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Frozen; A deserved success?
Topic Started: Apr 6 2014, 08:07 AM (237 Views)
Erazer
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Night Fury
Hello everybody, I just returned from training some dragons in New Zealand :)

As you may or may not have heard, Frozen is now officially the highest-grossing animated movie of all time. It surprised me there isn't yet a topic for this one here, so I thought I would start one.

What did you think of it, and do you think it deserves its massive success?




Personally, I thought it was one of the best Disney films in years - better than Tangled, in my opinion. Not quite on the level of Disney classics like The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast, but definitely a fantastic film.

Above all, I thought that it worked really well as a musical, so it's not just a movie with songs in it. Not all of them are of the same quality, but at worst they're okay (Fixer-Upper), and at best they're absolutely amazing (Do you want to be a Snowman, honestly now one of my all-time favorite film songs). The rest of the score did a good job supporting the film, too.

The story itself was very well thought-out and affective, for the most part at least. I really enjoyed these characters, especially the dynamics between Anna and Elsa, the heart of the film. Olaf, too, turned out to be a better comic relief character than I ever imagined him to be. The trailers kind of made him look like an annoying side character, but in the end he was both funny, as well as extremely likeable. The only real letdown was the "surprise" villain in the second half, which I thought wasn't needed. I found the idea of Elsa being the villain extremely intriguing, and for a while the movie seemed to be going this way. They acknowledge the fact that Elsa's power is very dangerous, and she would go far to do what she thinks is best for her sister.

That way, we would have a villain that isn't really one, that doesn't want to harm anybody but does due to her uncontrollable powers. Like I said though, they distract from this idea when they introduce a "real" villain halfway into the movie that really is just one-dimensional and "evil". Kind of a letdown for me.

However, the resolution in the end was very clever. They did a new spin on the old "true love saves the day" formula, which surprised me and concluded the movie perfectly.

In the end, Frozen was a great film that definitely was popular for a reason other than good timing (with the title-relating weather in the US). I don't think it's among the best animated films ever or anything (or better than Toy Story 3 for that matter), but an enjoyable ride none the less.
How to Train your Dragon - Hoppípolla
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Azdgari
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Founder + Goofball

Let it gooooooooo
I get all the news I need on the weather report
Hey, I've got nothing to do today but smile
Here I am, the only living boy in New York
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Night Fury
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The fact that it's a musical put me off at first... I have never been a fan of Disney musicals.

I've decided I would like to see it though.
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Tasermon's Partner


Hmm, I assume that the "highest grossing animating film" metric isn't adjusted for inflation? Still, that's quite an honor.

I also agree that it's probably the best Disney animated movie so far this century (not counting Pixar films).

The animation was definitely top-notch, and you can certainly see Pixar's influence here (I think their Brain Trust did much collab with this movie). In particular, some things that struck me were not just the character's facial expressions, but the realism of the body movements and language. During some songs, you could the character's breathe in just by watching their adam's apples and the heaving of their chests. Another was the detail paid to every object in the background. I recall one scene where a window blows open and a chess piece falls over, and then the Olaf snowman later jumps on the table and each individual chess piece is toss and ends up in a specific location.

By far Disney's best computer-animated work.

The other I liked was the "love-triangle" angle rather than the the traditional Disney take. Lots of very unexpected twists throughout. To be honest, at the the very start, I didn't see the whole [SPOILER ALERT] Hans betrayal coming. I thought he genuinely like Anna, and that Kristof, being the ice-lover, would end up with Elsa, the ice maiden. But boy, did they pull a fast one there! In contrast to Erazer, I actually liked that spin, if for nothing else than the fact that it showed Disney was willing to go beyond their traditional formula, and also are capable of pulling a personality switch with almost no forewarning whatsoever. It's both a surprise and a sign of trust in the audience's intelligence that they didn't feel the need to spell out his upcoming betrayal beforehand.

Another thing I liked was that Elsa didn't, in fact, end up with a love interest. The fact that they left it very open-ended, with just her being happy for being herself, and also happy with having the love and acceptance of her family and her people, rather than a specific love interest, was a refreshing take. I also like the somewhat open-endedness of Anna an Kristoff's relationship. Yes, they're obviously together, but it's not the main plot of the movie, nor is it the necessarily the main focus of the conclusion; and they don't go so far as to have to have them marry and live happily-ever after...yet. I did see the whole sibling-love-being-the spell-breaker act coming, but the fact that it was also different than the traditional Disney ending of the magical kiss breaking the spell was also a nice new take.

I do somewhat resent Disney still sticking to to their traditional "princess" formula in that the lead women are all beautiful and the lead men are all exceedingly handsome (just for once couldn't they have someone average looking, or better yet, how about somebody with body-image problems, like people in the real world do?) But I do give them points for making Anna at least slightly more homely than Elsa...and, in fact, while I have issue with the "perfect body" image, I do also given them credit for at least taking it on a much more "provocative" tone with Elsie than Disney has probably done with any other character before.

And there were some minor inconsistencies and plot-holes, but overall, nothing than a little imagination couldn't overlook. It is a Disney movie, after all.

As with many animated movies, I feel it could've been longer and certain characters fleshed out a tad more, but it seems that the editors are once again stuck with the misconception that kids can't take a movie longer than a hour-and-a-half without losing interest or having to go to the bathroom. Damn whoever came up with that notion.

Overall though, I found it to be a very enjoyable movie, and, as Erazer said, Disney's best in years.
Edited by Tasermon's Partner, Apr 8 2014, 01:37 AM.
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Walter Roehrich
Terrible Terror
I was surprised when I read that Frozen is now the highest grossing animated movie of all times, considering that it is not part of an existing franchise like Toy Story or Shrek for example.

Normally I am not a fan of Disney musicals (or singing in movies in general) but this time I enjoyed it quite a lot, especially the songs “Let it Go” and “Do You Want to Build a Snowman”.

It was better than Tangled, mainly because Frozen has the catchier songs, but I still prefer Disney movies like Wreck-It Ralph or Lilo and Stitch.
That's just weak songwriting. You wrote a bad song, Petey.
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