Frozen (Disney film)

After that, I have to say, who else remembers that old Cartoon Network promo about sidekick characters after reading that?

The sidekick is a foil for the hero. That's the point of a sidekick. There is a difference between a sidekick and comic relief. They may be the same character, but they don't have to be the same character.

Think about the archetypical hero/sidekick relationship: Batman and Robin. Robin is the very definition of a sidekick, but he's not the comic relief (Batman doesn't really have comic relief, since the character most likely to be making jokes is also a psychopath, but I digress).

The only time I found a sidekick handled well was with the big reveal that superhero Kenny in South Park had been only a sidekick all along, and with an obliviously useful power for a sidekick to boot.

Sidekick does not automatically equal foil. Nor is a foil automatically a sidekick. A foil may be a co-protagonist, or may not be in league with the protagonist at all (they may be a rival or simply a less prominent character). Similarly, sidekicks may be more like the hero than not, or their traits are not used as a means of contrasting with the hero.

A good Disney example of this would be The Princess And The Frog. Naveen and Tiana are foils, but they are co-protagonists and neither is really a sidekick. Similarly, Louis is a sidekick, but he is not a foil, because his traits are not used as contrasts to either of the heroes.

So we finally got a glimpse of Anna and Elsa in this article.

It looks like Anna will wear her hair in braids, and she appears to be wearing a nice dress. It's hard to imagine she wore that when traversing mountains; she changed outfits in the Snow Queen's castle? Elsa... I wish we had a better picture of her. From what I can kinda tell, she has a short haircut, wears a crown and a frumpy-looking dress. What really strikes me is the look of anguish on her face. This will most definitely be a complex hero/villain relationship.

This is kinda old, but someone who went to Destination D posted some info about what they showed of Frozen there. So to sum up, there's a prophecy that a queen with a heart of ice will destroy the kingdom. Elsa was born with magic ice powers and has hid them her whole life fearing that she is the queen in the prophecy. During Elsa's coronation as queen, Anna somehow screws things up, and Elsa is forced to use her ice magic, which shocks everyone. She then runs away to a mountain and curses the kingdom in an everlasting winter.

"Kristoff isn’t your typical mountain man, he’s blond, attractive, and muscular."

Uuuuuuh. That's a typical mountain man.

I think they're expecting the traditional image of a mountain man to be something along the lines of "smelly, dirty, and burly." More along the lines of "Liver-Eating" Johnson rather than Jeremiah Johnson.

Okay well they don't usually fit the "handsome" trait, but muscular, blond, and big certainly does!

edited 26th Oct '12 2:12:37 PM by kyun

Sounds pretty different from the original tale. And also like they are turning the Snow Queen into a tragic villain (that seems a trend lately, ever since Wicked became a hit.) But maybe that's for the best. I trust Disney, and the more they make this their version and not just a copy of someone else's, the better.

edited 26th Oct '12 2:22:34 PM by Sijo

So is Anna's name going to be pronounced with the "a" as in "cat" or with an "o" sound as in "ostrich"?

No, most mountain men have black or grey hair.

edited 26th Oct '12 2:59:06 PM by maxwellelvis

I don't. Every single update on this film feels like they ripped my heart out and stepped on it. Again. The talking snowman sidekick was bad enough - didn't Tangled teach them that it is perfectly okay to tell a fairy tale without pointless talking animals/creatures/celebrity cameos?

I'm going to be extremely surprised if this turns out well, but after the debacle with Brave (which still turned out well, but should have been FANTASTIC) and Tangled losing much of its uniqueness in favor of formula, the fact that they've taken The Snow Queen and crushed it, ground it up, and spat it back out in typical Disney fashion has made me give up hope that anyone at that company knows what they're doing anymore.

edited 26th Oct '12 6:01:23 PM by Rebochan

The way I see it, we already got a great straight adaptation (the 1950s Soviet Russian version), so I don't give a shit how Disney changes the story around, so long as they do a good job.

edited 26th Oct '12 10:31:14 PM by sardns

As far as the weird "History Repeats" thing with the Disney Renaissance (which I start at Great Mouse Detective) and modern era (Robinsons to now) goes, I think Frozen's going to be the Pocahontas of the group: Good music but pretty lame otherwise.

To elaborate:

• Black Cauldron and Chicken Little: A dark hour for Disney animation financially or critically

• Great Mouse Detective and Meet The Robinsons: The sign Disney was getting it's shit together again

• Oliver and Company and Bolt: Talking animal movie using New York as a setting that was more successful then their predecessors, but it can be argued the predecessors are better

• Little Mermaid and Princess and the Frog: Return of fairy tales by Musker and Clements

• Rescuers Down Under and Winnie the Pooh: Animated Canon sequels that flopped

• Beauty and the Beast and Tangled: Menken Musicals driven by Glen Keane in some manner that showed that Disney was really firing on all cylinders, cooking with gas, etcetera.

Hard to say on Wreck It Ralph, though I predict it as a tandem Aladdin and Lion King. Awesome action comedy along the lines of Aladdin that might make Lion King money considering all the vidya. It has a Roger Rabbit role too, but it's too out of order and Roger Rabbit wasn't part of the canon now was it?

edited 26th Oct '12 10:23:20 PM by FigmentJedi

I'd say Tangled is more comparable to The Little Mermaid in both overall tone and success. The Princess And The Frog is kind of stuck in this weird limbo.

I dunno, the prologue gave me more of a Beauty and the Beast feeling with how dramatic the music was and the narration, plus someone made this

Also, Friends on the Other Side basically was a 63'd Poor Unfortunate Souls in some respects.

edited 26th Oct '12 11:10:43 PM by FigmentJedi

That worked out surprisingly well.

But what is "63'd"?

Woah.

Rule 63: Genderswap

Should've known. Thanks, anyway.

[[So we have a co-director http://www.animationmagazine.net/features/jennifer-lee-to-co-direct-disneys-frozen/]] who is one of the screenwriters for Wreck It Ralph. Super happy for this.

I know we want to create analogues for these various eras of disney movies, but weren't there major executive and artist uphevals that marked each era as well? Yes, Glen Keane left, but that seemed to be more related to pursuing his personal style.

According to insiders at Laughing Place, this "Co-Direct" thing is in the Brave sense of the term: Chris Buck was replaced.

And there's only a year to go. And John Lasseter hasn't checked in on the project in months. I got a bad feeling about this.

Seriously? Did they not learn their lesson with Brave? Are they desperate to appear not sexist?