Frozen (spoilers)

[mbcdefg]

I saw this movie last week ... was there a discussion on this board about it already? If not, want to talk about it?

[vanillacourage]

I love this movie.  We've seen it twice in the theaters so I don't feel AS guilty for watching it additional times via the streaming link that ML found. 

[raangoli]

I have not watched it, so I will ask a potentially stupid question - what makes it so great?

[mbcdefg]

Jan 29, 2014 10:20:18 GMT -5 raangoli said:

I have not watched it, so I will ask a potentially stupid question - what makes it so great?

I think I overhyped it in my head, honestly. I read some non-spoiler talk on these boards and I watched a couple YouTube clips (namely the "Let It Go" song sequence) on the Disney YT channel before I went to see it.

It's good, don't get me wrong, but I wasn't as blown away as I thought I'd be. The animation is great, the music is mostly really good, but I thought the story was lacking in parts.

[changedname]

Jan 29, 2014 10:16:08 GMT -5 vanillacourage said:

I love this movie.  We've seen it twice in the theaters so I don't feel AS guilty for watching it additional times via the streaming link that ML found. 

Can you link to the link? thanks!

[otowngirl]

I really like it. I can't decide if my favorite part is Idina's singing or any scene involving Kristoff talking with his reindeer ("But you won't get your new sleigh if she's dead!" gets me every single time).

[mrssandro]

I think it's a great movie. At first I wasn't a fan of all the singing but then I warmed up to it. DD listen to the soundtrack daily now. She knows all the words to the songs. She just loves it and I can see why. Just like I loved The little Mermaid back in the day.

www.policymic.com/articles/79455/7-moments-that-made-frozen-the-most-progressive-disney-movie-ever

[noodleoo]

There was a big thread on MM Moms about it. I was also underwhelmed by it and don't really get all the love.

pandce.proboards.com/thread/282045/frozen-opinion

[vanillacourage]

Jan 29, 2014 10:20:18 GMT -5 raangoli said:

I have not watched it, so I will ask a potentially stupid question - what makes it so great?

I really like that the story line is about two strong women, who are not fighting over a man.  The love story that is there is about a man who supports his prospective partner in what SHE wants, that has nothing to do with him.  The animation is gorgeous and the vocal work is strong - plus I found the screenplay to be smart & funny (i.e. plenty there for adults, not just kids).

[mbcdefg]

I thought everything in the "Let it Go" sequence was fantastic ... Idina's a great singer, and the animation on the ice castle and her transformation into the Snow Queen is spectacular.

I didn't really see the Hans twist coming. When he first met Anna and she left him in charge while she went after Elsa, I thought it was a bit odd that he was SO sweet and honorable so I suspected there'd eventually be a catch ... but I thought the twist was going to be that he'd kiss Anna and nothing would happen since it wasn't true love (with the message being that you won't fall in love at first sight, even with a really nice guy). I didn't expect him to be downright evil.

Anna saving Elsa was fantastic. That whole sequence in the snowstorm was so well done, and I love that it wasn't Kristoph who came to the rescue. I'm glad that the final scene was with the two sisters and Kristoph was only a background character. And I thought Olaf would be annoying but I liked him more and more as the story went on (but the Summer song was dull).

The trolls felt very out of place. I read that they're part of Norwegian mythology so I can see why they wanted to include them, but they didn't mesh well into the story for me. The "Fixer Upper" song was kind of boring. And that grandfather troll was of absolutely NO help to the royal family, or to adult Anna and Kristoph ... in both instances it was like he was just shrugging and saying, "Uh, yeah, Elsa's got these powers and they're out of control, I guess. You guys figure it out." Erasing Anna's memories of the magic, but not the fun, really felt shoehorned into the story.

I was also annoyed that they didn't provide any explanation of Elsa's powers other than her father telling the troll that she'd been born with it rather than cursed - I was expecting a curse from a witch or something. I thought they'd provide some revelation later in the story that her father also had it and had to struggle to control it. It was interesting that she referred to it as "magic" before the accident with Anna, but after that it was always called a "curse."

And the way the king hid her in the castle and kept telling her to "conceal, don't feel" ... UGH. I mean, I get why he did it (because it was essential to the story of Elsa being unable to control her powers), but I was disappointed that it wasn't acknowledged later in the film that it was a mistake.

It was also bizarre that Elsa suddenly came to the "love will thaw" realization and then everything was perfectly fine. "Oh, so I'm NOT supposed to be a panicky recluse? I've been shut off from human contact for 15 years but now I should be friends with everyone? Oh, OK! Frozen fjord fixed, let's go ice skating!" Weird that two women who'd been shut off for so long wouldn't have any lasting effects in regards to interacting with other people. And it was weird that the villagers were ready to chase her down as a witch just a few minutes before that and then suddenly they were happily ice skating with her.

[dr.girlfriend]

Jan 29, 2014 10:20:18 GMT -5 raangoli said:

I have not watched it, so I will ask a potentially stupid question - what makes it so great?

It's got good music.  It takes some of the "find my Prince" tropes and turns them on their head.  It's more about the sisterly relationship than about development of romance.  And it had like .5 seconds of a gay family, which is...progress, I guess. 

[schitzengiggles]

I love it! It is my favorite Disney movie to date. For me, the reasons are: Good story, great, catchy music, and I absolutely LOVE the end being different from your typical "princess falls in love, gets married and lives happily ever after." It has some "romance" to it, but the main story is ultimately about the love between sisters.

[mx27]

Jan 29, 2014 11:12:34 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

Jan 29, 2014 10:20:18 GMT -5 raangoli said:

I have not watched it, so I will ask a potentially stupid question - what makes it so great?

It's got good music.  It takes some of the "find my Prince" tropes and turns them on their head.  It's more about the sisterly relationship than about development of romance.  And it had like .5 seconds of a gay family, which is...progress, I guess. 

I didn't catch that.

[mbcdefg]

Jan 29, 2014 11:12:34 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

Jan 29, 2014 10:20:18 GMT -5 raangoli said:

I have not watched it, so I will ask a potentially stupid question - what makes it so great?

It's got good music.  It takes some of the "find my Prince" tropes and turns them on their head.  It's more about the sisterly relationship than about development of romance.  And it had like .5 seconds of a gay family, which is...progress, I guess. 

I saw something online (after I'd seen the movie) about the guy who ran the Trading Post and Sauna being gay, but I must've missed that part. Was his husband one of the guys in the sauna?

[mbcdefg]

I'll also add that during "Let it Go," when Elsa changed her dress/appearance and strutted to the balcony, I found myself thinking, "Wow, that's sexy."

[dr.girlfriend]

Jan 29, 2014 11:19:56 GMT -5 mbcdefg said:

Jan 29, 2014 11:12:34 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

It's got good music.  It takes some of the "find my Prince" tropes and turns them on their head.  It's more about the sisterly relationship than about development of romance.  And it had like .5 seconds of a gay family, which is...progress, I guess. 

I saw something online (after I'd seen the movie) about the guy who ran the Trading Post and Sauna being gay, but I must've missed that part. Was his husband one of the guys in the sauna?

It was very much blink-and-you'd-miss it.  The guy who runs the little trading post / sauna says something about his family being in the sauna, and you see this:



So, blurry steam-filled window, a split-second on screen, a woman (?) big enough that she could potentially be a wife and not the daughter, but the man is so clearly the adult that if you actually have time to process it you conclude it's the husband.  This is what passes for representation these days. 

[ijack]

I love that the true love act was between the sisters and didn't involve a man. As a mom to daughters that really meant a lot to me. The music is good, but damn I hope there comes a day (SOON) when I don't have one of the songs stuck in my head.

[mbcdefg]

Jan 29, 2014 11:24:45 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

Jan 29, 2014 11:19:56 GMT -5 mbcdefg said:

I saw something online (after I'd seen the movie) about the guy who ran the Trading Post and Sauna being gay, but I must've missed that part. Was his husband one of the guys in the sauna?

It was very much blink-and-you'd-miss it.  The guy who runs the little trading post / sauna says something about his family, and you see this:



So, blurry steam-filled window, a split-second on screen, a woman big enough that she could potentially be a wife and not the daughter, but the man is so clearly the adult that if you actually have time to process it you conclude it's the husband.  This is what passes for representation these days. 

Ah, I remember this part. I honestly didn't put it together that it was HIS family ... I just thought it was a family that came in to use the spa. I didn't pay enough attention to notice what people were inside the sauna. If you asked me before seeing this GIF, I would've told you it was an old man and some other random people.

[mbcdefg]

And I LOVED that everybody reacted to Anna and Hans's engagement with, "Uh, no."

  

[niemand88f]

I was meh about it. The animation was good but I wasn't into the story. I hated Olaf... a lot I did like the reindeer and Kristoff. I think finding a man was still a disappointingly big part of the story - like the very first thing Anna wanted to do was find a man, then when that didn't work out she decided she probably loved Kristoff (instant rebound). Still, that's an improvement from classic Disney princesses! I don't really get the adult obsession with it (although... I'm obsessed with Brave so maybe I shouldn't talk about that ) but I do see why kids would love it.

[sunnysideup488]

I loved it.
We took the girls to see it the other night.

They now sing the songs all the time.

DH sent me a video this morning of them dancing around the living room singing 'let it go' at the top of their lungs.

[litebright]

We've seen it twice now and have the soundtrack, which my girls love.

I like that Anna doesn't fit the typical Disney princess mold. They show her just waking up with crazy hair and drool (a far cry from, say, Cinderella waking up in her bed looking pretty much perfect). She's clumsy; and impulsive in everything from Hans to running off to save Elsa with no plan other than to talk to her, and those things backfire on her instead of magically working out.

I thought the Hans twist was pretty brilliant and very un-Disney. You really don't have a hint until the crucial moment that he's anything other than the typical nice-guy-prince-falling-head-over-heels. Both of those things add an element of realism that is absent from most Disney movies.

And Kristoff -- I saw an interview with Jonathan Goff (who is Kristoff's voice) and he talked about how he's not the typical Disney leading man. Physically, he's noticeably stockier than the slim-hipped, broad-chested Disney prince archetype. He owns a business/supports himself rather than just being a rich-boy prince.

I think there are a lot of similarities in Tangled and Frozen, with Frozen taking steps even further away from tradition than Tangled. I hope they keep moving in this direction, it's much more interesting and entertaining, IMO.

Plus, man, Hans and Kristoff both have really sexy voices.

[vanillacourage]

Jan 29, 2014 10:33:01 GMT -5 changedname said:

Jan 29, 2014 10:16:08 GMT -5 vanillacourage said:

I love this movie.  We've seen it twice in the theaters so I don't feel AS guilty for watching it additional times via the streaming link that ML found. 

Can you link to the link? thanks!

pandce.proboards.com/thread/277756/frozen-online

[mrssandro]

I have been unable to get that link to work on my Tablet. I keeps asking me to login and give my credit card.

[vanillacourage]

Jan 29, 2014 12:17:37 GMT -5 mrssandro said:

I have been unable to get that link to work on my Tablet. I keeps asking me to login and give my credit card.

It worked fine for me on the Ipad last week but I haven't tried since then.  Maybe they've caught up with the thousands of views and are trying to cash in.

[vanillacourage]

Jan 29, 2014 12:26:50 GMT -5 jenny1980 said:

Jan 29, 2014 12:16:45 GMT -5 vanillacourage said:

pandce.proboards.com/thread/277756/frozen-online

Is it still working for you? It's giving me a video not found error.

well BALLS. 

[ijack]

Jan 29, 2014 11:23:37 GMT -5 mbcdefg said:

I'll also add that during "Let it Go," when Elsa changed her dress/appearance and strutted to the balcony, I found myself thinking, "Wow, that's sexy."

This is totally what I look like when I sing this song in my kitchen   I do an awesome foot stomp as well!

[cajunmom]

The whole "You can't marry a man you just met" line is just about my favorite line from a Disney movie ever.

However, I kinda hate the fact that other countries, like France, got much better movie posters than we did. I mean, just look at these...

Those are light years better than the US ones...

[mrssandro]

I found a version of "let it go" in 25 different languages. Love that!

[mbcdefg]

Jan 30, 2014 14:14:37 GMT -5 sxia said:

Jan 29, 2014 21:37:38 GMT -5 cajunmom said:

The whole "You can't marry a man you just met" line is just about my favorite line from a Disney movie ever.

However, I kinda hate the fact that other countries, like France, got much better movie posters than we did. I mean, just look at these...

Those are light years better than the US ones...

Interesting. I wonder if other cultures (France) has a different gender issue, in that boys will go see a movie about a queen/woman with powers, and boys won't go see a movie here unless it's actiony (Frozen) and about a snowman.

Yes! And wasn't that a big reason why the name is "Frozen" rather than "The Snow Queen"? And why "Rapunzel" became "Tangled" instead, to appeal to boys? Ugh. The US poster is really stupid, especially since Hans is a villian and Elsa had little to no interaction with the other characters on the poster. And Olaf barely figures into the story at all.

Plus, the French posters are just prettier.

I also wonder if Europeans are more familiar with the Snow Queen fairy tale. I read a synopsis recently and it's nothing like Frozen.