There's a star that's right inside you
So come on and let it out
Find out what you're about and just shout
"Here I am!"
So come on and let it out
Find out what you're about and just shout
"Here I am!"
Barbie as the Princess and the Popstar (Or Barbie: The Princess and the Popstar) is a direct-to-DVD Barbie film that was released in fall 2012. It's the second Barbie adaptation of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, following Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper. In the Barbie filmography, it is preceded by Barbie in a Mermaid Tale 2 and followed by Barbie in the Pink Shoes.
Tori, princess of the kingdom of Meribella, dreams of becoming a popstar and leaving her restrictive lifestyle, while Keira, Tori's idol, has lost her love for songwriting due to her busy schedule. The two decide to switch lives and see if the grass truly is greener on the other side.
This movie contains examples of:
- A Dog Ate My Homework: Keira, while impersonating Tori, affirms that Vanessa has eat her speech when Amelia ask if it is finished.
- Big Bad: Seymour Cryder, Keira's manager who plots to steal Meribella's jeweled gardenia plant in a bid to make himself a star again.
- Breakfast in Bed: During the song "To Be a Princess", Tori explains that being a princess means having "your breakfast served in bed".
- Cassandra Truth: Amelia didn't believe Keira wasn't Tori.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Keira's microphone and Tori's hairbrush help them capture Cryder.
- The diamonds Tori and Keira put in their necklaces serve as a way to revive the diamond gardenia after Cryder steals it.
- Continuity Nod: Many to the previous Princess and the Pauper-Barbie adaptation. For instance, Keira is an anagram of Erika, and the song "To Be a Princess" shows up as "To Be a Princess/To Be a Popstar".
- Keira and Tori do the Queen of the Waves dance in the "bloopers".
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: While Vanessa is trying to get Keira's attention by barking at a wall, at first, Keira thinks she's crazy, but then it's revealed the "wall" is actually a door to a secret passage which leads out of the castle.
- Damsel in Distress: The trope is referenced by William when he knocks out Cryder's assistant, believing he saved "damsels in distress" Tori and Keira. While it did help them, they weren't all that distressed to begin with.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The 'Drought' is clearly a stand-in for the recent economic downturn.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Seymour Cryder is offended every time someone mentions his first name.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: The concert outfits in the finale performance and all of Keira's outfits.
- Formal Full Array of Cutlery: Keira, while impersonating Tori, is embarrassed when she does not know which spoon to choose to eat ice-cream. Fortunately, Tori's pet dog, of all people, shows Keira the proper one with her paw.note
- Former Child Star: Cryder, and he's quite bitter about it (Due to voice breaking, he had to quit at 14).
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Tori's room is filled with these even though she's 17.
- Gold Digger: Cryder's first tactic, to resurrect his career by seducing the duchess Amelia. She appreciate it, but Cryder gives up and decide to steal the diamonds tree inside.
- Hairpin Lockpick: Keira tries it, but...Keira: I don't understand, this always works in movies.
- I Just Want to Be You: The two girls think this of each other, while singing "I wish I had her life."
- I'm Your Biggest Fan: Tori's exact words when she met Keira.
- In Name Only: The "bloopers" actually consist of assorted scenes of the characters dancing, rather than the Hilarious Outtakes one would expect.
- Instant Costume Change: Tori and Keira can change each other's hair and clothes with the former's hairbrush and the latter's microphone, respectively.
- "I Want" Song: "I Wish I Had Her Life". Doubles as a Distant Duet.
- Jade-Colored Glasses: Keira.
- Love Triangle: Averted, Liam just asks the girls which one likes him after he finds out. It's Keira.
- Magitek: Keira's Outfit Microphone and Tori's Hairchanging Hairbrush are both programmable.
- Nice Character, Mean Actor: Seymour Cryder acts like a Nice Guy around celebrities, but when he's alone his true colors surface.
- Noodle Incident: Before Keira, Cryder managed an act called "Uncle Herman and his talking pig"; apparently, the pig owes him forty bucks.
- No Song for the Wicked: Played straight with Seymour Cryder, but taken further as Tori and Keira are the only singers in the film.
- Pimped-Out Dress: While every dress worn by Tori and Keira could count, the finale dresses really take it above and beyond.
- Politically-Active Princess: At first Tori was just a Sheltered Aristocrat who found the simple fact to write a speech boring. When the story end, not only it is written, but she have started to worry about the drought experienced by Meribella and took some decisions to overcome it.
- The Prankster: Tori, who always do practical jokes (especially at her aunt's expense) at the beginning of the story to stave off boredom. She eventually grows out of the phase at the end of the story.
- Prince and Pauper: Except here, the pauper is also rich and famous, but for different reasons.
- Rewatch Bonus: Viewers will know upon later viewings that Vanessa is not being crazy as Keira thought when she repeatedly barks at one of the walls in Tori's room; the "wall" is actually a door leading to a secret passage for Keira to escape.
- Running Gag: "There's a camera, and a camera, 'nother camera, it's a camera!"
- Sheltered Aristocrat: It's a shock for Tori when she discovers how many of her compatriots are in financial distress.
- Talking Animal: Vanessa and Riff, but only when humans are not present. This is lampshaded when Keira discovers the wall Vanessa was barking at turns out to be a secret door to a passageway that leads out of the castle.
- Token Minority: Keira's organizer Nora is Asian (possibly Japanese, as she asks if Keira wants the curtains at one of her concerts to be Royal Purple or Tokyo Violet).
- Unplugged Version: How Tori's cover of "Here I Am" starts off.
- You Are Grounded!: Duchess Amelia reaction when Tori has made mischief.
