A Twisted Tale: "Conceal, Don't Feel", "A Whole New World", "Reflection"

The Disney "A Twisted Tale" book series are reimaginings of the popular Disney stories.
They've been a thing for a few years now, with a "Cinderella" and "Peter Pan" one coming out in Spring.

But now I read 3 of them -




"Conceal, Don't Feel" is "What if Anna and Elsa never knew each other?"

It's similar to the original story with a few deep twists to make it darker - Essentially, in the segment where Grand Pabbie removes Anna's memories, Elsa interferes, and curses both of them. The closer they are to each other, the more Anna literally freezes.

So they remove everyone's memories of Anna in Arendelle except Agnarr and Iduna, the latter of whom visits Anna every other month - Because her memory has been removed too and she was adopted by Iduna's old friends up in the mountains, and has never left.

You can read this and go "Well it's too much to put in a movie", but that's if the movie is decently plotted and paced, with "Frozen" was not. The Hans twist is a lot more impactful here because it's clear who he is about halfway through the story instead of the last 20 minutes. He also has the time to make impressions on both sisters without knowing they're related.

Elsa is humongously improved because we see her inner monologue.


"A Whole New World" is considerably darker and I suppose 'more realistic' of how a brutal dictator (Jafar) would act. He murders people on screen with descriptions. Jasmine escapes and goes into hiding as a Robber-Queen Rebel Princess who is still determined to do good when she is reinstated to the throne of Agrabah.

It reaffirms her ability to rule and care for others, a lot more than the live action movie.

I didn't think the Disney version of Aladdin really needed 'improvement', but this is certainly an intersting take on it.

Reflection is probably the most needlessly long one near the end, but it's very impressive. Probably my favorite, as it reminds me why Mulan was my favorite as a child. It's far more fanatical than the movie, going into the underworld of Diyu.

I don't think the other ones would be particularly interesting, as it is certainly not the first time Disney has hired people to revamp or flesh out the stories (There's one about the origins of the villains...I distinctly remember reading an Evil Queen and Beast one). They're not in the same canon as these.