Disney's Frozen

[Dan]

As posted on the front page, Disney launched a simple little Olaf short online that was animated solely by Hyrum Osmond from home and features Josh Gad voicing the character from home. Disney is promoting this as the first in a series of shorts the duo made that will be uploaded through the week.

[Daniel]

Such a fun idea. Most of the shorts have been cute.

[Kaszubas]

Wow, long time Kaszubas! Nice to see a face from the past.

Yepp I dropp by here sometimes ...but checking the news (and views) frequently, just voicing my opinion once in a blue moon Good to hear from you too

Yes, definitely! . It’s great to see you again Kaszubas!

Yeah, I probably should have been clearer when discussing ultra-lifelike animation (TLK ‘19) vs. mocap; I know they’re not the same. I guess what I was trying to say was that even while acknowledging that there WAS certainly much creativity by the artists when creating the photorealistic characters in said film, in my mind it just doesn’t measure up to a film like, say, Finding Nemo. There the characters were based on “realistic” renditions of fish/sea creatures, yet we could still feel the beating heart of an artist’s soul in every frame. Their movements and expressions were not only “funny” but projected real depth. (Particularly Marlin as well as Nemo.)

It’s an animated fantasy!

Yeah, but animation is and has always been about caricature and capturing the complexity of human feeling in a seemingly “simple” way that is anything but. That’s why the original ‘90s LK was such a GIGANTIC hit. The expressions/body language of each character communicated so much depth of feeling and resonance that it almost felt as though you knew them personally.

I mean this as absolutely NO slight to the artists who worked on the re-imagining, I guess you could call it, of TLK; I’m sure they crafted wonderful work even with the limitations that a photorealistic film must have set on them.

Because how can you possibly re-create the absolutely devastating scene of Simba slowly coming to the realization that his father is gone forever by designing the characters to be as realistic as possible? Or Marlin’s horror when he first loses Nemo to the fishermen? His grief when he thinks Nemo’s dead? In my opinion, trying to do this with photorealistic characters robs us of pretty much everything we’ve come to expect from an animated film that TRULY moves us.

Same thing for human characters, by the way. If the scenes of Riley and her parents in Inside Out were re-done with a photorealistic (but not mocaped) design of an eleven-year-old girl and two adults also designed this way, would the scene where Riley breaks down in tears after coming home be even HALF as beautiful/heartbreaking?


(Just my opinions! )

Things do change but Vi is still here ...and that's a good thing
Well... I think it's just a matter of personal preference - you DO prefere animation to be that way. It's probably intuitive choice on your side and to some extent conscious artistic decission on artist/director side. You DO prefere your animated heros to be more expressive, exagerated, stylised caricacures - it may make their emotions easier to read, engage and empathize for you. But that's formal choice. Doesn't diminish actual value of artistic skills and heart that went into TLK '19. I think you mistake your (acquired) taste with actual quality of the meal It's very well cooked. You just happen not to like it as much You may find the stylistic choice less effective for you or this kind of story, or you may be just biased because of pure sentimental reasons or/and your inner child desires. But there are people that do not like nor understand the beauty of stylised cartoony animation and always prefere live action performances. More true to life, less artificial to them. I think TLK'19 visual style is targeted more towards them. I'm 100% sure even fantasy may be told in many different ways. Look at "where the wild things are" by Spike Jonze for example - also a co-existence of fantastical and human beings on screen like "Inside Out" - could have been easily and animated movie. Especially knowing the picture-book source-material. Artistic choice was different. And it was a good choice for selected narrative means - it's very touching and emotionally effective. It's just different than it would have been when Pete Docter would take care of it and knowing his Monster's Inc. it probably would have been amazing

[ShyViolet]

Things do change but Vi is still here ...and that's a good thing

Aw thanks Kaszubas!

[Dan]

The last short has presumably been uploaded, so here's the complete collection of the "At Home with Olaf" shorts.

[Daniel]

I enjoyed the series. Cute for what it was. Wish there were more hand drawn shorts, though. So expressive and cartoony!

[Farerb]

[Daniel]

Trailer for "Once Upon a Snowman":



Aka Frozen 1½.

I love Olaf and all but we just had those "At Home..." shorts. Seems a bit much. And something like this featuring Hans would have been so much more interesting. When Anna's away, the surprise villain will play.. and maybe sing a song! The possibilities, man!

That aside, looks cute! Little detail, you can see Oaken selling Anna's old dress. Feels like something he would do.

[Ben]

As I said in the D+ thread...

When too much Olaf begins to be...too much Olaf...?

[EricJ]

Ie., when the new studio chief gets a little TOO HAPPY about the movie she made when she was still a director...

[Farerb]

Aka Frozen 1½.

I love Olaf and all but we just had those "At Home..." shorts. Seems a bit much. And something like this featuring Hans would have been so much more interesting. When Anna's away, the surprise villain will play.. and maybe sing a song! The possibilities, man!

That aside, looks cute! Little detail, you can see Oaken selling Anna's old dress. Feels like something he would do.

I think it's more similar to the Pixar's shorts that usually accompany the film on Blu-ray where you see what happens to a minor character during the main film when they're off screen like BURN-E, Jack-Jack attack, Auntie Edna, Lamp Life, etc...

I agree that a Hans short would have been more interesting, maybe showing him in the Southern Isles or something.

As I said in the D+ thread...

When too much Olaf begins to be...too much Olaf...?

To me it was Frozen II.

Honestly I don't know what's the point of this short? Is he going to be close to meeting characters and miss them just for "laughs"? I guess they want to reignite the Frozen "hype" but honestly if Frozen II couldn't do it then I doubt this will.

[EricJ]

To me it was Frozen II.
Honestly I don't know what's the point of this short? Is he going to be close to meeting characters and miss them just for "laughs"? I guess they want to reignite the Frozen "hype" but honestly if Frozen II couldn't do it then I doubt this will.

Well, since I get to do a little petty nitpicking-on now, Frozen II was actually a big hit for the fact that it existed and is currently Disney's "all-time biggest hit".

I think you meant to say "Olaf's Frozen Adventure", which was half an hour of dead space before Coco in the theaters when it should have been a network special instead, and this would have probably sunk Soul if things had been different.

[Farerb]

No I meant Frozen II. I know it made more than a billion at the B.O, but it didn't have the same cultural impact as the first movie had, it wasn't a phenomenon, it was just another film that crossed the billion dollars mark (which honestly doesn't seem impressive as it did before). Does anyone even remember that Zootopia or Finding Dory made more than a billion dollars? I'd hardly call them phenomenal as well.

[Ben]

Olaf's Frozen Adventure actually did play as a TV special over here, and I actually really like it. It has at least two really good songs (and even got its own CD soundtrack, when we are still waiting for a physical Frozen II release of the two-disc set).

Still haven’t watched FII, so my reticence probably tells you all you need to know, but it was obviously an unnecessary sequel the minute it was announced. I hated Frozen Fever, liked Frozen Adventure, and didn’t mind the Olaf shorts, but this really does seem one more Olaf too far. Just let it be a final "At Home" special for Christmas, which is what it kind of really is anyway.

Finding Dory deserves to be forgotten, but Zootopia, while maybe not "phenomenal", does grow on you the more one sees it, while I’m surprised how many times it does come up as a much discussed and very well liked film among people, more than I would have thought.

[EricJ]

As I've repeatedly mentioned on this thread, I have a hundred reasons to loathe Frozen with a murderous Beauty&Beast/Lion-King like passion, and I...actually kind of liked Frozen II.

Apart from the characters, it has almost nothing whatsoever to do with the original--as critics pointed out, it plays like a Brave sequel that got a quick last-minute rewrite when they found out it wasn't going to get one--and, unlike the insufferable original, there are only two brief moments that feel like Jennifer Lee doing a female-director goalpost-dance.
And, more to the point, Olaf actually gets something to DO in the movie, which livens up his character immensely.

Still, Olaf is getting to be at Lee's Disney what Mater was to John Lasseter's Pixar, and for the same reasons.