TV & Film Here we go: Frozen

[Syrrus]

I'm sure I'll get a lot of hate from this, but I'm going to write it anyway. I did -not- like Disney's Frozen, for different reasons. Yes the songs were catchy (I only remember one of them...) and yes the snow effects were cute. But how can Disney, who used to be so good at it, have forgotten everything about emotion and character design? I've seen the sketches of the Snow Queen for Frozen and it boggles my mind that they would pick the most boring option possible.


Animated features are so much more than just a script, it's about the visual effect, design methods, concepts, environments, colour pallets and emotion. Disney used to be very good with this: they would pick a style of art and a type of paint that would suit the story they were going for. They would spend years trying to make the perfect movie. I realize that 3D animation is both cheaper and faster to make than 2D animation but films such as How to Train your Dragon 2 really prove that if you put the same time and effort into your 3D work you'll get a result so beautiful that it will make audiences the world over shed a tear.


We have Studio Ghibli who's showing the world that animation can manipulate the audience’s emotions without the use of words proving that Animation is something beautiful and delicate which you need to take care of – and, as aforementioned, Disney used to know how to do exactly that, unfortunately now it seems as if they have decided to use 3D Animation because of how cheap it is and opted for the ability to pump out as many movies as possible across four years instead of one or two, and Frozen really proves to me why Disney isn't trying anymore.


People will see the movie anyway, as long as it says 'Disney' in front of it people will gobble their films up, but I remember a time when you heard that Disney were showing a new film in the cinema and you knew without even watching a trailer on TV that it was going to either blow you away, make you cry, make you feel joy or inspire you –perhaps all of the above.


Of course, animated features are mainly directed towards children and I'm not calling children stupid for enjoying Frozen, but once upon a time even adults could enter the cinema and spend ninety-six minutes watching a Disney film with their children and admire the work that had been put into it. It would be a film that the adults would love and the children would always remember.


Watching Frozen is like watching that TV-show you really liked as a kid, you're watching it because of nostalgia; remember how much you used to love it! Now, you've done this many times before and you felt the same joy you did as a kid, it felt just as epic and as wonderful as it did then! So, you sit down to watch this TV-Show too, the one you really liked as a kid and by the end of the first episode you have a small feeling in the back of your head, a tiny voice nagging you to turn it off before your memories are ruined, but you nevertheless continue watching, forgiving it’s flaws because of nostalgia and then when you've spent your time watching all the episodes you're left with that sour taste in your mouth, you'll put the DVD Box set away and you'll never speak of the show to any one, ever again. Wishing, with all your might, that you hadn't re-watched it. I believe that's probably how children growing up with Frozen are going to feel in ten-to-fifteen years.


I just never thought Disney would be the company to make such a movie, to be able to create a sour taste so disgusting you just want to spit it out and never attempt it again.


But I suppose they wanted to make a film about an obligatory (and very ham-fisted) feminist message of 'sister love' and not put more thought than that into it. I don't think Hans Christian Andersen would be very happy if he knew about this adaptation, but who am I to judge? I don't have much experience in the business, probably far from the amount the makers of Frozen have (I surely hope so at least...), so judging based on my own skill would be stupid of me. But I can bloody well judge them from my own point of view and with my own opinion.


I do wonder though, will we have top quality Disney films again?

 

[Syrrus]

I am not speaking of the quality of Story, Stories in animated features are not always ground breaking; in fact they are fairly basic, it needs to be simple enough to get a message across to children of all ages as well as be entertaining for x-amount of time. It is the animation quality that is largely my problem, mainly because I've seen college students make better cinematic formula than any of the scenes in Frozen (that's not to say that college students are at any way bad at what they are trying to learn) but you'd think a company such as Disney would hire the greatest of the greats, or at least still have a standard which the animation has to reach before being released to the public, like back when Walt Disney or Roy Disney were working for the company. They would take any idea given to them by the studio and they would tell them if it sounded like a good idea or not. If they approved of the idea they would keep an eye on it, and ensure it followed the quality standards of Disney Animation.


This is why the first draft of The Snow Queen got scrapped long before Frozen was on the table - it simply didn't appeal at the time. This is why we still haven’t seen Journey to the West, or Don Quixote from Disney Animation Studios. Now, however, I don't think they adhere to those quality standards, because it doesn't really matter anymore consumers will buy anyway. Unlike when Atlantis: The Lost Empire was made (which also had its shortcomings), Disney is at a peak - yet somehow, animation is not as stunning as it could be on a high budget. Everyone looked pretty much the same except the 'bad merchant' man. Elsa and Anna could be twins for all I know, though to be honest they didn't feel like sisters either. Take Lilo and Nani from Lilo and Stitch. They hit me like a train with their fleshed-out feelings and relationship between each other, that was beautiful. Elsa and Anna just came off as undeveloped character sheets that needed at least two or three more years of thought before being put on paper.


I don't mind the Sister love at all, but one of the things that baffles me was when the Snowman was melting (Dying basically) to keep Anna company... That wasn't an act on love? The whole "Some people are worth melting for" ? No, because they had decided it had to be Elsa who saved her sister. Furthermore, the Prince to whom Anna was betrothed becomes the villain without any prior notice? It’s for these reasons I believe it was ham-fisted. If you want to do it, do it well.


I understand why Disney is pushing the whole 'Women are strong' business, in this day and age it’s pertinent, and good to make a show of now and again. However, unless suffering from bad parenting children won't go to an animated feature and confront it for comprehensive life lessons. Children aren’t as stupid as people think. But, let’s say that's the reason as to why Disney is pushing the whole 'Women is strong' thing; leaving them with a strong moral. Then, why in films like these is there so often a male villain who is either disgusting or evil? I’m hardly a major in gender politics, but you’re creating tension with scenarios like these. Girls and women have often been the main characters in Disney Movies. Saying that Disney is teaching girls that they need to wait, tower-bound, to be rescued is like saying that this film teaches little boys to be duplicitous and evil – or else, a reindeer herder.


I'll argue that Anna and Elsa don't even have personality. Anna is quirky... and a parody of ‘love at first sight’ and Elsa is just a depressed and naive woman? That's all I can see anyhow. Which is sad.


Though enjoying the film isn't bad either! You are very welcome to do so.

 

[Syrrus]

Lilo and Stitch - The television series didn't come ‘till after the second film - people still felt more invested in Lilo and Nani before that happened, in the self-contained film narratives. Heck, on a design note I fell in love with the film by way of the fact that they drew women with fat and flesh and not as complete strings for once, that was a nice change; and Nani was a strong woman too, she just needed help and needing help doesn't mean you're not strong in any way, in fact I think it just makes you stronger if you can admit it and development in that regard makes for a more realistic, relatable character. Even strong people are fallible.


I'd argue that some of the women from Disney have always been strong, perhaps not in the physical way. Women such as Meg from Hercules, Pocahontas herself, Bianca from Rescuers, Jasmine from Aladdin, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Esmeralda from Hunchback of Notredame (My personal favorite), I could probably go on. I just don't see how a strong woman can't love a man or another woman for that matter. Why can females only be portrayed as strong nowadays with the men completely out of the picture – or else, made comical and bumbling like Eugene (not that I disliked Tangled, though).