After Don Bluth left Disney and set off to work doing his own animation, one of the movies he made was a retelling of the story of Russia's last imperial family. Anastasia came out in 1997 and was a pretty good success in the box office. Part of this may have been because the studio wanted a typical princess movie. While widely different from the historical figure she's based on, Bluth's Anya makes a journey to discover herself. Because the film was requested to be so similar to the hits Disney was churning out, we can see a lot of the same problems with it as far as common sense goes.

I absolutely love this movie. From the memorable music to the incredible animation, it really captured my imagination. It was one of the things that led me to research the real (and upsetting) story of the imperial family and the political problems of the day. While it is wildly different from reality, sometimes it's nice to think that Anya made it out of the house of special purposes and found someone to love. Even though I love this movie and will let the problems pass in favor of nostalgia and appreciation for the music, it's not hard to find parts of the movie that don't make sense. A lot of liberties were taken in order to bring this story to life. Let's dive in and take a look at a few of them!

25 When Did The Story Take Place?

The film starts out with some narration from Grandma about the world that Anastasia grew up in. She lived in lavish homes and could eat more in a day than some people would see in a week. That's where the first mistake is made. In the narration, Grandma says that the party was held in 1916. Anya is portrayed as an eight year old. Anyone who has done any kind of looking around would know that Anastasia was actually born in 1901, making her fifteen instead of eight.

24 When Did He Come Up With The Plan?

You know that if a character has made any dealing with the man downstairs it's a bad thing. But other forms of media have shown us that he doesn't always do his own dirty work, occasionally sending one of his people to collect souls.

Rasputin's deal changed everything.

So that's why we have to wonder about Rasputin's deal. This may be a detail for nitpickers, but it's still kind of fun to think about. How he got in contact with a bad spirit and then decided to make the deal is reading between the lines.

23 Why Was He Included?

Anastasia has its fantastical elements, and most of those make sense within the confines that we're given. Rasputin has access to magic bats? Sure, we'll go for it. But Bartok is one of the confusing elements. It doesn't seem that he is magically able to talk, he just is able. No other animal in the movie is capable of human speech, not technically even the female bat who greets him at the end of the movie. Why was he given this ability? By whom? And where did that accent come from, anyway?

22 What About The War?

Granted again that this movie does not accurately depict the historical record, you have to give it a little leeway. The problem here is one little fact: It doesn't reflect one of the biggest issues that brought the downfall of the Romanov line: the Great War.

Anastasia seems to live in a world without a World War 1.

Russia's involvement dropped morale, resources and fanned the flames of revolution. Travelling to different countries should have been much harder.There should also have been more areas affected by war and its horrors. Instead, we get fairly easy travel and pretty countryside.

21 What's In A Name?

Here's another one for your nitpicky friends who have done as much research into this as I have over the years. Anastasia is typically referred to as a princess. By all means as far as movies go, she is. However, due to Russia's patriarchy, Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia, and Marie were technically duchesses, not princesses. They weren't directly in line for the throne, and couldn't be because they weren't men. When Alexi was finally born, All of Russia was happy to finally have an heir. Too bad he had hemophilia and was seen as too fragile to rule.

20 How Convenient Is That?

One of the biggest movie coincidences in the whole situation is that Grandma and Anastasia were able to escape using a very particular method (i.e, the servant's quarters) so that 10 years later when they were looking for Anastasia, Grandma would be able to definitively say who was lying.

Anastasia's room had a way out during the revolution.

Makes you wonder why servant's quarters were even put in a room where Anastasia could be hanging around. The nobility had not been nor was not exactly friendly to the lower classes.

19 Why So Mean?

Brief history on Rasputin: he was a man who had some really crazy happenings that made people have full faith in him as a holy man. Being both desperate and devout, the Czarina Alexandria called on him to utilize his influence to heal her son Alexi. Alexi had hemophilia, a disease that made him very fragile. Being that his main attention went to Alexi, it's interesting that he would be the villain for the movie, since they didn't do a lot in life.

18 Anastasia, Who?

If an alien race ever watched our movies and television shows (particularly the dramas I love so much), they might think that amnesia is quite popular. In most media, amnesia is an easily made story element that drives the plot and explains plot holes. We all know that amnesia doesn't actually work like that. Has amnesia become a tool for lazy writers who want to get two characters together without equal footing? If you ask me, yes... yes it is.

17 How Far Did They Have To Go?

For years I wondered if I had missed anything with Anya's hair. In one scene it was short and she had the dress Dimitri bought her, and in the next she was all of a sudden able to make a long ponytail and had a different dress. I wondered if it could have been a mistake with the dress, but as I got older, I rationalized it was to show the passage of time. But my question is this: how much time actually passed? It wasn't like they were going from Russia to France...

16 Where Did He Come From?

Fitting in with the rest of the would-be Disney princesses meant that Anya would need some sort of animal sidekick. Anya wouldn't have to go too much time before she managed to get one though, as before "Journey To The Past," Pooka showed up and adopted Anya as his owner.

Pooka came out of nowhere and adopted Anya.

But where did he come from? What breed is he? How does he have dramatic timing? Pooka is such an integral character that it's hard to not want some back story.

15 Did She Not Know Her Own History?

The whole starting for the movie is an explanation that the lower classes did not like the upper class and revolted. It didn't look like things had gotten much better at the beginning of the film. What makes anyone think that she would be welcomed back on the throne at the end of the movie? Women weren't even able to rule on their own. Was the plan to stay in Paris? Chances are good that if she ever returned to Russia, the secret police might try to stop her from gaining followers.

14 Why Do We Root For Him?

Bartok is one of the characters who had no place in the real story of the Romanov family. He in himself doesn't make sense because he can speak while Pooka can't. But that's not the point we're looking at here. Instead, you have to ask yourself, why is Bartok so likeable? He has a spinoff movie, but I don't think he deserves it. Not only is he Rasputin's henchman the entire time, at the end he leaves Rasputin in a sense of self-preservation. It's not a turn to the good side. He discredits his species.

13 Who Decided That?

During the insanely long time that our trio is on the steamer, their sleeping arrangements are as follows: Dimitri gets the floor, Anya gets the main bed and Vlad gets the top bunk. One of the sight gags that I never understood was that at one point, the excessive weight Vlad puts on the bed causes it to dip until it's right above Anya's head.

How did Vlad not crush Anya?

It doesn't make any sense to keep Anya in a spot where she could be injured just to keep her from doing a little climbing.

12 What Kind Of Glue Was On The Box?

Speaking of the steamer, that's the location where we first see the music box Anastasia got from Grandma after her memory loss. With it falling out of Dimitri's bag as easily as it does, it's a wonder that it hasn't been lost at all yet. The music box is supposed to be their surefire way to capture Grandma's attention and sell her their story. What's more, that box must have been sealed pretty tight to resist opening with all of their travels.

11 Why So Convenient?

What do they teach you at those orphanages is right, Dimitri. One of the first times Anya and Dimitri start seeing eye to eye is when they have to work together to uncouple their car from the rest of a train before it crashes. As luck would have it, they find some TNT and use it to escape. But why was it there? This was clearly a passenger train, so it couldn't have been heading for mines of any kind. It's almost as if the entire thing was just a story.

10 Why Be Alone?

Historically speaking, Grandma never went to Paris. She left Russia and went to London, to be with some of her other family. She knew going back to her homeland would lead to personal disaster (and there were a lot of sticky things that kept at the very least Alexandra and the children from joining her).

Why was Grandma in Paris?

However, in the movie she was in France, living alone and heartbroken. She was the kind of woman to face the hard situations. Living away from family makes it feel like she was running away.

9 How Did They Time It Right?

Sophie and Vlad were in love  and had kept up enough contact that they were able to discuss bringing a girl to meet Grandma. (Which, as I'm writing this makes me wonder if Sophie was in on this little con...) As they were on the road travelling, it must have been miracle timing to have correspondence along the way. Back in the mid 1900s, mail couldn't go very fast. For Sophie to know where to send it was a miracle as well.

8 Is Paris Really The Key?

One of the biggest aspects of a princess movie is the music. I LOVE the music in this movie, and it has never bothered me when people break out into song in movies and TV shows. One thing that does bother me now, though, is the language barrier. Given that Anya grew up in an orphanage (and forgot literally everything, especially languages she may have learned as a duchess) she should have only understood Russian. Conversely, the French who joined in song should only really have been able to understand French. Perhaps music is more powerful than language?

7 How Do They Afford It?

Speaking of Paris, it must have been a miracle that they got that far. We know for a fact that they were stowaways on the train; Vlad had forged their papers in the wrong ink. But there's nothing suggesting that they had sneaked onto the boat.

Where did Dimitri's money come from?

Besides that, boat passage was more expensive than train tickets. So where on earth did Dimitri and Vlad get the money for this little adventure? Surely that's worth a story. Or perhaps, looking at Solo, maybe it's not.

6 Why Include Another Version?

Okay, though the soundtrack isn't technically part of the movie, I'm including it. My sister got the CD when it came out, and we listened to it a lot. I knew the words for all of the songs except one: it was the singer Thalia's version of "Journey To The Past." While an amazing version of the song (it was in Spanish), if you look at the CD contextually, that is the one that doesn't fit. Our heroes never went through Spain nor spoke Spanish. It was cool for the viewers, but out of the ordinary for the characters.