“Prince Derek and Princess Odette adopt a little girl named Alise. Then, Alise gets captured by a group of flying squirrels, who believe that the Swan Princess is evil, according to a prophecy. Now, it’s up to Derek and Odette to save Alise, convince the flying squirrels Odette isn’t evil and defeat the evil Forbidden Arts.”
– Anonymous, IMDB.
Swan Princess: A Royal Family Tale is the 5th installment in the Swan Princess series, and the second film to be animated with CGI. It was released partly as a means to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original Swan Princess film, which was released in 1994. A Royal Family Tale is directed by Richard Rich the same director as the original Swan Princess film, and was written by Yuri Lowenthal, who also voices Prince Derek in the film.
Some thoughts from me (Potential spoilers below…)
I mean, what else can I really say, that summary really says it all doesn’t it? Really the only thing worth adding is that the flying squirrels are also a trained warrior race. Presumably that was left out of the summary because it was already sounding far too ludicrous.
I’m writing this post in 2018, where we’ve now reached the 8th sequel to the original Swan Princess movie. It’s fascinating to see how far things have come. I mean, Swan Princess Christmas felt a bit out there, what with the whole “villain is out to destroy Christmas” plot, but come on… warrior flying squirrels with an ancient prophecy?
Out of all the Swan Princess sequels that have come out, Swan Princess 5 has been received the best by my viewing group. It’s another one of those films that has that perfect combination of terrible plot and animation that make for a really enjoyable viewing experience. The cherry on top are the song sequences, which are both frequent and hilariously cheesy. The Swan Princess series has always sort of dabbled in having songs that feel like music videos, where the characters are sort of aware that they’re in a song and they’re doing their best to put on a good show. Swan Princess 5 has that in spades, and it’s hilarious to me to see all of these characters pump the breaks on the plot so they can instead bust out a perfectly choreographed song and dance routine.
Honestly, I’m having a hard time coming up with things to write, how many times do I have to put ‘warrior flying squirrels with an ancient prophecy?’ before everyone rushes off to purchase this movie?
And if you do rush off to go buy the film, take note that some editions of the movie come with a tiny foam crown that matches the one Alise wears on the DVD cover (Take one guess at which edition I bought?).
So definitely check this one out, not only is it the funniest Swan Princess sequel to date, it also is the movie that starts establishing need-to-know Swan Princess lore. You’re going to need to get familiar with some of the characters introduced in this movie if you’re going to be able to keep up with the most recent additions to the Swan Princess series.
Bad Princess Movies 
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