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takaraphoenix · 5 years

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The Ultimate Barbie Ranking

(at least according to me)

Though seriously, rarely seen such a diversely differently ranked franchise before because I have looked up some individual rankings and it’s bonkers how much they all differ and differ from mine too. So, obviously, as taste is an individual thing, this is the ultimate ranking according to Phoe and I suspect not many are going to agree with me on it.

And instead of just making a list of 36 positions, how about I present them to you split up into sections? And for funsies, we start with the worst and work our way up to the best!

Because that’s how I kept order of my ranking while watching them too. It’s just a bit harder to keep track if you try to find the ultimate spot from the get-go and have to readjust after every movie. So I put them into one of five categories each and ranked them within those categories. Shall we?

Bottom of the barrel: The ones I completely dislike

31. The Magic of Pegasus 32. Barbie & her Sisters in: A Pony Tale 33. Thumbelina 34. Video Game Hero 35. A Christmas Carol 36. The Barbie Diaries

Let’s talk about them real quick - and I do mean real quick because I am including the links to the in-depth reviews in this list and honestly I’ll be here all day if I’d go deep into all 36 movies here again...

The Magic of Pegasus was the first Barbie movie I disliked, but I did cut it some slack on the ranking because it was also Barbie’s very first original movie so it figures there are some kinks to work out.

A Pony Tale is a very stale Horse Movie with little charm or personality and I didn’t like how Skipper was so much of a baby boomer’s parody version of a gen z. Also... horses but with pink strands... wow that’s special... (Seriously unicorns may have saved this one but as it stood? Not good.)

Thumbelina is just a horrible awful rip-off of FernGully - and that’s insane because Thumbelina the fairy tale has literally nothing to do with that movie. If this was labeled as an original movie, it would have ranked higher, but to make their FernGully rip-off pretend it’s a Thumbelina adaptation while having literally nothing to do with the fairy tale aside from the hero’s name...? Nah man, not a fan of that kind of nonsense. If you are adapting something, actually adapt it, or leave it and just make an original movie.

Video Game Hero just didn’t appeal to me on any level, very overcrowded, the game like layout makes it incredibly boring and the design was obnoxious.

A Christmas Carol was genuinely the biggest mistake this franchise ever made because it erased all of Barbie’s charm and personality by forcing her into the role of Scrooge and that was just... such an inherently bad take.

But still, Barbie Diaries wins as the overall worst Barbie movie. It barely is even a movie, it’s just every single teen rom com trope ever stacked together in a trenchcoat, really. And somehow this manages to have the worst animation of all of the movies, despite being the 8th overall movie? But even the very first Barbie movie had better animation than this one! An absolute failure.

The Not Good Ones

26. A Perfect Christmas 27. The Secret Door 28. Barbie & Her Sisters: A Puppy Chase 29. Princess Power 30. Spy Squad

Not as offensively bad as the last bunch of movies, but also just... really not good movies.

The Secret Door, Princess Power and Spy Squad all suffer from being inherently too overly girly in an obnoxious way. All Barbie movies aim into being girly, but most manage to lean into it in a cool or empowering way. These are just... pink and annoying. This is what I would have expected Barbie movies to be from a cynical point of view.

A Perfect Christmas is less completely bad as it is more just... too much of a cliche I suppose. Also, I’m just not a Christmas movie person.

And A Puppy Chase managed to take the momentum from the first puppy-featuring movie away by making the puppies annoying plot-devices that just served to stretch the movie out instead of giving them something to do.

The Solid Middle

21. The Princess and the Popstar 22. Princess Charm School 23. Fairytopia 3: Magic of the Rainbow 24. A Fashion Fairytale 25. A Fairy Secret

We have officially entered the Top 25 of this list and with that, movies actually worth ranking. Still, among those Top 25 these were the five... worst. But they’re not actively bad. Hence the solid middle. Neither good nor bad, just... movies that can be fun but aren’t overwhelming.

Princess and the Popstar would be ranked far higher if Princess and the Pauper didn’t exist, but the fact that after 19 movies they decided to retell a fairy tale they already adapted obviously puts it into direct competition to their first adaptation of the story - and that one was just superior. So while on its own not necessarily bad, it gets bumped down a lot by the existence of a better version of the same story within this franchise. Also, lot of things about this movie that bothered me.

Princess Charm School is a movie I have a strange relationship with because I really dislike it while also really liking it at the same time so it really ought to be in the solid middle.

And... just... look at those five side by side and look at A Fairy Secret and Magic of the Rainbow. They could be variant covers for the exact same movie. That’s one of the reasons why they’re down here because they are very generic and not trying too hard.

With A Fashion Fairytale there were just a lot of in-universe things that bothered me and made me bump it down. This one is just not good storytelling, even if the characters were very appealing.

The Ten Good Ones!

11. The Three Musketeers 12. A Mermaid Tale 13. Mariposa and her Butterfly Fairy Friends 14. A Mermaid Tale 2 15. Mariposa and the Fairy Princess 16. Rapunzel 17. Fairytopia 18. Rock ‘n Royals 19. The Pearl Princess 20. Swan Lake

The first three of this list were in my top five for a long time, but more and more good ones had come out and I had to reevaluate just how much of my ranking of them was pure nostalgia. Have to admit, with Rapunzel the purple dragon really did most of the things that made me like the movie, while Swan Lake on the rewatch was actually kind of a disappointment...

Less words to say about these ones. I just really liked these movies - though one thing to say is that if I’m very honest, it is a tight spot between the two Mariposa movies and the two Mermaid Tale movies, all four are really good and it’s hard to pick which one is better on the overall, so take those with a bit of leeway.

The Top 10 REALLY Good Movies!

1. The Diamond Castle 2. The Princess and the Pauper 3. Star Light Adventure 4. Dolphin Magic 5. The Pink Shoes 6. Barbie & her Sisters in: The Great Puppy Adventure 7. The Island Princess 8. Fairytopia 2: Mermaidia 9. The 12 Dancing Princesses 10. The Nutcracker

Still blown away that the 33rd Barbie movie managed to get into my Top 3... I’m really glad those movies kept improving and being good throughout, even with the occasional bad one.

Also stunned that two sequels made the Top 10 - particuarly since the first ones didn’t.

And yes, even after I did see all 36 Barbie movies, The Diamond Castle still remains my number one. It is just too impressive that this is an original movie - they worked proper fairy tale tropes into this so well and seamlessly to make it look like an adaptation of an actually existing fairy tale! I love this movie.

So, there you have it. All 36 Barbie movies ranked, for the like three people who care. But it was genuinely fun. the watching, for one, and the ranking. I like making lists.

I do think that to anyone who enjoys animated movies in general, the top 10 I came out of with really should be a must watch, even if all 36 seem too much for you, because those are just genuinely good animated movies.

#Barbie Movies #Barbie Movie Ranking #Barbie Movie Reviews

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