Tinker Bell (film series)

Tinker Bell
Directed by	Bradley Raymond (1, 3 & 4) Klay Hall (2) Bobs Gannaway (5) Peggy Holmes (5 & 6)
Starring	Mae Whitman Raven-Symoné Lucy Liu Kristin Chenoweth America Ferrera (More)
Music by	Joel McNeely
Production company	DisneyToon Studios[1][2]
Distributed by	Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Release date	1: October 28, 2008 (2008-10-28) 2: 000000002009-10-27-0000October 27, 2009 3: 000000002010-09-21-0000September 21, 2010 4: 000000002012-10-23-0000October 23, 2012 5: 000000002014-04-01-0000April 1, 2014 6: 000000002015-03-03-0000March 3, 2015
Running time	468 minutes (6 films)
Country	United States
Language	English

Tinker Bell is a computer animated fantasy film series produced by DisneyToon Studios as part of the Disney Fairies franchise. Voices of Mae Whitman, Raven-Symoné, Lucy Liu, America Ferrera, Kristin Chenoweth and Pamela Adlon are featured in the films. Each of the first four films is set around one of the four seasons: Tinker Bell around Spring, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure around Autumn, Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue around Summer, and Secret of the Wings around Winter. A fifth title, Pixie Hollow Games, was supposed to be based on all four seasons, but it was released before Secret of the Wings and scaled down. A sixth film, titled The Pirate Fairy, was released April 1, 2014, followed by the release of a seventh film Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast on March 3, 2015. The series is a spin-off of and prequel to Peter Pan and its sequel, Return to Never Land.

Films

Tinker Bell (2008)

Tinker Bell (Mae Whitman) is born from the first laugh of a baby, and is brought by the winds to Pixie Hollow (which is part of the island of Never Land). She learns that her talent is to be one of the tinkers, the fairies who make and fix things. Two other tinker fairies, Bobble (Rob Paulsen) and Clank (Jeff Bennett), teach her their craft, and tell her about the fairies who visit the mainland to bring each season. Tink is thrilled and can't wait to go to the mainland for spring.

While out working, she meets Silvermist (Lucy Liu), a water fairy; Rosetta (Kristin Chenoweth), a garden fairy; Iridessa (Raven-Symoné), a light fairy; and Fawn (America Ferrera), an animal fairy. After meeting them, she notices Vidia (Pamela Adlon), a fast-flying fairy who immediately dislikes her because of her unusually strong talent. Vidia challenges her to prove she'll be able to go to the mainland, and Tink creates several inventions, which she shows to the Minister of Spring (Steve Valentine). But Tinker Bell soon learns from Queen Clarion (Anjelica Huston) that only nature-talent fairies visit the mainland.

She tries her hand at nature skills—making dewdrops with Silvermist, lighting fireflies with Iridessa, and trying with Fawn to teach baby birds to fly but she fails miserably at all of these. Meanwhile, Bobble and Clank cover for Tink when questioned by Fairy Mary (Jane Horrocks), the tinker fairy overseer. When Tinker Bell returns, she tries to explain, but Mary simply responds that she knows, and expresses her disappointment with Tink's actions.

On the beach, Tinker Bell finds parts of a music box and figures out how to put them together. Iridessa, Fawn, Silvermist, and Rosetta witness her doing this, then tell her that she was tinkering and that she should be proud of her talent—if this is what she's good at, the mainland shouldn't matter. But Tinker Bell still wants to go to the mainland. She asks Rosetta if she'll still teach her to be a garden fairy, but Rosetta says that tinkering is Tinker Bell's talent.

As a last resort, Tinker Bell asks Vidia for help in becoming a garden fairy. Vidia craftily tells her that capturing the sprinting thistles would prove her worth. However, once she sees Tink making progress, she lets the captured thistles loose, and in attempting to recapture them, Tink destroys all the preparations for spring. Tink decides to leave, but after talking with the dust-keeper Terence (Jesse McCartney) about how important his job is, she realizes the importance of a tinker.

Tinker Bell redeems herself by inventing machines that quicken the process of decorating flowers, ladybugs, etc. This allows the other fairies to get back on schedule, thus saving the arrival of spring. Vidia is punished for prompting her to cause the chaos, and Queen Clarion allows Tink to join the nature-talent fairies when they bring spring to the mainland. Tinker Bell is given the task of delivering the music box to its original owner (shown to be Wendy Darling). The narrator ends by saying that when lost toys are found or a broken clock starts to work, "it all means that one very special fairy might be near."

Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (2009)

The fairies (Mae Whitman, Kristin Chenoweth, Lucy Liu, Raven-Symoné, Angela Bartys) are getting ready for the season of leaves, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and pumpkins: autumn. Every eight years they create a new fall scepter to hold a precious moonstone. This moonstone will create blue pixie dust that will restore the Pixie Dust Tree. It is the tinker fairies' turn to create the new scepter and they choose Tinker Bell as the maker.

Tinker Bell gets her friend Terrence to help with the scepter project, but she has trouble coping with Terence because he tries too hard to be helpful. Tinker Bell finds him annoying and noisy. An accident occurs, causing the precious moonstone to break. She goes on a quest to find the magic mirror that grants three wishes. However, pirates had already used up two of the wishes before they sank their ship. This means that Tinker Bell only has one chance to make a wish with it. She finds the ship and the lost mirror, but Tinker Bell ends up messing up her wish on her new friend Blaze and cannot use it to restore the moonstone. Terence finds Tinker Bell and they work together on the broken moonstone to make a new scepter.

After returning to Pixie Hollow, Tinker Bell is ready to present the scepter to Queen Clarion. As the scepter is revealed, all the fairies see the moonstone in pieces and are alarmed but, as the moon rays fall, the moonstone shards create increased surface area through which the blue moon rays can pass, thus creating the biggest amount of blue fairy dust in history. Then Tinker Bell leads the fairies to the Pixie Dust Tree where they strengthen it with the fallen blue pixie dust. The movie ends with the song "Take to the Sky".

Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue (2010)

Years before meeting Wendy and the Lost Boys, Tinker Bell (Mae Whitman) met Lizzy (Lauren Mote), a little girl with a steadfast belief in the power of pixie dust and the magic land of fairies. During the fairies' summer visit to the flowering meadows of England, two very different worlds unite for the first time and Tink develops a special bond with a curious child in need of a friend. As her fellow fairies (Raven-Symoné, Lucy Liu, Kristin Chenoweth, Angela Bartys, Pamela Adlon) launch a daring rescue, Tinker Bell takes a huge risk, putting her own safety and the future of all fairykind in jeopardy.

Secret of the Wings (2012)

Tinker Bell (Mae Whitman) crosses over to the forbidden area in Winter Woods, where it is always winter. While there her wings begin to sparkle so she sets off on a quest to discover why. She is overjoyed to learn that her wings sparkled because she was close to her sister, Periwinkle (Lucy Hale). They were born when a baby's laugh split in two. They visit for a few hours before Tinker Bell is told she has to leave. Determined to help her sister visit Pixie Hollow, she crafts a contraption that grates snow to keep Peri cold during her visit. The device malfunctions badly, causing a freeze to slowly envelope Pixie Hollow.

Tinker Bell flies to Winter Woods to get Periwinkle and her friends to help save Pixie Hollow. They realize that frost protects the trees in Winter Woods from the cold, so the winter fairies all work together to frost the trees of Pixie Hollow to save from the accelerating freeze. They learn, however, that when Tink crashed in Winter Woods she tore her wing, and broken wings can't be repaired. But when Tink and Peri come together their wings again sparkle, and they learn that identical wings can heal each other, so they restore Tink's broken wing. They also discover that winter fairies can frost the wings of warm-weather fairies, keeping them from breaking in the cold, thus allowing them to visit their friends in Winter Woods.

The Pirate Fairy (2014)

Another feature-length film, titled The Pirate Fairy,^[3] (originally titled Quest for the Queen)^[4] was released on April 1, 2014.^[5] The film was originally scheduled for Fall 2013, but another DisneyToon Studios film, Planes, took its place.^[4] A trailer for the film was released on the Secret of the Wings Blu-ray and DVD on October 23, 2012.^[6] It was directed by the Secret of the Wings director, Peggy Holmes. The film introduced new characters, Zarina, voiced by Christina Hendricks, and James aka Captain Hook, voiced by Tom Hiddleston.^[3] Carlos Ponce also voiced one of the characters in the film.^[7]

When a misunderstood dust-keeper fairy named Zarina steals Pixie Hollow'’s all-important Blue Pixie Dust and flies away to join forces with the pirates of Skull Rock, Tinker Bell and her fairy friends must embark on the adventure of a lifetime to return it to its rightful place. However, in the midst of their pursuit of Zarina, Tink's world is turned upside down. She and her friends find that their respective talents have been switched and they have to race against time to retrieve the Blue Pixie Dust and return home to save Pixie Hollow.^[3]

Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast (2015)

Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast was released in cinemas in selected markets from December 2014,^[8] and was released direct-to-video in the United States on March 3, 2015.^[9] It was directed by Steve Loter and produced by Makul Wigert.^[10] Composer Joel McNeely returned to the film.^[11] Mae Whitman, Lucy Liu, Raven-Symoné, Megan Hilty, Pamela Adlon and Anjelica Huston reprise their roles of Tinker Bell, Silvermist, Iridessa, Rosetta, Vidia and Queen Clarion.^[10] Ginnifer Goodwin replaces Angela Bartys as the voice of Fawn in this film.^[9] Rosario Dawson and Olivia Holt join the cast as new characters Nyx and Morgan, respectively.^[9]

When Fawn meets a legendary creature, the Neverbeast, she befriends the creature in no time. But when she learns that the creature could be part of a terrible event, she will have to trust her instincts in order to save her new friend, and all of Pixie Hollow.

Cancelled sequel

In addition to Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast, Disney also had plans for a seventh film. In 2014, The Hollywood Reporter stated that the seventh film was cancelled due to story problems.^[12]

Short films

Pixie Hollow Games (2011)

Originally planned to feature the entire ensemble cast of the earlier films in Olympic-style games spanning the four seasons, presumably due to the original plot vetoed by the producers, the story was scaled back into a shorter scenario focusing primarily on Rosetta (Megan Hilty, replacing Kristin Chenoweth) and a new fairy character, Chloe (Brenda Song). They are teamed up against Rosetta's will representing the "garden fairies" in a competition in which they hope to unseat the undefeated "storm fairies". They overcome their differences and Rosetta's fear of getting dirty, to emerge victorious at the end of the games.

Pixie Hollow Bake Off (2013)

A six-minute short film, titled Pixie Hollow Bake Off, aired in the United Kingdom on October 20, 2013, on Disney Channel. Lisa Faulkner provided a voice for a baking fairy named Gelata.^[13]

The short was released in the United States as a bonus DVD in a Walmart-exclusive edition of The Pirate Fairy on Blu-ray Disc, but with Giada De Laurentiis as the voice of Gelata.^[14] In July 2014 the short was made available on the digital movie service Disney Movies Anywhere.^[15]

Theme songs

• Tinker Bell: "Fly to Your Heart" – Selena Gomez (from Wizards of Waverly Place)
• Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure: "Gift of a Friend" – Demi Lovato (from Sonny with a Chance)
• Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue: "How to Believe" – Bridgit Mendler (from Good Luck Charlie)
• Pixie Hollow Games: "Dig Down Deeper" – Zendaya (from Shake It Up)
• Secret of the Wings: "The Great Divide" – McClain Sisters, (featuring China Anne McClain from A.N.T. Farm)
• The Pirate Fairy: "Who I Am" - Natasha Bedingfield^[16]
• Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast: "Float" - KT Tunstall

Reception

Critical reception

Box office performance

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the first four full-length films (Tinker Bell, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue and Secret of the Wings) were made for $30 million to $35 million.^[12]

Recurring characters

Crew

References

External links

• Official website