First Full [French] Trailer for ‘The Little Prince’

2015 will soon be on the horizon and, at this point in time, we will have seen trailers for nearly half of next year’s most anticipated animated features. But one film that still remains a curiosity is Mark Osborne’s adaptation of The Little Prince.

The last time we told you about this film was back in September when we spilled a ton of new information about the film, including a teaser trailer, poster, and release dates. Now, courtesy of Cartoon Brew, we have been granted our first full trailer for The Little Prince… in French!

Odd as it may be, it actually makes sense that the trailer for this film would come out in French first. It’s based on the 1943 novella written by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and was produced and animated entirely in France. Unfortunately, there are no subtitles, and I don’t know a single word of French, so I’ll leave it to our readers to translate!

Onto the film itself… Suffice it to say, I’m really liking what I see. While the film is very much an adaptation of the story the readers are all familiar with, it’s taken the liberty of adding a contemporarily framed story surrounding a young girl (or The Girl, as she’s called) who discovers the writings of a reclusive elderly man (who appears to be The Aviator). The Little Prince is not an easy book to adapt, known for being thematically dense, and lacking a singular narrative drive and a discernible three-act structure. Therefore, the framing story is a decent, if very familiar, way of enabling today’s audience to view the story through a recognizable lens and contextualizing the philosophical musings of the original book without losing the charm.

But what really makes this trailer is the inspired use of different animation techniques to differentiate the story of The Girl, and the story of The Aviator and his encounter with The Little Prince. The transition between different art styles is also handled really well; both the CG and the stop-motion look exceptionally well-rendered and designed – a good sign that none of its $80 million budget has been wasted anywhere.

The English-language voice cast for the film will consist of Marion Collitard (The Rose), Rachel McAdams (The Mother), James Franco (The Fox), Jeff Bridges (The Aviator), Benicio del Toro (The Snake), Ricky Gervais (The Conceited Man), Paul Giamatti (The Teacher), Albert Brooks (The Businessman), Bud Cort as The King, with Mackenzie Foy as The Girl, and newcomer Riley Osborne as The Little Prince.

The film will be released in France on October 7, 2015. While no solid release date for the United States has been disclosed just yet, Paramount Vantage – who holds the US distribution rights – plans to release the film sometime during the last quarter of 2015.

We’ll keep you updated when the English-language trailer hits the web, which could be quite soon.

What do you think? Are you impressed by what you’ve seen so far?