Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper

Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper is the fourth Barbie movie. It was released on September 28, 2004, and it made its TV premiere on Nickelodeon on November 14, 2004. Barbie plays two roles: a blonde princess named Anneliese and a brunette pauper named Erika. The girls dream to be free of their duties and by following their heart, they will make their dreams come true.

Official Description
"In her first animated musical, featuring seven original songs, Barbie comes to life in this modern retelling of a classic tale of mistaken identity and the power of friendship. "

Based on the story by Mark Twain, Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper features Barbie in an exciting dual role as a princess and a poor village girl who look amazingly alike! The girls' paths are fated to cross when Princess Anneliese is captured and Erika, her look-alike, must try to save her.

Can Erika pretend to be the Princess and foil her captor, the evil Preminger? And what of the handsome King Dominick, who falls in love with Erika, mistaking her for Anneliese? In this magical musical performance, two beautiful adventurous girls dare to follow their dreams and discover that destiny is written in a very special place: your heart!"

Story
Narration: Long ago and far away, in a village high on a mountain top, something amazing was occurring. At the very same moment, two identical baby girls were born. One, a baby princess, the king and queen were overjoyed. Princess Anneliese would have only the finest. The second baby girl was named Erika. Her parents loved her every bit as much as the king and queen loved the princess, but they worried. They were so poor, how would they be able to care for their little daughter?

Many years passed. The princess learned her royal duties, while Erika worked long and hard as a seamstress for the spiteful Madame Carp.

With lives so different, it wasn't surprising that the princess and the pauper never met, but fate decreed they would. It all started at the royal mine, when the miners informed the Queen the gold had run out. The widowed queen was shocked, the kingdom was now bankrupt. How was she going to take care of her people? If only she could call on her trusted adviser Preminger, but he was away on a long journey. She needed to do something quickly to save the kingdom, but what? And then it struck her: Nearby lived a rich young king, who was seeking a wife.

While Anneliese and Erika have different lives they both wish to be free. Anneliese wants to be able to do what she wants without having all her lessons or events to attend and marry her tutor/true love, Julian. However, her mother tells Anneliese that she must marry King Dominick to save their kingdom. Erika wants to be a singer and travel the world but she has to work off her parent's debt and interest to Madame Carp who borrowed money from her to feed Erika. They both know in their heart that duty is more important but they will never stop dreaming of freedom.

Queen Genevieve doesn't know that the reason behind the kingdom's bankruptcy is her adviser, Preminger. He has been stealing the gold from the royal mines with his sidekicks, Nick and Nack, for a long time.

His plan is to present all the gold he stole to the Queen and Anneliese, the Queen will be so grateful and he would be asked to marry the princess him then, Preminger can succeed to the throne and achieve all that he wants as King.

His two sidekicks then inform him about the union of the Princess and King Dominick. Preminger is furious that the Queen made a decision without him but he sees opportunity he decides to change his plans have Princess Anneliese go mysteriously missing, then bring her back, thus making the queen so grateful that she will ask him to marry Anneliese. While Anneliese is studying with Julian, who is in love with her, he tells her that King Dominick (who is pretending he is someone else) and Ambassador Bismark have come to see her with an engagement gift, a necklace. The Queen wants the wedding to be a week from then, which gives Preminger less time to carry out his evil plan.

Julian takes Anneliese for a day out into the kingdom as that she can be free for once. Anneliese hears Erika singing and goes over to listen. Erika is singing in the street to earn money for herself but Madame Carp takes the money. Anneliese and Erika talk to each other and learn they are identical, apart from the crown-shaped birthmark Anneliese has on her shoulder and their hair color. They become friends and Anneliese returns to the palace. That night, she is kidnapped by Nick and Nack, who leave a letter saying she's ran away.

Julian suspects that Preminger kidnapped Anneliese, so he asks Erika to pretend to be the princess until she is rescued. Preminger is surprised when Erika, as Anneliese, comes to the palace because he thought she had already been kidnapped. Over time, Erika and Dominick fall in love, but Erika is worried about what will happen when people found out she is not Anneliese. The real Anneliese has escaped from Nick and Nack. Julian finds out and tries to inform the Queen, but he gets kidnapped. Anneliese is turned away from the palace because the guards think Anneliese in already in there. She gets taken away by Madame Carp because she thinks that Anneliese is Erika.

Preminger decides that the Anneliese in the castle is an impostor and takes the real Anneliese to the royal mines with Julian and tell his henchmen to collapse the mine with Anneliese and Julian trapped inside. he goes back to the palace, exposes Erika as a fake, and accuses her and Julian of treason. Erika is sent to the dungeon and she feels terrible about everything and becomes worried about Anneliese and Julian. She lulls the guard to sleep and takes his keys so she can escapes, but bumps into King Dominick. He tells her that he doesn't believe what Preminger said about her. In the mines, Anneliese and Julian find out how to restore the kingdom's resources from some rocks that have geodes in them. They confess their love and escape the mines.

Preminger then convinces the Queen that Anneliese is dead and says they must marry to save the kingdom, and she has other options so she agrees. Before they get married, Anneliese arrives and tells everyone the truth about Preminger. Erika and Dominick then arrive to see that the princess is safe. Preminger tries and escapes on a horse but Julian and Dominick go after him themselves, the two girls stop Nick & Nack by tripping them. Herve, whom Serafina and Wolfie befriended takes Preminger back after his mistreatments.

After crashing onto the wedding table, Preminger is soon arrested along with Nick and Nack for the crimes they committed. She tells her mother that she wants to marry Julian and that they can save the kingdom without marriage. Thanks to the princess, Erika is finally out of debt and free to leave. Erika tells Dominick that she wants to sing so she doesn't marry right away. But before she leaves, Dominick gives her the ring to remember him by. After months of performing she returns after realizing that sometimes freedom means choosing not to leave, but to stay. Anneliese discovered quartz in the mine, saving the kingdom. Madame Carp goes out of business due to the castle not purchasing her dresses and Dominick and Erika soon wish to marry as well. Anneliese and Julian, and Dominick and Erika all have a double wedding, and their cats, Wolfie and Serafina have kittens.

Starring the Voices of
Other characters include the King.
 * Princess Anneliese/Queen Erika/Narrator: Kelly Sheridan
 * Singing Princess Anneliese: Melissa Lyons
 * Singing Erika: Julie Stevens
 * King Dominick: Mark Hildreth
 * Singing King Dominick: Mark Luna
 * Prince Julian: Alessandro Juliani
 * Preminger: Martin Short
 * Serafina/Bertie: Kathleen Barr
 * Wolfie/Guard #3: Ian James Corlett
 * Queen Genevieve: Ellen Kennedy
 * Madame Carp: Pam Hyatt
 * Nick/Guard #1: Brian Drummond
 * Midas/Nack: Jan Rabson
 * Royal Scheduler: Colin Murdock
 * Palace Maid: Janyse Jaud
 * Ambassador Bismark/Guard #2: Lee Tockar
 * Herve: Garry Clark
 * Minister: Roger Monk

Locations

 * Dulcinea
 * Queen Genevieve's Kingdom
 * Madame Carp's Dress Emporium
 * Queen Genevieve's Palace
 * Royal Mines

Music

 * "Free" - Anneliese and Erika
 * "How Can I Refuse?" - Preminger
 * "Written In Your Heart (Prologue)" - Erika
 * "I Am A Girl Like You" - Anneliese and Erika
 * "To Be A Princess" - Erika and Julian
 * "The Cat's Meow" - Erika
 * "If You Love Me For Me" - Erika and King Dominick
 * "To Be A Princess (Reprise)" - Erika
 * "How Can I Refuse? (Reprise)" - Preminger
 * "Written In Your Heart" - Anneliese and Erika
 * "I'm On My Way" - Sara Niemietz

Bloopers

 * The first clip is of Serafina preparing for her catapult stunt. The film-makers are showing her a quick demo with a crash dummy in the form of a cat. It is first launched in the air but never falls back down. The second scene shows the test dummy hitting a hard brick wall. In the final take, the dummy crashes through a boarded up window. Serafina consults her agent.
 * The next scene is of Preminger saying "My, you're attractive!", to himself in a mirror.
 * After, is Erika singing a part of her song; "The Cat's Meow", and Wolfie falls into the bathtub accidentally. The director then orders; "Can I get a hair dryer over here?"
 * Next is another clip from Preminger and the mirror.
 * Then, Nick and Nack are attempting to jump into the mining cart. Nack ends up jumping in, but Nick runs past it and misses. The director reminds him to do so. He says "Right, I knew that..."
 * Another Preminger and the mirror clip is shown.
 * After the scene with Erika and Dominick watching the sunset, Erika's cell phone suddenly rings. "How romantic, right?" She says, embarrassed.
 * Yet again, Preminger's mirror scene is shown.
 * Prince Julian suddenly starts doing the running man dance, causing Erika to burst out laughing.

Trivia

 * Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper won "Children's Title of the Year" at the VSDA Awards 2005.
 * The film also had 6 nominations at the 2005 DVD Exclusive Awards.
 * Preminger's voice actor, Martin Short, and his character designer Jean Gillmore were nominated in 2005 for the DVDX award of Best Animated Character Performance (Voice and Animation in a DVD Movie Premiere) for Preminger.
 * The baker from Barbie as Rapunzel makes a brief cameo in this movie.
 * Barbie: The Princess & The Popstar is also based on The Prince and the Pauper, but has a modern setting.
 * In Madame Carp's dress emporium during the teaser trailer, there are some dresses that Rapunzel from Barbie as Rapunzel wore, and a dress that is worn by Odette in Barbie of Swan Lake.
 * In the Norwegian dub, Anneliese and Erika were voiced by three sisters; Their speaking voices are performed by Benedikte Krus, Anneliese´s singing voice is by Anine Kruse, and Erika's singing voice is by Jannike Kruse.
 * In the teaser trailer, Anneliese's singing voice was different from the one used in the movie while Erika's was the same.
 * This is the first Barbie movie to not have opening credits at the starting of the movie, not counting Mattel and the title.
 * At the time of release, this was the longest Barbie movie, but afterwards, other movies were released that are the same length.

Goofs

 * When Erika is taking her bath, the tub has taps. Plumbing would not have existed at that time.
 * Anneliese's mother says she missed her at breakfast, when Anneliese has breakfast in bed every morning.
 * One explanation for this is that the maid reported Anneliese was missing from her bed when she went to deliver breakfast.
 * During the song "Free" Anneliese walks along her very long balcony whilst singing. A wide shot shows that she is halfway along the balcony, but then a shot after shows that she is only a few steps away from the edge, yet there has been no signs of her running or taking deliberately large steps.
 * During the song "I Am a Girl Like You", Anneliese is animated singing during Erika's part twice (as proven by the soundtrack).
 * The first "You're just like me"
 * The second "A heart that beats"
 * When Julian is talking to Erika, and tells her that Anneliese is missing, you can see a golden flower on his tie. But throughout the rest of the movie, and some seconds after you see it, it disappears.
 * There are several moments when Erika is in disguise that Anneliese's crown disappears and then reappears on her head.
 * Wolfie is referred as "no status quo calico" by Erika, which implies he is a male calico cat. Calico cats are almost 100% female cats, due to a sex-linked gene that allows them to be calico. In the very rare case in which a calico cat is male, it's due to a genetic disease and the cat is sterile, so realistically Wolfie wouldn't be able to reproduce with Serafina. However, Erika could have just been using "calico" as an interchangeable word for any kind of cat to fit in her song.
 * Near the end of the movie as Erika's leaving on a horse she's wearing her old dress. When she returns she has the dress she borrowed on. No bag was shown attached to the horse's saddle for her to carry it in. Even if there was a bag the dress would have been too bulky to fit in it. Folding it wouldn't have helped.