A Cinderella Story vs Sydney White

I was planning on doing this one during the hiatus before season 5 after next week, but given how pumped I am about the finale, I wanted to do this quickly now so I don't have as much stuff to do before it and I'll be doing more of these during the hiatus to pass the time! So anyway, bit obvious what the similarities are in this case, so let's start off with which has the better story!

Story

I'm gonna start with A Cinderella Story followed by Sydney White! Honestly, in terms of being like their source materials, neither are all that great, but the nostalgia goggles really affect me for the first one admittedly. But when getting down to it, the problems mostly are to do with the characters (we'll get to them in a moment) and the way it tells the story! It has many double standards as we're supposed to root for Sam despite being considered a loser while we have to root against Terry cos he's also a loser along with rooting for Austin despite being a jerk most of the time, the teachers not doing anything at the pep rally despite being bullying just to name a few. Also, the Cinderella references aren't really good when put into practice, especially with the glass slipper now being a mobile phone for obvious reasons, the romance being 'expanded' technically being cheating and the most obvious one, Austin not simply recognising Sam after the party despite it being painfully obvious it's her with the same build, voice and hair colour! And it doesn't really help that the implausibilites are ridiculous, especially with the subplot over Sam's dad's will when it would have made everything better if she just opened her freaking book after 8 years! It just feels lazy & incompetently made and rewatching this, I didn't find any of it funny, but rather annoying and tiring!
Unlike the first one, at the very least Sydney White has a positive message over embracing yourself rather than conforming to how society (or rather univerity in this case) expects you to be i.e be popular, good looking & materialistic, and the fact that Sydney is already established as being different and fitting in with the dorks is pretty nice to see while she's simultaneously improving their lives in some way. The romance was also pretty surprising as Tyler actually accepts Sydney for who she is & befriends the dorks (even if there's a load of ludicrous moments & the relationships between them don't really feel engaging). The references to Snow White are also better, including the poisoned apple creatively being a virus to shut down Sydney's computer before a huge presentation, a surprising reference to Heigh Ho (I won't say what, but it is funny) and the dorks/dwarves having similar personalities while being translated to modern day college students. There are problems though, mostly to do with the cliche plots, it's not emotionally engaging the way it portrays university, the pacing was off sometimes and quite a lot of the jokes aren't funny!

Although it does have many cliches & implausibilties (i.e. university being treated like high school & as a popularity contest. (Trust me, I'm a first year uni student & nobody cares about popularity), I definitely find Sydney White to be the better movie when it comes to the story! Point goes to Sydney White!
Winner: Sydney White

Well, given both have female protagonists, it's unavoidable I'll have to compare them! This is the Best Heroine!
Main Heroine

Now, these two I found surprisingly difficult to compare for different reasons! May as well start with Sam Montgomery, the Cinderella character that's bullied by both her stepfamily & peers in high school (although I don't get how people can bully someone as gorgeous as Hilary Duff & surely being a teen in high school with a job waitressing would actually be considered normal in the real world) She's shown to be smart given that she got into Princeton, she doesn't, but at times I found her to be pretty stupid given the implausibilities as mentioned in the story and at times can be a bitch. The biggest problem with her is that she's too perfect! There's no dimensionality to her even after she stands up to her stepfamily, she always looks pretty even when she's not trying and honestly, I didn't really care about her despite her relationship with her father & being the protagonist!
Sydney White (played by Amanda Bynes) on the other hand, while seemingly just being a generic cute perfect girl, she's actually shown to be a bit of a nerd & tomboy (while showing a girly side from time to time), given that she was raised by her father & his builder colleagues. Not only that, but I liked how she wasn't perfect like the other girls in her original sorority and how she managed to influence them to be themselves, doing the same for the dorks after she moves in along with her funny snarky moments and deciding that one of the dorks should run for president instead of herself and everyone playing an equal role in the campaign. But ironically, this makes her too perfect for me being different from the others, and that can be a problem!
Bit obvious who the winner is, point goes to Sydney!
Winner: Sydney

And given both source materials have handsome princes sweeping damsels off their feet, let's see if that translates into modern day! This is best Love Interest!
Love Interest

OK...there is one massive problem I have with him! While we're supposed to be rooting for him because he's the pretty boy love interest, loves poetry, wants to follow his own dreams and is played by Chad Michael Murray, he can actually come across as a jerk! For example, what does he first do after he discovers who Sam really is instead of being his dream girl? Rejects her & goes back to being a jerk (although he was pretty stupid given that Sam had the exact same voice, facial features & hair as his dream girl which an eye mask wouldn't hide) Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that Austin was technically cheating on Shelby with his 'Princeton Girl' even if it was through chatrooms & texting! Why are we meant to like him?!
Tyler Prince on the other hand, while being nothing like any guy in real life (i.e. serenading Sydney in a library), actually accepts Sydney & sticks by her up to the point that he befriends the dorks & declares that he's a dork himself during her big speech at the end! That's all I can really say about him in terms of positive qualities, and the only negative I can really think of is being too perfect as mentioned before! Austin though, I can't stand him despite Chad Michael Murray trying & that they attempt (but don't succeed) to make him likeable!
And to add insult to injury, I personally think Tyler is cuter! Point goes to Sydney White!
Winner: Tyler Prince

Given they're both set in modern times, therefore the villains have to fit into it! This is the Best Bitch!
Bitch

Well, in A Cinderella Story, there's actually 2 bitchy characters in the forms of Fiona & Shelby, but I'm only gonna go over Fiona in this section & Shelby in the side characters since Fiona is the main antagonist & Shelby only appears in a few scenes. Anyway, Fiona can be categorised as more like the comedic Wicked Stepmother (with a love for plastic surgery and in particular salmon) rather than genuinely threatening or menacing, but I have to admit, despite the character being so over the top, at times annoying & ridiculous, I couldn't help but laugh at her! This really is thanks to Jennifer Coolidge's performance as you can tell she just went all out for this movie & tried to have fun with it (like anything else she's in pretty much) However, she can still be infuriating like I mentioned before!
Rachel Witchburn on the other hand is the cliched materialistic blonde bitch character who tries to ruin Sydney's life as she changed what was going on in her conformist sorority and is more popular. Honestly, there's nothing really original about her, even if Sara Paxton tries her best (even if I think she's way too nice of an actress to play a character like this given her past roles i.e. Aquamarine & Darcy's Wild Life).
Just purely for entertainment purpose and while both of these characters get on my nerves, Fiona sticks with me more rather than Rachel as I remember little to nothing about her!
Winner: Fiona

And given that side characters play huge roles in both of these movies, I find it fair to also compare them! This is Best Side Characters!

Side Characters

One problem I have with the side characters in A Cinderella Story (and believe me when I say that there's many) is that none of them are given any development & are all cardboard cutouts of typical high school cliches like Shelby being the bitchy cheerleader, Carter is the best friend akin to Buttons from panto versions of Cinderella, Astrid is the goth chick, Austin's friends who are chauvenistic & annoying and the stepsisters Briana and Gabriella are irritating & try way too hard to be funny! The only side character given any form of development or screen time is Rhonda, the movie's Fairy Godmother & even at that point, she's pretty much reduced to the sassy black best friend stereotype, but at least she's not hateable or intolerable compared to all the high school cliches that don't exist in reality!
I'm not saying that the same can't be said in Sydney White because there are very similar cliches used, in particular with the dorks & the sorority girls, but unlike A Cinderella Story, the blonde sorority girls used are supposed to be parodying & making fun of this trope along with Dinky while initially appearing to be one, actually remains nice to Sydney after she gets kicked out of the sorority & even falls for the lead dork. Speaking of, all the dorks have their own unique traits and personalities similar to the Disney version, and are given their own pieces of development, including Jeremy learning to be less shy & stop using his dog puppet, Gurkin being more social and Lenny (easily the most adorable one out of all of them) even has a romance with Dinky!
Bit obvious who the winner is with the side characters! Point goes to Sydney White!
Winner: Sydney White.

And the overall winner is Sydney White!
Honestly, I'm really not a huge fan of either of these films looking back or the genre of fairy tales adapted into modern era, but I don't regret watching them per se as it was interesting to compare them and again, the nostalgia felt surprisingly nice despite my unpleasant experience watching these movies!

Mother

After the events of the last episode & the shock pregnancy bombshell, we now get to see the aftermath in Storybrooke as Lily & Maleficent have finally reunited in Storybrooke! However, given that Lily still has her darkness inside of her, she can't get over her vengeance for Snow & Charming & has inherited the ability to turn into a dragon, she ends up abandoning her mother while she wishes to move on & be happy! However, they make up as Lily promises to stay in Storybrooke for a week along with Emma and her parents reconciling (finally) after Mary Margaret is injured from Lily! And Rumple's health takes a turn for the worse as Isaac needs help finding the special ink to help alter the stories, and Isaac ends up enlisting Regina, who gets Lily's blood for the ink as it technically contains the darkness intended for the Saviour! However, Regina plans to do it in order to get rid of Zelena (who's in the asylum & isn't lying about the pregnancy) for good before she realizes that she's turning into her mother and decides not to as Robin is only a part of her happy ending. In the flashbacks, during Regina's Evil Queen days, it turns out Cora returned from Wonderland (thanks to the White Rabbit) during the anniversary of Daniel's death in order to make up for what she did & to help her daughter find love again, as she had encountered Tinker Bell who told her about the man with the lion tattoo as her soul-mate. But of course, Regina is suspicious of her real motives, and Cora ends up enlisting the Sheriff of Nottingham to pretend to be her soul-mate and Regina sees through it immediately, but it turns out the reason why was that she wanted Regina to have a child and she genuinely wanted her to be happy. However, Regina ends up taking a potion which causes her to be infertile, and sends her mother packing back to Wonderland, but not before some motherly advice: that the only person out of the way of her happiness is herself. However, in Storybrooke Isaac manages to get away with the ink & Rumple ends up making him write a new story in the book with a new title: Heroes and Villains!
Honestly, I was worried about this episode because it seemed pointless with the flashbacks. Although story-wise, yes, admittedly they were, but the message behind them along with paralleling what was going on with Regina in Storybrooke was what made them interesting. Seeing Cora again (despite her creepy interactions with the Sheriff of Nottingham and using him to pretend to be Regina's soulmate), trying to make up for what she did and being genuine this time round with the reason why she wanted Regina to have a child was also genuinely surprising, although it begs the question how did she revert back into the power obsessed villainess from season 2? Or maybe she was still lying then given how easily she can manipulate people including her daughter...And it's also sad to find out that Regina is infertile as she had believed her mother would use a pregnancy to gain power and the throne despite the revelation she wanted her to be happy, although it is funny for once that this episode had me rooting for Cora & Zelena as Regina in Storybrooke had pretty much turned into her mother despite trying so hard to do the complete opposite. Anyway, I loved the Storybrooke scenes as we got some pretty solid development from Regina, going back down into the slippery slope to evil again this time round with planning on getting rid of Zelena before realizing all she'd be doing is causing more pain for herself, despite Zelena's pregnancy with Robin's child getting in the way, although the way they resolved that was really interesting. Also, seeing Maleficent and Lily interact throughout was so so heartwarming as the former had finally decided to let go of her revenge and wanted to move on and have a happy life with her daughter despite being grown up now, while the latter was so intent on getting her revenge despite it being futile at the end of the day (and it was admittedly cool seeing Lily turn into a dragon & I loved seeing Maleficent being friendly with Mary Margaret and David!). And it was nice to finally see Emma reconcile with both her parents after constantly and harshly ignoring and not trusting them despite what they did to Lily as she's now reunited with her mother, although in a way it feels like Rumple trying to corrupt her ended up being a bit pointless if Regina figured out that Lily's blood would also be accepted to make the ink. And the situation Rumple's heart has definitely gotten more interesting now as it turns out Rumplestiltskin will technically die, but not the Dark One entity/curse as it'll takes over his body completely along with losing any ability to love! And the new title of the book...funny that the midseason finale 5 months ago was pretty much foreshadowing it!
If I had another problem other than the situation with Cora's characterisation/the flashbacks plot-wise (don't worry, they're only minor problems), it'd probably be that the ending was predictable given that we have a 2 hour finale to go and it'd obviously end in some sort of cliffhanger involving changing up everything! And we don't see Belle, so it's pretty annoying that we'll have to wait until the finale to see the fate of her relationship with Will after last week's heartbreaking scene with Rumple!
So overall...I just wanna go and give my mum a hug now! With nice parallels, very heart-warming moments and interesting development, this one is a more emotional chapter in the build-up for next week's finale (the problems I mentioned are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things in this compared to the other 'OK' episodes this season) along with some nice resolutions to the plots for this arc!
I am so so pumped for next week judging the promo as we'll get to see every character reverse roles in an alternate universe thanks to Isaac and Rumple as the villains play the heroes while the heroes play the villains, including Snow being The Evil Queen, Regina being a bandit and the one I'm most excited for, Rumple as a knight living a happy life with Belle (although I do question the show's official Twitter account changing it's name to Heroes and Villains)!

Interesting outfit Regina!

OK, kinda mean & random to kill him just for trespassing! Although bit of a random place for a wedding when they could've done one in the forest!

Nice to see you again Henry Sr!

Aww!

Nice to see you again Cora...

Very awkward...

I hate you Zelena...

HAHAHAHA!

I hate you Hook...

So they need Emma's blood in order to make the ink work...

Aww!

Aww, so sweet finally seeing mother & daughter reunite!

Nice mentioning the White Rabbit! And interesting Tink told her about her soulmate!

I'm so glad they're putting her right where she belongs!

Nice to see you again Severe Nurse! Seriously, never thought we'd see her again!

Oh God...

Regina, what are you doing?!

Eww, really creepy they're flirting...

Haha! 'It's a shame. I mean, writing a happy ending for The Evil Queen! Well, you've always been a favourite of mine! Very clear goals, plus totally damaged personality with a self destructive streak! A recipe for compelling And all the characters I've written for, you really do get screwed over the most!'

So he was planning on writing another book with that page!

Aww, bless her looking so happy at her daughter! And interesting she's the one who says they shouldn't get revenge, move on & be happy!

'Please! If you go, if you leave town you can't come back in! I can't leave at all! I'll crumble back into the dust I was before Gold revived me!' 'Wow, that's a bummer!' Wow, that's cold Lily! She's your mother who loves you!

Interesting she's seeing them of all people for help!

Strange Regina's acting all evil again!

Liking her style!

Aww, she looks pretty!

That's not Robin...

Nice seeing her apple tree again!

What the-?!

Ah, so that's why Rumple said bringing Lily back would accelerate his plan!

Lily, why are you channelling Vivian from Blood and Chocolate...?

Well, clearly turning into a dragon is genetic!

Haha!

Haha! 'Oh, visitors! I'll put the kettle on!'

Regina, what are you doing...?

Meh, don't care! Moving on!

WHAT ARE YOU DOING, MALEFICENT?!

Eek, that's gotta hurt!

Aww! About time they reconciled!

AWW!

Aww!

'I thought that you'd be this scary dragon bitch and we'd go and get our revenge, you know, blasting those two who did us wrong. But you're just...this real person. You're so freaking open. It kills me! 'But why does it kill you? I don't understand, what is it?' 'Because you want a relationship. A future! And anyone who's ever wanted that with me just-it's never worked out. I've always let them down. I destroy everything that I touch. That darkness they put in me! Serious business!' Pretty sad when getting down to it with Lily!

AWW!

OK, she may be insane, crazy, psychotic, and a murdering sociopath, but she's still your sister and is pregnant (curse my morality that pregnant women should never be harmed)!

'I never knew our mother! But I imagine I'm getting to know her right now.' 'Is that so?' 'She tossed me in a basket, sent me to Oz! She gave up a baby without even blinking an eye! And look at you now! You are EXACTLY like her!' For once she's got a point...

Pretty sad that she's infertile!

'I wanted you to have a child for your own sake! If I wanted to take your power, I'd find a much more direct way. Now please take one last piece of motherly advice. I hope you learn what's taken me a lifetime to

realize about myself: The only one standing in the way of your happiness is you.' Rather wise words, Cora!

'Don't get me wrong, Greenie, Robin isn't my happy ending. My happy ending is finally feeling at home with the world. And Robin is just a part of that world. A world that you're going to be forced to watch  from a distance! With the most restrictive visitation rights in history! See you at the next ultrasound! Interesting way of resolving this sisterly feud!

Oh God...

Interesting title!