I want my original "Happily Ever After" back.

My roommate has a thing for Cinderella. (I myself am more of a Little Mermaid girl, but to each her own.) I told her that I HATED Cinderella II, and she agreed, but said I should check out Cinderella III: A Twist in Time; she said it was much better.

So, at home sick today with unpleasant things coming out of me at all ends, I took her advice and watched it.

See, my beef with the first sequel, aside from the terrible 'plots' is that they just couldn't leave 'happily ever after' alone. In a society where divorce is the norm, apparently they don't want children to believe that you really can be happy. So they said, "Okay, so Cinderella and Prince Charming can stay married if they must, but let's douse the story with realism and give them marital discord." Sure, it was nothing serious like adultery or drug addiction or anything really nasty like that; just adjustment issues. But for crying out loud, can't we just let 5- and 6-year-olds believe in happy marriages? Do we have to cloud their dreams?

Cinderella III had a better story, true. But it seemed like a desperate attempt to undo the disastrous first sequel; just have them go back in time and undo everything, but have it wrap up just as nicely as the original. Roomiekins was right, it was better than the first sequel, but the damage has been done.

I wish I could go back in time now, to the time before the Disney corporation corruped a beautiful story. It depresses me to no end.