"Even the smallest person can make a big difference."
Barbie Presents Thumbelina is a Barbie direct-to-video movie released in 2009, preceded by Barbie in A Christmas Carol and followed by Barbie and the Three Musketeers.
Barbie takes a class of kindergartners to plant trees in a park and, when one girl is teased for her tree being smaller, tells the story of the Twillerbee Thumbelina and her friends who are waiting for the Twillerbabies to be born from flowers. However, after being accidentally kidnapped, they learn their field will be turned into a factory. Enlisting the help of Makena, daughter of the people planning to build the factory, they try to stop it and save the Twillerbabies.
Includes examples of:
- Adaptational Nationality: The characters and story were originally from Denmark, in this version it's set in the USA or Canada.
- Green Aesop: The lesson of this movie is that even little people (both literally with the Twillerbees and figuratively with the young girl Makena) can help the environment.
- Green Thumb: The Twillerbees have the power to make plants grow.
- Hidden Elf Village: The tiny Twillerbee village is hidden in a field of flowers.
- In Name Only: There's a protagonist named Thumbelina and that's where the similarities to the original source material end.
- Not Quite Flight: Thumbelina creates wings for herself, Janessa, and Chrysella that enable them to glide.
- Odd Name Out: All other Barbie movies are Barbie as or Barbie in, while this is Barbie presents. It makes sense as this is the only Barbie movie where she did not play the main character.
- Our Fairies Are Different: The Twillerbees are small and have the power to make plants grow, but they don't have wings.
- The Power of Friendship: Thumbelina explains to Makenna that Twillerbees take friendship very seriously. Learning that Thumbelina considers her a friend leads to Makenna changing her mind about showing her off to Violet, and start taking saving the flower field more seriously.
- Spoiled Brat: Makenna starts out as one, although most of this behaviour comes from wanting to be able to impress her other rich "friends". Thumbelina gets the idea of teaming up with Makenna to save her home when she overhears Makenna's father saying he'll give her anything she wants.
Even the smallest person can make a big difference.
— Barbie
