During this period of time we also noticed a big fan base building up, and the film hadn't even come out yet. People were basically obsessed. And most people who know me know that I tend to stay away from hyped up things (unless they are actually good), so basically I was thinking that I really didn't want to see it, at least not if I had to pay money. At one point Caroline was persuaded to see it with a member of her family and she reported that she wasn't very impressed. I found that after that point I was only basing my dislike of the film on what I had seen of the fandom and what Caroline had told me about it. She pointed it out to me, and I realized that I really did need to see it for myself before making a final judgement. Very recently I finally got a chance to see it (for free, of course) and I decided that a review was worth a blog post.
I watched it twice. The first time I watched it all the way through without any interruptions, to get a good sense of things and take it all in. The second time I watched it with a word document open and typed out notes as I watched, sometimes even pausing for extended commentary or thoughts. Sadly, the vast majority of my opinions were only confirmed.
To begin, Frozen is supposedly based on The Snow Queen, a story by Hans Christian Anderson. I say supposedly because the movie retains very little of the original story. I was really sad about that because it's a good story and I would have loved to see a more faithful adaptation. This being said, there are still numerous issues I have with the film.
The story basically centers around two sisters, Elsa and Anna, who also happen to be princesses. Elsa, who has magical snow powers, is the elder of the two. When they are very young Elsa accidentally hurts Anna (and gives her a stylish new highlight) when she strikes her in the head with her powers. The king and queen take her to a magical colony of boulder trolls where an elder troll heals Anna by taking away her memories of magic. The king and queen then shut up the castle and confine Elsa to her room after the troll elder tells them that her powers are beautiful, but dangerous uncontrolled. And of course, Anna doesn't know why her sister, who used to be her best friend, will no longer play with her, or even come out of her room. Her parents make her wear gloves to help with the powers. Years go by and the king and queen go on a trip by sea, where they die.
There are a lot of issues here:
1) Where did Elsa's powers come from? The film states that she was born with them, but we get no back story as to how that happened. Did it have to do with her parents? Was she cursed? Blessed? Who really knows?
2) Why did Elsa's powers give Anna a highlight in her hair?
3) How does the king just instantly know where to go for magical healing? Does this kind of thing happen often?
4) Does Kristoff not have a family? In the beginning (which I failed to mention) he is seen with a group of ice breakers. He is following them around like he knows them. But when he sees a trail of ice, he leaves them and follows the trail to the boulder trolls and watches them heal Anna. They then take him in. This is a big plot hole.
5) How do the boulder trolls know magic? Also, why are they boulder trolls? I guess they can't just be normal trolls.
6) Why do Elsa's powers affect Anna the way they do? The only reason I can see for this is to draw some faint parallels to the original story, but that doesn't explain it away. Also, why is the troll's remedy to remove all memories of magic? To me it seems like a very convenient element that the story wouldn't be able to happen without.
7) The parents don't seem to be any help at all. Their first response is to make Elsa a veritable prisoner, even though she is just a child.
8) How do the gloves help? The only way I could see them helping is if they are magical, otherwise, it's just cloth. Caroline says that it might be a mental thing. I'll give that some consideration.
After a few years, when Elsa is finally old enough, the castle gates are opened and she is to be crowned queen. She's worried her powers will get out of hand, though. Anna is more excited that the gates are opening and she finally gets to see the world. Before the coronation she goes out into the town and happens to meet a handsome prince, who she thinks she is in love with instantly. Then the coronation takes place with a nervous Elsa. Afterwards there is a ball. There we are introduced to the character the Duke of Weselton, who I will refer to as Weasel Man. Anna barely talks to her sister. Instead she spends the whole night with the prince, whose name is Hans, which I forgot to mention. By the end of the night, and a song, they get engaged and ask Elsa to approve, but she doesn't. When Anna presses the matter, Elsa's powers are accidentally revealed to all. She runs away to the mountains, unintentionally leaving the kingdom in a wake of ice and snow that won't go away. During a song she makes a whole entire ice castle and does a wardrobe change, all while singing.
9) Everything from before the coronation takes place in about the first twelve minutes. It goes by so fast that it can be too much.
10) I just love that Anna thinks she has fallen in love over the course of one song. My only consolation is that Elsa refused to bless the marriage.
11) The first response to Elsa's powers is the typical "WITCHCRAFT!" of the days of yore. And this is from someone who is supposed to be an ally (yes, I'm talking about Weasel Man).
12) Why is Weasel man suddenly trying to take charge? What authority does he have?
13) I don't understand why "Let it Go" is so popular. It's only a mediocre song, and some of the lyrics sound so strange.
14) During "Let it Go" Elsa's hair seems to pass right through her shoulder. This mistake is one I've cringed over since Caroline showed me a gif of it last year. I don't understand how a mistake like that can be missed. The film had to have been reviewed thousands of times before they put it out. But really, did you not see that when you were animating it?
Anna takes it upon herself to go find her sister, leaving Hans in charge of the kingdom while she is gone. After a few mishaps she runs into Kristoff, an ice man (and his reindeer, Sven) who seems to know where the snow is coming from. After doing him a favor, she gets him to take her to the mountain. Along the way they lose Kristoff's sleigh to a pack of ravenous wolves and must continue on foot. They then meet a talking, walking snowman with wit and a longing for summer, and who also happens to know where Elsa is. After a song the snowman, named Olaf, leads them to Elsa's ice castle. Kristoff, Sven, and Olaf wait outside while Anna goes in to talk to her sister. Elsa wants to be left alone, and Anna wants to help. She tells Elsa about what happened to the kingdom, and in a fit of fear Elsa accidentally strikes Anna again, but this time in her heart. Elsa then creates a snow monster to kick Anna and her friends out. Unsure of what to do now, and with her hair turning white, Anna lets Kristoff take her to his family, which turns out to be the boulder trolls from the beginning. Claiming to be "love experts" over the course of a song they try to get Anna and Kristoff together. When Anna becomes weak, the elder troll says that only an act of true love can heal what's been done. Kristoff, Olaf, and Sven then take her back to Arendelle so that a kiss from her true love, who she thinks is Hans, can make everything better.
15) I don't understand how they let a princess who’s been shut up in a castle for years go off into the unknown by herself in the middle of a blizzard in a fancy dress. I just...I can't.
16) How does Kristoff know the snow is coming from the North Mountain?
17) Where did Anna get money? Does she just carry it around all the time while she's shut up in the castle?
18) Olaf is the only good, even though he doesn’t seem to be very useful or push the plot forward.
19) I don't understand the situation with Weasel Man. Why does he want to kill Elsa? and what authority does he have to do it?
20) The whole business with the trolls trying to put the two together is really annoying. Apparently two characters can’t be friends, they have to be together.
21) Why does Anna's hair turn white? What does that have to do with anything?
22) The elder troll seems to be omnipotent or something, which is confusing.
23) When they say an act of true love, they immediately assume it has to be a kiss.
Meanwhile, when Anna never returned, Hans took a group of men to find her, and the queen. Weasel Man sends two of his henchmen along with the intent of killing the queen. When they get to Elsa's castle, they are greeted by the snow monster, who they begin to fight. The Weasel henchmen go around it and into the castle to try to kill Elsa. Hans intervenes when she is very near killing them in defense. After Elsa is somehow knocked out, they take her back to Arendelle and imprison her, putting metal mitts on her hands. Hans promises to try and help her, then goes to meet with some important-looking people, including Weasel Man. While they are talking Kristoff arrives with Anna, then leaves with Sven. The important people leave Anna and Hans alone together. When Anna tries to get Hans to kiss her, he almost does, then reveals that he is the villain and gives the obligatory speech about his evil plot. He then locks Anna in the room to die (her hair is now completely white). He goes back to the important people and says that Anna is dead, killed by her sister, but he married her before she died, making him ruler. He then decides Elsa should be put to death. But when he goes down to carry out the sentence, Elsa breaks out. Somehow she starts up a crazy storm.
24) Throughout the movie Elsa goes through bouts where she seems to be 100% in control of her powers, and then she will suddenly act like she doesn't know how to control it. That's really strange.
25) Okay, so Elsa is imprisoned. By who? Hans acts like Anna left him in charge, and yet Weasel Man and the important people who are with him seem to be the ones who imprison Elsa. Then, later Hans gives Elsa the impression that he's not in charge. I couldn't tell if he was doing that intentionally or if the creators messed up.
26) These people are supposed to live in Scandinavia, but they act like they don’t know what winter is.
27) They don’t do anything for or ask questions of Kristoff whenever he brings Anna back. I guess so he can be conveniently away and have to come racing back.
28) Hans is a fairly good villain twist. That’s about it.
29) The marriage vows thing isn’t suspicious at all to anyone? No priest, nothing in writing, no proof…
30) Elsa doesn’t get a trial, he just charges her and sentences her in one breath.
Meanwhile, Olaf has found his way into the castle and breaks into the room Anna is in. He then makes a fire for her and they talk. He basically gets her to realize that Kristoff is her true love. When Olaf sees from the window that Kristoff is coming back for Anna, they try to go out to meet him, but are forced to go out a window because Elsa's powers have blocked the way out. Kristoff and Anna then try to make it to each other through the storm, while Anna is beginning to totally freeze. Meanwhile, Hans has found Elsa in the storm and tells her that Anna is dead. In grief, she drops to the ground and the storm stops. The important people look on from a balcony while Hans swings back his sword to kill Elsa. Anna abandons her pursuit of Kristoff when she sees her sister in danger, and runs in between Elsa and Hans. As his sword comes down, Anna turns to ice and the sword breaks. Elsa hugs her ice sister and cries. Kristoff is bummed. Hans is temporarily out of commission. The important people are still looking on. Anna then turns back into her non-icy self and they realize that love can also turn the winter thing around, so Elsa lifts winter and everyone is happy again, except Hans, who gets deported, and Weasel Man, who loses his shipping buddy. Elsa then keeps Olaf alive with his own snow cloud. Anna presents Kristoff with a new sled, and they end up kissing. Finally, Elsa uses her powers to turn the courtyard into a skating rink and everyone skates. They live happily ever after, the end.
31) So if, according to Olaf, Kristoff bringing Anna back and leaving her forever is an act of love, then why didn’t that fix her frozen heart?
32) Elsa can’t find her way through her own storm?
33) Elsa has sudden and immediate control of her powers. Ummm….
34) The weasel guy is ridiculously annoying.
35) What’s with the peanut gallery watching from the balcony and doing absolutely nothing?
36) Best friend to the hair-through-the-shoulder mistake is the thumb-through-the-body mistake when Kristoff picks Anna up.
So, if you couldn't tell, I have A LOT of issues with this movie. My basic assessment is that it was very underdeveloped. The makers of the movie seemed more concerned with the awesome technology they came up with to make the film rather than the making of the film itself. Apparently Elsa has more hair on her head than an actual human being. I don't understand how that's relevant to the movie, and I certainly didn't notice anything special about the hair in this film. However, while it is a pretty stinky movie, I still think it's characters are deserving of some awards.
Best Impression of a Cockatoo: Elsa
Most Annoying Character: Weasel Man
Ugliest sideburns: Hans
Best Male Character: Olaf
Best Female Character: This woman who loves to skate.
Best Outfit: Sven
Best Impression of the Horse from Tangled: Hans' horse
Best Impression of Triplets: Anna, Elsa, the Queen
Most Likely to be Bad Parents: the King and Queen
Most Likely to be Useless: the important people
Best 80s hair: Anna
A much better film that I saw recently was How to Train Your Dragon 2. The plot and characters were pretty sound, and the soundtrack was brilliant (I can't stop listening to it). In my opinion it trumps Frozen, even though it is far less popular, and the concept art that backed the credits was so amazing that Caroline and I stayed until they were over just to look at it. But, then, we love that kind of thing.
The moral of today's post? Be careful where you step in a plot hole minefield.
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