Hans Christian Andersen Animated Classics: "The Ugly Duckling" (2006)

A new animated take on the famous story of the ugly duckling, which also features voice actors.

The infamous story of The Ugly Duckling graces our reviews here at SHOWSOTROS, on the DVD section this time. There isn't anything new that hasn't been said about the Ugly Duckling, except for this variant, compared to the VHS presentation, this actually has a happy ending.

Mother Duck struggling to hatch her fourth egg resulted in a duckling different from her other ducklings. Keeping upon with him, realizing that he's still her son, the animal society, namely The Dutchess, mocks and criticizes her for giving birth and raising such an ugly duckling.

"Bad egg, bad mother."
- Dutchess

If you were to compare that to us humans, that logic doesn't follow. That means, clearly, it's an insult coming from a speck of insecurity that The Dutchess may be too ashamed to admit. The Dutchess was able to talk the talk behind Ugly Duckling's back, only to get confronted with a harsh response:

"...and what you say is what you are, yourself."
- Ugly Duckling

As his siblings learned to get along with him, the Ugly Duckling gets introduced to the farm society where a lot of them have noticed and ganged up on the poor Ugly Duckling. The Boss—the farmer's cat—wanted to do some hunting and Mother Duck stepped forward to protect her ducklings, taking the scratch from the vicious cat. As the ducklings run away safely, Ugly Duckling gets trapped by The Boss only to escape cleanly...flying away. Ugly Duckling never knew it could fly but was happy to escape unharmed. While Ugly Duckling's Mother and his siblings escaped, The Boss then confronts The Dutchess to finish his hunting.

Next day, Ugly Duckling overhears yet misunderstood what Mother Duck said about the violence that transpired. Mother Duck confessed that the trouble wouldn't have occurred had Ugly Duckling not been born—a heartaching statement that made Ugly Duckling fly away from home.

Looking to find a place to belong, Ugly Duckling flew to two different places all with societal standards that don't fit with his lifestyle. Living alone during the cold, winter season until the lake froze up, Ugly Duckling continues to roam alone trying to find himself and reasoning why he's not accepted in other places. He, however, wanted to get in contact with the swans he saw at the lake but never was able to talk to them. As the weather got warmer, Ugly Duckling-turned-Swan stays in the shade of a lake, still afraid to go out. The swans he wanted to talk to comes over and heard what Ugly Duckling/Swan said. The trio pull him out of the shade to show him that he's not ugly after all and he's one of them. Rapidly building his confidence, human mother and her children having a picnic see the new swan and wanted to see him up close.

Before staying and hanging out with his new family, Ugly Duckling-Swan flies over to where he was born to see his siblings and his Mother all grown up but looked depressed and sad over him being gone. After he greets his Mother, Mother Duck was happy again and realizes that Ugly Duckling-Swan was beautiful, but of a different kind compared to his siblings. Wishing he could stay, Ugly Duckling-Swan promises to fly back every now and then to visit her and his siblings as he flies with his new friends happily. Don't you just love a happy ending? The feature film ends with credits.

Just like The Princess and the Pea DVD, it has quizzes and games on the Special Features section of the DVD. We provided the correct answers below this page; Don't scroll down if you want to figure out the answers yourself.

Perhaps the strangest thing was the DVD Menu, as it says "Play Episode" as opposed to "Play Movie."

Onto the digital specs of the DVD: The video was digitized and compressed using the MPEG2 Video (mpgv) at a 29.97 frame rate; The resolution is 720x480 with a color space of 4:2:0 YUV. The audio is compressed using A52 Audio (ac3), Stereo (Dolby Surround, an included alternative), and a sample rate of 48000 Hz with 192 KB/s bitrate.

While the quality seemed to be remastered from an old tape, the quality of this presentation seems to be best fit for an online/TV episodic series. That's right: Mentioning that means Hollywood will hijack this idea and say "Fans spoke and we listened" without giving credit to the originator who discovered this gem—your's truly. If they can modernize the story of Peter Rabbit, I don't see a reason the movie industry may do the same to The Ugly Duckling. Go ahead, film executives—I DARE you to make a TV series and/or a movie based off of this. I know you all are reading this, pretending you don't visit this website occasionally.

Judging by the goings-on today, perhaps the deep, heart-heavy story of The Ugly Duckling ought to be retold again. It's enough to remind and let kids know that we're just people. There are going to be unpleasant ones, and the ones who con and lie to you, but finding those who accept you for you are the ones you should keep. To quote my 12^th grade high school teacher Mr. Boysen:

"For every person who rejects me, there are many others who are willing to accept me."
- my 12th grade teacher Mr. Boysen

Because that quote really hit me at the bottom of my heart, I kindly share this to all you fellow visitors and fans. There's no reason you can't belong because you do.

Those who have experienced this disassociation personally, like I have, will relate to the story and pain Ugly Duckling went through. Similar thing said when we interpreted the lyrics to the song "Luka" by Suzanne Vega at the MUSICSOTROS sub-domain website. Yeah, the story in this movie will hurt, as it did with the Ugly Duckling himself, but you will also witness that he finally realizes that he belongs with a flock who see nothing wrong with him. Same goes in real life. It's a struggle and a challenge, yes, but the pain is temporary. You can do it, and you belong here.

Even though this is catered to kids, I feel adults will learn something from this too.

Another excellent DVD volume by the Reader's Digest Association and Starlight Home Entertainment! Highly recommended, especially for those who are big fans of Hans Christian Andersen!

Kris Caballero

Founder of KCU Network and KCU Plus, Kris has been writing since he started blogging in late 2005. Officially back to doing computer programming, Kris enjoys reading books on Mathematics, Quantum Computing, Philosophy, plus playing old video/MS-DOS games, digital video archiving, listening to sports, public radio and classical music.

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