Finally Saw Frozen

Really liked it
But
I dunno, did anybody else feel like it was too short? It felt like everything happened too fast, there was no real time to let the ramifications set in. There's not much sense of scale, either. Like the entire crisis begins and is averted is about 24 hours, and it makes the pacing weird.
Like Elsa escapes the people and sings a song about how she's free. We segue over to Anna going after her, adn the next scene involving her is her singing about how she's not free. Then Anna leaves, and the next scene with Elsa is her being taken back, then the rush for the ending, and that's that.

I honestly feel the comedy was a lot stronger of a point with this, since the fast pace served that a lot better. It humanized the sisters a lot (It's nice seeing female characters where the writers aren't afraid to make them silly or make them the only sane one) and I was surprised by how well Olaf turned out. Also liked the cute jabs at older Disney stuff.

But yeah, overall solid without any major flaws from what I could see, but I think it could have used some more breathing room. I saw in the deleted scenes that originally they considered having Anna look for Else 6 months after the fact, which would have let the ramifications of the situation set in a lot better (I mean, how does Anna even know they have a permanent winter after less than ONE day?)

 

"You kinda set off an eternal winter, but it's only been like five hours."

 

I agree, I thought the movie would have really benefitted even just from another half hour. it's surprising the action feels so cramped without resolutions considering how relatively little happens but it does

 

Oh no, she turned to ice for 30 seconds.
Oh okay she's better now.

lol but seriously, it did feel really short. And especially coming from a movie that felt like it was written as a stage musical...

 

This from a movie, where the princess fell in love in less than a day. Well, it it did feel a bit too short. There were a lot of things they could've added and built on. Like maybe more scenes of the giant snow monster, I honestly thought, he could've done more aside from fall off a cliff. Elsa could've made more snow creatures.

 

Well there WAS the post-credits scene

 

There was one?! O_o

 

There was. It warmed my heart.

 

Awwwww, why did I miss that? It's so cute, I wanna hug it now.

 

There was actually a lot more that they could have done with the film but I'm in love with it anyway. Like, I'm trying to think of flaws but I just end up admiring every bit - like how Anna seems overly polite to Elsa with the entire situation (considering the fact her older sister drifted from her without a word - they used to be best buddies and now they're not-, wasn't there at their parents' funeral, FROZE THE ENTIRE KINGDOM and ran away, didn't tell her about her super cool magical powers, etc.) like part of me goes "Man anna are you even human i would have exploded due to emotions and sobbed a lot and screamed and done everything to get her to go back instead of singing and smiling" but then I just go "dang, she did just sing and smile and forgave her sister for everything and told her it was going to be okay and that she would never leave and ahhhh gr8 person award pls."

And it was so magical. Literally. Figuratively.
And just.
UGH.
LOVE.

 

>Too short

Y'all just need to

 

I think it's as much Anna's character as SISTERS. you would be surprised how quick to forgive you can be with sisters, at times, heh. And I also think one of the really underplayed parts of the movie was Anna's personal development and realizations. Once she learns about Elsa's powers I think she realizes that she is not only partly responsible for freezing Arendelle (she agitates Elsa because she can't have her way), but she also begins to understand that none of this (the eternal winter and Elsa constantly pushing her away) is really Elsa's fault. She knows that Elsa is grappling with something huge and awful and can't be blamed.

 

How understated things are is one of the movie's strengths. None of the characters are really extremes which helps round them out.
Anna could spend a bunch of time moaning or freaking out about the situation, but she more or elss takes it in stride, with mini freakouts to vent. Similarly, Elsa is still nice to Anna and still has a sense of humour. I feel like if this movie was made a few years ago they would have both been made more extreme

 

Er... I thing the Winter endure a couple of days.

Spoiler

I mean, it started in the coronation day, then Anna took, like, one day to find Kristoff and another day to reach the North mountain and ANOTHER DAY to Hans bring Elsa back to Arendelle.

And start to think that becomes colder and colder, I'd get worry with this winter.

Spoiler

But yeah, thanks to the movie's duration they need to make the whole story in a fast-paced. That's why we don't see Elsa discovering her powers when was a child, nor the baby Anna.

 

I think this isn't the first instance of the awakening of a "Snow Queen" in the world of frozen, the Trolls seemd to know pretty much everything about her powers (they knew that she could be born with, or cursed with them, how to cure Anna and other details about it).
Even humans seemd to know some of the "ice powers", and related it to a curse.
Maybe another snow queen (or many) have awaken in this world, and it was always though as a dark omen, because they always made an "eternal winter scenario", maybe some time in the past there was an evil snow queen like in the original story.
I think this world can be expanded if they need it, with a true evil queen or something like that.

 

Everyone's clamoring for Frozen 2.

I just want Frozen Extended Directors Cut.

 

I really think the length thing is a side effect of watching a 'children's' film with an older perspective; Family films these days tend not to cross the hour and a half mark by too much in the interest of keeping kids occupied for the duration, and it becomes very obvious when you watch two-hour epics otherwise. Animation is my favorite film medium so I'm not trying to belittle animated films at all in saying that, but I'm always surprised going back to animated films I watched when I was a kid and realizing how short they are. Also, it's a current trend for films to be very fast-cut and often as a result, fast-paced. This comes courtesy of MTV mostly, I believe, and there was a period from about the time sound film came around until MTV's advent that movies could be pretty slow and had relatively few cuts. Interestingly, prior to that a hallmark of the silent film era was actually frequent cuts and quick pacing, so you could say we've come full circle.

I get the sentiment -- it can be hard for kids to sit still that long sometimes -- but also I think film producers might do well to give kids' the benefit of the doubt more often; if it's a really good movie I think the ones old enough to understand will stay interested. Who knows, though, I could be wrong.

In any case -- things very often move a tad too fast in animated movies. It's unfortunate, but it's just a natural result of trying to squish a lot of content into that hour and a half to hour and forty-five minute window. Frozen is even a tad longer than that (108 minutes) and still sounds like it struggled a little to get it all in, although I haven't seen it.

 

The trick is to use speed where it needs to be. The Lego movie used its fast pacing to its advantage, keeping everything moving, telling the story and jokes at the same time, and pulling triple duty by making the speed a PLOT POINT

Something from Disney needs to work a bit different, I think. They need to be short to avoid boring kids, but as a result they need to be elegant. Either a simple but well told story, or a dense story that makes expert use of its time

They should have either cut some stuff, shortened some stuff, or gone with a simpler plot

 

This MOVIE is too short? No my friend, LIFE is too short!