool, or a complete waste, depending on how Randy Newman tackles the music for the film. Will it be classic Newman? Will he go out on a limb and go wild with jazz? Anyhow, Tiana is a young girl who is living in the affluent French Quarter, who I imagine gets it on with a Princely frog. As Disney describes it: "From the heart of Louisiana's mystical bayous and the banks of the mighty Mississippi comes an unforgettable tale of love, enchantment, and discovery with a soulful singing crocodile, voodoo spells, and Cajun charm at every turn."

So there you have it. Is the official Tiana everything you dreamed she would be?

I've been keeping an eye on The Princess and the Frog since I first blogged about it back in April. The movie is one of those projects that will either be a positive step towards animated cultural awareness, or another embarrassing attempt to "diversify" Disney's palate of cartoon talent. After sharing concept art for the film, Erik Davis brought word of the voice that would be behind the mouse company's first African-American princess -- Anika Noni Rose. Since then, it seems that the company is at least listening to feedback. Many have pointed out that "Maddy" perhaps wasn't the best name choice for the princess, and her name has since been changed to "Tiana." Aside from a flashy new name, the picture has signed on its villain, which is none other than Keith David.

He's one of those guys you always recognize, but might not know his name, although he's been around for years. His first credited role was in Joseph Papp's recorded theater production of The Pirates of Penzance, and since then, he's had roles in films like Platoon, Reality Bites, Armageddon, Novocaine and Crash. David will voice the sinister villain -- Dr. Facilier. Who's that? I couldn't tell you as Disney has chosen to move away from their use of well-known fairy tales for their next princess story, and instead, they are using an original story by John Musker and Ron Clements. We might not even know for a while. The Hollywood Reporter says that a "2009 holiday release is planned." Could that be Christmas? If so, we got a lot of days ahead of us before little girls get an all-new, and hopefully classy, princess.