NBK's Lion Movie Review and Update

Nandamuri Balakrishna's 'Lion' has hit the screens today. The movie is the first for Balakrishna after becoming an MLA from Hindupur and it is also the first film after the blockbuster success of 'Legend', so it is coming in with good buzz. Directed by debutante Satya Deva, the film has Trisha and Radhika Apte as the heroines. This is our review.

Story :

Godse (Balakrishna) wakes up from a head injury induced coma. The trauma causes memory loss and Balakrishna is unable to recollect his past. But he keeps getting headaches that bring some vague memories of another life.

Godse thinks that he is Bose. But those around him deny this fact. He travels to Hyderabad to try and uncover his past but his efforts end up in failure. Convinced beyond a doubt that he really is Godse, he decides to listen to his parents (Jayasudha and Chandra Mohan) and return back to Mumbai.

This is when an unexpected event happens. Chief Minister Bharadwaj (Prakash Raj) comes into picture and this brings Bose back to life. Who is Bose? What is the Godse connection? Are Jayasudha and Chandra Mohan really Godse's parents?

That is the story of 'Lion'.

Plus Points :

- Balakrishna has given a power packed performance as Godse. For this role, he looks quite restrained and his mannerisms have been toned down. In the role of Bose, the original Balakrishna comes out. There are powerful punch dialogues and loud action scenes. Balakrishna has portrayed both roles with conviction. His dance for the Lion title song is very good.

- The Interval bang is excellent. It lifts the film to another level and infuses a lot of interest into the proceedings. The director has handled these sequences very well. Apart from this, the second half of the film has some good high voltage drama and Balakrishna's hardcore fans will enjoy these scenes.

- Prakash Raj has done a good job and his confrontation scenes with Balakrishna have come out very well. Trisha and Radhika Apte look good but they have very marginal roles. Posani, Jayasudha, Chandra Mohan, Geetha, Jayachander and the other actors have pitched in with decent performances.

- Action sequences have been shot well. The tribal fight in the forest is quite unique and looks fresh. Scenes involving the CM's convoy have been handled well.

Minus Points :

- The first half of the film is a big liability. Until the pre-interval episode begins, the film can get boring. The movie keeps shifting to flashback mode very randomly and poor editing makes this a jarring experience.

- Direction is a big minus. The story has good potential and a competent mass director would have worked wonders with a script like this. There are glaring errors and proper leads have not been established for crucial scenes.

- There are some unexplained gaps and loopholes in the film. For A center crowds, these errors will be glaringly apparent. For B and C center crowds, this screenplay may prove to be slightly irritating.

- Romantic scenes between Balakrishna and Trisha have not been handled well. They look very forced. Radhika Apte has virtually nothing to do in the film, except to join Balakrishna for two songs.

Technical Aspects :

Cinematography is good. The fight sequences have been captured well. Editing is quite poor in the first half of the film. For a screenplay like this to work, good editing is absolutely essential. Mani Sharma breathes life into the scenes with his terrific background score. He is still the boss when it comes to re-recording.

Satya Deva makes a very average impression as a director. He has conceived a good story but his execution is less than satisfactory. A good director must know how to present his hero in the best possible way. In recent times, only Boyapati succeeded in projecting Balakrishna in the right way.

Verdict :

'Lion' is a mass entertainer that will keep fans happy. This is a different attempt from Balakrishna and his efforts are commendable. A superb interval block and high voltage scenes in the second half are assets. However, a poor first half drags the film down. For the average movie lover, this film will seem like an ok watch.

Critic's Rating - 3/5

BOX OFFICE POTENTIAL : Medium

10 Spectacular Satellite Collisions

Ever since Sputnik first reached its orbit back in 1957, man has been on a never-ending quest to learn more about our local universe. However, in the past 50 years, we’ve littered it more than we’ve studied it. Currently, there are over 500,000 pieces of “space debris” orbiting the Earth. Some of are meteoroids, but the majority are left over bits from humanity’s many space endeavors.

While you wouldn’t think that this would matter too much, since space, after all, is a big place, it is more of an issue than you might realize. The latest calculations estimate that there are over 20,000 man-made objects at lease the size of a baseball hurtling around the Earth at over 28,000 kilometers per hours (17,500 mph). You don’t need to be a scientist to know that such speeds could cause a lot of damage. Sadly, this has happened on more than one occasion, and there are numerous types of satellite-on-satellite fender-benders.

10Soyuz TM-17 Crashes Into Mir
1994

In 1994, during a return mission from the Russian space station Mir to Earth, a simple Soviet Soyuz TM ferry spacecraft, Soyuz TM-17, collided with Mir a few minutes after liftoff. Photographs were being taken as part of an ongoing inspection of the space station, so as the cosmonauts were leaving for home, the Russian equivalent of ground control, TsUP, ordered them to take some photos of the docking deck.

A few minutes into the task, cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliyev complained that that the ship was handling “sluggishly,” as TM-17 was drifting too close to one of Mir’s solar arrays. Shortly afterward, the controllers at TsUP saw TM-17’s external camera shake violently, with fellow on-board cosmonaut Aleksandr Serebrov reporting that the spacecraft had indeed hit Mir. Communications between ground control, Mir, and TM-17 were instantly lost but were luckily restored after several minutes.

Although Soyuz TM-17 struck Mir two times in as many seconds, there was no serious damage. The cause of the crash has been blamed on a switch error within the left motion control lever in the descent module. Thankfully, Tsibliyev was able to control TM-17 with the right lever and steered the ship clear of Mir’s solar arrays, antennas, and docking ports, averting a collision that could have been a massive disaster.

9Progress M-34 Hits Mir
1997

The age-old proverb preaches that “Lightning never strikes the same place twice,” but Vasily Tsibliyev is living proof of the contrary. Mir had only two satellite collisions during its operations, and Tsibliyev was in control duringboth of them.

In the 1990s, Russia was trying to perfect a remote-control docking system to replace an expensive automated procedure provided by Ukraine. To test the new system, the supply vessel Progress M-34 was un-docked from Mir on June 24, 1997, so the vessel could be re-docked manually. However, this proved to be far more difficult than previously thought, as at the time of the test, M-34 was temporarily camouflaged against Earth’s cloudy background, causing the module to veer off-course. For some reason, the brakes failed to sufficiently decelerate M-34, and the vessel collided, quite abruptly, with Mir’s Spektr module.

Though the crash wasn’t anything like a Michael Bay mega explosion, Mir sustained severe damage to one of its solar panels and radiators, as well as a puncture in the hull of the Spektr module, causing it to depressurize. After the impact, Mir’s crew heard a hissing sound, and their ears popped, key features of depressurization. As a consequence, Spektr had to bepermanently sealed off, and the electricity drawn from Spektr’s solar panels was cut off, causing Mir to lose power and start to drift in free flight. Thankfully, electricity was restored, and the space station received no catastrophic damage, though it took several weeks to resume normal operations on Mir.

On July 2, 1997, after Progress M-34 was released from Mir’s docking station, the destructive cargo vessel burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere during re-entry over the Pacific Ocean, which must have been quite a cathartic experience for the cosmonauts to watch.

8The Hypervelocity Collision
2009

On February 10, 2009, Iridium 33, a commercial communications satellite, and Cosmos-2251, an obsolete Russian military satellite, collided 800 kilometers (500 mi) above the Taymyr Peninsula in Siberia. At the time, both satellites were flying at a speed of 24,480 kilometers per hour (15,211 mph) and had acombined weight of 1,500 kilograms (3,300 lb). The colossal momentum of the crash totally obliterated both satellites.

The Hypervelocity Collision (so-called because the velocities involved can bemeasured in kilometers per second) sent more than 2,000 fragments, roughly 10–15 centimeters (4–6 in) in size, into orbit around the Earth. The debris still poses a massive hazard to the International Space Station (ISS), as the fragments are orbiting in the same region. Though the ISS has suffered no direct hits from the 2009 collision, it has had to perform evasive maneuvers to avoid debris.

The remains of the crash are still orbiting Earth to this day and are still a serious threat. Thankfully, the orbits of most of the fragments are decaying, meaning that the debris will eventually burn up in the atmosphere. As of January 2014, roughly 25 percent of the debris had burned up. Though devastating, one positive outcome of the collision is that many questions are being raised regarding defunct space junk and how it can be removed from orbit before further destructive events occur.

7The Satellite Crash Pit, AKA The Moon

The Moon is a natural satellite, so collisions between it and artificial satellites still count for this list. So far, humanity as a whole has sent 74 probes and manned ships to the Moon, 51 of which have crashed into its white, rocky surface. Note that 19 of these crash cases were intentional, such as in the Apollo missions, where the S-IVB rockets were dropped onto the lunar surface to measure its seismic activities.

Most of the satellites and probes that have pummeled the lunar surface are owned by the US. In most cases, this is simply because they had completed their mission and were no longer needed, so they were turned off and left to fall into the Moon. The USSR had a very hard time getting their probes to land correctly, with half of the Luna mission probes smacking straight into the Moon’s surface.

Whether the crashes were intentional or not, humanity has dumped 128,141 kilograms (282,500 lb) worth of probes onto the Moon over the last 50 years, with several more lunar endeavors planned over the next few decades. Here’s hoping that they actually land this time round.

6The Collision That Blitzed BLITS
2013

Photo via Wikipedia

In 2009, a retroreflector satellite called BLITS (Ball Lens In The Space) was put into orbit. Made out of several types of glass, all with varying refractive indexes, this little, 8-kilogram (18 lb) satellite was planned to have a five-year mission, supporting scientific studies in geophysics and geodynamics, as well as acting as a testbed for satellite laser ranging applications.

Four years into its mission, in 2013, Russian scientists noticed an instant, 120-meter (400 ft) drop in BLITS’s altitude. Its spin period also increased in frequency from 0.18–0.48 hertz. BLITS also ceased to respond to the laser ranging signals, which prompted the question, “Had something hit BLITS?” After analyzing the orbital tracking data, it turned out that there was one object within 3 kilometers (1.8 mi) of BLITS, travelling with a relative velocity of 34,920 kilometers per hours (21,700 mph) at the time of impact. So what was the culprit? A piece of Chinese space junk.

In 2007, as part of an anti-satellite missile test, China destroyed one of its own 750-kilogram (1,653 lb) weather satellites, Fengyun 1C (FY-1C). The test was a success, but the explosion sent 2,317 traceable fragments hurtling into a variety of orbital planes around Earth, with an estimated 15,000 untraceable fragments also sent flying into orbit. The debris caused by this one test has been nothing short of a menace since the explosion, posing a constant threat to low-orbiting spacecraft. Some of them, including the ISS, have even had to perform evasive maneuvers on more than one occasion.

It was only a matter of time before the FY-1C debris damaged a satellite, with BLITS being the first recorded. The inoperative BLITS is still in orbit, floating around the Earth as yet another bit of space junk that may one day knock a future satellite off-course.

5Russian Space Debris Wreaks Havoc
2013

In 1985, Russia launched Cosmos 1666, an electronic jamming satellite, into space on the back of a rocket called Tsyklon-3, which is similar in design to the Saturn rockets used by NASA. The launch was a success, and Cosmos 1666 was put into orbit. Unfortunately, the last stage rocket of Tsyklon-3also remained floating around the Earth. After 28 years in orbit, a cloud of debris had shrouded the Tsyklon-3 rocket, making it even more hazardous than before.

In 2013, over the Indian Ocean, a plucky little Ecuadorian satellite named Pegaso met its ill fate. Though Pegaso didn’t directly collide with Tsyklon-3, the cloud of debris hit the tiny satellite, knocking its antennae out of orientation, causing it to spin wildly. Pegaso wasn’t damaged during the crash, but due to the misalignment of its antennae, the change in its orbit, and rapid spinning, it could no longer receive transmissions or send commands. Three months after the crash, the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency (EXA) declared Pegaso lost and ended its mission.

Tsyklon-3 can didn’t just take out Ecuador’s Pegaso, but it also knocked out its companion, Argentinean satellite CubeBug-1, which begs the question: How many more satellites will this giant, floating trash heap destroy?

4Faulty Navigation System Causes A Satellite Collision
2005

Photo via Wikipedia

Demonstration for Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) was designed by NASA to engage in complex maneuvers, in pretty tight spots,without any human interaction. If successful, DART could be used to undergo tricky maintenance tasks on existing satellites, such as the Hubble Telescope. Sadly, though, this proved to be a bit too much to ask of the automated spacecraft, as during its test flights it bumped into its rendezvous target, a communications satellite called MUBLCOM, pushing it into a slightly higher orbit.

Though there was a crash during the testing of DART, it established that more precautions and perfections are needed when it comes to totally automated spacecrafts. Thankfully, both satellites were fine following the collision, even if they were a tad bruised, and could successfully enter their retirement phases. Currently, both satellites are in low orbits, where they willpose no risk to any other spacecraft. They will slowly descend over the next 25 years so they can burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

3Cerise Is Damaged By Its Own Launch Rocket
1996

Photo via Wikipedia

Named after the French word for “cherry,” Cerise was a 50-kilogram (110 lb)military reconnaissance satellite designed to intercept high frequency (HF) radio signals for the French secret service. On July 7, 1995, the little eavesdropper was placed successfully into orbit by an Ariane-4 rocket, a three-stage vehicle that was heavily used by the European Space Agency.

Roughly one year into its spy mission, Cerise was knocked out of its orbit, dropping in altitude, and started to tumble head-over-heels. Though this had never been seen before, it was fairly obvious what had happened: Cerise had been struck by something.

Using the USAF Space Command’s COMBO (Computation Of Miss Between Orbits) program, NASA was able to determine that Cerise had been hit by afragment from a previous mission. This was the first witnessed case where two man-made objects had ever collided in space. After further analysis, it turned out that the fragment came from an old Ariane-1 rocket which had broken up into over 500 traceable pieces, meaning that Cerise was hit by an older version of the very rocket that launched it into space.

The collision badly damaged Cerise, snapping a 3-meter (10 ft) chunk off of the 6-meter (20 ft) gravity-gradient stabilization boom that protruded from the probe. Cerise’s performance was badly compromised, but it was still working normally, carrying on its mission via ground control. Engineers pulled off a spectacular feat and managed to reprogram Cerise’s on-board computers, using on-board electromagnets to reposition the satellite, allowing it to carry on snooping for many years afterward.

2USA 193
2008

In 2006, just moments after the top-secret, classified satellite USA 193 successfully entered its orbit, communications between it and ground control fell silent. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal. Yes, it would be annoying, but eventually the satellite would burn up in the atmosphere. However, USA-193 was no ordinary satellite. Weighing a whopping 2,300 kilograms (5,000 lb) and based upon the Delta II payload dimensions, USA 193 is also thought to be 4.5 meters (15 ft) long by 2.5 meters (8 ft) wide.

Again, this shouldn’t be such an issue, but because USA 193 failed right at the start of the mission, it had a full tank of fuel, which happened to be 454 kilograms (1,000 lb) of toxic hydrazine, which was predicted to survive re-entry while contained in the fuel tank. Obviously, USA 193 couldn’t be allowed to enter the atmosphere of its own volition, lest it spray its toxic contents all over innocent people. Something had to ensure that this could never happen, and Operation Burnt Frost was created.

General James Cartwright confirmed that the US Navy planned to fire a $10 million SM-3 missile, destroying the satellite before it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere. The toxic fuel which would either be shot into space or burned up in the atmosphere. Since the satellite was in a low orbit, it was predicted that most of the debris would immediately enter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up within 48 hours, with the remaining fragments re-entering after no more than 40 days.

In 2008, nearly two years after the initial launch, USA 193 was successfully destroyed at an altitude of 247 kilometers (153 mi) above the Pacific Ocean. It was blown into 174 pieces, which were catalogued and tracked by the US military. Most of the debris fell to Earth and burned up after a few months of orbit, a bit longer than predicted. Some pieces were thrown into much higher orbits than expected but have all been accounted for, and the last piece of USA 193 re-entered the atmosphere in October 2009.

Thankfully, none of the debris from the obliterated USA 193 caused any collisions as far as we know. The only issue caused was a slight delay in the launch of a different National Reconnaissance Office satellite, NRO L-28, which was merely “a precautionary measure.”

1Galileo’s Suicide Run
2003

Photo via Wikipedia

Galileo is by far one of the most important satellites to have ever been created, immeasurably expanding our knowledge of the solar system and providing some of the most breathtaking images of Jupiter and its moons. Launched in 1989, Galileo slingshotted past Venus and Earth, taking photos of them both along the way, before ending up at Jupiter almost five years later.

This little explorer earned many firsts: Galileo was the first to fly past an asteroid, the first to discover a moon orbiting an asteroid, the first and only probe to directly observe a comet colliding with a planet, the first to measure Jupiter’s atmosphere, the first to discover the intense volcanism of Io, and the first to find evidence of subsurface saltwater on the Galilean moons of Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

A growing concern among astronomers was that one day, Galileo may have ended up colliding with one of Jupiter’s many moons, possibly contaminating them. Given how potentially habitable moons such as Europa are, something had to be done. Galileo simply didn’t have enough fuel to return to Earth, and the only option to avoid contamination of the Jovian system, and the solar system as a whole, was to destroy Galileo by sending it into the very planet it had studied for well over a decade.

So, on September 21, 2003, after 14 years in space and eight years in the Jovian system and the darkness of the Jupiter evening, Galileo descended into the intense pressure of the mammoth gas giant at 7:00 PM GMT withzero chance of survival. While it was a tragedy to let Galileo go, it was the noble thing to do. Godspeed, Galileo.

10 Of The Most Stunning And Unique Buildings In The US

When we think of the US, we picture towering skyscrapers and apartments in the cities, copycat suburb houses with white picket fences, and little lonesome red farmhouses in the fields and prairies. Everything is a standardized design of steel, glass, and bricks. However, the US is also the home of world-famous artists, architects, and rich people who have the money to make their crazy dreams a reality. Many of these unique individuals have created works of architectural wonder and amazement, while others . . . at least created something unique. Here for your enjoyment are 10 of the most bizarre and unique buildings in the United States of America.

10Summum Pyramid

Photo credit: Summum

Located in Salt Lake City, Utah, the nearly 9-meter-tall (30 ft) and 12-meter-long (40 ft) Summum Pyramid is the primary center for the Summum religion. Founded by Claude “Corky” Nowell in 1975,

10 Strange Unsolved Train Mysteries

One of the most bizarre unsolved disappearances of all time involves renowned French inventor Louis Le Prince. In 1890, while on a train heading to Paris, Le Prince somehow vanished without a trace and was never seen again. The story was particularly puzzling since nobody could figure out how a man could simply disappear from a moving train. However, rail transport and rapid transit has long been the source of some truly baffling unsolved mysteries, whether they be unexplained disappearances, murders, derailments, or even bizarre supernatural occurrences.

10The Sunset Limited Derailment

On October 9, 1995, an Amtrak passenger train known as the Sunset Limitedwas making a routine trip from Los Angeles to Miami. At approximately 1:40 AM, it was crossing over a trestle in a remote desert area of Arizona when it suddenly jumped the tracks and derailed, sending four of its cars crashing 9 meters (30 ft) into a ravine. An attendant named Mitchell Bates was killed in the crash and ov

10 Ways We’re All Picturing The Ancient World Incorrectly

Thanks to countless books, movies, and trashy TV shows, most of us have a fairly firm mental image of the ancient world. Togas, feasting, gladiatorial combat . . . the standard stuff. Yet step back in time, and you’d be confronted with a world that confounded your expectations. Far from being a close approximation of the truth, our collective mental image of the ancient world may be nothing like reality at all.

10Ancient Britain Had African Citizens

Photo credit: antmoose/Flickr

Although London is one of the most multicultural cities on Earth, it’s only been in the last century or so that minorities have become a familiar sight in Britain. Go back a millennium, and everyone would be lily white, right? Not quite. Britain has had black citizens for at least 1,800 years.

10 Fairy Tales Begging To Become Disney Films

In this age of cinema, sequels and franchises rule the box office. DreamWorks already has plans for a third installment of How To Train Your Dragon, and Marvel has a line of films booked up until 2020. Instead of being a beacon of originality, Disney has just announced it will make a sequel to 2013’s Frozen. But do not despair: Here are 10 European-based fairy tales that would make great live-action or animated films that would not contain the dreaded phrase “let it go.”

10The Three Princes And Their Beasts

Included in his The Violet Fairy Book, Andrew Lang writes about the Lithuanian fairy tale involving the children of a king, including three princes and their stepsister. After going hunting one day, the siblings came upon a great grey wolf with three cubs. When they went to kill it, the wolf spoke to them and begged them to spare her life. In return, they could have her young.

They took the young wolf and, after another similar experience in the woods involving a fox, hare, boar, and bear, the three brothers, their stepsister, and their band of animals came to a three-way crossroads. After a game of chance to decide who would get the stepsister, she and her older brother followed the path on the left while the other two siblings followed the remaining two paths. The siblings then had a multitude of adventures, including fighting robbers, saving a princess from a dragon, getting killed and coming back to life, and defeating a Medusa-like witch who turned people to stone.

One way Disney could spin this would be having the three princes searching for their kidnapped sister while gaining animal companions along the way (which would then later aid them in saving their sister). Not only would it then teach kids, especially young boys, the benefits of being kind, respectful, and caring, but it would also teach the importance of respecting animals and nature. Plus, it would totally change the original fate of the little sister. In the original, the stepsister is forced to betray her older brother by a robber. But, once free, the brother ties her up and forces her to fill an impossibly deep bowl with her tears before he’ll free her. Not the best lesson for impressionable children to learn.

9The Dove

This Italian tale begins with an arrogant prince and his friends traveling and coming upon a recently widowed old woman gardening with the last pot made by her husband. The prince and his friends decide to take the pot and end up destroying it in a game. Saddened at the loss of the treasured object, the woman curses the prince to fall in love with an ogress’s daughter.

Soon after the prince’s company leaves, he comes upon the beautiful, human daughter of an ogress named Filardoro and they fall in love. The girl’s monstrous mother appears, however, and decides to play with the prince, saying she’ll eat him unless he does several impossible tasks. But, with the aid of Filardoro’s blossoming magic, the couple completes the trials and manages to escape the ogress and get married.

Not wanting her daughter to be happy, the ogress curses the prince to forget Filardoro as soon as he is kissed by another. And, when the prince goes to tell his mother of his new love, his eager mother kisses him on the cheek and the curse comes true. Waiting for her love, Filardoro soon learns her prince not only forgot her, but he also agreed to be married to whomever the queen chose. Fearing the loss of her husband, Filardoro sneaks into the kitchen and bakes a magical pie that will release a white dove when cut by the prince. The dove then tells the tale of Filardoro and, when the girl throws herself at her husband, he remembers her, breaking the ogress’s curse. The queen approved their marriage.

Full of lessons about the power of love, being kind to others, and perseverance, Disney could spin this tale into a romantic adventure film. It fits right along with the storytelling famously done by Disney.

8The Well Of The World’s End

A tale that is not well known, this is the story of a young girl whose father remarried a wicked stepmother after his wife died. Finding the young girl prettier than herself, the stepmother sent the girl to go collect water from the Well of the World’s End in a sieve disguised as a cup. The girl left to find the well and went around asking along the way for its location, but no one knew where it was. Despairing, the girl was about to return when she met a little old woman. Not only does she tell her where the well is, but she also tells her what she must do to get there.

Following her advice, the young girl makes it to the well. Finding the water to be the purest and most beautiful she’s ever seen, the girl dipped her sieve in but discovered the truth that the cup was actually a sieve full of holes. She started bawling. A little green frog suddenly popped up onto the well and asked her what was wrong. After making her promise to follow his instructions all night long, he told her to fill the cup with mud to block the holes. The girl agreed to do this and, her task fulfilled, she went home with the frog. After getting her to fulfill certain (mostly G-rated) tasks for him, the frog is transformed into a prince at sunrise and the two go on to marry.

Disney could spin this into a coming-of-age tale of a shy young girl becoming strong and confident while saving a cursed prince. It could teach youth to persevere and keep promises. (The exception to this might be the final task the girl completed, in which she cut the frog’s head off an ax so he could become a prince again.)

7The Fairy Nurse

In this Irish fairy tale, a young farmer lives with his wife and three kids, and he is constantly nagging at his wife for not attending Mass or being a good Christian. One night, after getting angry with his wife for missing Mass to consult a fairy man, his children wake him to discover his wife has vanished from their bed. Instead of thinking she left him for his harping, he instead fears she was kidnapped and spends the next six weeks looking for her. During the last week, on his way to the field, he runs into a young neighbor woman who knows what happened to his wife.

The lady claims to have been taken to the home of the fairy king and queen on the previous night. After the servant touched her eyes, she could see the fairies and saw his wife being the nurse for the fairy royalty. But after rubbing her left eye, she saw that the grand castle they were in was actually a cave and that the beautiful fairies were monsters. Terrified, she acted as if all was normal before fleeing back home. She and the farmer rescue his wife before she could be taken alongside the fairies, using the power of prayer and God to banish the fairies from their sight.

As this story is very Christian-oriented, the best way for Disney to spin this story for diverse audiences is to make it a simple tale about not being deceived by beautiful things and the importance of keeping promises. These are things the neighbor woman learned too late as, having betrayed the fairies, the fairy servant tracked her down. He then tricked her into revealing her sight, and she was literally struck blind with a switch.

6The Buried Moon

Another obscure English fairy tale involves the Moon one night learning that, on the nights she doesn’t appear in the sky, monsters and evil creatures (including boogeymen) come out and terrorize the inhabitants of the Earth. Deciding to see if this is true, the Moon takes the form of a beautiful woman with a dark hood to cover her brilliant, golden hair. She comes down to Earth, landing in a tangled nest of vines in a bog. In the bog, she frees a sinking old man, but the evil creatures of the night capture her and bury her deep in the mud. They decide to put a large stone over her until they can figure out a way to dispose of her.

Days pass without the Moon’s light, and people begin to panic when the old man from the bog remembers where he saw the Moon. At once, the men of the town go to an old wise woman who discerns the location of the Moon. After traveling a great distance, they come to the bog. Upon seeing the stone matching the old man’s description, they move it. The men briefly see the face of the Moon before she rockets back into the heavens, banishing the evilonce again.

As this story was more for entertainment than morality, Disney could create a wonderful action-adventure film for kids. It could teach children to face their fears and follow many other Disney films in showing that goodness will always overcome evil. And, as there isn’t any violence or gore in this story, Disney wouldn’t have to edit much while making it.

5The Red Shoes

Another Brothers Grimm story, this one tells the fable of Karen. Orphaned following her mother’s death, and with no father to be found, the only joy in Karen’s life was when she was given a pair of beautiful red shoes by the old shoemaker’s wife. After her mother’s funeral, the passing queen spied Karen and took her into her family. Years passed and Karen outgrew her beloved shoes, and she became old enough to be confirmed. But, still having a desire for red shoes, she used the queen’s growing blindness to obtain a new pair of red shoes, which she then wore on the day of her confirmation.

Weeks after the incident, Karen decided to put on her shoes to go to the ball after attending to the ailing queen. But as soon as she put on the shoes, they stuck to her feet and she couldn’t stop dancing. Terrified, she ran through the town and was met everywhere she went by an angel of God holding a sword, damning her for her pride and selfishness. Enduring this for the entire night, Karen finally met an executioner who then cut off her feet and watched her feet dance off into the woods. After a week of pain and despair, Karen went to the church now humbled and repentant and died surrounded by the people she loved and the angel of God.

Another very Christian-oriented story, Disney could make this an action-adventure film having Karen going on a quest to find a way to remove her dancing shoes with a possible romance along the way. It would also teach children the perils of pride and selfishness, how to become a better person, and how to be merciful to others. A ton of Disney magic will be needed on the ending, however, as very few parents want to leave a theater with a sobbing child due to a traumatic ending.

4The Master Maid

In this interesting Norwegian fairy tale, we have the youngest son of a king who goes looking to earn his keep and is hired by a giant. He is told he can work with him under the condition he never goes into any of the rooms besides his bedroom. Obviously, he breaks that rule. In one of the rooms, he finds a gorgeous girl who turns out to be the master maid. She helps him with his tasks in secret for several days. Each day, the prince denies he’s seen the girl until the giant brought him to the master maid on the fourth day and orders her to kill the boy and turn him into stew. But, having fallen for each other, they instead trick the giant and escape.

Before the couple can get to their happily ever after, the prince is told of the wedding of his older brother. The girl then makes the boy promise to send a coach for her so he doesn’t forget her. He says he won’t forget her, leaves for his brother’s wedding, and is given a cursed apple by the bride’s sister that makes him forget the master maid. After many trials, the master maid is able to save her prince and they live happily ever after.

Disney could spin this as a dual savior story, with both the boy and girl saving each other. It could also be about the power of true love and the triumph of good. The only major editing would be the ending, since the prince has the sister who poisoned him (and tried to marry him) tied to 24 horses and pulled to pieces. No number of love songs could cover that therapy session waiting to happen.

3Diamonds And Toads

Written by Charles Perrault, this is the story of two daughters of a widow. The elder was like the mother, arrogant and haughty in nature, while the younger took after their late father, gentle and kind. As both the mother and daughter couldn’t stand the niceness of the younger sister, they horribly mistreated her. This continued until one day, while drawing water from the well, an old woman came by. She begged the girl for some water. The girl immediately gave the woman the water she had, and to thank her, was blessed with precious stones and flowers falling out of her mouth with every word she spoke. When the girl came home and her mother asked what took her so long, flowers and pearls fell from her mouth when she answered.

Seeing this, the widow became greedy and sent her eldest daughter to go to the well to get the same reward. This backfired as the woman, angered at the eldest’s rudeness, cursed her: Vermin would fall from her mouth with each word.

Disney could spin this to make both sisters get some sort of gift (perhaps not as extreme as rats and diamonds) but struggle with them and believe them curses. That is until, through some unlikely adventure, they both learn their gifts are blessings and gain true love. This emphasizes the power of words, and it also would give the older sister a happy ending. In the original, the younger girl and a prince fell in love. But her older sister gets kicked out of her home and, as no one wants vermin in their homes, the girl ends up becoming the first cat lady and dies all alone in the woods.

2The 12 Dancing Princesses

Another beloved Brothers Grimm fable, this is the story of a king who calls for aid to solve a mystery. Every night, his 12 daughters were in a securely locked room, yet the next day the girls were exhausted and their dance shoes were dirty and worn. The king promised a reward for all who discovered their secret within three days and nights. After a string of princes failed to find the answer, a returning soldier answered the call.

Given an enchanted cloak by an old woman and advice to not eat or drink anything given to him by the princesses, the soldier discovered that every night the princesses went down a hidden passageway into a hidden world under the castle surrounded by a forest of silver trees. There, the princesses were compelled to dance with 12 princes. Taking a golden goblet and a silver branch as proof, he exposed the secret to the king and married the eldest princess. The 12 princes were cursed to dance for as long as they danced with the princesses.

With the success of the 2015 version of Cinderella and Frozen, Disney would have no problem bringing to life this story’s rich descriptions and scenery either in animation or live action. And what about developing the characters? Disney might look to the best-selling novel Entwined by Heather Dixon, a retelling of this fairy tale. Combining these two things plus the power of sibling love would make an exciting comedy-romance film with dashes of magic and action to please everyone.

1The Wild Swans

Written by Hans Christian Andersen, this tale is about another king who had 12 children. This king had 11 sons and one daughter named Eliza. After remarrying a wicked queen, the queen turned her stepsons into swans and then tricked her stepdaughter into bathing in potions that disfigured her appearance so the king would kick her out, keeping her from revealing her treachery. Alone and despairing, Eliza was comforted at night by her brothers, as only in the night could they regain their human form.

This continued for a year until a fairy told the young princess that to save her brothers she must knit 11 tunics out of stinging nettles. However, once she picked the first nettle, she could not utter any words until they were finished. Eliza went about her duties even after getting married, getting no sleep and being accused of witchcraft. She continued on. Right as she was about to be burned at the stake, Eliza threw her nearly finished shirts onto her brothers in swan form and returned them to their human form. Finished, she proclaimed her innocence before falling into her princes’ arms, exhausted and lifeless from her trials.

With the success of the last Hans Christian Andersen tale, Disney could instantly cash in big with this tale. Boys and girls would love Eliza with her determination, love, and courage. In addition to that, rumors have floated around since Frozen about plans by Disney to make a return to traditional animation next year with this fairy tale, which this story might be a good fit for.