Frozen (Disney film)

There's a new upcoming YA novel about Anna and Elsa's parents. I was just wondering if the expanded Frozen universe had novels and stuff elaborating on things the second movie didn't get to.

Edited by lalalei2001 on Oct 17th 2020 at 9:20:10 AM

Has anybody watched the Olaf short? I have not bothered yet to look for it but I might just because of the cameos by Elsa and Anna I have seen in the trailers.

I knew there was something I forgot to do. ^_^;;

Happy 7th anniversary to the first Frozen movie.

And belated anniversary to the 2nd one.

Edited by C105 on Nov 27th 2020 at 3:06:15 PM

The lack of a Frozen animated series should be considered a blessing in disguise. A trillion new series and movies, even one for friggin Tiana, but zilch for their biggest animated success story? Not that it's a problem. It just goes to show how fragile they consider the narrative now, seeing how controversial it's been.

Disney knows the future of Frozen is hanging by its goddamn bootstraps right now. Because what has always been the primary focal point and main selling feature of the franchise was Anna and Elsa. Together. And that, I think, is exactly why Chris and Jenn originally considered Frozen II to be the end.

Because with both sisters in two separate places, who wants to watch that? What kind of Frozen continuation can you do if the sisters aren't together? Nobody wants a series of just Elsa in the wilderness, practicing her rock-skipping across the sea that killed her parents. You can bring the sisters together temporarily for each episode or for a single movie. But all that would accomplish would be to demonstrate what we already know, in an extremely underhanded way: that Disney's way too hesitant to reinforce their terrible direction on the big screen.

I'd say Disney is reluctant to continue Frozen because they know that if they take the most profitable and sensible route by crafting another story that brings Anna and Elsa back together, right before separating them again at the end, we'd all see the blinding hypocrisy. And if Elsa repeatedly leaves the forest to go on wacky adventures with Anna in a series, that will only prove the obvious to those who don't already understand that the forest doesn't need her. Nor does she belong in the place that the show isn't doubling down as her "home". And no episodes with just one of the sisters will do as well as the ones with both. There's a reason why, across the original Frozen and the animated shorts, that the scenes with the sisters together comprise the most memorable and compelling moments.

oh look,more ranting about Frozen

-yawn-

I find this absolutely perfect for entertaining or traumatizing the Frozen lover in your family/friends circle https://www.tiktok.com/@disneyparks/video/6902529602283965702

Frozen 2 is barely one year old yet. We'll probably have to wait a bit more to see more Frozen material (although technically we already got the Olaf short too). After all, Frozen 2 was announced in March 2015, more than one year after the first film was released.

If Elsa is "ruling" the forest, that means Runeard got what he wanted. Total domination.

Yeah but he wanted Arendelle's muggles to rule it while eradicating magic, while Elsa pretty much is the living embodiment of. Being a powerful white man living in the 19th century, Runeard logically wanted to replace the tanned Northuldrans with white Arendellans as well. Here, the implication is that the Northuldrans are still free from direct rule from Arendelle, and Elsa is just living among them as a kind of glorified ambassador for Arendelle instead of a governor.

She’s not ruling it. At most she’s supervising its magical creatures and making sure the stone giants or fire salamander don’t attack the settlements all of a sudden. Runeard wanted to weaken the magic and subjugate its people.

The film remained very fuzzy on what Elsa does in the forest, but she's certainly not ruling the Northuldra. Anna says she's protecting the forest (whatever that means) and the way Yelena and Honeymaren ask Elsa to stay really does not seem like they are asking her to rule them. And, as said above, she's the embodiment of the magic that Runeard tried to suppress. So basically what happened is the exact opposite of what he wanted.

I'll admit that Disney movies are fantasy and reality need not necessarily apply, but there's one more thing that's stood out.

One thing that bothers me with Elsa's abdication / Queen Anna and people trying to compare Frozen II to real life is the fact that in real life, it wouldn't have been so easy for Elsa to abdicate by 19th century standards. Plus monarchs believed they were God's anointed. Just look at the lyrics from the musical's "Queen Anointed":

Queen anointed
Queen anointed
Queen anointed
Our chosen daughter
With blessed crown of gold
Northern glory, our golden sister
The heir to kings of old
Let our voice this sacred hour
Sing, praise and bring to light your power
(Bring to light your power)
Noble Queen of our Northern lands
We are in your hands

...so I don't think Elsa would have gave up her title so easily and without any doubt/guilt, even if she didn't like being queen (which is not even true). And in real life, the things both sisters do wouldn't be considered proper, so none of them would be a really respectable monarch. It's scandalous to make out with a commoner in public (Anna), and so is abandoning the whole country, running to the woods, going off for a family adventure to the land/people your country detests, and so on, so on (Elsa). But still, ruling Arendelle was Elsa's birthright. No one would have accepted Anna on the throne so easily, unless Elsa was some horrible tyrant (which she wasn't). She was still too young. In real life, no one considered 18 year old Queen Victoria the savior of the United Kingdom as she took the throne. And no one praised Elsa to heavens before/short after her coronation because no one knew what kind of queen she would be, even though she was a good person and had many positive traits. Still, many fans of Anna seemingly do just that, assume she'll be perfect queen, when a lot of stuff would be stacked against her by real world standards: being a younger sister, without birthright, engaged to a commoner, and whose track record is questionable. It wouldn’t have even happened. In “reality”, Elsa would still be Queen of Arendelle.

(Where I stand on who's the better ruler, for that matter, is this: while Anna is the more sociable one, she's also much more irresponsible and impulsive, while Elsa is the dutiful one who studies a lot and is accomplished. Anna's much better at PR and caring and appearing warm and emphatic and wanting to help, but the impression I'm getting that when it comes to actually doing the boring but important state-level responsibilities is that Elsa's much much better.^note In the first movie, when Anna was finally given something to do for the kingdom, at her sister's coronation—which is a majorly important state event—she really messed it up - she almost missed the coronation ceremony at the chapel, showed up late at the ball because of whatever she was doing, and caused a public scandal resulting in total catastrophe, because she reacts with emotion without thinking too much about the consequences. Also later when they're at the ice palace, when trying to convince Elsa to melt the winter, she ignores Elsa's warnings and just pushes her because her emotions get ahead of her thinking, and just like at the coronation, it leads to a disastrous outburst. Later she pisses off Marshmallow pointlessly because again, emotion. In the second movie, it kinda looks like she's grown, but then her first act as queen is to destroy the dam, which if not for Elsa would've wiped out Arendelle and rendered all of her subjects into homeless refugees right at the doorstep of winter, and without the magical snow queen to help them. In other words, she condemned a huge part of her own subjects to starve to death because, again, emotional impulse of wanting to help the Northuldra while not really thinking about the consequences at all. Nor her responsibility to the kingdom and her people (from a country's standpoint, suddenly losing a leader and having to elect or figure out a new one is preferable to the country being flooded and all the housing destroyed. Every leader dies or has their term end at some point, and yet countries manage to get over that quite fine). Anna wants to "set things right" but doesn't think too far about what that means. Anna is not a bad person at all, she means well, but she's a disastrous leader because she seems to totally lack the ability to think about the consequences of her emotional impulses and actions.)

I just want to point out that Arendelle does not seem to be intended to function as any kind of realistic 19th century European kingdom. I am admittedly not very well documented on the protocols of Scandinavian royalty, but I don't think any type of 19th century monarch would help people stacking up benches at the end of a celebration like we see Elsa doing at the beginning of Frozen 2.
And before that of course there was the ending of Frozen where it seemed the people entitled to take charge of the kingdom were a bunch of foreign ambassadors and one guy a Princess orally left in charge.

Why is there notes longer than the actual post body.

I don't think you're meant to assume completely true to our world's 19th century European political standards in Frozen any more than you're meant to assume realistic lion pride dynamics in The Lion King.

At the same time, I think that both Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen's sequels kind of prove that the Disney that once made feature films with thought behind it is being replaced by an increasing trend of creating films by cobbling together a mishmash of tropes to subvert expectations for the sake of subverting expectations where the theme is whatever sociopolitical topic is trending on the interwebs. Not that animated films can't be about such topics, but I'm not particularly confident that we'll see something handle said topics with Zootopia's level of nuance and understanding again.

Along those lines, when you think about it, Thor in Avengers: Endgame was kinda handled similarly to Kristoff in Frozen II. "We're handling men's issues realistically... by portraying their emotions as comic relief."

For all of Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck's talk of turning Kristoff into a sensitive gentleman with relevant feelings, they sure didn't seem to mind very much turning him into a running gag. He actually changed in a meaningful way in Frozen, the reason for his change is made obvious, and you watch it unfold. In cast interviews about Kristoff, they usually mention him being this perfect man who's becoming willing to express his emotions in a way most men aren't. They act like champions of men. Like they're doing something valuable for society and the little boys who watch this movie.

But in Frozen II, Kristoff's proposals are awkward failures and his song has him singing an 80's parody with reindeer heads floating around him like Queen. He's never shown learning anything - from the moment he ends his song to when he rescues Anna, somehow he's no longer insecure? He has two unearned lines ("what do you need" and "my love is not fragile"), the latter of which is explicitly contradicted by his previous scene, and fans swoon as if he's Disney's greatest love interest? And they have the nerve to suggest they took his character seriously?

In fact, something Doug Walker pointed out in his Nostalgia Critic review of Frozen II last year was that Disney had done this cliche before with much more nuance in The Rescuers Down Under, concerning the plot point of Bernard's struggles to propose to Miss Bianca.

"[Bernard] tries to propose, it backfires, he tries again. But he's also shy, an over-thinker, has low self-esteem, is afraid of everything, but bravely does what needs to be done. There's more to him outside of this one joke, so we're rooting for him and sigh every time it doesn't go well. Kristoff has no other traits outside of this joke that's over...(The poster for The Rescuers Down Under is shown) When did The Rescuers Down Under come out? (The caption "1990" is shown) ...29 years old! It's almost like Frozen was a self-contained movie, and they had no idea what to do with these characters after they served their purpose! It doesn't even make me want to see them together. With Anna exploding at him all the time, it honestly shows how not compatible they are. Truth be told, Anna and Elsa actually have more chemistry."

I'd say Kristoff's had served his purpose even before the end of Frozen. His main role was to offer Anna a choice between trying to save herself with a True Love's Kiss, or save her sister's life. Once this was done he had little left to do: the end of Frozen had him bumping into lamp posts and skating with Sven.
It is I think a general flaw of Frozen 2 to have focused too much on the sisters (and yes, I never thought I would say this). Apart from them and arguably Olaf, most characters are reduced to not much more than plot devices.

Oh, and by the way I disagree Thor's emotions were handled by making fun of them in Avengers: Endgame, but that's another topic.

In other news, Frozen 2 has apparently been made into a manga. I would be interesting in seeing how it looks, since I have seen some manga fanarts of Frozen that were not bad (at least when they were not about that ship I can't stand).

Edited by C105 on Feb 10th 2021 at 2:50:04 PM

I really think that the best way to describe the character problems is that Frozen II molded the character's personalities to fit the story, rather than the converse of having the characters determine what happens, which is what the first movie did. In the first movie, Anna takes Elsa's glove and begs her to leave the gates open, because Anna loves to be social, she despises solitude, and she wants to be loved above all. Elsa is at odds because she's fearful, wants to protect Anna, etc. Obviously it was always true that Elsa was going to cause an eternal winter because otherwise we wouldn't have a movie, but the characters' actions are what make the story seem inevitable.

In Frozen 2, it's different. Elsa suddenly becomes a nature goddess who gallops around the wilderness, despite always being a reserved indoorsy sort of girl, with an affinity for beauty products, is booksmart, more introverted than her sister but still extremely fond of her people and family, with every royal comfort imaginable. Anna suddenly isn't the bubbly sort of outdoorsy talks-a-lot girl whose dialogue has her cracking subtle jokes half the time. (Except during the charades scene, that was probably the only time we had Frozen Anna) In the Frozen books, Anna's usually the one wanting to get out of the house and go on adventures out in the wilderness. Which sister ought to be filing paperwork while the other rides around the woods?

This is why there are a trillion headcanons about unspecified events in Frozen 2. Nothing is made very clear and characters don't behave the way they should, they behave the way the writers NEED them to. Except Olaf, I guess. And Sven, now HE'S a consistent character.

Meh, not interested.

Best reply: "First a million shorts about Olaf, now another short about the spirits? Seriously Disney, when are you going to show us Anna and Elsa together? Frozen = Anna+Elsa together, or it has changed now? If I want to know more about "natural elements", I'll just play Pokemon games tbh."

https://mobile.twitter.com/TonyPhan27/status/1363994534447775744

I found the tweet in question. It's hilarious.

I actually agree. Frozen is always best when it focuses on the sisters and their relationship.

Or watch Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Or W.I.T.C.H., if you want something elemental from Disney instead.