But before Glen Keane signed on for what was then known as Rapunzel Unbraided, CG animation at House of Mouse had not been adapted to the Disney style. The Disney Princess had not made the leap, and Disney had no modern characters who’d come to life through the digital medium. That’s because it was impossible. No artist had the vision, determination, or understanding to bend the computer to their will. So it never happened. The End.

Oh wait. Glen Keane.

Keane was always very critical of computer animation, frequently insisting that it was inhuman and unpleasant to look at. For Keane, CG had no life to it. It was too precise, too rigid, and not satisfying to view. “I loved Shrek”, Keane told the New York Times in 2005, “but every frame of that movie was a bad drawing”.

But in 2003, Disney Animation was already late into the rising CG Kingdom. Pixar had dominated the box office since 1995 and posed a new direction for animation everybody was following. Disney also faced fierce competition from DreamWorks’ new animation studio which had found enormous success with Shrek in 2001. Meanwhile, Disney’s own in-house projects had been consistently underperforming since before the millennium. It was time for a new renaissance.

In February 2003, armed with only six hand-drawn sketches, Glen Keane approached the new Disney president and pitched his idea for Rapunzel Unbraided. The project was immediately green-lit, but only under the condition that it would be computer animated. Keane was taken aback. He had proven himself over the last thirty years as the master of the pencil. He was possibly the most talented animator the studio had ever fostered, and his talent was drawing and it had been honed for over three decades. Now he was finally given an opportunity to make his own movie, just as long as it was made with tools he had zero experience with. Despite the circumstances, Keane agreed. 

“[They] said we’re not asking you to leave it behind, but to find some way to bring all that you love about drawing and 70 years of Disney heritage into CG. As an artist, you want to be challenged. I’ve always felt that if I’m uncomfortable and there’s some element of fear involved, then that’s a good territory to be in.” (Glen Keane, AWN)

In the first week of April, Keane invited fifty of his colleagues to a seminar he called “The Best of Both Worlds”. During the meeting he discussed the pros and cons of both traditional and computer animation and took questions from artists skilled in both formats. The meeting was nervous and heated, with animators on both sides defending their medium.

To make matters worse, later that month, Disney held a staff assembly of more than 500 animators and revealed they were going to stop producing hand-drawn animated films entirely. Those interested in making the leap to CG could take a six month training course. Disney Feature Animation erupted into civil war.

But Keane pushed on with his project. Disney Animation President David Stainton told him “I’m asking you to create it. You have to create something new.”