October 23rd, 2019 
Jackson Murphy 
One of the most beloved animated movies of all-time is getting a new 25th Anniversary Blu-Ray, 4K release on October 29th. The Swan Princess director Richard Rich (who also directed Disney’s The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron) shares his excitement for the special release and reflects on his 25 year legacy with the “SP” franchise. First, he takes me back to 1994:
Richard Rich: The anticipation of the release was really an exciting time. I think we felt that we had given our best in making the picture. We knew that it played extremely well, and that the audience would love it. And so we anticipated that it was going to be a wonderful experience for the people who saw it. And it turned out to be exactly that. The reviews were great. We were amazed how people were accepting it.
Jackson Murphy: Roger Ebert wrote in his 1994 review that this movie shows progress because there’s more to a princess than just being beautiful. And I think that theme resonates really well 25 years later. Was that one of your intentions and goals with this movie back in ’94?
RR: It was. We knew we had to have a strong, beautiful, committed princess. We knew that. And that’s what we wanted to have. It’s so interesting how it is so appropriate today. And during all of these 25 years, Odette has been a role model for young women anywhere who have seen this movie. They know that they too can have courage and stand up to whatever confronts them. That’s been one of the great things that the audiences have enjoyed, that has given it its strength – to stand up against all the things that happened in the last 25 years, and to hold its charm during these 25 years.
JM: “The Swan Princess” has sold 20 million copies on home video. That’s incredible. When did that success first hit you?
RR: That success… came gradually. It wasn’t overnight. That is in retrospect that we say, “Wow! This picture had a bigger audience than we ever thought it did.” And what’s interesting is that audience has grown over the last 25 years. It hasn’t shrunken. It has continued to grow. I haven’t gone anywhere over these last 25 years… that someone found out that I worked on “The Swan Princess” and said, “Wow. That was one of – or my favorite movie when I was growing up.” So that’s been what has been so satisfying, is to have that opportunity to hear how much people loved it.
And they look back on that time as a very choice time for moviegoing. What’s great about it is, now they’re parents, and they’re giving their children that same opportunity. And the new release of the 25th Anniversary Edition on Blu-Ray, mastered in 4K and 7.1 Sound, is gonna give a whole new audience an opportunity to get to know this picture. What’s fantastic about that is that it plays today as charming and as good and as appropriate for the time as it did 25 years ago.
JM: How directly involved were you in this restoration process?
RR: I did it. (laughs) I was the one who was directing it all. Can you imagine having made a movie and directed it 25 years ago – and now 25 years later, I get the opportunity… to use all the technology that exists. At Technicolor, we sat there and we color-corrected every frame. What was impossible at the time in 1994 to get everything exactly the way we painted it, because of the process of color timing on film… today I was able to go in and make it look like exactly the way we painted it 25 years ago. And that is what is so exciting. Every little film scratch. Everything that was ever in the negative is gone. And it is pristine – it looks stunning.
JM: That is a once in a lifetime opportunity – to be able to go back to something you previously did and make it look and sound even better. I can understand how incredible of an opportunity and feeling that is.
RR: Never saw it coming. Never once did I think I would revisit it like this. The songs are absolutely stunning in the re-mastering of the sound.
JM: And speaking of songs, one of the songs, “Far Longer Than Forever”, was Golden Globe nominated in 1995. Did you attend the Golden Globe Awards?
RR: I did. We knew we were up against some really big songs in some really big pictures. But still to be nominated as an independent film – first time out of the shoot, was a remarkable accomplishment. And the song is worthy of that for sure. One of the neatest things that I think has made the movie stand out for all this time is the relationship between Derek and Odette. They have this screen chemistry. That relationship is true and honest, and real love is captured in that song – that love is far longer than forever – is I think what has made the picture last all these years. I don’t think that a relationship like that, between Derek and Odette, has been matched in any other animated film… because it is so real and heart-wrenching and happy. Everybody who watches that movie wants to have their love last forever.
JM: I came across this trailer that actually shows not just clips of the movie but John Cleese in the voice booth. That’s so rare today. You don’t really see that in trailers.
RR: It was a neat experience. Brian Nissen (co-writer) and I flew to London, and he invited us to his home. And we spent that evening in his home going over the script, and he was trying out voices. He sat there and ad-libbed, and we were writing as fast as we could. He brought so much to Jean-Bob. He’s one of the iconic characters in all of the 10 “Swan Princesses” that we’ve done. We’re just finishing “10” now, and he has been a delight for audiences over all these years. John Cleese was a perfectionist, and I think it might’ve been in that clip.
Another great opportunity was to work with Steven Wright, the comedian, who just talks really slow. And I asked him, “How do you come-up with how you see things, and your comedy?” And he said, “Rick, I just see the world differently than everybody else.” I got him to laugh once. I said, “Steve, could you say that line just a little bit slower?” And he looked at me and said, “No one’s ever asked me to do that before.” He’s a slow talker.
The real find for this picture was Michelle Nicastro for Odette. I wanted a voice that said princess when you heard it. It had a princess quality with strength and character and goodness and charm. We had casting directors from Broadway that were helping us. We tested a lot of actresses back there, but none of them seemed to have that charm that I was looking for – that real princess sound. At the time, we came back to Los Angeles and continued to voice test. Our casting director said, “Look – there’s a girl that we’ve casted in ‘Les Miserables’ that’s playing at the music center here. We’ll get her in.” And she walked in and the first word out of her mouth, I knew we found her.
Not only did she have the sound of a princess, she was a princess herself. Now she’s passed away, and it was a huge loss for this world. She had all the goodness and charm and everything we wanted in the character of Odette – she gave Odette all her personal traits. That is so rare.
JM: And she’ll live on as new generations watch “The Swan Princess” on this Blu-Ray 4K release. Rick, you have stayed with this series for the past 25 years. You mentioned you’ve got the 10th film in the series coming up. Some of them have been hand-drawn. Some of them have been CGI. Why did you decide to continue with this series and have this longevity and attachment to this story?
RR: After the release of the first one, we did two sequels to it. And those were done in 2D. Then things sat quietly for a while. But the films continued to be out on home video for years and years. The distribution of those fell in the hands of Sony. And they now had “Swan Princess 1, 2 and 3”. They approached us at one time and said, “Look, these three films are… holding steady every year.” And they were very interested to see if we would be willing to do some additional ones.
It was a time when everything was being re-tooled into CGI, and there was a lot of discussion whether we should stay in the 2D format or move into the CGI. We showed them what the characters would look like in CGI – and all the advantages that brought into the production end of it. Sony bought off on it. “SP 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9” are all done in CGI, and we deliver “Swan Princess 10” February 1st to Sony. I’ve loved every one that I work on… “Swan 9” captures the feeling of “Swan 1” the best. And “Swan 10” takes it a step higher.
When I did the first “Swan Princess”, I put my heart and soul into that movie. It was against all odds that that movie was even made. A little independent company that had never released a full screen movie before (only had done shorts). And we did it. Everyone that worked on that picture didn’t come to work because they had to, but because they wanted to. All of us had something to prove – that we could do it outside of a big studio. I think that shows up in the movie itself. Everybody gave their very best.
I know these characters backwards and forwards. I know what makes them laugh. I know what makes them cry. I know what their hearts’ desires are. My sons tell me that, “No one should be as happy to go to work as you are, Dad.” I get up in the morning and am excited to go to work. It’s just so fun.
JM: About a decade ago, I watched The Trumpet of the Swan (which you also directed in 2001) on HBO. What has the animal the swan meant to you, and how does it speak to you?
RR: We did “Trumpet” for Sony too, and that was really great. That was the last book E.B. White wrote that hadn’t been put to film, and Sony asked us if we would consider doing that. It was really fun. That’s so interesting that I became the swan of animation it seems like! And you wouldn’t believe how many gifts of swans that I’ve received over the years. The swan itself came from “Swan Lake” and from the actual fairy tale. We knew that was something we could not change, nor did we want to change. The swan: there is a gracefulness and a beauty that seems to capture a princess. If there’s an animal you could say is a principal bird, it’s a swan. That’d be your first choice. It has not been difficult to hold onto that image.
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