Frozen (Disney film)

I agree that Elsa being changed from villain to Deuteragonist was a really good call. For one, it's the first time -in FOREVERRRRR- that we actually get a legitimately good queen from Disney. Elsa and Anna also are just far more interesting characters because of the changes to the film.

However, the male characters suffer in this film because of the changes. Kristoff comes off as a retread of Flynn Rider and Prince Hans becomes a confusing sociopath. I mean, they aren't awful or even bad characters; they're just nowhere near as awesome as the sisters.

That said, I'm fine with how the movie turned out. It's still one of my favorite movies even with its flaws, overplayed songs, polarizing reception, and obvious rewrites.

I remember seeing Elsa listed in Draco in Leather Pants, despite her having a lot of her good qualities overshadowing her bad qualities. She's not a villain, so lets not paint her as one.

So how 'bout that Frozen musical?

I feel like Elsa would be popular even if she was the villain of the movie.

I heard it was pretty good. I'm worried about how well it's gonna sell though.

edited 24th Sep '17 1:13:21 PM by deuteragonist

Wait, there were people considering Elsa had a Draco in Leather Pants treatment? Isn't that reserved for characters who are unambiguously villains? The most villainous act Elsa is seen doing in the film is that psychotic smirk when fighting the Weselton guards, and a 21-year old girl trying to kill well-trained guards who are actively trying to kill her is not what I would call being a villain.
Unless that was referring to the rewrite her character underwent, but that is a different trope altogether.

edited 25th Sep '17 1:32:05 AM by C105

Yes, yes they were. Also, to be fair, the guards were trying to murder her over something she had no control over at that point. Can you blame her for wanting revenge?

Sorry if that was not clear but, no, I don't consider that to be villainous at all (maybe a few seconds of Then Let Me Be Evil at worst). There are plenty of tropes that can be applied to Elsa, but Draco in Leather Pants seems to require a heavy dose of Moral Myopia.

It makes even less sense when you look at Elsa's character page, which continuously talks about how much of a kindhearted Nice Girl she is.

edited 25th Sep '17 9:11:40 AM by deuteragonist

I hope does Frozen musical doesn't become like Hamilton in terms of how hard it is to get a ticket.

I'm disappointed that the musical doesn't take more inspiration from the pre-development of Frozen though. I'm really big on prerelease Frozen and I was hoping for something like "Life's Too Short (reprise)" to appear in the musical. I know the other Disney musicals reused developmental elements.

edited 29th Sep '17 6:03:14 PM by Pichu-kun

"The Frozen musical tickets can be ordered starting todayAAAAAND we sold out for the entire 20-year run."

"As an apology, have some more Lion King!"^* Real talk the Lion King musical is amazing, I just wish I was old enough to remember more of it when my family went to see it.

edited 30th Sep '17 12:26:45 PM by TheAirman

I had hoped that Frozen the Musical might play with some of the concepts and fix some of the... issues the plot has. I've said it before and I'll say it again; Frozen is a good first draft. It needed more development because some of its ideas are half baked. Kriftoff barely has a character, Hans is a confusing mess because they realized Elsa didn't work as a villain anymore which meant they needed another direct villain instead of, you know, complex situiations with no villains, the Troll song doesn't work, and some of the themes needed to be more pointed because they're too broad at the moment, and I could really go on about this...

But, as far as I'm aware, Frozen the Musical doesn't really change or give any greater depth to the material. Considering the film is about 90 mins and the musical has an entire hour on top of that, I don't quite understand why. There are big story structure issues and they can't... fix them with even an extra hour? I... have concerns. Especially considering The Lion King and Hunchback of Notre Dame jumped far ahead of their source material.

Frozen feels like an unfinished draft of a movie because thats exactly what it is. They ended up rewriting the ending halfway through the production process. They had to basically reverse engineer the entire movie, and they just wernt able to work out every kink. As it is, about 25% of the finished product is a quick patch intended to cover over the gaps.

I think this shows most clearly with their treatment of Elsa. Her character development is the source of nearly all the narrative tension—her breakout scene basically sold the whole movie. Yet the story isnt focused on her,its focused on Anna and her struggles to reach her, both physically and emotionally. I think this leaves people feeling frustrated.

This is also why I think people are a little disapointed in the animated shorts. They both tended to focus on the secondary characters, when what we really want is more Elsa. At least in Olafs Frozen Adventure she gets to emote a little. Apparently while things have improved with the sisters, Elsa still has some unresolved feelings about the past.

If they want the sequel to be popular, then I think they need to tell it largely from Elsa's point of view. And not tie it all up in a nice tidy bow at the end.

I don't quite know if Elsa as a main character would have worked as well. An equal time between both sisters would have been good, though. Also, Frozen Fever does focus on both sisters at the same time (or more precisely, it focuses on Elsa's cold, but still).

By the way, I found Olaf's frozen adventure rather OK on the whole (better than I'd have hoped an Olaf-centred short anyway). There was some nice sisterly fluff (even though it more or less contradicts my fics, but I'm pretty sure it fits perfectly with some fanfictions) and Olaf was genuinely funny. I'm a bit concerned that Kristoff seems to have kept the characterisation from the LEGO film, which is a that of a bumbling idiot. Hope they will not keep it in Frozen 2.

edited 3rd Dec '17 12:32:35 PM by C105

Well I suppose the haters got their wish: Disney has ordered prints of COCO without the Frozen short and theaters will play COCO without it starting on December 8th. While it could definitely play on TV networks like Freeform in time for Christmas, Disney hasn't announced any plans for what they intend to do with it instead!

Yikes.

Why the hell was it used as a P Ixar short anyway? Wasn't it supposed to air on TV in the first place.

Yes it was but some Disney executive decided to pull a "Return to Neverland" and shove a Disney-animated 21-minute-long, TV-shaped, non-widescreen Christmas special in front of a Pixar movie in theaters.

Not to mention the wildly different themes between both. I have not seen Coco, but the hijinks of a snowman looking for traditions seems rather far from a boy travelling to the spirit world to meet his ancestors.

Coco and Frozen Adventure are both aimed at younger audiences, but there are serious differences in terms of their tone and sophistication. Adventure is a bit of light fluff, while Coco deals with serious issues and is altogether darker in tone. That and the fact that Adventure is over 20 mins long creates some significant feelings dissonance.

edited 4th Dec '17 3:00:57 PM by DeMarquis

They both are about family traditions around a cultureal holiday and characters dealing with the death of family members (albeit Olaf's Adventure is much softer about the whole thing), so they are vaguely connected.

edited 5th Dec '17 5:52:46 AM by thebandragoness

Not enough, apparently, for many.

Other thoughts I had on Frozen Adventure: This was produced and directed by a different team than did the movie, and it shows. The dialogue, in particular, seemed stilted in many places. But the animation is top notch.

It alse seemed just a tad more risque than I was expecting. The sauna scene? And they do... fascinating things... with Elsa's skin tight dress.

edited 5th Dec '17 3:41:16 PM by DeMarquis

More fascinating that Elsa riding a bike with a slit dress?
... I will have to rewatch to check that.

The change of team probably also explains why Kristoff was flanderized that much (yes it is a sore point for me), along with the fact that Olaf melting is now an Amusing Injuries that is Played for Laughs.

Though this does not seem to deserve the amount of hate this poor short seems to be gathering. I had not realised how widespread it seems to be.

If the short had been...short, it probably wouldn't have had so much backlash.

It's definitely not as good as Frozen Fever, but I found it... inoffensive.

It does do some interesting things to the continuity of my fanfic, though.

1) Olaf is shown to be capable of being sad over a relatively small thing, whereas in my fic it was thought he couldn't get sad except over something major (like watching Anna turn into an ice-statue).

2) Apparently, if he melts, Olaf can simply be refrozen. In my fic, taking place after Christmas, the characters act like they have no idea what will happen if Olaf melts and are still concerned it could kill him. Also come to think of it this short seems to ruin any potential "ha ha Olaf wants to melt himself" type jokes they could make in Frozen 2, since now we know it doesn't really kill him. Ruins the black comedy...

3) On the plus side, Elsa is shown capable of levitating objects with her powers, which is something my fic correctly predicted. Now we just need to see if she can do that to *herself* to attain flight...

Anyways, I'm gonna wait until Frozen 2 comes out before I fret too much over my fanfic's continuity errors. I fully expect that movie to smash everything my fic establishes to pieces...

edited 6th Dec '17 11:23:32 AM by thebandragoness

Annoying things i found about the short:

• It clearly should've been on TV. It's 21 minutes long, a Christmas special, the stakes are low, and it was screened in standard TV frame ratio in all theaters.
• In this short, Olaf's stakes are totally irrelevant. If he melts, he can just be refrozen again and everyone laughs it off like a gag. This erases any threat to his existence that the movie gave him.
• There are 5 songs and 4 of them occur in the first like 6 minutes. You'd think with a condensed length of time, the producers wouldn't do the same thing in this short as they did in the movie.

Annoying things I had with both this special and Frozen Fever:

• OLAF DOES NOT HAVE HIS PERSONAL SNOW FLURRY OVER HIS HEAD! I thought that was supposed to keep him alive!