You don't see thumblings in pop culture that much, so I take an interest whenever anyone does adaptations. I collect dolls, and one of my Christmas presents this year was an Ever After High doll: Nina Thumbell.

Ever After High is a doll franchise by Mattel. The basic concept is that the dolls are all the children of fairytale characters. One day, they're all supposed to live out the fairytales like their parents before them, but some of them rebel against this idea.

As you may have already guessed, Nina is the daughter of Thumbelina. No, the doll is not thumb-sized. This character can magically grow and shrink. More on that later.
I have mixed feelings on her fashion sense. I like how her skirt resembles a tulip, but the plaid shirt is kind of weird, and my mom remarked that her vine boots looked like green silly string. Seeing the doll in person, the color combo is growing on me. I also like that the face molds are now more unique and expressive, although in other areas the new dolls lack the small details that appeared with older dolls. (For instance, the box doesn't include a doll stand as the older ones did, and Nina lacks the earrings that she wears in promo art.)
I will say she is very fun to pose.
Unlike the other dolls, Nina's box does not include a diary, but has only a small card bearing a brief description.

The lack of a diary was the one thing that really disappointed me when I opened the box.

Nina does appear as a cheerleader in the diary of another character, Faybelle Thorn, and in one of the tie-in books, Fairy's Got Talent by Suzanne Selfors (2015). She isn't really fleshed out there, but seems mainly cautious and fearful and tends to go with the flow. This contrasts with her fearless characterization in other media.

​She is allied with the Rebels, the faction thats want to throw off their destinies, rather than the Royals, who want to follow in their parents' footsteps. She really only gets a spotlight once, in her webisode ​Thumb-believable. The other characters shrink down to her size so that she can give them a tour of Ever After High as she sees it. There are some pretty fun scenes where they climb through the walls and enter Nina's room, which appears to be inside a locker. She loves exploring and has a pet cat. 

What does that ​mean?

In this aspect, Nina is like the "animal" characters (like the Cheshire Cat's and White Rabbit's daughters) who can turn into human form. These are characters that are marketed as dolls - not, notably, the Three Little Pigs or the Billygoats Gruff. A proportional Nina doll would be a tiny speck, not really a great doll to play with.
However, her power kind of breaks the story. It's hard to see how the challenges Thumbelina faces would be challenges if she could shoot up to five foot three at any time. 
​One person on a fan wiki suggested this was because of Nina's fairy heritage from her father, which I thought that was clever.

Because her fairytale's about people trying to force her into marriage

A short joke, but also suggests a side of her that hasn't been seen yet.

Because she's a flower fairy.

And that's about all there is to know about Nina Thumbell at this point. Unfortunately, considering the direction Ever After High has been going recently, I'm concerned that we may not see much more of its characters, including Nina. I'd love to see more books featuring her.

I went to see Moana on Thanksgiving and enjoyed it very much, even though I wasn't expecting it to be particularly good. One thing I was particularly delighted with was that Disney finally used something that wasn't straight European, Grimm or Andersen. I don't think they've used mythology since Hercules, either.

In some ways it felt like a return to the princess musical formula, and in others it was a departure. The animation was beautiful and realistic.

It was also, like their recent adaptations such as Tangled and The Princess and the Frog, more inspired by the tales than a straight retelling.

(Some of the following may be spoilers.)

They reference Maui being thrown into the ocean by his mother Taranga and raised by the gods, raising the islands from the sea, raising the sky, and catching the sun (which is very similar to other stories I've written about). The story of him stealing the heart from the island goddess is reminiscent of the Maori tale where he tries to steal immortality for humans from the goddess Hine-nui-te-pō and dies in the attempt.

​They left out Maui's multiple brothers, whose number varies by version, but all of whom are also named Maui.
He was apparently a miraculous birth. He was born premature and unformed, or miscarried. Some sources say he was miscarried or aborted. The result is that his mother threw him into the ocean, but there the seaweed wrapped around him to save him. A god found him and raised him. Maui eventually returned to his mother, proved his identity, and his family accepted him. There are many different versions. Edward Tregear's Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary lists quite a few of them.

Overall, I'd recommend this one. Disney's been making some good movies, but none of their films have wowed me like this for a while now.

​​Fairy Tale: A True Story is available on Netflix now. It’s based on the story of the Cottingley Fairies, which I’m fascinated by, so I gave it a watch, skipping through some scenes because it was late. I enjoyed it more than I expected.

It is indeed based on a true story. Starting in 1917, two cousins in Cottingley, England, named Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, produced photographs of themselves with what appeared to be real, live fairies.

​That's right - there were books and a doll line. "Fairies of Cottingley Glen." But at least it was well-researched.
 
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a spiritualist who by all accounts wanted to believe. His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, was an alcoholic who suffered from epilepsy and depression, and spent the latter part of his life in a mental institution. While there, he filled sketchbooks with elaborate, fantastical artwork of elves and fairies. The movie touches briefly on this and it makes Doyle's motivations much more understandable.
 
There was one scene that I actually stopped and rewound because the girls are walking through the woods calling the names of the fairies, and they’re all names from real folklore. A cast list reveals the names of even more fairies.

​Other titles: The Princess and the Magic Mirror, Meñique y el espejo mágico (original)

This movie not technically a thumbling story. It’s a thumbling story insofar as Le Petit Poucet is. Here, Meñique, or Tom Little, is extremely short, about half the height of anyone else. It comes from the fairytale “Meñique,” published by Jose Martí in La edad de oro in 1889. Since then, it has become something of a cultural touchstone in Cuba. A very small peasant boy finds magical tools, defeats a troll, and marries a princess. Basic stuff.

It’s actually Martí’s translation of a tale called “Poucinet,” published in French in 1864. And that tale was based on a Finnish story. I haven’t found the original, but it seems to be a mashup of “Boots and his Brothers” and “Boots Who Made the Princess Say 'That’s a Story.”

This movie was Cuba’s first ever full-length CG animated movie, and they had to basically make it up as they went, because they didn’t have access to other countries’ technology. That cuts this movie a little slack, but not enough, because it is just plain bad by any standard you try to hold it to. I wonder if they just jumped into too much too soon.

On to the story. It takes place in this really weird fairytale world that sometimes has highly advanced technology.
It begins with some landscapes and music that are actually pretty nice. Then we see the city at night, where a thief clad in a skin-tight purple outfit is crossing rooftops, stealing gold and distributing it to poor families Robin Hood-style. Anyway, when she flees from some guards, she drops a compact mirror into a peasant’s cart.

The peasant—Tom Little’s brother, Peter—travels home and we see a little of the odd fairytale kingdom, which is home to fairies, a sea monster, a fire-breathing dragon, giant spiders, and so on. The pacing so far is very slow. (Is that Don Quixote?)
The cart approaches a tiny house in the middle of a desert. We learn via infodump/guy shouting at a portrait that the three brothers are destitute after their father’s death, and Paul blames Tom for convincing their father not to sell the farm when it was still worth money. We see that Tom is walking around on mechanical stilts, singing and tending the farm with the help of cute little animals.
Tom tries to cheer everyone up, saying that they’ll soon have luck with the farm. Suddenly crops sprout from the field. Hurray! … wut? Then a cloud of bugs flies in and devours the whole thing in seconds. What? What just happened?
Apparently this is a plague that’s forcing them to move on, but that was still a bizarre turn of events.

Back to the city, where the greedy King is taking a bath in gold coins (which msut be painful). His advisor and nephew – my notes read “who I thought was a woman but may not be”– accompanies him everywhere. When the King’s daughter, Princess Denise, asks for money for some new outfits, the king lies that he’s too low on funds. The conversation turns to her future husband. Her mother gave her a “soulmate mirror” that she wants to use; however, the king secretly doesn’t plan to let the princess choose her own husband.

In her room, the princess has a 2D-animated daydream of meeting her knight in shining armor and saving him with a hang glider. However, upon looking for her mirror, she realizes to her horror that it’s missing.

Of course, we already know that it’s at Tom’s house. When he’s moping outside that night, he finds it and it begins to speak in an incredibly annoying squeaky voice peppered with French phrases. I can’t stress how annoying this thing is. It shows him a hologram of the princess, his true love (how convenient that it ended up with him).

Meanwhile, the king’s nephew is approached by a green-skinned, broom-riding witch. It turns out she’s his mother, the king’s sister-in-law, who’s returned from the dead with new powers. (I sense some backstory here, but we don’t really get much.) They come up with a plan to steal the king’s gold and have the nephew marry the princess (who is his cousin, just to be clear).
The witch happens to have a “cutting-edge magic wand, the last of its kind” (oxymoron?). She uses it to make a tree grow to a huge size and surround the castle, with a sound effect which I’m pretty sure comes from iMovie.
The king calls for woodcutters to cut down the massive tree, but any cuts they make instantly grow back. It has surrounded the whole palace and instantly regenerates from any cut. Apparently the court has begun using beer and wine for showers because their well is also blocked by a stone. The advisor plants the idea that the king should offer the princess’ hand in marriage in exchange for cutting down the tree.

With their farm doomed, Peter and Paul are heading off to the city. Turns out Tom has snuck along in their wagon. They come across a town just in time to hear the royal decree that the person who cuts down the tree will get the princess’ hand in marriage. Tom recognizes her picture and is awestruck. Shortly afterwards, with his brothers encouraging him in order to get rid of him, he follows a melody up a hill into an enchanted forest. And then a rapping axe appears.
Here, my notes read “It is still rapping. I think I’m in pain.”
After a brief altercation, Tom frees the axe from a tree and sweet-talks/reverse psychologies it into coming along to cut down the tree. When he holds the handle, the axe flies him away Marvel Thor-style to meet the next tool, a shy, deaf pickaxe. Their next stop is at a singing fountain, which accompanies Tom as a really freaky-looking nut.

The purple-clad thief is out and about again. So the king is being stolen from by his nephew and his daughter both at once. He’s greedy and all, but you know. Meanwhile, the witch spots her. “My wicked instinct tells me that I must follow that little thief.”
The thief sees Peter and Paul racing along in their cart—they’ve just encountered a giant and are fleeing. At an inn, they are surprised to encounter Tom. He declares that he knows how to open the well and cut down the tree, to much mockery. Many great woodsmen have already failed—we even see the Grim Reaper standing in line with his scythe.
The thief, who recognizes Peter as the peasant whose cart she dropped her compact mirror in, enters their room to look for it and accidentally awakens them. Tom chases after her with his flying pickaxe. The witch realizes that Tom has the magical objects and starts throwing spells at him. Her wand still makes iMovie sound effects. With the situation drastically changed, the thief helps fight off the witch, and the two heroes both end up riding away on the broom. The two end up on a tower and Tom grabs her, because she may have helped him, but she also broke into his room. She protests that she was just looking for her compact mirror. Tom claims he hasn’t seen it (although he has, really). However, the compact appears from Tom’s pocket and shows them that Peter was the one who stole that money.

Inside the church, they talk more. Tom explains that his soulmate is the princess. When told that the princess is vain and self-centered, he says her eyes are intelligent and kind like the thief’s. Oooh, love is in the air.
But the thief says that she thinks the princess will want to marry a prince and she can’t picture her with Tom. She’s acting fairly mean as she pokes fun at Tom, asking how they would kiss on their wedding day. Tom tries to demonstrate, and she smacks him.

In the morning, Peter and Paul try to tag-team the tree. It almost works but then the tree turns them into puppets. They end up in the stocks and condemned to harsh punishments. I don’t know why. We didn’t see this happen with anyone else.
Tom arrives to try his luck, and everyone laughs. The guards are about to drag him away when the princess asks the king to have mercy. With the magical tools, Tom manages to shrink the tree to its former size, replace the well with an elaborate fountain, and fill it with clean water. The King announces that Tom will marry the princess in one week; however, the princess doesn’t seem impressed
.
Meanwhile, Tom’s brothers have teamed up with the advisor and the witch. We learn the witch can’t step on a shadow or she’ll be sent back to the “world of darkness.” They plan to tunnel under the castle to the king’s treasury, and plot to send Tom to his death by making him fight the giant. (Remember the giant?) The witch sends the princess an enchanted peach to eat.

Tom wakes to find his brothers weeping by his bed, apparently asking for forgiveness, but they were actually replacing his magical objects with fakes. The magical objects themselves are pressed into service in the task of tunneling under the castle, and believe that Tom has betrayed them. I don’t know why.
Tom goes to visit the princess, who—surprise!—is under an enchantment, has greenish skin and is acting cruel. She demands that he capture the giant to be her servant. As Tom leaves, she kisses the advisor. Fortunately, the magic mirror awakens her from the curse, and she faints.

Out in the woods, Tom approaches the giant’s home. He’s angry with the princess, and realizes that “it’s her I’m in love with!”, apparently referring to the thief. Just then, the giant named Talos arrives, and Tom realizes that his tools are missing. He’ll have to talk his way out of this one. Back at the castle, Princess Denise is woken by the mirror and realizes that she has sent Tom off to his doom.

At the giant’s house, Tom and the giant are having an eating contest. This is meant to prove whether Tom is honest, so naturally, he wins by cheating, pretending to eat while actually hiding the food in a bag. Then he claims that he’s full and wants to empty out his stomach a little, and cuts the bag open. The terrified giant agrees to do what he wants and they become firm friends, united by the bond of mutual trust and honesty. Woo.
“We’ll teach the king’s petulant daughter a lesson,” Tom claims.

The witch’s evil plot to steal the king’s gold (as opposed to the princess’s good plot to steal the king’s gold) is going well. Tom’s brothers laugh gleefully at thought of Tom’s painful death. The tools overhear this and escape through the tunnels; the nut creates a flood that washes all of the gold into the tunnels.

Still thinking that Tom is in danger, and knowing that he’ll blame her, the princess changes into her thief outfit. The mirror singsongs, “The princess loves Tom, the princess loves Tom,” showing off its great sense of priorities.

The advisor sends the guards after the thief. She’s cornered until the giant arrives with Tom just in time. The king thanks Tom for capturing the thief and names him a Duke, but Tom turns it down and announces that he has fallen in love with the (surprised) thief.
The thief explains that the princess was bewitched and the king is hoarding a fortune. She slips up and calls the king “Father,” prompting Tom to pull off her mask and realize that it really is her.

Suddenly, the witch reappears and turns the king into a baby. She sends Tom, the princess and the baby king into a cave filled with lava, and pursues them as a dragon. They keep zapping to new dangerous places, where she becomes different monsters. Back at the castle, after much prompting, the giant manages to destroy her wand, which brings the group back to reality. The witch stumbles into a shadow and is sucked back into the underworld, taking her son with her.

Cut to the church, where Tom and the princess are being married, with all of the characters in the congregation. The princess once more mocks Tom’s small stature (are we really supposed to like her?), but then backs down the steps so that they’re at the same height. The movie ends as they kiss.

The CGI is bad, but as said before, that can be excused. The stilted wooden dialogue and ugly, unappealing character designs are harder to get past.

Also, scenes end abruptly with no conclusion, leaving them feeling unfinished. They always end with a fading out effect that often doesn’t seem appropriate to the mood. In one case, I almost missed a significant plot point because it was on screen for half a second before it started to fade out.

There’s also a recurring problem with the female characters. The princess, witch and background characters are often so ridiculously big-busted and wasp-waisted that she makes Barbies look realistic. Their clothes are very tight or low-cut and some of them appear to be wearing bodypaint rather than actual clothing.

There are quite a few references, like a scene where the Grim Reaper is in line to cut down the tree, and I think Don Quixote pops up at one point. There is a truly surprising line from the hatchet about “volunteer work for the Hobbits of the Shire.” 

There were quite a few plot points that were baffling at first or just plain baffling, like Peter and Paul being thrown into the stocks with no prior explanation. Some of it can be blamed on the dub. At one point, Tom scoffs, “A giant as a servant? I’d rather make a jar of juice with half an orange.”

This seems to be a reference or pun that was lost in translation—the magic mirror is apparently the Magic Mirror of Half an Orange, or something like that.
It also dabbles in off-color humor, like a fountain with babies urinating, and a gag with a dog and a tree.

One of the most offputting things, however, is the characters. The princess is called “petulant” and she really is. They were trying to create a character who seemed shallow and selfish at first glance but was really kind and noble, but they keep taking steps back into shallow and selfish. Her teasing of Tom comes off as just plain nasty, and she frequently sounds like a bratty teenager, not particularly appealing. Tom himself can also be rather unappealing with his dishonesty.

In conclusion, this . . . just is not a good movie. The CGI, the character designs, the storytelling, the acting—nothing is redeemable. It seems to have gotten a fairly good reception in Cuba, Spain and Venezuela, apparently being nominated for an Goya award, but its  main interest is as a point of trivia.

I’ve read some pretty thorough reviews of this movie, to the point where I questioned whether to review it myself. But I started watching it, and hoo boy. First of all, I have to say, the animation is technically superior to Tom Thumb Meets Thumbelina, but this is still one weird-looking and ugly movie.
The voiceover explains how a man from a circus discovered a kingdom of tiny people, and stole two small children. This seems badly thought out. I’m not sure how you would take care of a baby that small. I guess people raise baby bats and things like that. But how come he never went back? It’s too profitable to forget about. I need more information, movie.
Years later, Thumbelina’s now a young woman. She’s grown up in this guy’s circus and we see her prepare for and perform a show in which she does acrobatics alongside a trained monkey and mouse. I’m questioning how everyone seated in the audience can really have a good view of a mouse and a six-inch-tall girl performing from that distance. (I think the ringmaster mentions that she’s six inches tall, which is not exactly thumb- or mouse-sized, but we’ll also see later scenes where she is definitely finger-sized, i.e. no more than three inches tall. Continuity is not this movie’s strong suit. In the first scene, Thumbelina switches from nightgown to day clothes to a different nightgown.)
A note: this movie is set in modern times. The show features a King Kong pastiche complete with skyscraper and plane. Anyway, it’s a fairly good success. Thumbelina returns to her dollhouse and we get a pretty good song from her. Not because of the lyrics, though. “My heart breaks into two or maybe three”?? It does remind me of the song in Don Bluth’s Thumbelina. It’s about wanting to find love and ends with her at a window.
Now, at last, we meet Tom, who is fixing a car. He lives with an old man named Ben and three extremely ugly dogs. The two talk about the night he found Tom, and the conversation soon turns sad, as Ben sends Tom out into the world to find his own path. “I’m old and dying. LEAVE. And find love, okay, but leave.” What about the dogs, though? Is he going to send them off on quests of self-discovery too?

Meanwhile, the ringmaster nails Thumbelina’s dollhouse shut and leaves it in the dark under a blanket, on the animal cart. And, 15 minutes into the movie, the animals start talking. I think this is something that should have been introduced earlier. Thumbelina might too, as she seems surprised. Did she know that animals could talk?
Anyway, she KICKS DOWN THE DOOR – you go, girl – and manages to rappel, jump and bounce to freedom. We soon see her seated by a stream, where she briefly encounters a horribly badly drawn frog.

Little does she know that she’s almost right next to Tom Thumb. (Tom’s carrying a compass. He has a compass? There are miniature compasses that will fit in a backpack that size?!)
The next day, Thumbelina keeps strolling along, only to be interrupted by some beetles who follow her and keep insulting her. She boats off in what looks like a sardine tin. Meanwhile, some moles tunneling along at high speed notice her. Tom hears her humming and follows the noise, but he’s knocked off his feet by the moles. Twice.
The two moles return to the Mole King’s kingdom. Why do moles find a human girl beautiful? Anyway, they do, and tell him she would make the perfect bride. I actually have a hard time finding this guy threatening, but he is set up as a terrifying villain with a Hulk-level temper. Part of it is that he’s blind, and actually everyone has gotten sick of him to the point that his entire kingdom now consists of him and just two servants. Strangely, the minions are dead-set on convincing him that he’s still a powerful ruler with many courtiers. One mole switches into a maid costume, but I don’t know why. He literally just ran to the other side of the room and put on a costume in full view. There is no point to the costumes other than an unfunny joke. A minute later, they’re shaking hands with imaginary people and talking to thin air, and the king’s completely fooled.
Oh, and his throne is a shoe.
Elsewhere, Thumbelina and Tom happen to sit on opposite sides of the same tree. Hearing the moles approach, they bump into each other and immediately RUN AWAY. What—but—that’s why they were out looking around! They were looking for others like them! Why would they scream and run away from each other? Tom apparently is thinking the same thing, and turns around to go get her. However, Thumbelina glares at him, and then tackles him. Though her head’s really huge in a couple of these shots, she looks like she’s about to slug him. But she cheers up when she hears he’s also looking for little people. That’s the same thing she’s doing! Then why did you run away and then attack him?! 
They’re soon chatting happily with each other about their pasts. They agree to team up, only to then be interrupted by the bugs, who have brought their mother. She thinks Tom’s cute but they make fun of Thumbelina’s name. Tom laughs too OH THANKS TOM
And we learn that our two main characters, who have been bonding after finally finding someone else like them, haven’t even learned each other’s names yet!! They argue over whose name is sillier, she insults his height, he calls her rude, and where is this going? Why are they fighting? The mother bug tells Tom, “I don’t think there’s magic in this relationship.” OH SURE
This is so stupid. Thumbelina has her back turned. Tom’s struggling and grunting as they’re hold their hands over his mouth, but she just assumes he doesn’t like her. She doesn’t even look back before storming off! Tom gets free, runs after her, and tells her she’s his friend. It’s like watching small children interact.

Then he turns the other way as he asks her to come with him. On cue, the moles grab her. And he assumes she just wasn’t interested in hanging out! THESE PEOPLE. The Mole King is smitten with Thumbelina and starts planning their wedding on the spot. Thumbelina refuses because “there’s someone else” YEAH SOMEONE YOU DON’T GET ALONG WITH HALF THE TIME
Tom returns to the bugs, who are bringing him food when they throw in Thumbelina’s shoe that fell off when she was kidnapped. He recognizes it immediately because who else wears Size -60 shoes? He finds the moles’ hole right away and knows what’s going on. Why? He hasn’t even met the moles. For all he knows Thumbelina’s shoe just happened to fall off. But then a huge shadow comes over all of them, they scream, oh dear
As the Mole shows Thumbelina around, she looks in one of the holes and sees a blue bird tied up, so she goes in that one. YOU DON’T KNOW THAT BIRD THUMBELINA STRANGER DANGER STRANGER DANGER
Thumbelina’s untying her when they overhear the moles planning to make “sparrow quiche.” (Aren’t sparrows normally brown?) 

Thumbelina jumps on the sparrow’s back and they get out, somehow, through a back way we didn’t see before. The sparrow, Albertine, reveals that she can’t fly, having been imprisoned since chickhood. Those moles are really devoted to their quiche recipe. They’re probably using cheese passed down from their grandparents.

​The mole minions pursue them through the tunnels, until they jump up and land in a birds’ nest. The moles, meanwhile, are scared off by a warthog. I didn’t take this seriously when I first read a review. But it is real. There is actually a scene with a  warthog. Are warthogs indigenous to this area? Is it just a wild boar? I don’t know. But this is a real scene.

Thumbelina gets all coy about Tom and wants to go back and find him right away. She’s certainly changed her tune. But they’re interrupted when Thumbelina is also abducted by a giant shadow. Cut to her in an odd-looking laboratory filled with sad-looking caged mice. Her bottle is set right next to Tom’s and the bugs’, where they can look over the desk of a creepy little kid who’s preparing cotton balls with ether to kill his specimens. Thumbelina manages to break free and knock the kid out with his own ether. As they escape, she stops to free the mice. 
Outside, she and Tom join the procession of mice, who are … suddenly … carrying … food. Huh. The mice thank them and take them along to their village, where they’re greeted by others. These others don’t seem particularly surprised to see them, but do seem to know exactly what happened even though I didn’t see anyone explain the story. 
Okay, I want to step back for a moment and look at that weird little kid.

• The kid has a whole lot of wild mice trapped in his room, in all sorts of containers.
• When they escape, they immediately grab food and waltz back to their home.
• He collects bugs.
• He is very surprised to learn that Thumbelina can talk.

Maybe Tom is right and the kid’s not so bad. If I had to guess, I’d say the kid just thinks of this as an educational hobby, having not the slightest hint that the bugs he’s killing are actually sapient beings. Ranging further afield: his house has a pest problem with mice stealing his family’s food, so he captured the mice even though he didn’t even have enough proper containers to keep them all in. The mice are thieves and villains.

​But anyway. Just for fun: compare the circus mouse to the wild mice.

Don’t do drugs, kids.
​The mice declare a celebration, and one takes Thumbelina off to get dressed up. Which means basically, “Come into my parlor and I’ll do your hair exactly like mine! MUAHAAHA I mean how’s the weather.”

(Incidentally, the annoying boy-crazy bugs are present, and decide to focus their efforts on the mice. What is it with these beetles? They’ll be extinct soon!) 
Out by a waterfall (a standard romantic backdrop), Tom and Thumbelina sing a song. They’re trying hard to make “cha cha cha” romantic but it’s not working. My dad watched one minute of this and declared it worse than the Ice Cream Bunny’s Thumbelina.
With the song over, they’re about to kiss, when the moles (who’ve been spying on them the whole time) grab Tom and somehow tie him up in about .5 seconds. They work fast. The Mole King arrives and demands a dance with Thumbelina, prompting me to ask how well he can actually see, as he’s not crashing into everything whenever he moves. However, he does fall right back down the molehol with Thumbelina. The angry mice converge, prompting the mole minions to drop Tom and flee. Tom and the others begin to plan a rescue mission.
Meanwhile, the Mole King tells Thumbelina that Tom is his prisoner and threatens to hurt him, so she agrees to th marriage. As Tom and friends approach, Thumbelina gets a scene I’ve been wondering about for a while. Namely, she asks the moles why they stay and help the Mole King. Apparently they’re scared of him and don’t have anywhere else to go. This does seem reminiscent of real-life bus, but it still seems odd to me. They get nothing out of this relationship. And so far we haven’t really seen him display any power at all. He’s just been kind of bumbling. 
Time for the wedding. But now Tom arrives! “Thumbelina loves me! I think.” Well, that’s stirring.
Thumbelina gives the Mole King a monocle to prove that he only has two minions. Realizing that he’s been tricked, he grows furious, and a chase/fight song begins. Tom briefly wields a needle as a sword, which is a nice nod to the original character, but I have to ask: where did he get that? You don’t normally find needles just lying around. Anyway, he smashes the King’s monocle and the King is now extremely angry and starts hulk-rage-screaming and clawing his way through the dirt, but he also seems to be … quoting Shakespeare? And there are more animation errors with the mole minions.
Our heroes jump off a cliff and are caught by Albertine, while the now-incoherently screaming King tunnels straight out through the side of the cliff and falls to his presumed death. The minions immediately begin fighting over his crown.
Albertini hasn’t learned to land, so they keep flying back through the waterfall, through a  cave, and into a strange valley. The bird casually notices a village of little people and decides to crash there. The village is pretty strange; in contrast to the modern world we’ve seen so far, it’s like a step back in time to fairy-tale era, with kings, queens, and a tiny castle in the background. And this is where the movie hits a bizarre skip and goes from quirky modern retelling, to old-fashioned cliche fairytale style. It’s hard to tell what to make of it.
Thumbelina’s locket has been appearing and disappearing through this whole scene via continuity error. Spotting it, the villagers welcome her as the long-lost Princess Maia. Apparently they know long-lost royal family jewelry by sight.
Her parents, the king and queen, arrive to greet her. They immediately introduce Prince Pointy Chin. “OUR LONG LOST DAUGHTER, RETURNED AT LAST! Now, marry this stranger.” The guy seems smarmy but not actually that bad. (As an interesting note: he had a cameo earlier! Watch carefully during Thumbelina’s first song.) 

Naturally Thumbelina’s not interested in marrying him, so her parents reveal that this prince is actually a backup (THIS POOR GUY). The lost prince she was supposed to marry was named Horace. Aaaand it’s Tom! How convenient!

​Okay, hold up. The parents arranged a backup betrothal because the original betrothed was missing. But Horace and Maia disappeared on the same night. What?! Their daughter was missing, so their move was to work out a backup betrothal, just in case she came back? 

“And so, young Chin, when you come of age, you will wed the princess, or rather you won’t because she’s missing and probably dead.” 

Poor Chin. But … wait. Did Horace’s parents pick out some other girl as a replacement wife for him, too? And how are there two princes in this town in addition to the royal family of Thumbelina? Maybe they’re just noblemen – but how big is this community of tiny people, that they have a royal family plus two princes? 

All the mice and bugs arrive. How did they get there so fast?!? They had to fly! Through a waterfall! And over a valley! I … huh?

And so the movie ends with our happy couple, just married, riding in a carriage procession. Prince Chin has to ride with the annoying bugs. The End.

And Tom never saw the man who raised him again.

​So, a few thoughts.

Tom and Thumbelina’s relationship feels shoved in. They’re the main characters so they fall in love. That’s it. Their attachment grows choppily, without much continuity, but at the same time, the moles immediately assume he’s a romantic rival. There was one thread in their relationship that seemed particularly weird to me – namely, his fear that if they actually find more people like them, she’ll find someone she likes better. The running gag of Tom’s short stature seems to play into this. Essentially, he’s got an inferiority complex. Some character development would have been nice, but we don’t get it. Instead, Prince Chin is a quick way to settle Tom’s fears and resolve the romantic plot. Even faced with a suitable, handsome (?), tall husband, the kind of guy she dreams about (as seen in her first song), Thumbelina still chooses Tom because he’s the one she’s come to truly love. Again, with more expansion it could have worked. The lack of development is partly because even though Tom’s name comes first in the title, he’s only the deuteragonist.
Thumbelina is our real main character. The story starts out with her and she’s probably the best-developed character here, with the most clearly-shown arc. She’s the one with the “I Want” song and at the end, it’s her parents we meet. This is her movie. 
Overall, it feels like a rewritten version of the Andersen story – in contrast to Tom Thumb Meets Thumbelina, which seemed more descended from Tom Thumb’s story.
The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina begins with a tiny girl out of place in a big world. She makes her way into the wilderness, but still doesn’t fit in (and this turning point features a scene on the water, where she interacts with a frog/toad). She encounters bugs who mock her and call her ugly. She meets her proper mate, a tiny man/fairy prince just her size. A mole tries to force her to marry him. She saves a trapped bird who flies her to safety. Mice take her in as one of their own. At the end, she discovers a society of tiny people and her true home, becomes Princess Maia, and marries her proper mate. 
The events are shuffled and altered so that Thumbelina’s much more proactive and has more power. For instance, she chooses to go out into the wild, and her royal status isn’t tied to her marriage. She’s a princess in her own right.
Overall, an interesting watch. It’s given me a surprising amount to think about. But I don’t know that I’d really recommend it, unless you’re bored (or doing research).

I’ve found quite a few reviews for The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina, but none for this little 1997 gem from Golden Films. I finally watched it, and it was surprisingly bearable.

​It opens with a song, led by Thumbelina flying around on a bird and making the flowers open up in the morning. Accompanied by animals and fairies, as well as a pig playing the piano (???), the song is a stirring piece that really speaks to the beauty of nature and the meaning of life. “Hi dum diddle dee, hi dum dee dum” (repeat 500x).
They play the same shot of the animals jumping down a hill at least 3 times. This is not the last time they will reuse animation. That said, I immediately prefer the art style to that used in The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina in 2002.

Thumbelina is an overworked ruler trying to keep the meadow organized while animals and fairies bicker. It reminds me a little of the Tinker Bell movies. There’s supposed to be a prince, but he was kidnapped when he was a baby (or not, we’ll get to that later). Mainly this just makes me wonder about Thumbelina’s backstory. She’s not a fairy, but they never say what she is.

Her duties include dealing with three young delinquents with really annoying voices, and here we have our our kid appeal/comic relief team. Actually, I kind of grinned at some of the interactions here (“What makes you think it was fairies?” Cut to signed graffiti).
The work’s getting to her, so she goes to ask advice from an old and inconsistently drawn tree named Oakley. ​

We cut to Medwin hearing about the sabotage, and this is when I realize that the party was to celebrate the successful mission and we just skipped over the entire thing. Medwin plots to “catch flies with honey;” meanwhile Tom’s preparing to go back and stop Medwin once and for all.
Medwin takes a frog hostage and plots to kidnap the fairies when they come to rescue. (I don’t think that’s what catching flies with honey means.) He tosses a turtle away when it tries to stop him, and it lands right in front of Thumbelina’s throne. Hearing the news, she and the delinquents rush off to save the frog. Medwin has completely immobilized the frog by tying his tongue to a piece of grass. (Wow, really?) However, in the process of freeing the trapped animal, Thumbelina and the fairies walk right onto a piece of flypaper. (I still don’t think that’s what catching flies with honey means.) 
Tom rescues them from Medwin’s birdcage. Medwin was monologuing as usual and mentioned where the king is being kept, so they go to search the dungeons. When they split up, Tom and Thumbelina make up a team and immediately find the king. Medwin has an army of Saxons coming in, so our heroes recruit all the fairies and animals to fight them off. Soldiers are reduced to running and screaming in terror by tiny creatures throwing nuts and water balloons. Oh, and there’s a skunk. And an angry bear. Actually, never mind, this is surprisingly effective, even though the delinquents still aren’t funny. They don’t hit a major roadblock until they realize that they can’t lift the key to the king’s cell.
Anyway, it all works out. Tom gets knighted, but now his and Thumbelina’s duties must separate them. So sad. He decides to give her his necklace of plot relevance to remember him by. This summons the Fairy Queen! And it’s revealed that Tom is the long-lost prince of the meadow oh yes of course.
Why can’t he remember his childhood? The narrator says he was a baby when he was kidnapped, but he looked like a young child, probably older than five.
Anyway, Tom and Thumbelina can now be married and become king and queen (”that is, as long as it’s okay with you both,” the Queen says eloquently). And to reward the delinquents, she gives them new, better wings that look exactly like the old ones. Except all yellow.
For his punishment, she shrinks Medwin and Edgar down to a tiny size and puts them in the model of the castle they were planning to build. And everyone lives happily ever after. There’s a weird mention of the two kingdoms becoming one, which doesn’t make much sense, as Thumbelina didn’t exactly make a marriage alliance with the king.
So, a few notes. They never say what Tom and Thumbelina are, just that they’re from royal families and they are not fairies. We never see their parents, even in the flashbacks. It’s blurry, but the only people I can identify are a squirrel and a trio who seem to be the teen delinquents, the same age. 
The Fairy Queen displays the ability to shrink people, and fairies are known in real-world folklore as creatures who steal human babies and replace them with changelings. So my theory is that the Queen kidnapped two children from human royal families and shrunk them. She probably had good intentions, but she’s a fairy. Their morality doesn’t necessarily match up with ours in all the stories.
As for animation: there are quite a few errors and reused footage, but what stood out to me was the inconsistencies in the tiny characters’ scale. In the first picture here, Thumbelina is smaller than a man’s eye. In the second, she’s about the size of a man’s foot.

Not to mention this flawless bit with Medwin walking. And no, he’s not supposed to be shrinking in this scene. That little blue figure in the background is Tom. ​

Our story begins once upon a time in Paris, but I’m not sure why. 

​This tale is from Denmark but is set in France. Anyway, we take  a sickening swoop through totally abandoned bad-CGI Paris under a grossly pink sky. Jaquimo the Swallow addresses the viewer and we get to my number one beef with this movie – the designs. All of the animals are very goofy and cutesified and cartoonish, while the humans are fairly realistic. Thumbelina’s animal cast does require a lot of anthropomorphizing, but I just don’t like the designs they went with.
Jaquimo narrates the beginning with the old woman and the good witch, which would have been KIND OF NICE TO SEE FOR OURSELVES. We enter the story through a book, which seems a very Disney-cartoon-ish thing to do. But the live-action Tom Thumb did it too, I guess.
I did not enjoy the first song, but there is one interesting moment (Thumbelina falling into a pie) that was not taken from Andersen but is clearly a nod to older Thumbling tradition. (Many of the early references to Tom Thumb specifically talk about him falling into a pudding.)
The next song establishes very little, other than the fact that Thumbelina is thumb-sized. (This differs from the original tale, where she would be more accurately named Halfathumbelina.)
Anyway, they tell us her size multiple times. And I don’t think anyone will forget her name. But other than that? Uh…

“Thumbelina, She’s a funny little squirt/ Thumbelina, Tiny angel in a skirt/ Thumbelina, She’s mending and baking, pretending, she’s making things up”

What does that TELL US? She’s unusual…okay… and she’s…imaginative?
There are some little touches with the old woman that are really interesting. Like the unused baby cradle in her house, and the fact that she’s toying with her heart-shaped locket when she and Thumbelina talk about love and happily-ever-afters. Also, Thumbelina is much more high-pitched and breathy and giggly than Ariel, though you can tell it’s Jodi Benson.
With the farm animals, we run once again into the animators’ design choices.

That does not look like a dog. Dog legs do not work like that. Dogs are not balding unless they have a bad case of mange. Dogs do not have moustaches.
And, again, I really do like how well the human characters are animated. I like Thumbelina’s long flippy ponytail, but not the weird tufts around her face. We get to Soon, which is my favorite song out of this movie, partly because Jodi Benson is a pro. Everybody talks about Let Me Be Your Wings but that one just feels trite and tired to me.
Cornelius arrives on his bumblebee. That bumblebee is HUGE. Just for comparison, Thumbelina and Cornelius are maybe 2 inches high, and he looks like a horse compared to them. Also, meet the world’s only somewhat realistic-looking animal. I guess riding a talking anthropomorphic bumblebee like a motorcycle would have been too weird.

Cutesy bug children pop up apropos of nothing and give them a flower chain for no reason. Are they obsessive fans of Cornelius who follow him around hoping to throw flowers?
I’m not a huge fan of Cornelius’ bowl haircut. Or his outfit. Or his personality, really. He and Thumbelina are both pretty shallow. I remember my main impression of this movie as a teenager was that Cornelius was near-indistinguishable from the Toad and Mole – same motivation and everything, he was just better-looking. Of course, the Toad and Mole are clearly villains and do some awful things, but ultimately there’s not much to Cornelius rather than “wants to marry Thumbelina.”
Anyway they go on a romantic flight, soaring romantically over a creek and floating romantically around a pumpkin… I mean, it’s a pumpkin. It’s an odd mix of “cutesy and campy” and “feels like they were trying to go for stirring and majestic, but didn’t quite make it.”
They go home and promise to see each other again, with a vague sort-of proposal. Thumbelina gives Cornelius the necklace – of forget-me-nots. This is actually kind of brilliant. Forget-me-nots are perfectly sized for these guys, but also there’s an old superstition that a girl giving a guy forget-me-nots would be followed by bad fortune. Sure enough, Thumbelina goes to sleep in her walnut shell, but is suddenly kidnapped by a toad! And here I ask: They couldn’t have had the kidnapping scene focus on Thumbelina trying to escape, rather than a comic relief side character cartoonishly attempting to rescue her?
It’s hard for me to put into words how much I dislike the toad characters.
And now we get Jaquimo, and with him the film’s absolute worst plothole. Many people have commented on it. Why doesn’t he just fly Thumbelina away from the waterfall? Why doesn’t he fly her back to her house? What’s a jitterbug and why are they here?
Yes, the jitterbugs. Let’s get more cutesy. “ARE YOU WEALLLLLY GONNA MARRY THE FAIWY PWINCE?!” Actually, I’m not sure what these things are, since they superficially resemble various bugs and insects – ladybugs and butterflies and things – but are, in a few cases, so cartoonish that they’re barely recognizable as insects. And then there’s the can-can-dancing birds. (Note: this song got stuck in my head for quite some time after watching this movie.) 
I have to question some of the set pieces here. Why is there a random book lying there in the mud? Does this area have a really bad littering problem?

The Beetle arrives, being yet another more distinctly non-insectoid insect. Actually, the beetles just look like blue humans with wings. Interesting design choice with making the antennae into a moustache, but still. 
0/10 on the voice talent, Berkeley. (Who allowed Gilbert Gottfried to sing? Was he really paid for this?)

-2/10 on the costuming, Berkeley. You wanted her to spin around, why did you put her in that easily-dismantled outfit?
Anyway, Thumbelina gets thrown out by the beetles and IMMEDIATELY DESPAIRS, but Jaquimo gives her a pep talk and they part ways, with Jaquimo planning to go to Fairyland. However, winter is coming and the search seems fruitless so far. It bears noting that autumn just started two days ago, and we’re already moving on into blizzards. Jaquimo reacts with mild surprise and dismay to the GIANT THORN STICKING COMPLETELY THROUGH HIS WING

Meanwhile Cornelius gets frozen, later to be found by the Beetle and Toad. (The Toad has torn off the Beetle’s wings, which was pretty horrifying to me, but the Beetle keeps saying “Give them back.” What is he going to do with them? Can he reattach his limbs?) 
Alone in the snow, Thumbelina finds a conveniently abandoned shoe and sock. This place really does have a littering problem!

We cut back briefly to Thumbelina’s mother, who sings her own version of “Soon.” Personally, it doesn’t feel very emotional to me. I would have focused on the voice acting in this scene, rather than the sad-looking ugly animals.
​Thumbelina wakes up with Mrs. Fieldmouse, who tells her with impeccable tact that Cornelius is dead. Immediately, they visit the Mole and Mrs. Fieldmouse starts working on getting Thumbelina to marry him. She, of course, uses song and dance to convince her. Here I have a question: Why does Thumbelina keep switching between looking annoyed and dancing along to the song? I notice it here in Marry the Mole, I noticed it earlier in the toads’ song…
Anyway, our heroine finds and saves Jaquimo, who has finally noticed that having a thorn in his wing is kind of painful. Displaying his gloriously one-track mind, he flies off to the Vale of the Fairies to find Cornelius, leaving her alone again. (I’ve written about the implications of this elsewhere.) Anyway, the Toad and Beetle abandon their Cornelius-sicle. The baby Jitterbugs find it and, unlike literally everyone else, decide that he must still be alive inside there. How do they know that? And how does that work?
They light a tiny fire under the ice cube, which somehow melts without dripping onto it and putting it out immediately.
Meanwhile Thumbelina is mooning her way up the aisle surrounded by visions of her lost love, probably confusing the guests. Fortunately, she decides to leave and charges off, avoiding the Toad as well. Toad, Mole and wedding party give chase, but are blocked by a revived Cornelius. We don’t get to see him wake up or anything, he’s just there. He whips his sword back and forth. The Toad grabs a club. The fight begins.
And we promptly discover that Cornelius is useless in a fight, as he gets knocked over and then apparently forgets he can fly.
Okay, anyway, Thumbelina gets out and meets Jaquimo, who flies her to the Vale of the Fairies. Thumbelina is a Gloomy Gus, but sings and her voice somehow, for some reason, causes spring to arrive. (Winter lasted maybe a few days. The timeline’s unclear.) Cornelius returns, they’re happy, they kiss, Thumbelina gets wings. This is never fully explained - except by Jaquimo’s theme song - “ Your dreams will fly on magICal wings when you follow your heart.” They get married and ride away through the rainbows on their giant monster bumblebee. The end.
I half-like this movie. It’s grown on me over time, actually. I’m not pleased with the design choices, or Jaquimo’s extreme obnoxiousness. It’s also weird how Don Bluth is mimicking the Disney formula, while Disney’s contemporary heroines were becoming proactive and spunky, Thumbelina primarily reacts to the things happening around her. Other people put forth the effort to rescue her, while she despairs or flat-out faints. It’s not until the end that she finally stands up for herself and walks out of her wedding without any help at all, which is admittedly a pretty good scene.
And as far as playing with the source material goes, Bluth’s attempts at improving on the source material sometimes create gaping new plot holes. (See Jaquimo.) And while Bluth ties together some things that the original fairytale left hanging, he also leaves many questions unanswered (like how Thumbelina can suddenly bring back spring).
(Originally posted on Tumblr.)

So: there is a Folk Opera episode entitled Thumbelina in the Bamboo Tube. This is Nang Ut, who is closer to Doll i’ the Grass than she is to the Thumbling tale type. I was pleased to find this with subtitles in English (and lots of other languages, but mostly English).
Two fairies are nearly sentenced to death for the crime of falling in love (“the grave sin of flirting!!!”), but instead they are sentenced to be reborn as mortals. Both will suffer before finding each other again, but the girl in particular will be born poor with “a tiny and hideous appearance” and will have to labor in the fields and sleep in a bamboo tube. She’ll become beautiful when someone compassionate loves her.
The man, reborn as the (very pretty, very makeup-wearing) third son of the Emperor, is choosing a wife. She must be beautiful, educated, skilled, and well-mannered, as she will be First-rank Princess Consort. (I don’t know why, since he’s the youngest.) There are some princesses waiting for him to choose one of them, but he doesn’t want to marry just for beauty, and tells his father that he has to turn them all down. Most of the princesses accede to this, but the Princess of So is furious. She is invited to stay, however, because her country’s very powerful and they don’t want to anger her. She’s in love with Third Prince, and his brothers and their consorts want him to marry her. They begin to plot together.
Meanwhile, the prince prays, and has a vision of his beloved from his past life. They had a previous affinity in Paradise. “A predestined marriage with karmic obstructions.” I thought these two were arrested for falling in love. 
“The watermelon field is my home.” Little Thumbelina is my name.” Okay! She fades away. He’s distraught. His servants run in, saying she’s here, but it’s actually just one of them dressed up as a woman. (This is our comic relief, guys.) They beg the prince not to punish them because they were just trying to cheer him up. He tells them to just come along as he travels out to look at flowers.
They sit down by a field and the now-thirsty prince sends his two servants to find water. They argue with each other and pray for rain (comedy alert). PLEASE STOP SINGING AND GET TO THE PLOT. Then they find watermelons, and when the prince comes to see what’s taking them so long, they give him a melon. However, right after they split it open, he says they must find the owner. It’s not a wild melon because there’s a proper garden with rows. (Yes, after they start breaking open watermelons, he notices this.) 
The owner, Third Prince assumes, must be a kind-hearted, industrious and beautiful girl. The servants point out that it could just as easily be an old lady. The prince says they have to find the owner and pay for the melon. The prince thinks she must be hiding and tells the eunuchs to head back. 
Just then, they hear a voice calling out. The voice belongs to a tiny girl, set up in a weird-looking tiny bamboo hut chair thing.

Sorry for the low quality, but what is that?
She asks them to pay for the melon. At first the servants can’t find her because she’s so small; then they’re terrified, thinking she’s a demon, and faint dead away. The Prince comes looking for them, again, and is also frightened by her appearance.
“Yes, I’m a freak and I’m ugly. That’s why I keep myself in the forest, befriend trees and plants, rest in the green bamboo tube at night, labor to grow melons during the day and live alone; such is my ill fate.”
The prince quickly feels sorry for her and asks her story. She explains that her mother died in childbirth after seeing her child so small. The girl’s father abandoned her in the melon garden and became a monk. The prince decides to marry her and take her home, and she rides to his palace inside his long sleeve.
Rumors spread that the prince has taken a wife. Princess So is not happy that he scorned her in favor of an ugly, finger-sized woman, and a peasant to boot. In conference with the older princes and their wives, it is suggested that Nang Ut is a fiend who will destroy the dynasty. However, they reassure themselves that she can’t possibly have the virtue and beauty required of a princess. They speak to the emperor and empress and arrange a contest.
The prince is frightened that Nang Ut can’t possibly cook a meal. “Little One, you can’t even hold a pot. How can you cook? You’d get burnt as soon as you went to the kitchen.”
Honestly, they are really cute together in this scene. She jumps onto his hand to say goodnight. There is lots of singing. (It is a musical.) After he goes to bed, Nang Ut prays (“Help me out of this karmic obstruction!”) and a fairy appears (why? Who is this? What’s going on?). The fairy gives her a jewel. Nang Ut passes it on to the prince; at the contest, he cracks the jewel open and it creates a tray of amazing food. The fairy also intervenes in the contest by making the other wives’ meals less tasty. This strikes me as cheating, but Nang Ut wins.
The prince tries to say that Nang Ut doesn’t care about being First Rank Princess Consort, but the other siblings insist on a second contest, this one a set of royal robes for the emperor and empress.
Meanwhile, the Princess of So is preparing an army and plots to to kill Nang Ut. Nang Ut has a dream about this or somehow senses that she’s in danger, I guess? She and the Prince begin to pray, and once more the fairy appears. This time she gives them a gem which will become royal robes, a nectar that will make someone look as beautiful as a fairy, and a golden hairpin that will become a heavenly lute.
Once more, the fairy’s magical robes win the contest (and the fairy sabotages the brothers’ entries). But the Princess of So’s army is here. “Woe to us!” 
As per their agreement with the evil princess, the royal siblings demand that Third Prince go out to join the fighting. His pickiness ruined everything! He graciously tells his parents that he has to go and fight, despite their protests that he’s too inexperienced. He’s an intellectual, not a warrior.
The prince comes out on the wall carrying Nang Ut in what seems to my educated eye to be a birdcage (oh, and she was living in a dollhouse inside the palace, too). He negotiates with the besieging army and Nang Ut speaks up, startling the others, to challenge the enemy general. If he can eat all the rice in her little pot, then he wins. (Wait, where’d they get the pot from?) The pot, of course, refills itself automatically, and the general gets angry. (Still confused but okay.) 
“Devil’s magic is at work here! Deploy the troops!” The army charges and Nang Ut tells the prince to use the golden hairpin. It becomes a lute and its music confuses the soldiers, sends them into despair and fills them with the desire to go home. They all collapse. The war is over before it begins. 
Princess So: “I’ve been to many perilous battles and never flinched from swords and arrows” (pretty hardcore) “but now I must accept defeat and drop my swords. Kill me, then! So will be ruined and filled with tears.”
But Nang Ut has mercy and makes an alliance with her. Shamed, the princess of So blames the two princess consorts for everything. There are so many princesses in here. 
With war averted, the beauty contest ensues. The princess consorts come out, bow, dance, respectfully greet the king and queen. The queen asks for Nang Ut, but the Prince is worried.
“They’re so beautiful I don’t know what to do!” he says to Nang Ut, who is back in his sleeve.
“My love, did you forget already? Pour this nectar water on me and you’ll witness something incredible.”
Burst of smoke. There’s Nang Ut, full size. The prince doesn’t recognize her at first (“Miss, why are you here in my palace? Darling Thumbelina, where are you?”) but then they run up to join the contest.

The King: “She’s like a fairy from heaven!”

Even the princes and their wives have to admit that Nang Ut is worthy to be First-Rank Princess Consort. They are about to be punished for their treachery,  but our heroes ask for leniency on their behalf. Good for you, guys. The king decides to retire and live in peace, farming on a mountain. They ask to go with him, but he goes off on his own. With that, Third Prince and Nang Ut become the new rulers. All very happy. All singing. So much singing.
Start watching it here.
(Originally posted on Tumblr.)

We open on a man named Jonathan chopping wood. A voice from midair calls him, and turns out to belong to the Queen of the Forest, who asks Jonathan not to cut down the tree. He doesn’t believe her, but she talks him into agreeing, and says she’ll grant him three wishes. Then she vanishes, proving that she’s magical.

He goes home for dinner and says grace before he eats. This is such a fifties movie. He keeps trying to tell his wife about the Queen of the Forest, but stops, complains about having cabbage for dinner, and wishes for sausage. Bing, there’s a sausage. He starts talking about how beautiful the Queen was; his annoyed wife wishes sausage was on his nose. Blah blah blah. This isn’t even Tale Type 700!

Finally this blows over and they make up, and the wife gives us The Line: “Even if he were no bigger than my thumb.”

Cut to outside. It’s dark. Owls watch as something rustles in the grass, heading slowly towards the tiny house. In the silence, someone’s whistling but we can’t see who. This is shot like a horror movie. Jonathan and Anna are asleep (in different beds. Such a fifties movie).

13 minutes in, we finally see Tom Thumb, dressed in a (normal-sized) fig leaf. I first saw this dubbed in Spanish, and with the low-quality video and annoying high-pitched voice, I thought he was a woman. It didn’t help that the leaf looks like a dress.

Anyway, as Tom warms himself by a candle, he announces that he’s their son. He’s actually five and a half inches tall, so quite a bit bigger than a thumb. The overjoyed couple place the tiny adult man in a baby’s cradle and bid him goodnight. This was one thing that felt weird about the movie – Tom is a child, really, and everyone treats him as such, but he’s played by a grown man. Not that Russ Tamblyn was bad in the role. He has a very playful Peter Pan-like air, and he does some great acrobatics, but I still feel like having a child in the role might have been better for effect.

Tom varies between being an obvious cutout and a doll. I should mention that this film won an Oscar for special effects. For its time, this was pretty good.
Anyway, Tom is woken by his toys, who want to sing and dance for him. There’s a stereotypical Chinese doll named Con-Fu-Shon. I think there’s also a golliwog running around in the room, just so twenty-first-century viewers can feel sufficiently cringy.

Also among Tom’s toys is an angry-looking bride doll (clearly a woman trying with her all not to blink), who’s the only one who doesn’t come alive. Then we get to the LONGEST DANCE SEQUENCE EVER.

After five hours straight of Tom’s whimsical insanity, it’s morning. Tom and his father go out to the fields to work, and are spotted by two crooks who want to use Tom in their heist. Tom is naïve and trusting, but his father knows better and sends them on their way.

On the way back, we encounter Woody, some random guy who’s in love with the Queen of the Forest. They can only be together if he kisses her and she becomes mortal, but they keep dancing around the subject and this is our excuse for a plot, people. Woody heads off and encounters Jonathan and Tom. He offers to take Tom to the upcoming local fair, and Jonathan agrees.

WHY am I watching a random guy singing about STOP-MOTION-ANIMATED SHOES? I DON’T KNOW! Anyway, Woody and Tom run off to buy some shoes. The shoemaker gives Tom some miniature shoes off a keychain. However, in the midst of the dancing people, Tom nearly gets trampled, and grabs onto a balloon’s string and floats away.

He floats right over the castle that the two crooks are trying to break into. (I call no way.) They shoot down his balloon with a slingshot and catch him. He thanks them for saving him, and they con him into helping them steal a bag of gold. They claim it’s for orphans. Then they send him off through the dark, scary swamp, with a single gold coin for his troubles. Fortunately, he’s rescued by the Queen of the Forest, who then has a argues with Woody. Finally Tom sneaks home, afraid of getting in trouble with his father. (Both of these scenes have the man yelling at Tom and the woman saying “Don’t yell at him.”) Along the way, Tom accidentally drops his coin into a batch of bread that his mother’s cooking up.

Tom is sent off to bed, and the toys decide to bring out a doll called “The Yawning Man” to help him fall asleep. This, of course, involves singing. NOOOO

Okay, okay. The soldiers are looking for whoever robbed the treasury, and stop by Jonathan and Anna’s house. Anna offers them some breakfast, but wouldn’t you know it, she gives them the bread containing the coin. The soldiers decide to arrest the couple. Tom and his toys hear the commotion and try to get out, but Tom can’t open the door. This was actually a pretty sad scene.

Finally Tom gets out and finds Woody. Fortunately, Woody somehow knows where to find the thieves. They track them down to an abandoned castle, where we find the thieves counting “Two for you and two for me, three for you and three for me…” in a scene straight out of Maria como un Ajo.

Meanwhile we’re continually cutting back to Jonathan and Anna, who are about to be sentenced. Their punishment is 24 lashes. And I guess that’s it. This seems a bit underwhelming to me, especially since they’re still playing the town lasher as a clumsy, goofy person who gets tangled in his own whip. He seems to have his hood on wrong.

Tom plays tricks on the robbers for a few very long and repetitive minutes, and then Woody starts throwing punches and the fight commences. After that fight scene, presumably all of the participants have brain damage. So many head blows. I think everyone spent at least a few minutes unconscious except for Tom.

The thieves finally figure out what’s going on and decide to escape on their horse, but Tom is hiding in its ear and directing it towards town. This looks way more uncomfortable for the horse than I’d envisioned it.

Jonathan gets his shirt torn off so that he can be lashed, and he turns out to be pretty toned, at least in the back region. But just before they can whip him, the thieves come flying in on their horse and fall off, sending gold flying everywhere, and Tom shouts that they’re the culprits. They’re about to escape, but Woody catches up with them and punches them out. Hurray! The Queen of the Forest pops in, and Woody kisses her. They both vanish momentarily, and her gown and diamond crown transform to a peasant dress and flower wreath, which . . . I guess . . . means she’s mortal now . . . ?

Anyway, they get married and everyone is standing around celebrating. Tom is the groom figurine on the cake, standing next to that bride doll from earlier. He kisses her on the cheek and she comes to life (or perhaps simply gives in to the crippling urge to blink). They dance around the cake and everyone sings.

So . . . are kisses in this universe magical?

This movie left a lot unexplained, like how Tom actually came into being. It’s harmless, but doesn’t have much substance, and some of the elements (such as Con-Fu-Shon) haven’t aged well. Although Tamblyn’s acrobatics are excellent and the stop-motion effects are nice, it suffers from long musical sequences which completely halt the narrative for minutes on end. Storywise, it’s a fairly straightforward Thumbling retelling, but with far too much padding. The Woody/Forest Queen romance was unnecessary. Overall, it was an interesting watch - not great, but okay.