Frozen // Review #2

Let's talk about Frozen for a hot minute.

Get it? Hot? Frozen?

No? Nobody? Alright then.

First off, here are some stats:

Frozen has made over 1.27 billion dollars worldwide since its release in 2013 (not adjusting for inflation), making it the 9th highest grossing movie of all time. It is also the highest grossing computer animated film ever, ranked barely above Minions, the global pandemic that was as much of a meme in 2015 as that stupid dress that everyone thought was white and gold instead of black and blue. Not to mention, Frozen happens to have two academy awards: one for best original song, for (obviously), "Let it Go," and then the other for best animated feature for 2013.

As if that wasn't enough overwhelming evidence for everyone to admit that Frozen was a global phenomenon, it also happened to be the favorite movie of every female Disney fan for at least the entire year after it came out.

Now, I was in high school when Frozen came out, and as someone who considers herself to be a pretty avid Disney fan, I will admit that I have mixed feelings about Frozen. As someone who expects a lot out of her movies, I think Frozen was pretty fun and original, and yet...  I'm not sure it was worthy of all of the praise that it got.

Like, I'm sure if you frequent Tumblr or any other social media sites that has a large Disney fandom, then you've probably seen this:

And I have to say that I agree with this sentiment. I don't think that Frozen was as revolutionary as people made it out to be. Sure, it was important for girl power and feminism, and it made strides, but... also, it didn't try anything that we hadn't already seen before. Mulan was a kickass non-princess who taught girls that it was alright to be tough and stand up for your family. Brave taught girls that princesses didn't need to be married in order to rule, and they shouldn't have to settle for what they don't want. And Lilo & Stitch taught kids that "Ohana means family," and that the bond between sisters is the most important thing. All of these themes are present in all of the Disney movies featured above, but Frozen just packaged them differently and added more music (two of the three Disney movies featured above had no main musical numbers, and were mostly plot driven) and so the global community embraced it as something different and original, even though it really wasn't.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Frozen is a bad movie. I'm not saying that at all.

But am I saying it's a good movie? Well, let's look at the 6 primary movie categories for Frozen:

Category 1: Comedy- A-

I'm not gonna lie, I think Frozen was a very funny Disney film. Olaf's antics and the comedic timing of Kristen Bell as Ana made me smile throughout the movie. I liked how awkward Ana and Kristoff were when the first met, and I liked that their dialogue was realistic. People in films (not just Disney movies) have a tendency to behave exactly how they're supposed to and nothing at all like real people do, and Frozen does a good job of making it seem like Kristoff, Ana and Elsa are real humans, with real dialogue about smelling chocolate and marrying someone you just met. I liked the line especially when Kristoff is asking Ana if Hans picks his nose and she gasps and says, "Excuse me sir, he is a prince." Comedic gold, and I can appreciate it.

Category 2: Music- A+

Now, due to the mainstream success of this movie, everyone knows at least one song from Frozen, and if you're a person who lives on earth, it's most likely "Let it Go." Now, I could go on and on about how much that song was repeated and parodied everywhere from YouTube to Disneyland, but I will instead choose to focus on the positive. The music in this movie is amazing and catchy. In fact, the first time that I saw Frozen in theaters (because I went twice, don't judge me), I immediately left the theater and downloaded "Let it Go" because it was so inspiring and beautiful (Mind you, this was when the movie first came out, and it was before all the hype, so give me a little credit.). I was moved by how bold Elsa had become after she left her old life behind, and I was inspired by her song to "Let it Go." I loved it. I also found "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?", "The First Time in Forever," and "Love is an Open Door" to be completely sing-a-long-able (which I know is not a word, but roll with it). The music is just charming, and it has a place in my heart for being moving and adorable at the same time. The only song that I'm not a big fan of is "Fixer Upper" because I can never really get all the words right to that song, but I still think it fits that tone and feeling of the movie pretty well. Overall, I enjoyed the music very, very much.

Category 3: Animation- A

Now, according to my sources on the internet, Frozen was a very demanding movie to create visually. In order to get all of the snow and ice crystals to look as realistic as possible, a team of Disney employees went to Wyoming to get a feel for the cold and the way people interacted with snow. Disney definitely put the time in, and it shows. Everyone involved in this movie had to know their stuff, and that included not only visual effects, but animation, and even some science. According to effects supervisor Dale Mayeda:

As far as effects animation, it’s definitely a combination of art and science...So much of what we do on a daily basis is not just doing simulations but also making sure the composition is great and the timing is beautiful, and a lot of design as well. (Frozen's Effects: Oh My Disney!)

Clearly everything in this movie, from the "fractals" that Elsa sings about, to the way Ana's dress freezes after she fell into the river, was well thought out and animated, and the kingdom of Arendelle is beautiful. So I give Disney a good grade for stunning visuals and realistic looking snow and winter effects.

Category 4: Characters- C-

I'm not saying that I don't love Ana, Elsa, and Olaf, because I do. I even love Hans, to a certain extent. That's not why I gave the characters a C-. I gave the character category a C- because I didn't appreciate how Frozen treated the character arcs of Ana and Elsa, and I felt like Hans was a little too convenient of a villain to matter to me.

One thing that I wasn't exactly a fan of was the fact that Elsa's powers were just briefly explained away within the first three or four minutes of the movie. Like, her powers were never explored further- and it was never mentioned again where her powers came from. A little backstory about how her grandmother or something had powers would have made a little bit more sense in the context of the movie- or even saying that she was cursed (like the troll asked) would have been acceptable. But no, we're not supposed to question her magic anymore like it's normal for a child to be born with magical ice powers.

To take it a step further, if Elsa was born with ice powers, why was Ana born normal? I feel like if we're just supposed to accept these things as fact, there needs to be some sort of pre-established rule that determines who gets ice powers or not. But no, Disney went all willy-nilly with that shit and was just like, "Elsa has ice powers because reasons, and Ana is a normie for...different reasons." I mean, I know that Elsa having magic and Ana not having magic are important to the plot of this movie, but if that's how Disney is gonna play this shit, there should at least be a little more justification than, "Uh, I dunno, I guess she was born with the powers. Yeah, that works, right?"

It is barely an explanation, and I'm calling you out for your poor writing, Disney.

Another thing that bugged me about the characters, (and this is kinda plot related, so SPOILER ALERT if you haven't seen the movie and have been living under a rock for the last five years. If you haven't seen the movie, stop reading right here and skip to the end.), was the fact that Elsa was depicted as someone who had major anxiety and repressed not only her anxiety and negative emotions, but also her powers. I was an angsty teenager when I first watched this, and so I could relate. Elsa was dealing with some stuff that no one around her could relate too, and the best her parents could do was tell her to suck it up and hold it in. I was intrigued because I thought that Disney was dealing with some intense issues like mental health and letting people know that you need to express your feelings and not be afraid of your own strength and emotions.

HOWEVER, Frozen took a complete left turn after Ana went to visit Elsa in her ice palace to get her to end the winter. Elsa had the equivalent of a nervous breakdown (which, again, I can relate to), and ended up hurting her sister once more. After that point, it was no longer about Elsa dealing with her control issues, it was about how Ana wanted her sister to know that she loved her.

And I was like, "Well no shit, Sherlock."

To me, this movie was never a question of how much these two sisters loved each other. In fact, the whole reason why Elsa was so freaked out in the first place was that she hurt her younger sister, who she loved. And while Elsa grew older and more distant because of that, it was never said that Ana didn't still love her sister. She knew that her sister and her used to be friends, she just didn't understand what she was going through. And so at the end when they're all happy and lovey-dovey, I was just like- "That's it? That's the character arc? That's as far as they're taking this? But it started off so good!"

I just felt like that was a cop-out ending. I mean, it kinda didn't add up. Elsa couldn't have possibly thought that Ana didn't forgive her for hurting her as a child- because she'd had her memory wiped of the magic. And so for Elsa to suddenly have her magic under control after realizing that "love" was what it took, I found that really stupid. It could have been that Elsa didn't think that Ana loved her because she had been avoiding her for over ten years, but even still, finding out your sister loves you shouldn't be the thing that helps you to overcome your personal anxiety. I found that to be incredibly weak and disappointing.

Anyway, let's move on:

Olaf shouldn't even be alive in this movie. But he's cute, and so everyone accepts that he just... is. I  honestly liked him as a comedic sidekick and even as a character, but the team for Frozen didn't even bother to write an explanation for how Elsa can create life out of snow. She just can. That's a thing she can do. The writers at Disney were just playing fast and loose with the limitations of Elsa's powers, and it's a little annoying, to be honest.

The Duke of Weseltown was funny, but unnecessary, and frankly the movie probably would have been mostly the same without him there.

More importantly, though: Elsa and Hans acted out of character a few times, which was a little concerning, to be honest. It was weird when Elsa went all murderous on those guards in her ice tower- like she literally almost murdered two people after disarming them!- and it was weird when Hans was acting all nice and quirky at the beginning when he first met Ana, when he was evil the entire time. Like, their characters didn't add up sometimes, which was strange. And I know you were supposed to like Hans at first, in order for the twist ending to hit you right in the feels, but if a real person acted like two completely different people like Hans did, you would think he was a sociopath.

Don't even get me started on how Hans is essentially the male human version of Ariel from The Little Mermaid- marrying upwards in society in order to maintain power. I mean, not exactly, but you can't prove that Ariel from The Little Mermaid didn't just love Eric for all of his belongings and dinglehoppers, and only wanted to marry him because she had six older sisters and wanted to be queen. And to top it off, they fell in love without communicating to each other for a majority of the movie- which is problematic. (As you can see, I'm not the biggest fan of The Little Mermaid...).

The only logical explanation for Hans to behave the way he does in the movie is explained in the Film Theory episode that MatPat did on Frozen: HANS IS NOT THE BAD GUY?!  (And by the way, if you haven't checked out Film Theory yet, please do- they are one of my favorite YouTube series' that talks about movies.)

Category 5: Plot- C

Warning: SPOILERS, STILL.
As seen through my character complaints, the main problem that I have with this movie is that Elsa is not the main character. Disney could have made a great movie about sisterly love and everything, without focusing so much on Ana and her adventures with Kristoff and the talking snowman. I was much more intrigued by the potential plot of Elsa overcoming her self-control issues and her anxiety. The problem with this movie is that it uses "love" as the heal-all-end-all solution to everything, and because it's Disney, nobody questions it. But honestly, when I saw this movie in theaters the first time, I thought this movie's ending was stupid and a little too cliché to make me feel anything other than disappointed. The ending kinda ruined it for me.

I would have liked it more if, like everyone intended when the movie was first pitched to Disney, Elsa was the villain. But not because she was evil or because she was mean-spirited, but because she was dealing with herself and learning to control her anxiety and fears of hurting someone again. It would have been a different movie, sure, but I also feel like it would have been more interesting.

Imagine this: Elsa is in her castle by herself, not having to worry about concealing her powers because she's alone. Then she meets Jack Frost, and they discuss her powers and how to train herself to overcome them and whatever. She grows to like him because he's dealt with a similar issue of learning to control your powers and accept yourself and get over your fear of hurting others. And then Ana shows up and she's like, "Sis, you froze the town." And Elsa freaks out and hurts Ana just like in the movie, and then she and Jack Frost have to take Ana to the trolls who say that true love's kiss will break the spell. And because they are sisters, Elsa can pull a Maleficent (SPOILER) and kiss her on the head, thus saving Ana. They can have a touching heart to heart about sisterly love and what it means to be there for someone even when they are going through something you don't understand. THEN- because the town is still frozen, mind you, Elsa can have a nervous breakdown because she's afraid of hurting her sister and ruining everything again, before she inevitably saves the town. (In this version, Olaf and Snowball can still exist, but just in a different context with more explanation of how they're alive.)

The main difference between this movie and the original Frozen is the theme. The theme of the original Frozen was "Love can conquer all," which is a very appropriate Disney theme. The theme of the movie that I just created was "Believe in yourself," which I think is also very fitting for Disney, however, I think my theme is more appropriate for this story, especially considering that Elsa was dealing with control issues. My re-write also features the themes of friendship and sisterly love, like the original, but in a more cohesive context, I think.

I feel like the story I just summarized would have been a much better movie in general. Would it have been nearly as popular with the kids as the actual Frozen was? I don't know, maybe if the movie included the Jack Frost character from Rise of the Guardians it would be...

I'm joking of course. That would be a legal nightmare for DreamWorks and Disney.

Plus, I mean, the whole Jack Frost thing was a tad ridiculous, so it doesn't have to be him in my version of the movie (although the internet would explode if it was), but I feel like the plot could use an entire overhaul in order for it to make cohesive sense.

I guess my problem with Frozen is that everything in it makes just enough sense for parents and children to get on board, but nothing fits together 100% perfectly well, which just sits with me the wrong way.

And Disney's determination to have an arbitrary bad guy for people to dislike was really one of those things that sat with me weird. I'm like, "Why couldn't this movie have been about Elsa, and her control issues? The troll at the beginning said that her powers would grow due to fear- and Elsa was afraid not only of herself, but of people finding out about her secret and thinking she was a freak."

I mean, that plot generalization kinda sounds like I'm encroaching on Shrek territory because the main characters is hated by the masses for being different, but you get the idea.

To sum up my complaint, I feel like this movie focused on the wrong sister to avoid talking about some intense issues and in order to lighten the mood. And I mean, I'm not saying that the plot of Frozen is bad, I'm just saying that the ending is tonally inconsistent with what I feel was the main struggle of the film. Ana was just a side character, who ended up being a hero because she was quirky and awkward.

Category 6: Kid Friendliness- A

Let's be honest here: Disney didn't make this movie for me. Disney really didn't even make this movie for anyone over the age of 10. And even though Frozen was a global phenomenon that appealed to both boys and girls around the world, everyone knows I was not in Disney's target demographic when they started story-boarding this movie. This movie is fun and enjoyable, and incredibly age appropriate for everyone. Plot holes and lack of character progression aside, I do think that children and adults of all ages can watch Frozen and sing along, and enjoy the fun characters and Olaf's funny comments. No, it is not the perfect movie. But is it acceptable?

I mean, yeah. I guess so.

So on a scale of "YAY!" to "BOO!" I would give it a "Meh"- which I suppose is the equivalent of a C. But that's just my personal opinion. If you have children that love Frozen or if you know people that love Disney movies with catchy songs, then this movie is probably more of an A movie for them. But for a then teenager (who saw it in 2013) and current adult, I have to say that I expected a little more out of the movie. But that's not to say that I didn't enjoy it, and that I wouldn't watch it again. But, I mean, only if there was nothing else on TV.

Now, with that said, everyone can finally: