Disney's Frozen

[Ben]

I hate that line in Zootopia. Just sooooo obnoxiously shoehorned in.

Wow...FIi sounds awful! It’s actually making me want to see it more, if even just to end up hate-watching it (!), but I will hold off so I can still have a planned watch with family that loved the first. Yes, it’s clearly setting ourselves up for a fail, but that’s still the plan.

I don’t think *anyone* is particularly scrambling for a FIII, even those big fans burnt by the second film. Many didn’t see the need for it, or were "worried" it couldn’t live up to the first, though obviously many other people rushed to it, again and again (a movie doesn’t do those numbers without repeat business).

Unless planned and telling a massive story, *no* film ever truly warrants or needs a sequel. Whatever the fluff about "spending more time with the characters", or "wanting to expand the world or universe", it’s only ever all about one thing: money. Star Wars? That’s just a one movie age-old story — farmboy underdog takes on the big bads and wins, but its success meant we had to get more, though Lucas never had a plan for despite what he says, and struck it lucky by largely relinquishing such a hold (that he never even really had on the first one) that he would later insist and have the power to grasp on future films.

It’s clearly the same with Frozen a film I thought was absolutely fantastic...for the first 33 minutes. But after Let It Go, the movie's spent all its best stuff up front and it becomes a much more drab search movie. On the flipside, this was never really Andersen's Snow Queen anyway, so in a sense this is their own story, so they can go anywhere they want with it.

However, as we have seen, again with Star Wars, with the sequel trilogy, you need to have a plan! Frozen already had some pretty wacky elements (unexplained rock creature thingies!?), so they could in theory go anywhere with it. But...it was never planned, and not really warranted or needed, and it’s very hard for these things to then feel organic. Lightning can strike twice (Empire, Toy Story 2), or at least hit another spot nearby, but it’s hard to capture it in a bottle, as they will attempt again with FIII.

That all said, I’ll probably end up loving FII now that any (low already) expectations I might have had are basically rock bottom!

[Dan]

As she was approaching having 20,000 followers on Twitter, Kristen Anderson-Lopez said she would show off some personal recording videos upon reaching the mark earlier today. When the goal was met, she post a number of fun videos of orchestrations being recorded for Frozen II.

Here's the first run through of "Into the Unknown", during which you can hear her husband Robert make adjustments on the fly: https://twitter.com/i/status/1358171445415837705

[Daniel]

Very cool.

[Ben]

So…belatedly, I know…

Frozen II.

WTAF?!!?!!??

[ShyViolet]

I agree completely Ben! I tried so hard to enjoy that film (saw it in theaters) but got almost nothing out of it with the exception of the beautiful nature sequences. I mean, this movie has ABSOLUTELY NO STORY! Every time it looks like something will happen, either another musical number pops up (all the songs do is reiterate what we already know rather than advance the story/enhance the characters)* or there’s the same boring “strong-sister-bond” heart to heart that just never lets up!!!!!! (Oh yeah, and making Olaf an actual CONFLICTED character was the probably the craziest idea in this entire film!)

*Or sometimes the songs just took the place of exposition. Those were probably the lamest.

[Bill1978]

I remember walking out of the original Frozen thinking 'Finally a return to a true musical' and telling everybody to see it. Even if on reflection I don't think the movie has really held up that well as a musical compared to something like Beauty & The Beast (i.e. remove the songs and the plot still progresses and makes sense). However when I saw Frozen II I left the theatre feeling cold and empty. The song were clearly designed so each character could have a potential chart hit, the studio pushed the wrong song as the breakout song IMO, and it is never a good sign if during a song *I* wish they would stop singing and get back to the talking, cause I'm usually watching these movies for the songs. And the writers ignored what helped make the first movie so enjoyable - the interaction between all the characters. Who ever thought it would be a great idea to split them all up needs a good talking to.

I think Frozen II encapsulates what is currently wrong at Disney with their movie making decision. For some reason they are obsessed with wanting to explain everything about their characters. Like they want to control fan fic etc. Maybe I'm in the minority but never cared why Elsa had powers. She has powers cause she is magic. End of story. It's not like I needed the Harry Potter movies to explain to me why Harry has powers and his cousin doesn't with a long complicated back story. I just accepted it and moved on.

Frozen II was just a movie about a backstory that didn't need to be told and didn't move the characters forward at all. They were just spinning wheels. I feel a better way to move forward would be to have the story set in the Seven Isles (I don't know for some reason that need Arendelle's assistance). We get to see Han (and maybe redeem him - although he seems to be the only villain Disney doesn't care about redeeming). maybe see the Duke of Weasleton. Frozen I was all about Elsa being Queen and being accepted by her subjects and then Frozen II Elsa is like screw my subjects I'm hanging in the forests now.

I am grateful though that Elsa remained single and Disney didn't cave to the crowd who wanted her to have a girlfriend. Although I admit for a little bit I thought Disney was going to have that blink and you miss new male character develop a crush on Kristof.

I know it made a ton of money, but that doesn't mean it is good OR that there needs to be a sequel. What I took away from the movie is that original musicals should never get a sequel.

[EricJ]

I remember walking out of the original Frozen thinking 'Finally a return to a true musical' and telling everybody to see it. Even if on reflection I don't think the movie has really held up that well as a musical compared to something like Beauty & The Beast (i.e. remove the songs and the plot still progresses and makes sense). However when I saw Frozen II I left the theatre feeling cold and empty.
And the writers ignored what helped make the first movie so enjoyable - the interaction between all the characters. Who ever thought it would be a great idea to split them all up needs a good talking to.

The original movie seemed like a movie made BY Broadway fans, FOR Broadway fans, and, like most of its fans, unaware that Disney had produced any other kind of movies (like Wreck-It Ralph) since Tangled:
The star of Wicked, in another story of sister bonding, with songs by the composer of Wicked, with comedy from the star of the Book of Mormon!
And, like the similarly Broadway-aspiring Hunchback of Notre Dame, felt like the stage script for a Broadway musical, with animated characters inserted to work out the actor blocking and choreography. (You can almost see the Act I break after "Let It Go") Yeah, don't mind us, we're just the audience expecting to see an animated movie...

Looking back at Frozen II, though, I'm not only doubling down on that theory of it being a "rewritten Brave sequel", I'm starting to wonder whether Elsa really WAS playing the story that would have originally been designed for Merida.
Ie., wandering into the forbidden forest on her own, communing with nature spirits, and discovering that the whole problem was caused by a group of kings (and presumably her father) playing power games with each other.
Although I doubt that Merida would have become a full-fledged nature goddess at the end, that bit seems more like a last-second job promotion Jennifer Lee decided to heap on Elsa, who wouldn't have been an Empowered Role Model as a mere queen...

[Bill1978]

with songs by the composer of Wicked,

Stephen Schwartz wrote the songs for Wicked. The songs for Frozen were co-written by the guy who co-wrote the songs for The Book of Mormon and Avenue Q

[Farerb]

Frozen has really not held up well for me and I don't even think it works as a musical considering that the second half doesn't have much songs in it and the third doesn't have any. It especially doesn't hold up to the standards of the Renaissance films.

with Frozen II seeing the BTS material, they could have had a good movie, but it seems that they were worrying about the effects some story choices might have on the franchise so they chickened out, most notable example the destruction of Arendelle at the end. It was unfortunate to see the same flaws repeating themselves in Raya, though to Raya's defense it actually had a climax, but again another movie where characters go from this place to that place while talking exposition and with very little character development or emotions.

It's something that I've been thinking about but to me it seems that since RBTI we've entered a new era for Disney animation, and not a good one, I'll give Encanto a chance since Byron Howard has proven he can make competent films and I hope it won't be disappointing.

[EricJ]

Stephen Schwartz wrote the songs for Wicked. The songs for Frozen were co-written by the guy who co-wrote the songs for The Book of Mormon and Avenue Q

And can someone explain which moderator who doesn't live in NYC decided it was more forum-PC to change "Broadway fangirls" into "Fans"?
NO: There are Broadway FANGIRLS, and lord protect the industry from them.

We used to call them "Jeckies", when they all flocked to "Jekyll & Hyde", and then "Phans" and "Beasties" (mostly when an older Donny Osmond was filling in as Gaston), and not sure what they're called now, but for a while, they were "Wickies", from the one show they all flocked to as a local cult thing at the expense of all other shows, keeping it on artificial life-support for years. And yeah, Book of Mormon, too.

It goes without saying that Jennifer Lee is a Wickie, and possibly even Tim Burton, when he confused his "Alice" with Oz, and tried to make the Red & White Queens into a sister rivalry.

[Ben]

That was a me. Your comment was sexist, inappropriate and, worse, incorrect.

And Book Of Mormon is freakin' hilarious.

[EricJ]

It's something that I've been thinking about but to me it seems that since RBTI we've entered a new era for Disney animation, and not a good one, I'll give Encanto a chance since Byron Howard has proven he can make competent films and I hope it won't be disappointing.

I would have named Moana as the turning point--But we've moved from the John Lasseter era, of building good emotional Pixar-like stories out of sentimentality to Disney's classic reputation, to the Jennifer Lee era, which is horse-blindered by the idea of creating "Independent ethnic role-model heroines", who would never dare be called "princesses", on an assembly line, and almost sneering at the idea that any other audience should consider the purpose of Disney movies to be about anything else.

...Which is particularly galling considering just how the John Lasseter era ended in the first place.

[ShyViolet]

But we've moved from the John Lasseter era, of building good emotional Pixar-like stories out of sentimentality to Disney's classic reputation, to the Jennifer Lee era, which is horse-blindered by the idea of creating "Independent ethnic role-model heroines", who would never dare be called "princesses", on an assembly line, and almost sneering at the idea that any other audience should consider the purpose of Disney movies to be about anything else.

How do you know any of this? Those female characters all exist in separate stories/universes. Isn’t just possible that they’re all unique characters too?

[Ben]

He doesn’t, Vi.

Moving on…

[EricJ]

How do you know any of this? Those female characters all exist in separate stories/universes. Isn’t just possible that they’re all unique characters too?

If you're saying Raya is "different" from Moana, that's a fairly relative term.
They seem to be the same character, with ethnic backstories swapped out. And, one uses an oar as a weapon, the other doesn't.

(Now, if you said that 90's Disney was "grinding out assembly-line princesses" during the Renaissance, that brings up whether you could tell Jasmine apart from Belle or Mulan.)