Disney's Anastasia

Don Bluth's "Anastasia" has an interesting amount of negative reviews. I never considered this movie to be bad, in fact, I always saw it as a masterpiece, together with Bluth's other underappreciated movie "All Dogs Go To Heaven".   

Though, while that movie is still considered an enjoyable classic, people familiar with Bluth see Anastasia as a Disney rip-off.

At the same time, people not familiar with Bluth, whether they like the movie or not, actually think it's from Disney. Which is equally insulting, since Bluth bares a bit of hatred for his previous colleagues. I think the last thing he wanted is for people to associate him with them, though, it wouldn't surprise me if he used the "musical formula" on purpose. Nobody likes a Disney knock-off, but the sad truth is; if it's not Disney, people'll most likely won't watch it. They don't care for these independent movies, they want something familiar, and Disney has the luck of apparently owning all the rights to produce 2D animated movies and musicals.

I never saw anyone handing them those rights, but apparently the audience decided this.

Of course people also argue about the way the story was told and even I can see that what Bluth did to Rasputin doesn't make sense. But making a movie about Anastasia alone doesn't make sense to begin with, yet many people have done it, not just Bluth.

Everyone knows her name and knows what she was, but truth to be told, Anastasia wasn't that important. I believe she was the least important character in the royal family.
There was one prince who was always ill and already got more attention than her. Just after the entire royal family got murdered, they believed there was a chance she escaped the horror because they never found any remains of the ignored girl. Many women then claimed to be Anastasia, just so they could get their hands on the family fortune and walk around with a title. Of course none of them got away with it.
But after they found the body of an elderly woman who had passed away in solitude years later, they started to suspect it was her and that she had survived after all, which would've made her a more interesting character if it were true. But then it all ended up to be false; Anastasia died years ago like all of her family. 

And that's the story of Anastasia. There isn't much else worth mentioning. Her sick brother would've made a more interesting movie.  
Apparently Anastasia's personality was quite interesting, but I've never seen anyone make a movie about her regular life. She was only good enough to play the main role in a story that ended up to be a lie, including in Bluth's movie, after the final DNA results were announced in 2008. Took them long enough.
 
Even so, saying the movie is bad is not true. Rasputin selling his soul just to kill one adolescent girl suffering from amnesia makes as much sense as our main character, Anja, actually surviving and singing songs in the snow about wanting to have a family. At least, now it does.  
The animation is great, the songs are great, even the story on its own is interesting.