"The power to change the world has been inside you all along."
Barbie in Princess Power is a Barbie movie released in March 2015. It is preceded by Barbie and the Secret Door and followed by Barbie In Rock N Royals.
Barbie stars as Kara, a modern-day princess with a relatively everyday life who wishes she could do more to help her kingdom. After being kissed by a magical butterfly, Kara gains super powers and becomes the superheroine Super Sparkle, saving the day from criminals and natural disasters.
But Kara's jealous cousin Corinne catches the butterfly and transforms into Dark Sparkle, her rival. Intent on showing each other up, they must put aside their differences when the kingdom's real enemy attacks.
The trailer can be seen here
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This movie contains examples of:
- Ageless Birthday Episode: Kara has a birthday party during the film with no mention of her age.
- Animal Superheroes: Newton (the dog), Parker (the cat), and Bruce (the frog) end up as superheroes as well.
- Animal-Themed Superbeing: Madison and Makalya's costumes both have butterfly motifs, as a butterfly was relevant to the plot.
- Award-Bait Song: "Soaring".
- Butt-Monkey: Wes Rivers always spills his coffee on himself.
- Cat Up a Tree: Kara discovers she can fly while she was trying to rescue Parker, her cat stuck in a tree.
- Chekhov's Volcano: During her test flight, Kara flies into a dormant volcano. Guess what von Ravendale decides to set off during the climax? For bonus points, it's literally called Mount Dormant.
- Clark Kenting: As Super Sparkle, Kara wears a Domino Mask to hide her identity.
- Dark Action Girl: Dark Sparkle is Super Sparkle's rival.
- Energy Ball: As Super Sparkle, Kara can fire energy blasts out of her hands.
- Everything's Better with Sparkles: Their super names have "sparkle", and their suits are practically covered with glitter.
- Flying Firepower: Super Sparkle can fly, has super strength, and can fire energy blasts out of her hands. She also leaves an energy trail when flying.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Madison and Makalya are not only this, they are geeks, and quite aware about super hero tropes.
- Giving Them the Strip: At the climax, Super Sparkle flies at the Baron but he snatches her by her cape. She unbuckles the cape to free herself and flies away, leaving the cape in the Baron's hand. The Baron growls with fury then incinerates the cape.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Kara's cousin Corinne is highly jealous of her royal status and later superhero status, becoming Dark Sparkle to try and show her up.
- Heart Beatdown: Kara's energy blasts are pink and sparkly, and she forms them in the shape of a heart at one point.
- Heel–Face Turn: Corrine/Dark Sparkle performs one to help Kara/Super Sparkle defeat the Baron.
- It's All About Me: Corinne.
- Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: In the climax.
- Magical Girl: One of the few western examples, although Princess Kara/Super Sparkle is really more of a "magical comic book superhero".
- Mythology Gag: As is common in Barbie movies, a name used in a past movie crops up. Corrine was also the name of Barbie's character in Barbie and the Three Musketeers.
- No-Respect Guy: Wes Rivers. The cops ignore his questions and walk off.
- Obviously Evil: With a name like Baron von Ravendale, is there any doubt he's evil?
- Reconstruction: After numerous deconstructions (both in comics and in various adaptations), this movie marks a return to the more whimsical, hopeful, and idealistic superhero stories.note
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Kara wanted to do more than just smile and wave.
- Shout-Out: To many other super heroes:
- Like Supergirl, Kara is a blond girl, a Flying Brick, and even shares her name with Supergirl. She lacks the laser-beam eyes and arctic breath though, except in the Be Super series of shorts where Super Sparkle is actually Barbie herself. Her powers are all identical to a Kryptonian there.
- Plus, Kara discovers halfway through the story that There Is Another, who turns out to be her cousin. Then, a Big Bad shows up, with an identical set of powers, in General Zod fashion.
- Like Mary Marvel, Kara wears a Mini Dress Of Power and has two thunder bolts as main symbols.
- She gets her powers after being kissed by a magic butterfly, the girly version of being bitten by a spider. Makalya and Madison actually ask her if she was bitten by a radioactive bug. Kara experiences senses sickness right after like in the Spider-Man movie, then does the typical "shoot web" gesture when she tries to verify if she has secondary powers.
- Super Sparkle is a princess and wears bracelets, although in her case, they're just decorative.
- The energy blasts Kara fires out of her hands are similar to Ms. Marvel.
- Dark Sparkle first comes out as an Evil Counterpart at first, complete with an identical but darker costume, à la Professor Zoom.
- Wes Rivers (Ken's role) share characteristics with four characters and comes out as a male Lois Lane or Iris West, a Clark Kent without powers and a pre-transformation Peter Parker. He's a journalist like all four (although he has a blog, rather than working for the printed media), wear glasses like the last two, and apparently is a good photographer like Peter (though with his cellphone). Like Lois he's initially fascinated by the superheroic side of the main character and is often the first on the locations of her exploits.
- Kara's two ladies in waiting transform her room into a secret lair, and like Alfred in Batman are her first Secret-Keeper.
- Like in the first movie of Superman (1978), Super Sparkle in the Be Super shorts stop or reverse earth rotation to stop time or traveling back in.
- In the movie itself, Super Sparkle rescues a construction worker which results in a shout-out to a scene in the above mentioned movie:
Super Sparkle: I've got you.Construction Worker: You've got me? Who's got you?
- Like Supergirl, Kara is a blond girl, a Flying Brick, and even shares her name with Supergirl. She lacks the laser-beam eyes and arctic breath though, except in the Be Super
- Super-Empowering: The magic butterfly gave both Kara and Corinne their powers.
- Superhero: Kara becomes the crime-fighting Super Sparkle.
- Superheroes Wear Capes: And these ones flare out to fly.
- Super-Strength: One of the superpowers Kara and Corinne gain is super strength.
- Team Pet: Kara has Parker, a cat and Newton, a dog, while the Baron has a frog, Bruce.
- The Kids Are American: Kara, Corinne, Gabby and Zooey all have American/Canadian accents, despite Kristoff and Karina being English.
The power to change the world has been inside you all along.
— Barbie
