Frozen (Disney film)

I'm kinda surprised that Oaken didn't have a cameo, now that I think about it. He's probably one of the most memorable side characters in the first movie, and even has a cameo in Frozen Ever After.

Edited by megaeliz on Feb 18th 2020 at 7:58:03 AM

He does have a silent one. And he hugs another guy when Arendelle is saved at the end (maybe the writers wanted to confirm as discreetly as possible the Fanon theory that he's in a gay relationship). But yes, this is less than what we got in the two shorts and the first film.

I am under the impression that Frozen 2 had a lot less speaking parts than the first, even counting those with only one or two sentences. Once again, the empty world thing...

The thing is, I don't feel either that this film had scenes I could have done without (or they are very short), like for instance "Fixer Upper" in the first film. Even Kristoff's subplot, while dispensable, gave some cute scenes with Anna (and offered Yelena the occasion to snark). There really was 10-15 minutes lacking in this film, or they should have gone for a less complex story.

Was it the guy everyone thinks is his husband (or kid)?

What about Marshmallow!

That's the trouble though, I think. It's not that any of the ideas it presents are bad in themselves, it's just how they were put together that's a bit unsatisfying. The mythology of the "Fifth Spirit" almost feels like it's used in place of giving Elsa a compelling character arc, and a lot of the various elements feel underdeveloped.

Let's try reshuffling and reworking the different story elements, to see if we can't come up with something a bit more satisfying. (This is partially inspired by the Fixing Frozen and Untangling the Lore of Frozen 2 videos, since a lot of his ideas are great, and make sense for what I’m trying to do with this rewrite.)

First Act

• Instead of hearing a magical memory voice, and accidentally awaking the spirits, let's having the inciting incident be that Elsa discovers that her parents were trying find the source of her powers when they died. Maybe it could be some sort of hidden note and map? (borrowing a bit from the "Fixing Frozen" video, I like the idea of adding another line to the note.)
  • (Also the sisters won't know about the curse on the forest.)

• Since Elsa doesn't know about the enchantment on the forest, she makes the reasonable assumption that the note must be referring to her powers. She thinks that her parents thought of her powers as a curse, and were died trying to "cure" them.
• This would be devastating, validating all her anger and resentment she's felt towards them over the last few years.
• At first she doesn't know what to do about this, and tries to hide it from her family, and we get the charades scene, where she's noticeably distracted and nervous.
• Anna notices that something's wrong, and they have a heart to heart, where Elsa shows Anna the map
• This is what kicks off the plot to follow in their parent's footsteps. (Maybe they say that they have been invited for some sort of event in a nearby Kingdom as an excuse, for why they are leaving?)
• I'm also cutting the subplot about the spirits trying to destroy Arendelle, since it's inconsistent with the rules established later in the movie, and doesn’t work with this version anyway.

Second Act:

• This one would play out more or less similarly to the movie, but this time, the sisters actually have a goal, instead of just kinda wandering aimlessly.
• They travel North, and discover the enchanted forest.
• When they meet the Northuldra and the Arendellian soldiers, they realize that the the note was actually referring to the curse on the forest and not Elsa's powers
• Since we cut all the stuff with the spirits trying to destroy Arendelle, and there's no reason for them to hurry, we can now put in a new scene where after they discover that the sisters are half Northuldra, there's a celebration, allowing the new characters a chance to breathe
• This gives us a chance to get to know all the new characters, and develop their relationships to our mains. We can have Anna and Elsa get to know Ryder and Honeymaren, Elsa doing a few party tricks with her powers, maybe a bit of sisterly bonding over a shared heritage, etc. This is also where Kristoff and Rider would go off on their comedic, reindeer B Plot
• This also gives an opportunity for the Northuldrans to give exposition, and for us to learn a bit more about the mythology
• Like he mentioned in "The Lore of Frozen 2" video, it's crazy that Altohallan and Northuldra river are completely unconnected, so we're going to have Altohallan be a tributary of the river in the very far north (so the river is fed by a glacial stream.) It's the source of the magic for the forest spirits, and by damming the river, they got cut off. (In this version some water would be flowing through the dam. Enough to keep the forest spirits alive, but not much else.)
  • (This also means that we would have to cut the sequence where Elsa tries to cross the Ocean, because as amazing as the sequence is, it doesn't work with the new geography)

This is only a first pass, that I wrote in a couple hours, but I think it addresses most of our biggest criticisms of the film. Elsa gets a more developed character arc, the Northuldran characters get a larger role, and the mythology is cleaned up a bit.

The only thing I'm not sure on is how I would rework the ending based on this version, so if anyone wants to try and throw something out, feel free

Edited by megaeliz on Feb 19th 2020 at 11:05:33 AM

Anything where Elsa stays as Queen of Arendelle would be preferable, at least for me.

Edited by dmcreif on Feb 18th 2020 at 1:27:00 PM

The dam weakening the river the spirits draw their strength from is a great idea, and at least gives Runeard's plot a lot more sense. That would however remove most of Elsa's fights with the spirits. I don't quite mind but they were awesome scenes, so we would need something equally awesome instead. Maybe Altohallan would still be there as a source of all magic, and Elsa decides to journey there to find some magic to revive the spirits?

There is some kind of prophecy that magic comes at a price, but she goes anyway to do what is right, and the price turns out to be her life. She freezes in Altohallan while reviving the spirits, and Anna, realising what the spirits reviving means, tries to save her sister?

I'm making this up as I go along, I'd probably need to think this through to find something more coherent.

Edited by C105 on Feb 18th 2020 at 10:06:19 AM

I know that Disney films each have their own individual settings, but Athohallan being the source of magic raises questions of its own when you realize that only the Scandinavian spirits and trolls are known to exist in the Frozenverse. Given the paranoia of Weselton and the Arendelle citizens in F1, Elsa must have been the first sorcerer to appear in the region in centuries.

Personally, I like to think of it and the Enchanted Forest as being family-friendly versions of thinnys in Stephen King's novels, weak spot in reality where the fabric of the magic and muggle worlds has been worn thin.

Despite being a non-canon cameo, I like to imagine that Rapunzel's appearance in F1 means that Corona has its own thinny or version of Athohallan in an underground cavern or spring.

Edited by FluffyMcChicken on Feb 18th 2020 at 1:37:47 AM

The only thing that we would have to cut out is the battle with the Water spirit, because the geography just doesn't support it anymore. (Which is admittedly a pretty big cut, but necessary if you want Altohallan to be the source of the forest magic.) The idea gets explained a bit more here, at 10:36 to 12:50 or so.

As for the Fire and wind spirits, we can just say that Elsa entering the forest brought an infusion of magic, reinvigorating them.

Edited by megaeliz on Feb 18th 2020 at 5:32:46 AM

I don't like the explanation that Elsa and Anna's parents died looking for a reason for Elsa's powers. It seems... I dunno, less interesting than the two dying on a mundane trip.

Finding the reason behind Elsa's powers isn't particularly interesting anyway. It's a non-issue, a curiosity that would be nice to know but doesn't effect things in the long run. I've seen others say it better: finding out why Elsa has powers isn't a big deal. She just does.

I wish the sequel hadn't focused so much on it. If that's Pandering to the Base, I must be reading the wrong fics and analysis' because not many people thought about it besides "Fae blood, witchcraft, the trolls did it, something with the moon, etc".

(x3) The semi-canon Frozen II: A Forest of Shadows book references Corona. The only issue is whether Rapunzel is alive. Doesn't Tangled take place decades before Frozen?

Edited by Pichu-kun on Apr 16th 2020 at 12:18:04 PM

I seem to remember an art book or somesuch for the first movie saying Elsa's powers came from a planetary alignment.

To be fair, Once Upon a Time also did this for its Frozen arc. But there, it at least was a little more logical in how Elsa's powers were explained, having them come from her mother's side.

There was actually another fanfic I once read a few years ago that had the ice magic be something passed down to the firstborn child in every generation of the Arendelle royal family; where Anna and Elsa's father had an older sister who was never able to control her powers, faked her own death and eventually became Hans's mother.

Wait, so Anna nearly married her own cousin?! D:

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Feb 18th 2020 at 7:10:51 AM

Eh, she is royalty. It's a hazard of the job, even if not seen that way.

Edited by Blueace on Feb 18th 2020 at 12:21:22 PM

x5 That's kinda why I liked the idea of adding a fourth line to her mother's note.

Instead of trying to find the source of her powers, what they were actually trying to do, is discover if Elsa's powers might be key to breaking the curse on the forest. Remember, their mother is Northuldran herself, so I would imagine that would be tantalizing for her.

Edited by megaeliz on Feb 18th 2020 at 2:27:14 PM

I didn't care much about knowing where Elsa's powers came from either, but on the other hand the parents having died on a trip while trying to find some help for her is an idea I can get behind. And I like the idea that Iduna was the one doing the research, I wish they'd kept that scene in the movie.

Do we know exactly when Tangled is supposed to happen? Frozen is canonically taking place around 1840 from the map we see in Frozen Fever, but I don't know if a date was given in Tangled. Their tech level seems to be about the same (with some additional advanced Steampunk tech in Tangled the series).

The simple solution to that would be to drop the whole "Fifth Spirit" idea entirely, and have Elsa's powers be entirely unconnected to Altohallan and the forest magic. (Since they come from the same source)

The whole idea feels tacked on anyway, and would make even less sense in this version of the story.

Edited by megaeliz on Feb 18th 2020 at 2:36:05 PM

That explanation is pandering to the haters of the franchise who complain that there's no explanations behind Elsa's powers.

Yeah, and those same haters are also probably the ones who yell "leave the Force alone — it needs no explanation!".

And then they do a 180 when it comes to the Cars franchise — "How the hell are these vehicles alive in the first place?"

Consistency when it comes to criticisms would be nice among average moviegoers in the first place.

Some moviegoers don't know what they want.

I watched a video of some guy demanding all these "the Cars world doesn't make sense" questions from a Pixar head, and you could see the latter growing more and more frustrated as the fan keeps going into tiny details and pulling out his chart about how the cars are actually homunculi. It was... very awkward.

A better Frozen sequel would've been something like say, a rom-com centered around Elsa.

I'm pretty sure those three groups aren't the same people.

Actually, I think they are. Like sports, like television, moviegoers just don't know what they want.

And I concur that yes, Elsa's powers didn't need an explanation. I would've been more content if they hinted at possibilities as to why she has powers, but never confirmed for certain which of the explanations was true.

Anyone know why Frozen fics frequently pin Elsa as Lutheran? Why Lutheran? Does that denomination have historical significance in Norway?

She nailed 95 icicles to the church door?