The movie that inspires the entire new Barbie collection.

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Product Description

In Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses, Barbie will dance her way into your heart in this fun and enchanting all-new adventure. Join Barbie as the beautiful Princess Genevieve and her eleven dancing princess sisters as they discover a secret entrance to an amazing, magical world where wishes come true! But when their father is in danger of losing his kingdom, Princess Genevieve and her sisters must work together in order to save the day and their father. They learn that the power of family can overcome all obstacles!

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1372 in DVD
• Brand: Barbie
• Released on: 2006-09-19
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: AC-3, Animated, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .30 pounds
• Running time: 81 minutes

Amazon.com
While every princess should learn and demonstrate proper etiquette, twelve young princesses learn the importance of doing good deeds and following their hearts in Twelve Dancing Princesses. When an overwhelmed King Randolph seeks the aid of his cousin the Duchess Rowena in acquainting his twelve young daughters with appropriate princess etiquette, the overly strict Duchess forbids dancing, singing and anything that makes the girls happy. The girls' misery increases when their father suddenly becomes ill and the future looks bleak until the princesses discover that twelve special books bequeathed to them by their late mother open the gateway to a magical world where wishes are granted and dancing is celebrated. Eventually, maturity demands that the twelve princesses return to the real world and confront Duchess Rowena in order to save their father and his kingdom. This CGI animated production features music by Felix Mendelssohn, ballet choreography by the New York City Ballet, and wholesome messages about morality and the power of family. (Ages 3 to 9) --Tami Horiuchi

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Customer Reviews

Lovely return to basics from Barbie, fun, classic, great dancing
A nice return to good Barbie movies. This is (loosely) based on the fairy tale of the 12 dancing princesses. Rewritten and remodelled for a Barbie-style ballet movie.

Genivieve is the 7th of 12 princesses. Her father calls for the Duchess Rowena to look after them as his wife is dead. The duchess has plans of her own, and with her strong-man servant and her monkey, she works to take over the kingdom and get rid of the 12 daughters. She starts by taking all the fun and colour out of their lives, trying to quash their spirit.

Genivieve, however, discovers a secret magical kingdom below the floor of their bedroom where the princesses can escape at night and dance the night away until morning. They have their dancing shoes from Eric, the Cobbler who also happens to be extremely gorgeous and nice - and not a little in love with Genivieve. When Rowena discovers the secret stairwell she seeks to trap the princesses down there forever. But toghether they escape, and rush to save their father who Rowena is attempting to kill.

It is a lovely movie, there is lots of dancing which is beautifully done given there are twelve characters it is easy to form nice chorus lines etc. 3 are little Kelly sized girls, there are 2 teenagers and the other 7 are adult sized. There could be some confusion, luckily they are named alphabetically from A to L according to age - unfortunately many have very un=princessy names like Lacey, Hadley and Courtenay.

The animation is lovely although there is an odd piece of oddity in the filming. For some reason near the end when Genivieve is luring Desmond away from his post she seems to go out of focus slightly, it might be my particular player.

There are some nice extra features, the making of the movie is excellent and my children were fascinated by it.

I really like the toning down of colours. The castle and environs looked colourful without the overwhelming brightness of some of the earlier movies.

Overall this is a great fun movie which my children have enjoyed a number of times and I also enjoyed. It can be watched many times and still find something new. I just hope that the Barbie makers will be working on another singing movie. the Princess and the Pauper still rates as the top Barbie movie ever - the songs were inspired and fun. My only real gripe on this movie is the enormous number of merchandise from this - 12 characters!

Charming take on the children's story
Before we first rented one of the Barbie videos for my daughter, I was expecting them to be trite, over-commercialised, and over-sugary. However, I have been pleasantly surprised.

Yes, they do have a lot of commercial spin-offs and a high saccarine count, but the quality of the Barbie films we have subsequently bought or rented, including "12 Dancing Princesses," was significantly higher than I had expected. They have not just kept my children engrossed for hours - including my son as well as my daughter - but introduced them to some beautiful stories and truly wonderful music. On more than one occasion I have been listening to a CD of a classic such as Beethoven's pastoral symphony, or The Queen of the Night's aria from Mozart's magic flute, and my daughter has recognised and expressed appreciation of the music, and correctly remembered which Barbie film had used it. ("Magic of Pegasus" and "Mermaidia" respectively.)

The soundtrack to "Twelve Dancing Princesses" is mostly adapted from some of Mendelsohn's best work, including "A Midsummer night's dream" and the Scottish and Italian symphonies. It also includes a lullaby sung to the King by the 12 princesses which was based on a 16th century anthem by Byrd, the recording of which was sung beautifully by Melissa Lyons and the Women's Occidental Glee club.

The story is loosely based on the children's story. "Barbie" plays "Princess Genevieve", the seventh of 12 daughters of a widowed King (e.g. seven young women, plus a pair of twins who appear to be about 11 and a set of triplets who appear to be about 6.) Like the original, the story is about 12 princesses who having been banned from dancing, sneak off every night through a magic passage and take a magic barge to a special island where they can dance all night. However, in this version the killjoy who tries to stop them dancing is not the King their father, who loves them very much, but his cousin, Duchess Rowena, who he has brought to the palace to be their tutor. At first even the princesses do not realise quite what a bad mistake this was ...

As with many of the Barbie films, comic relief is provided by talking animal companions of some of the principal characaters. In this case Princess Genevieve has a pet cat, and the evil Duchess Rowena has an equally evil pet monkey, Brutus. The hero, who in this version is the royal cobbler, Derek, has a pet parrot, who for some reason talks with a greatly exaggerated Indian accent. (That's Indian from the subcontinent, not native American.)

Those people who enjoy criticising what the Barbie franchise represents will not have much difficulty finding things in this production to sneer at. If you, or more importantly your kids, are allergic to an excess of twee sweetness, then this film and the Barbie videos generally may not be for them. And the female characters are all on the thin side of plausibility: I'm not worried that watching this is going to give my daughter anorexia as she likes food too much and has a good sense of the difference between fantasy and reality, but if you are worried that your children may be forming an unrealistic idea about how thin a healthy body shape is, that is a concern with this film.

But on the plus side: it is beautifully made, it will hold the attention of most small children for long enough for the typical exhausted parent to clear the mess they have made in several rooms of the house or collapse for an hour's rest after doing so. Alternatively there are enough more sophisticated jokes thrown in that you won't be completely bored to death if you decide to watch it with your offspring. And best of all, the soundtrack is almost worth buying the film for on it's own.

Fun for young and old dreamers
Bought this for my little granddaughters when I last visited them. The three year old LOVED it -- the music is beautiful and the dancing sequences intrigued her. She donned her own princess dresses and danced along, then wanted to see it again immediately when it was over. All the females in the house enjoyed this DVD and I would recommend it heartily. It's basically another version of the Cinderella story.