Subject: Up there with the best animated Disney films to me.
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Posted on: 2014-03-07 00:12:00 UTC
However, most of that's on the basis of Let It Go.
I have not stopped singing that bleedin' song for a good month now. =]
I saw it with a friend a while back and for a Disney movie...I'm kinda impressed.
I really liked the two female leads in this film. Yeah they're pretty conventional to the Disney Princess archetype in terms of aesthetics and beauty buuuut--that's pretty much it. They're arguably the most alive female leads that I've ever seen in a Disney film. Their mannerisms, the way they move speak and act and grow as the story progresses...they felt genuine to me.
I'm not going to say that Frozen was a perfect Disney movie but it took me by surprise. I just wrote it off as Tangled with ice and more humor and it turned out to be the near complete opposite. I'm not going to spoil anyone who hasn't seen the movie but as far as fairy tales go, I think Frozen was a genuine step in the right direction of where Disney needs to take its princess tales for the 21st century.
What say you guys?
I myself was feeling sort of indifferent about the movie, especially since my little brothers had seen it first, and they are AWFUL about revealing spoilers. ("Hey! Hey! You want to know about Marshmallow? The reveal at the end is totally awesome! It caught all of us by surprise! It's awesome!" Etcetera.)
But yes, the movie is totally awesome. The reveal at the end is completely unexpected, and Marshmallow is really funny.
Those of you who have not seen Frozen, do so immediately.
Admittedly it had problems, but overall I thought it was good. Most of the songs were catchy and neat, the animation was gorgeous, and I really like how the climax turned out. There's also the fact that Elsa is a Disney heroine with major mental disabilities like depression and anxiety, which is freaking awesome because representation.
I just found out the the Duke of Weselton is voiced by the same actor who played Wash in Firefly.
I would have never guessed that on my own
And now I have an excellent mental image of the Duke of Weselton playing with plastic dinosaurs. Olaf would also be there, but the poor guy doesn't really have the waist articulation to bend down and move toys around the floor.
For the first time in forever, we have a Disney queen that's not evil
I will admit, like with Elementary, I had my doubts about Frozen. And then, like with Elementary, I saw it and I loved it.
The plot twist in there was actually so bloody brilliant, the characters were amusing, and the music was great.
I just wish "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman" and "Love Is an Open Door" had reprises, if you know what I mean.
I agree, Frozen's not perfect, but it's got good points that should be stressed, such as making a big deal about thinking over decisions like marriage and consent. Those were great bits.
I thought that Elsa was going evil. I don't mean that as a bad thing, and in fact when I was watching I thought something along the lines of "Wow. This is probably the most well-structured and natural descent into villainy that I've ever seen in a movie." I knew that if she did, it wouldn't be permanent, both due to Disney law and the culmination of her character arc, but I'm still convinced that if she hadn't hit Anna in the heart and nearly killed her, Elsa would've at least temporarily turned evil. All the steps she took getting to that point, from the personal tragedies, to her sudden decision to not only accept but embrace what makes her unique after a life of repressing herself out of fear, to the path that had been set up for her and she had reluctantly prepared for all her life seemingly crashing down, to her decision to discard her old life and build herself a new identity, all has the makings of a really good villain origin story. It could also be backstory for a future protagonist, but we already had protagonists in Anna and Kristoff. (Maybe Elsa will be the central character in the now-pretty-much-inevitable sequel. That should be fun.)
It was due to Anna's idealism, Elsa's still-intact feelings toward her sister, and an unexpected revelation coupled with the onrush of a second psychological break that made Elsa realize how dangerous she was, and that was a turning point in her character. It also could very easily not have happened.
Elsa was already experiencing some self-denial, claiming that the cold had never bothered her when in fact, the cold, in the form of her powers, was originally the source of many of her problems. To break that down, she willingly discards and avoids considering important information about her past to become more free from her old troubles in the future. There's a slow but final motion from something like that to making decisions that your older self might not have approved of. Evil's not just a switch; there's not just one event that'll suddenly set someone off. It creeps up on you, and you don't notice that you've suddenly gone against the ideals and morals of others because you've come to believe in something new. They say it's wrong? Maybe they see it that way, but they're also the same people who were giving you problems in the past, right? If it hadn't been for them, you'd be as happy as you are now back then. They made you live in fear, and you know that that's wrong. So, no, you're not wrong. They're wrong. And suddenly, you have a hard time turning back.
Plus, just listen to those lyrics. Like, actually listen to them. "My power flurries through the air into the ground"? "I am one with the wind and sky"? "No right, no wrong, no rules for me"? That is straight-up unimpeachable villainous posturing.
In fact, one could argue that Elsa is a villain who is redeemed, because she freezes Arendelle and runs away, and is so against fixing it that she freezes her sister's heart. Like I said, she is redeemed in the end, but one could argue she was villainous.
But nobody will, because all her actions make sense. She told to hide her power, so she runs away where she can hide. She's afraid of her powers to the point of believing she can't control them, and her fear of herself is misdirected at the world. It's important to note that it wasn't a specific targeted blast that froze Anna's heart, more of an icy wave directed outwards that happened to hit Anna.
So if, say, Elsa ran further when she realized what she'd done, would it have been villainous to leave the kingdom to freeze, or could it be justified the same way as her other actions? What is the event horizon? Is it actions or is it feelings? Because I don't know if her bitterness wouldn't have consumed her - when Anna tells her that Arendelle's in snow, the villainous thing to do would be to act indifferent. That would've been the point where her change became clear. But it didn't - cue amazing musical number. When actually faced with her actions, she couldn't act like her past didn't matter. I like to think she would have had the same reaction even if she had more time to decide everyone else was wrong, but I don't know. Maybe if Anna hadn't gotten there when she did...
I didn't really get a "villainous posturing" vibe off those lines, except for "no right no wrong no rules for me". (You could also argue "I'll rise like the break of dawn".)She's exalted at being able to express the side of herself she'd had to hide, and since she was showing off powerful elemental magic of course she feels in touch with nature. In the line "I am one with the wind and sky", it's about acceptance, feeling like she belongs. This is emphasized in the Spanish translation (which I have been listening to as well), where the line is "El viento me abrazará". That translates to "the wind will embrace me". (Note that I don't actually speak Spanish, I took a few years in school and found this translation on Tumblr. I really like the Spanish translation in general - "Conceal don't feel don't let them know/well now they know" is roughly "You must not open up your heart/well I opened it".)
Sorry, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. Specifically, falling in love with Loki made me think about what villainy means, and my sister and I are learning the First Time in Forever reprise, and I'm singing Elsa.
Oh, and I hope there's a good sequel. Although I don't think Disney will do the story I want. That story being an idea I saw on Tumblr involving a fire queen and a romance. With said fire queen. To quote Olaf - "The hot and cold are both so intense, put them together it just makes sense!" Although in my headcanon the fire queen melts Olaf because he annoys her. In general she and Elsa hate each other at first, but in the process of fighting some sort of mutual problem have to put their differences aside and learn to respect each other. If I could come up with a more coherent plot than that I'd write it and submit it to Disney.
"In fact, one could argue that Elsa is a villain who is redeemed, because she freezes Arendelle and runs away, and is so against fixing it that she freezes her sister's heart. "
Well, that's not exactly what happened. She didn't even know she'd frozen Arendelle until Anna came and told her. And she's not against fixing it - she just has absolutely no idea how. The freezing of Anna's heart is accidental, when she's become so full of emotional turmoil from thinking that, and I quote:
"I'm such a fool, I can't be free!
No escape from the storm inside of me!"
And up until the end of the reprise she's begging Anna to leave, because it's not safe for her. The freezing is completely accidental, an involuntary explosion in every direction due to Elsa's emotional stress.
Also, that thing with the fire queen is such a good idea, I hope it happens. Especially if they take the Tumblrian idea of having her be a hijab-wearing queen names Noor.
The animation was great, although some people like to nitpick a moment with Elsa's hair. I did love the music too, Let it Go is a fun song to learn on the piano.
As for the characterization, Anna and Elsa felt so alive. Most Disney princesses, in my opinion, are a bit difficult to relate to. Anna and Elsa's sibling relationship was beautiful.
Overall, it was a great Disney movie.
However, most of that's on the basis of Let It Go.
I have not stopped singing that bleedin' song for a good month now. =]
The best part, I think, was the 'act of true love'. I groaned when ******* decided that meant a true love's kiss, and was more than pleasantly surprised at the actual act. I mean, you can't get much more awesome than that- though I wouldn't be surprised if some people interpreted it... differently.
The music was awesome, the prince love interest made an interesting character, and the princesses themselves were very developed. And although the whole mess could have been avoided if the younger sister knew about the elder's ice powers (sorry, I've only seen it once and the names never stuck with me), the older sister had a legitimate excuse for her angst.
All in all, a great movie, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing it again.
Though the number with those adorable rock trolls was really disturbing when you think about it... Yech.
There are 2 things that I would have changed, though.
1) More world building and connecting Arendelle to Corona (from tangled)
2) Not have such sudden jumps from Anna to Elsa. It really threw me off
And there were no mentions of Arendelle at all. Everything seems to be set up in similar ways, but with several distinct differences in the way the two worlds operated. The latter might be due in part to the change in tone between the two movies, but I didn't see any hints that they were set in the same universe. Also, I'm not sure what establishing that would've done to serve the plot. One of the many things I enjoyed about Frozen was that pretty much everything that was brought up had a place in the story at some time or other, and that tightness of narrative might have been compromised if there were diversions from the story to connect it to another movie.
Not that I'm saying I'm opposed to it, mind you. Heck, if the two stories did take place in one universe, we can have a crossover sequel between those two, and maybe some other recent Disney animated movie added in for good measure and extra plot elements. Avengers-style crossover between a set of structurally similar but up-to-that-point unconnected movies? Count me in. I even came up with an admittedly-incomplete idea of what the impetus for their crossover would be, but I found out in a bit of background research that Flynn didn't actually have a mysterious between-scenes recovery after getting stabbed in the kidney and depowering the only thing in range that could heal him, and my video store must have given me a DVD that was missing a crucial scene for some inexplicable reason. That fills that plot hole, and restores a little of my good feeling toward Tangled's storytelling that the skip had made me lose, but it also casts into doubt every DVD that I've ever gotten from there. Was there actually an explanation for how Bruce Wayne got back to Gotham from Bane's prison in the Middle East in the Dark Knight Rises, or the depowered Superman got back from the North Pole in Superman II, and the DVDs just cut those out, too? I guess I'll never know, or at least never until I watch copies of those movies that I can guarantee are undamaged.
There goes my planned story featuring Flynn fighting back-to-back with his own Life Model Decoy-equivalent. I'm only half kidding, by the way. My story idea may have been really dumb.