Disney's Frozen

[Bill1978]

Look it's my fault Olaf is everywhere. I have this uncanny ability of making a sidekick character into a character that appears everywhere. How do I do this? BY just disliking the character and not finding them funny while other people do. I believe if I stop rolling my eyes whenever someone says they like the character it may prevent them form being ushed as amazing by their company.

[Ben]

Don’t take the blame Bill!!

From the earliest days of cinema, sidekicks have been given their own spinoff films, once the "favorite part of the movie was character-X" started to go around. From the earliest western, folks like Gabby Hayes, Andy Devine and Walter Brennan made their names as breakout characters who would later headline their own films.

In terms of characters, don’t forget that Popeye, Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Yogi Bear — even The Smurfs — and Inspector Clouseau (the original Peter Sellers live-action, not the toon) started out as supporting characters in the respective series before they became the headliners.

More "recently", Mork broke out of a Happy Days guest spot, and Frasier Craine got several seasons of his own show after leaving the Cheers bar. And, now, it just seems to be a run of the mill process, to take a sidekick character and build a short/series/spinoff movie around them.

It used to be, back in the day, that this was done because it was cheaper to take a known character played by a cheaper supporting actor, and knock out a "sequel"/spinoff quick and cheap, such as many 1930s comedies (usually from RKO) that made use of supporting comedy characters in their own films, through to the DTVs of the 1908s and onwards.

The most recent one I can think of was that awful spinoff from the Get Smart movie that centered on two guys in the tech department, though now the focus is on extending animated franchises by basically almost pre-building in the opportunity to use sidekick characters for merchandising extensions in DTV shorts and the like.

So...it’s not your fault. It’s just good old Hollywood money-making practices!

[Farerb]

I didn't mind Olaf in the first film, he was less annoying than I thought he would be. I didn't mind him in Olaf's Frozen Adventure as well. In Frozen II he really became annoying, it's fine that he gets his own shorts but I expect a main feature to be more serious and Olaf's jokes just didn't complement the drama, he just killed the tone. Maybe if Olaf didn't get so much focus they could have done something more interesting with Anna and Kristoff.

Personally I prefer the silent sidekicks more (Maximus, Pascal, Pua, Hei-Hei, etc...).

[Randall]

Geez, I actually agree with Eric. I felt like I was more the target audience for action-adventure Frozen II than I was for princess-y Frozen.

[Ben]

As an aside, it’s funny that everytime I open this thread, I keep reading its title as a comment on the state of The Walt Disney Company...

[Farerb]

Saw the short. Not much to say, it's what you'd expect from an Olaf's short, some were already done in Olaf's Frozen Adventure. I guess some would like that some things from the original got explanation, but personally I never felt they needed an explanation.

[Farerb]

Came across this:


I remember that this was one of the first trailers I've seen that got me really excited for the film, I really miss that, I don't think I'm at that point anymore, which is really a shame because I do want to get excited for future Disney films, I mean excited-excited with all the hype and everything.

P.S. I'm still mad that that last shot of Elsa wasn't in the film itself.

[Ben]

That would have been a fun subtitle: The Royal Menace...

[Daniel]

I don't recognize the scene that proceeds that Elsa shot either. It's cute seeing Kristoff holding onto Olaf.

[Farerb]

All of it was part of a deleted scene back when Elsa was still a "villain turned good":


The original plan of the Marshmallow sequence was that Anna and Kristoff came across it before they got to Elsa, but since the animation was already done when the script was rewritten they repurposed it to occur after the encounter with Elsa.

[Daniel]

That Elsa part is gorgeous! Definitely prefer the Marshmallow we got.

[Farerb]

[Daniel]

Had to stop myself from watching! I'll need give it a proper watch later. I like what I've seen, though!

[EricJ]

Saw it in the ship's theater, before cruises got a bad name...

The thematically-costumed Bunraku actors who have to play Olaf and Sven always get in-joke applause when they first enter, and there's a nice projection-effect of snowflakes all around the theater during the opening and the Evil Song.
But anyone who's seen cruise-ship shows knows, that doesn't mean I want to see it on Broadway.

(Which is what they first thought with the Finding Nemo and Toy Story musicals, back when they were still overconfident about upgrading the Beauty & the Beast park-show.)

[Farerb]

Skyler Shuler implies there's going to be Frozen III (not that it's surprising):
https://twitter.com/SkylerShuler/status ... 11878?s=19