Saturday Ramble- "Frozen" was a Misfire

Well, now I've done it.

I have, of course, been aware of Disney's "Frozen" since it came out. I never got the chance to watch it, though I saw plenty of clips on the internet and my little niece has been singing it's songs nearly nonstop since her parents bought the DVD. So today I finally watched the movie with my wife. I enjoyed the songs, I laughed at the characters, I saw everything that everyone said was so great about this film, and then, when it ended, I went...

...eh?

THIS was the piece that everyone said was Disney's game changer?

Granting that this is all my own opinion, Frozen is not better than the Little Mermaid or Aladdin. It doesn't even approach the mountaintop that is the Lion King or Beauty and the Beast. It is a beautiful, HIGHLY ambitious piece that, in the end, cannot stand under it's own weight.

It feels as if there is an absolutely stunning script here that someone decided to cut through at breakneck speed, whether for fear of child attention spans or animation costs I don't know, but it was dizzying. It's like someone told the directors "You can totally use musical numbers to develop character" but then no one told the songwriters that was the plan.

I once heard that Elsa was originally the villain until the director's heard "Let it Go," and then they changed their minds. It's a very romantic idea of a living, growing character in creation... and of a HOT MESS of animated movie making. Yet, thinking back through the movie, that kind of internal disconnect seems a bit more obvious.

Some of my biggest gripes.

Elsa is a non-character. She's scared and doesn't talk, and has ice powers that go out of control when afraid. She has a break down and flees, then has a HUGE (and legitimately amazing) musical number, at which point she goes back to scared and not talking. That's not her character in a nutshell, that's her WHOLE character. She doesn't get the screentime to be anyone else.

So fine, she's the motivation of the story, not it's hero, right? That would be Anna, who does get the best beats and is the only character given any kind of depth at all. But she's scattershot, making mood shifts depending on joke beats, not character motivations. She "falls in love" with Hans in a great display of an extrovert finally being released from her shell (easily the best character beat in the movie) and then proceeds to stumble around the plot for the rest of the movie, looking for all the world like she knows she is supposed to be providing the depth and is trying desperately to keep up, until "screw it, turn into an ice statue to save my sister" is the best she can manage.

And Hans! We're supposed to believe that the guy who is out the snow caring for the poor and needy, getting them into the warm(er) palace with free blankets and cloaks (which the sweet shopkeeper in the mountains was bilking people on) is THEN gonna make a heel turn like that? Those were NOT the same two characters. I would have bought it if he kissed her and it didn't WORK, if he just admitted that he was hoping to marry royalty and hey she seemed great and eager and so why not but SHEESH lady... but no, he then goes about making sure she dies slowly? I would have accepted a Gaston argument for killing Elsa (It's her or us, folks, and even SHE admits she can't control it...) but no, we needed full on evil for... reasons, I guess. Which would have been fine if it had been hinted at ALL earlier.

The Trolls we could have done without entirely. "Fixer Upper" might even have been my favorite song of the movie (possibly because, even having not seen the movie before this, I am a little over "Let it Go") but they didn't motivate the plot in anyway that another character couldn't have managed. Without them, we get another fifteen minutes or so in which to give some of the other characters room to breathe, for their motivations to make sense.

Olaf, also, adds NOTHING to the movie besides a saleable character. He was ABOUT to be a great connection reminding Elsa and Anna both of their childhoods, but since Elsa was too busy not being in the movie and Anna was being hurried on to the next set piece, nothing ever came of it, and so Olaf ceased to exist for anything other than comic relief, which is hardly needed with a heroine who never misses a chance to make a joke.


The reason I think this is making me so crazy is that this COULD have been the movie everyone told me they saw. It had the bones of a truly great character piece, a revelation dealing with the poles of introversion and extroversion and trying to hide what you are. They even set up a lesson about fear being the problem, not fear of others, but fear of yourself. IT WAS THE ONE WORTHWHILE THING THE TROLLS DID AND THEY JUST DROPPED IT!

(pant, pant, pant)

It actually feels a great deal like Maleficent, a movie with the potential to be amazing that was hamstrung in the oddest ways. I am starting to very strongly get the sensation that the Disney formula that has been so brilliant elsewhere is present in the Princess franchise, but hamstrung by voices worrying about protecting the Brand.

If they had added, say, another 45 minutes to the runtime, or maybe dropped a song or two, FROZEN could have been a masterpiece. As it is, it has a collection of great songs, great characters, great jokes and great ideas that are too busy elbowing each other for room to breathe to create a glorious tapestry.

It's not bad to shoot high and fall short. I wish more companies took risks like that. But given that Frozen was never not going to make money, I wish the Brand managers had left it alone. Or, at least, that the directors paid enough attention to the creators under their direction were all working on the same movie.