YMMV / Cinderella III: A Twist in Time

• Adorkable: Anastasia acts awkward when speaking to Prince Charming, occasionally gets excited, and is a bit of a klutz.
• Crazy Is Cool: Prince Charming jumping out a window after his father forbids him to "take another step down these stairs". Charming in general seems like a completely different character than his previous depiction, and the fans love him for it.
• Crosses the Line Twice: When Anastasia first presents the magic wand to her mother and sister.
  Lady Tremaine: A stick?
  Drizella: (gleefully) Ooh! Let's beat her with it!
• Even Better Sequel: This movie addresses many of the first movie's problems, like Prince Charming being a Flat Character, Cinderella being a Damsel in Distress, and the "Whoever Fits the Glass Slipper" plot point. And it does all of this while still keeping within the confines of a fairy tale. The second film was a poorly-disguised Failed Pilot Episode, while this was made with the intent of being a feature-length film, and thus had higher production values. But even though it had more time to shine, it's still considered a far better movie.
• Evil Is Cool: Lady Tremaine - with a magic wand. She was already scary when she didn't have it, but once she did...
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Played with (for laughs?) when Drizella messes with the Fairy Godmother's wand by changing her clothing. She gives herself giant jewelry, big hair and a giant dress, all in clashing colors.
• Fans Prefer the New Her: A minor case — people seem to prefer the design of Cinderella's new wedding gown at the end of the film as compared to the original design.
• Harsher in Hindsight: If you thought Lady Tremaine was bad here, wait until you learn what she tried to do to Cinderella in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Also in that canon, Anastasia crosses the Moral Event Horizon at the same time as her mother and sister.
• Jerkass Woobie: Anastasia and Drizella are a prime example of this trope. After Cinderella leaves, they're reduced to servants by their mother in the same manner as Cinderella. They're supposed to deserve it because they bullied Cinderella, but Anastasia's plot proves the girls are only the way they are now because they've never been taught any better and their mother is the only role model they've ever had. And Lady Tremaine's indiscriminate evil finally manifests when she tries to attack Anastasia during the film's climax, for having the audacity to help Cinderella, which forces Cinders herself to step in to protect her.
• Memetic Mutation: The moment in which Prince Charming jumps out a window◊ has become quite the favorite.
• Moral Event Horizon: She may or may not have already crossed the MEH by that point (see the YMMV page for the original classic for her earliest possible MEH), but Lady Tremaine definitely cements it in this film when she poofs Cinderella in a twisted pumpkin carriage with Lucifer as its human driver, and attempts to get Lucifer to kill Cinderella. Especially heinous because up until that point, she was satisfied with just making Cinderella's life a living hell. She also has Anastasia posing as Cinderella to fool the prince. If anyone doesn't know, this is rape by deception (or at least it would be if this weren't a Disney movie)... and worse, she tries to use one of her own flesh and blood daughters for such shit, and right when Anastasia is becoming more and more sympathetic! And when Anastasia finally refuses to marry the Prince in front of an astonished Cinderella, Lady Tremaine crosses the MEH once again and resorts to using force (I.E the wand) on everyone trying to stop her from seizing the kingdom, even going as far as trying to attack Anastasia (and later both her and Cinderella when she tries to protect Anastasia).
• Narm Charm: Lady Tremaine chanting, "Bibbidi, bobbidi, boo!" to kick off the time-reversing spell. And then the spell not firing, causing her to cast an odd look at the wand and give it a few irritated flicks. You can practically hear her thinking "What's wrong with this thing?".
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: A lot of the characters of the first movie that were, to various extents, disliked for being too bland or too unsympathetic are given Character Development here, making the fans warm up to them.
  • Anastasia's Character Development that began in Cinderella 2 continues here, and she performs a Heel–Face Turn at the end and repairs her strained relationship with Cinderella and moves into the palace with her.
  • Prince Charming is often criticized for being one of the blandest Disney Princes, as he's basically a Satellite Love Interest in the first movie. In this sequel, he receives character development and more screen time, shows that he lives up to his name by being polite and kind as possible, and performs several awesome stunts.
  • Not to mention the King, to some degree. The sequel makes him more fleshed out, not limiting him to his Hair-Trigger Temper, turning him into a positive role model for Anastasia. Especially when he tells Anastasia about his own wife, and how they loved each other even though she was an... unconventional queen.
  • Cinderella was never completely a scrappy but she was an unpopular Disney Princess, alongside Aurora and Snow White. While iconic, all three of them have been hit hard by Hype Backlash over the decades and are largely seen as "boring" and "bland" compared to future princesses. This movie however gave Cinderella more character depth than the original film. That, combined with her athletic moments, helped many people like Cinderella more.
• Special Effect Failure: Since the animators lacked the money for a Transformation Sequence as detailed as that from the first movie, any scene in which the Fairy Godmother changes someone's outfit basically consists of one character model fading into another.
• Spoiled by the Format: Prince Charming rescues Cinderella from being sent far away and they're on their way to their wedding... only there's twenty minutes left in the movie.^note Albeit half of that is the closing credits.
• Squick: Drizella spits a whole mouthful of chewed-up food… ALL OVER ANASTASIA’S FACE.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Fans generally agree that the third film is a big improvement over the second due to having a single cohesive plot (instead of 3 unconnected vignettes) that goes in a different direction, and that it on the whole is one of the better Direct-to-DVD Disney sequels.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: They could've easily integrated the Baker from II into the plot (especially in the whole food fight scene), with Anastasia actually realizing she's in love with him and not Charming; instead he's relegated to a mere picture in the end credits.

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