Animation: Disney does it again with 'Frozen'
Posted by Fred Patten on Thu 20 Jun 2013 - 03:56 — Edited by GreenReaper as of Sun 14 Jul 2013 - 07:30
Both the Animation Scoop and Cartoon Brew websites have the first five images of Frozen, Disney’s next animated theatrical feature, based (loosely) on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, to be released November 27th.
The posts include reader comments; go ahead and add yours. You can’t tell much about a theatrical feature from just five pictures, but it looks like the male hero will have the usual semi-anthropomorphized steed; in this case a reindeer rather than a horse. There is also a snowman who looks suspiciously anthropomorphic.
P.S.: A few hours later, Disney posted the first teaser trailer, which both Animation Scoop and Cartoon Brew have. Yep, the snowman is definitely anthropomorphic.
About the author
Fred Patten — read stories — contact (login required)a retired former librarian from North Hollywood, California, interested in general anthropomorphics
Comments
YouTube's comment-posters put Flayrah's to shame - here's a gem from "IrishDroid":
Clearly a bright future within furry fandom! Overall, though, a movie about humans with anthropomorphic (or canimorphic?) sidekicks. Yawn.
Jeez, Green Reaper, if the best you can spin our comments is to say "well, it's better than YouTube" then you should probably just disable comments.
The teaser trailer begins with a snowman ("The Snowman"?) walking up to a flower and saying, "Hello." I was instantly reminded of when I lived in an apartment house in Culver City, California (a suburb of Los Angeles) twenty years ago, and one of the other apartments was briefly occupied by a young Israeli couple and their little daughter, about 3 years old. She was just learning to talk, and one day she toddled out into the apartment house courtyard and started waving "Shalom" to everything. It was Shalom to all the people there, Shalom to the chairs, Shalom to the poinsettia bush, Shalom to the rosebushes, and so on.
She was 3 years old. I can only assume that the Snowman is mentally 3 years old, or that this is a very contrived setup for a ho-ho-isn't-this-funny? comedy scene that does NOT make me want to see "Frozen". I have not seen the Russian animated feature of "The Snow Queen" that came out late last year, but its trailer did not imply humor of this level.
http://www.flayrah.com/4402/animated-film-troll-not-dog-snow-queen
Fred Patten
The snowman is named Olaf and he has a speaking role throughout the movie. Color me revolted.
Fred Patten
"Yep, the snowman is definitely anthropomorphic."
So very obviously. And the word itself just doesn't give my obsession a good buzz [anymore?]. Perhaps I'm too old.
I watched the trailer. I find this stuff disgusting. I know that companies try very hard to 'make' you like their product, and that is fine. I want things to be made likeable.
But with Disney there is something different,pretty much always. It's pretentious and sappy and shallow and inane and insulting and soul-less and manipulative and forced.
Stop pretending this dogshit is for everybody.
Umm ...
Note: the latest FMAW column is not yet up; in it, I predict "Frozen" as this year's Best Animated Feature winner. I hadn't seen that trailer yet. Ummm. Fred's "revolted" is a strong word; I'm more "disappointed." I don't even know what's going on this year. However, it is just a trailer; I mean, it could be ... never mind the snowman, that reindeer is fucking stupid.
Okay, "Turbo." Ball's in your court; you can't disappoint me, at least. It could be a lameduck Pixar year again.
Don't count "Free Birds" out yet.
http://www.flayrah.com/4772/free-birds-first-reel-fx-cgi-feature-due-theaters-no...
Fred Patten
It will have to be really really good; Rango with turkeys good. First timers don't usually win it; Turbo is the only "safe," "pedigreed" studio movie left (though, as I like to point out, Disney still hasn't won it and DreamWorks has only won once [technically, twice, if you count Wallace and Gromit]). And even if Turbo is good, it still may suffer the same fate as Wreck-it Ralph last year due to an offputting (for Academy voters) concept. However, this year's Monsters University also has that "sequel to a loser" thing, so that may work to Turbo's advantage.
And, of course, we really really should not be counting this movie out based on one teaser trailer; maybe it was just a really really bad idea by the advertising people. It is a teaser trailer, after all; the scen may not even exist in the actual movie.
Though, honestly, I'm just hoping the weak field from the heavy hitters means something like Ernest and Celestine may be able to sneak in and take the prize.
I'm holding out for it to be ok entertainment, but not great or original. I thought there was a lot of creativity with the snowman and the elk in the different ways they tried to propel themselves across the ice, I really enjoyed that. Once the elk started to act like a dog though, my interest plummeted. Plus the early release statements say these are but comic relief sidekicks, and it sounds like the major characters are going to break out into song, so... Well, I'll wait for other people to go see it first. :)
Elk or reindeer? And what is the difference between them, anyway? "The Snow Queen" is set in Europe, so Sven is more likely a reindeer than an elk. If there is any difference between them. Besides, "Frozen" is Disney's Christmas movie, and reindeer are more traditionally associated with Christmas than elk are. Also, Disney's press release calls Sven a reindeer, not an elk. And if Disney wants to call a dog in an elk suit a reindeer, it should know.
Fred Patten
You're right; as a Canadian, I should've used the term "caribou".
Caribou I will accept, although that implies that "Frozen" is set in North America. I assume that since it is based on Andersen's "The Snow Queen", it will have the usual European fairy tale royal trappings.
Fred Patten
Here is a different trailer for Japan, with English subtitles. This adds an anthropomorphic snow monster.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9qu6Vb8pvw
Fred Patten
Here is the U.K. trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jw-AeaU5WI
Fred Patten
One reviewer, for The Oregonian seems to have liked it: http://www.oregonlive.com/movies/index.ssf/2013/11/frozen_review_disneys_latest_...
Apparently Frozen is now a metaphor for lesbianism and "mocks moral absolutes" (this is a bad thing?).
Isn't it ironic that those that read the Bible as literalists believe there is hidden meaning and symbologism in every other form of work?
Sorry, I'm a Frozen Literalist... the magic spells that made her an outcast were LITERALLY magic spells.
This is just another example of "It's popular which means it's EVIL and SINFUL, because humans outside the walls of my church are EVIL and SINFUL. Cling to me and my walls! Though He be omnipresent He can only protect you here." Preachers pushing sales of the lease of their pew and nothing more these days, attacking popular things is cheap advertisement.
Though in essense this probably was a mere reaction to those statements released by the LGBT community tying the song let it go with coming out of the closet-- nope still a literalist. It was about her concealing her magic and not having to do it anymore. Literally, that's what she was singing about, the gay thing is merely a projection of one's feelings about coming out of the closet. Yes it does have similarities, but just because a situation is similar doesn't mean it's what they were going for.
Many people have felt they were told to hold back on things in their life, to keep it from the outside world, but once it's out there they feel freer even if it does sacrifice them some prior social connections. Heck, even in the Religious sense, there are examples of people "Letting it Go" and forming their own religious sects, even though not to express their controversial beliefs to the established churches. The 95 Thesis could be seen as a "Let it Go" moment in the church which sparked the Protestant movement.
See? If you start bending a song into a metaphorically meaning for something, it can then literally mean anything. So why not take it for what it is instead of bending it for your will or shaming it for opposing it?
(Spoilerish I suppose, I'll try to be vague about some things)
Just saw the movie last weekend, I have to say what I liked about it is that was good at providing a false setup of expectations and kicking you for even putting shaping the outcome in your mind that it put in there. Almost jibing at Disney's past version Romanticism by setting it up, and then stomping on it with surprise twists. This is coming from someone who knew the ending to "The Sixth Sense" just by the trailers, I'm not easy to surprise.
The thing I didn't like about, ironically, in the grand scheme was the musical numbers. At least when looking at the story... I mean, the pacing of them is odd as they mostly concentrated the songs at the start of the film and have less and less as the film goes on. And the topics in which they sang about were just bizarre at times and random. Though some of them were fun and powerful, so the odd and "okay" ones I guess are just a have to deal with it moment.
But ironically my brain just hit something as I typed the above criticism... wasn't the Lion King the same way? The first half of the film had musical numbers which established the characters and their desires and the later half delved into more plot driven elements. In the plot element there was a stack conflict-- particularly 2 elements. In TLK it was Simba v. Himself then to Simba v. the guy who made it Simba v. Himself in the first place...this is similar to Frozen's stack, but I won't get into how cause that would definitely be a spoiler.
So huh, looks like I just reverse engineered their formula while writing a comment on the internet, opps.
Something that really bothered me about "Frozen" was that when Prince Hans reveals himself to be a villain, and tells everyone falsely that Queen Elsa has murdered her popular sister Anna -- the heir to the throne -- nobody checks into it. They just leave her presumed body in the palace room and go on. I could accept that everyone might believe Hans, but wouldn't the nobility or at least the palace staff want to prepare a royal funeral? I have since seen that some of the critics have pointed this out, too. The Kingdom of Arendelle seems to have a very shaky, almost nonexistent monarchy. If "Frozen" had been a live-action drama, the critics would have been all over this plot hiccup, but hey! it's only a kids' film.
Fred Patten
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