I'm still waiting for the publication of How to Offend Women in 5 Syllables or Less.

2 proposed edits to the script to drive the theme home without rewriting the whole point of the plot:

1. When alone with Rogers, have Derek spill out with all the non-aesthetic stuff he loves about Odette, then have Rogers ask, "and you didn't say that to her, because why?"
Derek: Because my words don't want to work around her... because I keep thinking about all the things that made me hate her when we were kids.... that I love about her now."

2. Have Derek reminisce at the ball with the fake Odette about some of the crazy stuff they did when they were younger, like maybe Odette kicking the treehouse beam and putting him, herself, and Bromley in casts all summer... only for the fake to have no idea what he's talking about. Derek picks up on this, and it tips him off that she's a fake. This would let him show that he's not all about the looks, by remembering key memories about her that have nothing to do with her beauty, and allow him to not be such a shallow idiot.

My internet disconnected when he went to say "What else is there?"
My computer's trying to save this man from serious embarrassment.

This movie has some flawless special effects animation. From the transparent wings of the "great beast" to the water and magic, the movie shines in that department.

Honestly after the scene where Derek can't think of a reason why he loves Odette (aside from her beauty) I was expecting the film to be about them working together to break the curse Rothbart put on her, defeat him, and through that they would come to understand each other better. Derek would realize he had grown to love Odette through his life (her stubborness, kindness, strong sense of justice etc.) and he simply didn't have the emotional maturity to understand that before. Odette would come to see Derek has his own admirable qualities (he is funny, determined, brave, and ultimately is also a kind albeit short sighted person). Then the rest of the movie happens.

I mean, Derek and Odette are separated for most of the movie and the narrative is just sort of like "well, they're the two leads and they're in love because the script says so". It always really bugged me that the movie had a pretty strong start and then fell back into a bunch of cliches and filler songs.

In my most luke warm defense of Derek... He's an idiot. And Odette knew he was an idiot. If she wanted an answer to that question, she needed to give it to him well in advance so he would have plenty of time to study for the pop quiz. Let's be real, Odette was going to run both countries and Derek was going to be the greatest swordsman either country had ever seen.

I studied under one of the members of the crew behind this movie. Apparently it was initially meant to focus more attention on the nuance and seriousness of the story more similar to the original ballet and Barbie Of Swan Lake — but higher ups worried last minute that it wasn’t entertaining enough for younger kids so they changed a lot of the story elements last minute to make it "funnier" and more slapstick (Rothbart was the example used for this tonal shift). I’m thinking thats where the lack of focus on Odette and Derek’s arc went.

The bounciness of Roger's hair is something that stuck with me for years, I gotta know what his hair routine is 😂

To me young Odette didnt realize the tree house would collapse. Cause to me it was a mad kick to what is there and then like ohh crap......... 🎉

THE best line is "most importantly,  she knows how to make Derek feel like shit" 😂

That prince's laugh at 7:35 is CRAZY 🤣

I still think it’s wild how this movie never uses Tchaikovsky’s original score, which is basically the most iconic part of Swan Lake. Sleeping Beauty built its entire soundtrack around Tchaikovsky, but The Swan Princess mostly just lifts a few story beats and then does its own thing. Such a waste, especially when that haunting Swan Lake theme could’ve been an amazing villain song or recurring motif.

I always saw this movie translated into Spanish and it was next level voice acting. The songs also sounded amazing, everything was so elevated and posh. I'm seeing the clips with the OG voices and it's killing me 😅

I can't really know without having seen the script, but there's a possibility that the stark difference in Odette's behaviour is due to the begining song being conceived mainly through storyboards and animation. I study animation and often meet animators who prefer storyboards over scripts, employing a very different style of storytelling. Taking into account that the scene from the begining is a musical scene where playful animation is in the focus, it's very possible that animators and storyboarders were given a lot of freedom with depicting it, only taking a few notes from the script writing team. So what were supposed to be playful, exaggerated visual scenes with Odette and Derek arguing, made mainly to fit the mood of the song, ended up changing their whole personalities. But it looks great and fits the song well so it was kept without paying much thought to the ways it changes the text. All of the musical scenes in this film are very creative, playful and exaggerated with this sense of hightened reality and all manage to give the characters much more personality. I asume they were all conceived mainly through storyboards, as opposed to some dialogue heavy scenes. The script writers and the storyboarders are still in communication, they just have very different approaches to storytelling in this case and I wonder whether both were done simultaneously or if the musical scenes were storyboarded long after the script was written. Anyway, this is my suspicion. The opening song just really feels like "storyboard first" storytelling that focuses on visual gags, which have a tendency to define characters in a specific way. I still think their intro characterization is much better than what they got later on, we really could've had badass Odette all the way through.

Also, Croatian Barbie Swan lake jumpscared me so much. I never expect to randomly encounter other prisoners of the Balkans in the YouTube trenches🫰✨

its amazing how this movie was a box office bomb mainly thanks to the lion king and yet it still spawned an entire film franchise with 2 sequels in the 90s and 10 more from 2012-2023

Honestly, I just love how all the characters were allowed to be goofballs.

Since is established that Odette can talk to animals, turning into one herself, I would love to have seen her get information about Derek from other animals ( probably birds). Her assuming Derek has moved on to the next beautiful princess but Puffin telling that other birds have told him how all the people have been complaining that he refuses to move on and is still searching for his “dead” fiancée. That his mother has thrown multiple beautiful princesses at him and he doesn’t even spare them a glance.

Movie even sort of confirms this when the queen tells Derek about the ball and he ask she doesn’t turn it into ANOTHER Princesses on parade. Meaning she has tried before!

Just let the movie show us this and let this information be what inspires Odette to go hunt down Derek.

8:21 I know you're joking but in all honesty the greatest animated Swan Lake adaptation is found within Princess Tutu

I think you missed an important bit of the movie when analysing Derek's growth (possibly by the sparkly dresses!) The whole point of Princesses on Parade is that if what he truly cared about were looks he could have picked someone else to marry very easily, but he only wants Odette

(Apologies in advance for the length of this comment — the topic deserves more than a one-line response, and I wanted to explain my reasoning clearly.)

I understand the appeal of wanting Odette to “free herself,” but I think that criticism ignores the internal logic of The Swan Princess and ends up judging the film by a framework it was never written in.

Within the story, Odette cannot realistically oppose Rothbart directly. He can at any moment trap her permanently as a swan, prevent her from leaving the lake, or eliminate the one fragile freedom she has. Any open rebellion, destruction, or manipulation would simply result in her being fully imprisoned, cutting off all chances of outside help. Waiting for a blind spot in Rothbart’s control is not passivity — it’s survival.

Odette also lacks political or practical power. She is an orphaned princess with no army, no kingdom to return to, and no authority she can wield. Derek, however, is the only person with both the means and motivation to search for her. He is not “the savior” because he is male, but because he is the only character positioned to act beyond the curse’s boundaries.

The idea that Odette should be wary of Derek or demand that he “prove” he has changed also doesn’t hold up narratively. Derek never abused, harmed, or exploited her. His mistake was emotional immaturity, not cruelty. He already paid the price for that mistake by searching for her for weeks and months while everyone else believed she was dead. Most people would have moved on. He didn’t.

Importantly, Derek endured a form of suffering Odette never experienced: sustained collective invalidation. He was not simply missing her — he was actively dismissed by everyone around him for refusing to accept her death. His search was not driven by a desire to prove he was “right,” but by an inability to abandon someone he believed, with conviction, was still alive. That is why he continued pursuing the idea of a shapeshifter, even when it was treated as a fantasy or a joke.

When Derek says that no one believed him, it is not an evidence that he cared more about being right than about Odette. It is an expression of isolation — of being the only person holding onto a truth everyone else had already buried. Odette’s suffering was real and rooted in loneliness and captivity; Derek’s was different, but no less severe — he was treated as irrational for refusing to let her disappear, and yet he persisted anyway. That persistence is not ego. It is endurance. His continued search was not about proving himself right, but about holding onto the conviction that he was not irrational or delusional for believing Odette was alive.

When Odette says she "missed him", the word reflects her isolation — she was alone, confined, and deprived of human contact. Derek’s suffering, however, took a different form. He was surrounded by people, yet utterly alone in belief. This distinction matters. Odette’s loneliness was born of physical captivity; Derek’s was born of collective invalidation. He pursued the idea of a shapeshifter — treated by others as a fantasy — because it was the only remaining path that might lead him to her fate. His persistence was not ego-driven stubbornness, but endurance under doubt. and that is why "no one believed me" was his line. Two forms of loneliness, different in nature, neither cancelling the other.

It is also important to note that Odette knew Derek was alive, while Derek did not know that she was. Odette’s longing reflects waiting and isolation under certainty — she was alone, but she had hope grounded in knowledge. Derek, by contrast, had no such certainty. His belief that she might still be alive rested on something fragile, almost desperate — like clinging to a single remaining thread when all rational explanations pointed toward loss.
That is why his surprise upon seeing her alive is genuine. It is not the triumph of being “right,” but the shock of discovering that faith sustained under doubt was not misplaced. His persistence was never about proving others wrong, but about refusing to abandon the possibility of her existence when everyone else already had.

The ballroom scene reinforces this. If Derek’s goal had been to “prove” Odette existed, he could have revealed her transformation publicly. Instead, he believed that a public declaration of love would break the curse. That wasn’t ego — it was naïve faith. When it fails, he understands his mistake, returns, and tries to correct it even though he believes he may have already lost her.

Reframing Odette as someone who should emotionally punish Derek by imposing trials, prolonged doubt, or conditional tests to extract proof of love would not make her stronger, it would strip her of her moral core. Love does not require the person you love to exhaust themselves emotionally, repeatedly prove their worth, or suffer through uncertainty to satisfy another’s ego. If Odette had demanded such tests — withholding trust, prolonging distance, or turning reconciliation into a performance of endurance — it would not reflect self-respect, but emotional entitlemen disguised as empowerment.

The Swan Princess  is a story about timing, restraint, and mutual growth under constraint. Odette does not submit; she chooses when and whom to trust. Derek does not conquer; he learns, fails, and persists without self-abasement, even while knowing he may be too late, that all may already be lost, and that the rational response would be to let go and mourn rather than continue reaching for what may no longer exist.

For all these reasons, I think the film is good as it is — and it delivers.
Not by modern standards, but by remaining internally honest, emotionally coherent, and faithful to the story it is telling. A film doesn’t fail because it isn’t modern; it fails only when it betrays its own logic.The Swan Princess doesn’t.