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Yeah, they overdid the parallels a bit much. Once is enough.

I think it given a season 8 or so, she'd smooth out as a character. Sometimes, things could be a matter of time as well.

Agreed.

Agreed with TGS.

Walt Disney (real life) can’t translate to Walt Disney (OUAT), given there’s room for variability.

As said,

1- Land of Untold Stories: It’s in the name! I think season 6 would have been better to fully flesh this out and would have worked better. I would have centralized all flashbacks to focus on that world and what it’s origin is. It seems to meta to be “well, stories stop”. The characters are real people. They wouldn’t see their lives as “stories” and nothing more. Could have even made the Black Fairy spawn that world with her original curse (saying she created a world where their stories will stop or something).

2- Mulan. Yeah, MulanRouge was clearly better, but I think Once simply missed out. They had a great actress and even the Dragon (who will play Mulan’s father in the Disney movie). They pretty much had that set up for them, but they took a different path. I love Zelena and Oz stuff but they should have given Mulan more, even if Mulan literally took Dorothy’s role in the story.

3- Season 7: They left too much open for their soft reboot gamble.

I think “Enchanted Forest” is pretty much a trope at this point for fantasy (because everything happens in the woods for some reason).

I do agree and think OUAT writers just saw the natural evolution of the story and told it their way which creates some minor similarities.

Didn’t really notice any strong similarities of note (besides Enchanted Forest having magic/magically in tuned people). I think the movie could have used more conflict. It was a Man Versus Nature story, but Nature really wasn’t that threatening. Plus, I think they couldn’t done more with Anna and Elsa with their ending roles which still sticks out as contrary to the first film. Leaves room for a sequel, hopefully.

I doubt it. I felt as though the writers (Adam and Eddy) wanted Peter Pan and when they got the approval they merged the Home Office and Peter Pan plans together. So, the Home Office was mostly a placeholder, in my opinion.

I think a half season with the Home Office would end the same way (with everyone returning to the Enchanted Forest). I only think that the Home Office would have had a couple of people with backstories that tied in with the core cast, like Neal, August, or Emma.

I agree with you partially. Some of their explanations lean more on convenience and poor explanations.

However, you are discounting how a narative is structured and suspension of disbelief. Random Character A isn't going to be a constant focal point of the show/movie/book/medium if they are completely to the story.

Once did have characters that did and did not cross paths with the core group in the way distant past. I'm going to use Belle in the below example.

Crossing pasts: Belle interacted with Anna in the past. This does not make the world smaller, but Belle's experience in the world bigger and the world more united. This was a simple way to loop in Belle with the Frozen arc without her interacting much with the Frozen cast. This crafted a nicely knitted story. I can see it being done differently and how much is too much but "it's a wash" at worst.

Not crossing pasts: Belle runs into Merida and has a neat little side story that later sets up a side-story. Perfectly fine. Could they always do that? No. If you take Merida in the larger scheme of things, she could have been written out of the story easily as she did very little. You could argue from the other side that Merida's inclusion was a waste due to the minor connections she had to the story.

All in all, it's a tough balance. It's rather subjective and there's a flurry of factors that go into stories acorss different media.

Overall, it depends.

Once’s variation of the characters were usually half-Disney/half original. Likewise with the worlds.

I think things like Descendants, in which the characters are meant to be the Disney characters (more or less) has the benefit of drawing more classic fans, but also the opposite.

To last long term (or rather on its own), it should be similar to Once’s original concept. However, no one can say that a direct Disney tie in wouldn’t bolster numbers.

Personally, I don’t really like anthology series (or that I just don’t often watch them). Hopefully they are tied together per season and have shared characters. I hate to get invested in a story and then dart off in a completely different direction.

I can’t go from “Dopey joining in a Dwarven rebellion while dealing with his feelings towards Snow White” to “Jack dealing with his abusive mother, Queen of Hearts, and his star-crossed love with the Chesire Cat.”

Pretty much this. It was adapted for ONCE purposes in season 4 and that’s about it. Just like every other story or property.

No one should have thought otherwise. ONCE even changed small things, like the parents names.

Did find it hilarious that an “Enchanted Forest” popped up as well as the parents travelling with regards to Elsa’s powers.

(MOD): Let’s maintain civility even as the volume as declined.

Please address all questions and new comments on various episodes in new threads.

I will close out this thread and may look into closing the others.

Thanks,

Esk

Rewatched the trailer and some breakdowns.

I think it’s focused on Elsa taming nature/elemental spirits and making peace/amends with the Northuldra tribe (which parallels the Huldra, which were hidden people/elves or something).

We have Nokk (aka Nix, a la Once’s Nix) being the water spirit. Book being the spirit of water and a horse ties back to Scandanavian folklore, etc. However, it dovetails Greek myth as well (Poseidon, god of the sea makes horses).

The lizard thing looks to be the fire spirit. The wind spirit seems to be some Moana type thing. Earth...I don’t know.

A definite thing is the theme is exploring Elsa’s Powers, which appear may be tied to her mother in some way.

Going with a big “Nope”.

But it is pretty cool that it is maintaining it’s more fairytale elements.

I’m glad they are developing the Frozen “world” and I hope they continue to develop it. It appears that it’s more or less going “Magic comes with a price”/Magic addiction if anything Once related at all.

I see Once using Frozen and other Disney properties as canon/adapted to the Once Universe, but not the other way around.

So far, it appears to deal some magical backlash after a war started between nomadic Northuldra of the Enchanted Forest and Arendelle.

No. The Book records after the fact and as it happens, never before.

The Author can right for things to occur, but that is against the rules. (But that only appears to determine if you are worthy to the Apprentice and Merlin. No effect has been shown otherwise, except destined events cannot be changed.)

Basically as Schroeswald puts it.

Plus, feats and it’s speculation. We need evidence to declare strong magic, but the inhabitants appear to not be familiar with it.

There’s no distinction between magic levels, just one land without magic and all other realms with magic.

Given that the Land of Magic has "magic", I take it that the realms out of time (as mentioned above) are essentially are variants of the Land Without Magic (but very, very, very minute).

The Land w/out Magic was separated from magic, with it essentially dead (but able to be revived).

Lands like Land w/out Color, VE and 1920s England, 19th Century France, etc have very feeble magic.

Other worlds have immense levels of magic.

Nope.

Regina went to Wish Realm in season 6 and killed Wish Henry’s grandparents. This is why Wish Henry wanted to kill Regina.

Wish Realm had a Wish Regina/Evil Queen but she was banished and was only seen in 7x07. Every other instance was Regina.

Henry calling past Henry was just a bootstrap paradox “aka this happens because it had to happen”.

As for Rumple and Wish Rumple.....never answered. Speculation is that Emma’s wish duplicated the Darkness creating Wish Rumple, but still maintained the connection.

My theory: Magic works via energy signatures. Wish Rumple and Rumple’s magic share the same energy signature and thus treats itself as the same.

Ex. When Henry sent the message in a bottle to Hook, it went to both Hooks because they both technically are the same person.

Congrats!

You misunderstood. I didn’t say someone else wouldn’t. I said I doubt anyone else would.

Once had had a soft reboot and a spin-off which is more than most shows. It is less likely to be revived.

As I mentioned earlier (or in another thread), a shared universe show could exist (think the Marvel Netflix shows), but I doubt a reboot or spinoff would re-emerge.

A shared universe show might work if reupped and given stronger writing and running as Once was strong stream-wise, but that’s not that likely, but more likely than a revival.

I take revival to mean “Season 8” or “Once Upon a Time in...”

Anything’s possible, but probability is something else.

I believe they plan to do that (for content resasons).

But yeah, Once revival is wishful thinking seeing that I doubt anyone besides A&E or the writers would pick the show up and they seem busy (and Once essentially had a spinoff and soft reboot, which is more than most shows).

Once is simply being stored there as their other streamed shows will be. Once is a Disney show. It does not indicate anything else.