Disney's newest movie FROZEN, loosely based on The Snow Queen

test audiences reacted negatively to a scene in which elsa methodically tracked and killed a reindeer for its meat.

even some throwaway scene would've been good like maybe after she sings let it go and the whole ice palace is erected and then there's a knock on the door and it's like the dominos guy and he's like yo here's the pizza you ordered and she's like do u have change for a 20 nm keep the tip etc to establish immersion and credibility

It bugs me in "Love is an Open Door" when they sing "it's funny how we finish each others' ... sandwiches" because a) they stole this joke from "Arrested Development" and more importantly b) it makes no sense in context because they literally just met that day, how do they know they finish each others' sandwiches? Is there a deleted scene where they eat sandwiches?

The writers claim they did not steal the joke from AD
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1xj4n5/hi_reddit_we_made_frozen_ask_us_anything/cfbt407

i knew hans was a baddie from the beginning because his lips do a kind of flat sunken thing that heroes' lips don't do. it's hard to explain. plus he's not any kind of underdog, he just shows up regally, meets cute with anna, no sweat, like he just choppered in from monaco or something.

do you think he was a baddie from the beginning? bc after the song he looks all lovelorn under the boat in the water even tho nobody but the horse is watching him. is it possible he was in love w/ her but changed his mind later on? idk i find it all very confusing.

The sandwiches bit is a clue that he's not being honest, because it's NOT what he was going to say.

i don't mean that he had bad intentions all along, but that he didn't fit the way that heroes are set up in these sorts of movies, so it was clear to me a twist of some sort was coming. plus he had villain's lips.

My sister took her 11yo daughter to the Broadway musical... for the SECOND time in SIX WEEKS today. Disney bondage is an amazing thing.

your sister sounds like a good mom, wkiw

yep

they're also building a dance studio in the house for the aspiring princess

that's awesome

sounds like an easy conversion too if she loses interest

your sister sounds like a really good mom, wkiw

otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSLe4HuKuK0

My daughter, who hasn't talked about Frozen much the past few years, just mentioned last night that she wants to watch it again. Looks like we'll be doing that tonight and tacking this on at the end.

I'll say it again here -- my one wish for the new movie is that it treats Olaf's Frozen Adventure as non-canon!

That epic short was a real stinker.

It sure was!

Merch for the new movie has been flooding stores over the past few months... I'm sure you could piece together most of the plot just by looking at that stuff (to say nothing of storybook adaptations; though maybe those are held back until release).

I joked to my wife ("Spoiler alert!") that one of the playsets at Target is called "Anna's Funeral Pyre."

(I am known around the house for my sense of humor.)

havent been following was this Frozen film popular with young girls then or what

I'm seeing it tonight. My daughter is super-stoked. I'm cautiously hopeful.

There's one line in the trailer where Anna's like "I climbed the North Mountain, survived a frozen heart, and saved you from my ex-boyfriend..." where I just hope this thing isn't overburdened with self-referential expository dialogue.

i love Frozen so i'll be doing my best to never watch this one

Yeah, I don’t have high hopes... They’ve haven’t yet known how (or wanted?) to do anything new with the idea (both the shorts have leaned heavily on revisiting familiar elements from the movie; though I do like Frozen Fever).

Plus, this looks like a “journey of discovery” plot, which feels like kind of a punt. Trolls World Tour may end up doing a better job with the same basic concept!

 I just hope this thing isn't overburdened with self-referential expository dialogue.

Listening to the soundtrack and there are outtakes that beat most of the songs in the actual movie. This movie had the potential to be a lot better at one point.

Lol, you mean like before they made it? My older kid is seeing it right now, I'll report back with a 15-year old's perspective.

Daughter's report: the story is forgettable/not important; the songs are good, though not as good as the first movie or "Moana;" a lot of the movie is really funny, especially the snowman; there is one sad part. She liked it.

Seeing this tmrrw; will report back. (I’ve consistently heard that it’s kind of sad; the “‘80s-style” song is funny; and the story is somewhat confusing.)

The soundtrack has been growing on me a little bit over the past week, but I still don't think anything rises to the level of the songs from the first one. The 80s ballad (Lost in the Woods) was kinda funny, sure. But my experience was that it was tonally weird in the movie. Like, it would have made a great YouTube short or something.

I disagree that story is unimportant! I just think that it was told in a really slapdash way.

I'd also like to add the caveat to all my criticisms that I had a long day at work and a rough commute home before I saw it, so there is a possibility that I went into it subconsciously looking to be let down. Will probably try to see it again with my kid if we get the chance.

My younger daughter (12) reported back, too. She was maybe a hair more positive than my older daughter, but both seemed to really enjoyed it. She's made a good case that this movie's wannabe anthem is good but probably too hard to sing to stick like "Let It Go." She did like the '80s song (which I haven't heard yet), and as for story, thought that things kept resolving and rebooting too often. "We have to do the thing to do the thing! Ok, now it's done. Oh, wait, now we have to do the other thing!"

The plots of these films have sure gotten more complex over the decades, huh? Never really thought about that before.

The last one I saw (Coco, which is technically Pixar, but I’ll cite it anyway) felt like it had one too many twists/reveals/reversals as it reached its big climax. (Didn’t help that most of the movie was just kind of “walking around.”) Talk about a poignant ending, though!

Well, I enjoyed the movie... the beginning is pretty slow and pedestrian-feeling, which is a notable contrast to the original (I feel like the economy of storytelling at the beginning of Frozen is a highlight). But once the movie gets where it's going, it has a sort of gravity and integrity. I like how -- for better or worse -- it feels like a product of the same creative team as the original. And while the plot has some issues, it feels suitable & satisfying as a continuation/conclusion of the story. Overall, the movie doesn't feel like a "cash grab" or awkwardly grafted-on (...like Olaf's Frozen Adventure did!).

The songs were good, though not quite as good as before; and there's probably one too many of them. (Some of them are also clearly meant to be analogues to specific songs in the first movie.) But the lullaby ("All is Found") is beautiful; particularly the Kacey Mugraves version over the end credits. "Lost in the Woods" isn't the '80s pastiche I was expecting... it's more a straight-up tribute to (or parody of) Peter Cetera's "The Glory of Love."

There's a one to two minute scene in the middle of the movie in which Olaf reenacting the entire plot of the original movie.

This was a highlight! They did a good job with Olaf and his schtick in this film. Also, the (related) final gag scene is worth sitting thru 10 minutes of credits, and a Weezer song, to see.

One more thing: the animation was awesome (as you’d expect). We saw it in a big, plush, Dolby-equipped theater, and the tech details were top-notch.

There is some interesting visual analysis and other tidbits in this article I just found (while searching for something else): https://www.insider.com/frozen-2-details-you-missed-2019-11

There's a Weezer song in this? And a Panic! at the Disco song?!

Yeah — P!ATTD does “Into the Unknown” over the end credits; K. Musgraves does the lullaby; and Weezer (superfluously) performs “Lost in the Woods.”

(Then there’s a few minutes of score... long-ass credits!)

Visually I thought this was stunning, and *cinema is a visual medium* after all. The plot was sort of inscrutable, but I liked the mood and feel of the whole thing, it felt very folkloric and took some steps outside the typical linear disney story structure (while still having a few key parts of it). I didn't actually care that much that I didn't like the plot. The songs were bad and took me out of it -- the 80s ballad was *funny*, but it was still a big "why?" for me.

Myself, I’ve been kind of obsessed with a few of the songs... have been not-so-subtly suggesting to the family that we see the movie again.

(“Lost in the Woods” is not one of those songs, btw... though I do think it’s better than “Fixer-Upper” (the “funny” song from the first movie). I also think it serves a purpose and expresses something about Kristoff and his relationship w/Anna, both generally and in that moment.)

I felt like the music in the first one managed to stay more consistent with the tone of the movie itself -- even the fixer upper song, while corny, suited the troll scene. But here it seemed all over the place.

This was a good film for the white folks

xp I agree that most of the songs in the first movie are hard to beat; both "tunefully," and in how they convey plot & character details... this is particularly true of the "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" > "For the First Time in Forever" > "Love Is an Open Door" triad. (And, of course, "Let It Go" is sui generis.)

That said, I haven't been able to get "Some Things Never Change" and "Into the Unknown" out of my head...

I also think “Show Yourself” is cool (it reminds me of a 10,000 Maniacs song); I like how it echoes the “Into the Unknown” melody, and builds to a big duet crescendo. Though I wish they had taken one more pass at the lyric — ”I’ve always been different / Normal rules did not apply...”

(My wife walked in earlier while I was folding laundry and listening to this soundtrack from my cellphone speaker.)

I've seen Frozen 2 reportedly making $739 million domestically, with a record breaking Thanksgiving weekend. So as also reported, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will likely become Disney's seventh $1 billion film this year. Talk about cornering the box office, apparently Disney is the box office.

that's the worldwide gross.

is there any logical explanation for a) how anna and elsa immediately recognized their father as a youth in the ice sculpture, when they have no idea what he looked like as a youth, and b) simultaneously did not recognize their mother as a youth in the same sculpture until later

keep in mind that the movie tells us that photography has been invented in the 30-40 years that have passed since the events of the flashback. which was a weird touch.

this movie was fine but it was so unnecessarily heavy. every character dealing with their own trauma and misery, including the one comic relief character going through an existential crisis. the water horse was cool though.

xxpost Ah, ok. I've seen it reported different ways.