Disney's "Frozen"

[Milo]

I wasn't even interested that much in the film when I heard the animation was swapped out from hand-drawn to CG and I liked the trailer and the snowmen guy in particular.

[Teoskaven]

They really couldn't make a movie withouth annoying comic relieves, couldn't they?

 

Also, so much for not showing almost anything of the actual story wich this is (at least i hope so) based from; this could have perfectly been a short on its own.

[Mauro Fonseca]

Isn't THAT a lovely adaption of the classic Snow Queen tale, eh? Eh?

 

Bah.

[Milo]

Isn't THAT a lovely adaption of the classic Snow Queen tale, eh? Eh?

 

Bah.

 

Why are you basing a teaser trailer focusing solely on the comic relief sidekicks as the representation of the entire film's plot and how accurate it is to the original story. They haven't even shown the main characters or even details on what the film's storyline is about.

[Nepenthe]

Are we chastising Disney for making family-friendly adaptations of darker fairy tales? Something they've done nearly since their inception? Really? All because of a snowman and an elk you'd find in a classic Silly Symphony short?

What do people want out of this film exactly? Something like the Russian adaptation???

[Kuzu]

I liked that trailer, it was cute. 

 

 

So what are we complaining about? Its too light or some shit?

[Teoskaven]

Are we chastising Disney for making family-friendly adaptations of darker fairy tales? Something they've done nearly since their inception? Really? All because of a snowman and an elk you'd find in a classic Silly Symphony short?

What do people want out of this film exactly? Something like the Russian adaptation???

 

Uhm, yeah. That's my main problem with Disney: it focuses too much on kid's stuff when it clearly shows it can do more adult/darker material but loves to hold back just for the sake of making money by targeting on families. Not to mention the complete scrapping of 2D animation in order to look like the Square-Enix of the cinematic world: pretty CGI graphics all over the place just to show they can use a computer and they don't need pencils anymore.

Oh, and of course in the process they ruined the original material they decided to take. Did you know that there are a lot of people out there who don't know the real endings of stories like The Little Mermaid or Rapunzel?

If the direction this movie is going is the same, i fear to say that the 3 trolls of the 1995 british version look less sillier.

 

Granted, i'm always expecting Disney to prove me wrong, but as for now, it did it only with few of its movies.

[DarkLight]

Either way it's stupid to judge a whole movie from it's teaser trailer. I may have not laughed one bit at it, but that in no way tells me what the film will really be about. That was a mistake I made with Tangled and how it was advertised.

 

And really? Expecting Disney to adapt a story as anything but family-friendly? Yes, you could throw any sort of dark material in kid's stuff and get away with it, but this is something Disney has done since Snow White. It shouldn't be surprising anymore. 

 

Don't know about else here, but I'm going to do what I usually do by just waiting for future trailers that will reveal more of the characters and plot before brushing off this one trailer just because I didn't find the sidekicks funny when there might more chances for me to like them more.

[EuroMIX]

I'm almost ashamed to say that I found that trailer rather amusing. The part at the end actually made me laugh out loud.

 

Still not seeing the connection to the Snow Queen though. if you showed me that trailer I would have had no idea unless you explicitly told me.

 

I recall being fascinated with an on-stage production of the Snow Queen when I was a kid which I believe was performed at the Royal Albert Hall. This one will be... interesting to watch, to say the least.

[iDEATH]

Are we chastising Disney for making family-friendly adaptations of darker fairy tales? Something they've done nearly since their inception? Really? All because of a snowman and an elk you'd find in a classic Silly Symphony short?

What do people want out of this film exactly? Something like the Russian adaptation???

 

I just think the character designs are ugly as shit. I've no problem with the tone or anything, still looking forward to the film.

 

But yeah....

[Nepenthe]

The snowman has generic dopey Disney face, and the elk is literally an elk, no worse than Maximus or Rut and Tuke. Ugly? How?

[Match]

I'm excited for this, fuck people who think Disney should be "grimdark" and whatever. That's the least of their worries. I knew going in it would be different from the original fairy tale, and if that's a bad thing to you then you're watching the wrong movie.

[Nepenthe]

It's not just merely expecting a grimdark movie from a grimdark fairy tale, because sure, we're in an age where mainstream animation can skew older. I'm just amazed anyone expected a grimdark fairy tale from Disney. Disney. The company that has been making grim dark fairy tales and books into family entertainment since the 30s. That's roughly 80 years of establishing a precedent to their film making. And the last time they tried grimdark with The Black Cauldron, they almost got their asses kicked. Seriously people. What the fuck? :/

[Wraith]

And it's not like their movies are even especially childish either. You don't have to appeal exclusively to one age group. Disney movies are for adults just as much as they are for kids. Just because they don't go out of their way to make it so the kids can't watch it doesn't mean it can't have mature storytelling.

[Mauro Fonseca]

Who said anything about grimdark? Last I checked, "not diluting the story through use of obnoxious sidekicks and prettified designs" isn't something grimdark. Last I checked, if the film is about "a", but the first publicity it makes is "b" in an attempt to divert attention, that's a flag raised right up.

 

I mean, really. Is asking for no diverting with the elements that always end up being the most forgettable of the Disney films (no-one cares about the sidekicks in Hunchback, or Hercules, or Little Mermaid, or whatever. Only the most rare get some attention futurely like Abu, and this snowman is no Abu), is asking for designs that don't always look like the same rehash of Glen Keane's faces (the concept art for the Snow Queen showed a beautiful and altive queen, with a long face and a royal look. The design shown in those fake posters [that were confirmed to have real renders, the poster itself is fake] is a recolour of Rapunzel), is being worried that the first thing they try to call our attention with is slapstick with a snowman grimdark?

 

Is not wanting Ice Age with a pretty girl and singing grimdark?

 

I'll agree in one thing, though- it was stupid of me to hope for something else. Disney makes its money in recycling the same crap formula over and over again, but looking beautiful and safe doing so. But I don't know, Rapunzel and Wreck-it-Ralph, heck, even in some aspects Princess and the Frog had seemed they were changing the mold a bit. Then everything we see since the first announcements of this film just show it all going back to the standard.

 

I mean, go ahead, enjoy your trailer with a snowman and the moose from Brother Bear. It was actually endearing, and I liked the head-explosion gag. I just wish I was seeing that attached to something other than this.

[Nepenthe]

Teoskaven directly mentioned that he didn't like the film's direction because Disney has potential to do adult material. Also, how were Tangled and Princess and the Frog not playing with Disney formula? They are both pretty much deliberate love letters to the Disney Renaissance era but updated a little for modern animation standards. Regardless, both have multiple side kicks, both are immensely inspired by Glen Keane's art direction and animation style (especially Tangled, considering he was a lead on it), and both are musicals. I don't see how they're particularly innovative with their narratives in that regard.

[Nerfuffle]

Holy shit, that poor snowman is gonna die.

[Mauro Fonseca]

I didn't say they weren't playing with the formula, I said they were changing the mold a bit. Princess and the Frog tried replacing the whole cast with annoying animal sidekicks, ironically enough, but had some clever use of locale and subversion of formula with the cajun bug dying like that, while on Rapunzel they did the opposite and downplayed the animal sidekicks in order to focus on pushing the princess as the main character and the hunter as the sidekick (not entirely successful, due to marketing and appealing to boys and whatever, but the intent is there). And then Wreck-it-Ralph went further in not playing the princess aspect until the very end and not having annoying animal-thing sidekicks, so on and so on- I was just hoping they'd keep pushing the changes further, but this preview coupled with the designs when compared to the concept art took all the wind from my sails.

[Conando]

That's not an elk, you butts. It's a Caribou (see: Reindeer).

[Mauro Fonseca]

[Nepenthe]

I'm not sure how changing the mold isn't in some ways synonymous with playing with the formula. xP

Regardless, the previews from both Frog and Tangled were not all that impressive in terms of letting the audience in on its potential subversions. I would even go so far as to say that the trailers were completely misleading in some aspects, especially for Tangled which didn't even let the audience in on the fact that it was a musical. Same goes for Ralph, and notoriously Pixar's output as well. I know the purpose of the trailer is to generate hype and interest, but considering their unreliable nature in terms of revealing the actual extended plot of Disney films (I mean, this showed us nothing about the actual main characters or story beyond the fact that there's a snowman and elk in it. To what extent they are there is still unknown; they could be like Scrat for all we know), I don't know how any one can make any judgement calls about the story beyond the likability of these two side kicks.

[Teoskaven]

It's not just merely expecting a grimdark movie from a grimdark fairy tale, because sure, we're in an age where mainstream animation can skew older. I'm just amazed anyone expected a grimdark fairy tale from Disney. Disney. The company that has been making grim dark fairy tales and books into family entertainment since the 30s. That's roughly 80 years of establishing a precedent to their film making. And the last time they tried grimdark with The Black Cauldron, they almost got their asses kicked. Seriously people. What the fuck? :/

 

Just because i was born in the '90s doesn't mean i don't care about the pre-'90s Disney: when i spoked, i spoked about the entirity of Disney's career, not just a small piece of it. Also, The Black Cauldron is just a poor adaptation of the books it's based from, but at least it was a good trying and it is one of the few animated Disney movies i like.

Also, the last time they tried to go "dark" (or at least close to that) was with Atlantis, and sadly, that was another flop.

 

I don't necessarly mean Disney should go full hyperdark mode, but at least avoiding things like stupid musical numbers or annoying sidekicks, or at least keep them at minimum. Think about having Secret of NIMH as a base on how to make a great animated movie (too bad Don Bluth was put aside from Disney and made a lot of personal bad movies during the '90s).

[Conando]

 

 

 

It's a fuckin' Reindeer. Learn to ungulates.

[Nepenthe]

Just because i was born in the '90s doesn't mean i don't care about the pre-'90s Disney: when i spoked, i spoked about the entirity of Disney's career, not just a small piece of it. Also, The Black Cauldron is just a poor adaptation of the books it's based from, but at least it was a good trying and it is one of the few animated Disney movies i like. Also, the last time they tried to go "dark" (or at least close to that) was with Atlantis, and sadly, that was another flop.   I don't necessarly mean Disney should go full hyperdark mode, but at least avoiding things like stupid musical numbers or annoying sidekicks, or at least keep them at minimum. Think about having Secret of NIMH as a base on how to make a great animated movie (too bad Don Bluth was put aside from Disney and made a lot of personal bad movies during the '90s).

I was speaking about Disney's entire career too. Their modus operandi has generally been about musicals, because they're popular with families and because licensing the songs themselves are another source of income for the company as a whole. The Disney musical is not some 90s gimmick; Their very first feature film was a musical. It also had a whopping seven sidekicks, and many more than that if you count the forest critters. You are literally calling some of the heart-and-souls of the Disney canon "stupid."

[Teoskaven]

Yeah, so what? Just because Snow White was innovating with animation done frame by frame and colors (a thing that i respect in any case since it was in fact a hugr technology progress), it doesn't excuse all the other facts i mentioned; it's like judging a game good from its graphics and ignoring or accepting bad plots, characters and gameplays.

But as i said, the problem i have is not that much in the presence itself of these elements, but how much they are handled during the movie: take for the example Treasure Planet. It has a musical number (sort-of) and 1-2 annoying side characters, but it's still my third favourite Disney movie (the sceond one being Atlantis and the first one being Hercules, movies that have similarities with this case) because i could pass upon these factors since they aren't annoying as hell (ok, maybe 1-2 song of Hercules are, but that's when the fast-forward button comes in handy), a thing that i can't find common in other Disney movies.

Also, i should explain that i'm not bitching just for the sake of it: it's because i have hope in Disney and i want to like its products just like you and other people do. Bu i want them also to grow up, to unlock the potential they have, to take risks if necessary, to become more then family entertainer.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Teoskaven