Review on Disney's Frozen

[Miss Mae]

A very valid point, Aulayna. I just take issue with the fact that most popular animated and/or kids films are promoting these same messages. It's rare that we see anything that breaks away from that mould and the sheer concentration of these messages surely affects kids. Writing catchy songs with such questionable lyrics so that kids can't stop singing them makes me uncomfortable; they aren't all bad, but I'd much rather hear kids singing something like Let It Go than Fixer Upper.

The main reason I care more about the tropes in Frozen than in other Disney films, animated films, or just kids films in general, is because the goal of Frozen was to break these. They tried to break the quick marriage trope at the start, but then Anna and Kristoff still got together at the end. They tried to make it about sisterly/familial love, but then Anna and Kristoff still got together at the end.​

[Aulayna]

Yeah, I agree on that. Kristoff and Anna, after the Hans and Anna subversion moment, was pretty much a UWOTM8 thing for me. Though then again I have seen people fall for each other in a very short space of time in the real world too, some of them went on to have happy relationships. I definitely think it would've been better if they focused more on the Anna/Elsa relationship, and perhaps had Kristoff and Anna ending up a close-friends.

The ultimate irony of that would be the internet would've started shipping Kristoff and Anna anyway...

As for Fixer-Upper, I do think that entire segment was particularly convoluted and badly executed. The wider message of standing by your friends despite their faults is a good one to send, but then they really muddied that water by anchoring it on marriage.

Though I might just be unique in this (although with billions of people in the world I doubt it xD), there are some songs that are catchy that I sing and don't really think much of the lyrics. Like when I was on night shift I used to sing the lyrics to Judas Priest - Livin' After Midnight when getting ready to go to work some nights, when the lyrics to that were hardly relatable to actually going to an office job overnight.

[Miss Mae]

I agree on all points. It's perfectly possible for people to fall for each other quickly, but I definitely think it undermines the themes in this.

[maybee]

Personally I think you focused a LOT on the negative parts of Frozen, even though you gave it a fairly high rating. I would suggest talking about the positive things more often.

I'm going to try and warm up my writing skills, before attempting a movie review ever again, it may be a while, a long while.

I believe that this review is complete junk and should of spent some more time on it.

I think he came up with the sled thing because he wanted to act macho and didnt want to admit to himself that he cared. Or to his moose.

I hope you're right

and the moose thing made my day <3

You know I agree with you maybee that there are so many things wrong with this movie. The Fixer Upper song was painful to watch. A lot of people who I have seen argue in favour of that particular scene, saying it's obvious that the trolls misunderstood or whatever, are having to dig deep in order to prove that. Kids watching this movie are not going to analyse it like that; they are going to accept it on face value and sing the words around their houses.

You can fix this fixer-upper
Up with a little bit of love!

Kristoff: ENOUGH! She is engaged to someone else, okay?!
Cliff: So she's a bit of a fixer-upper,
Male Troll 4: That's a minor thing.
Male Troll 5: Her quote 'engagement' is a flex arrangement.
Troll Child: And by the way I don't see no ring!

People make bad choices if they're mad,
Or scared, or stressed.
Throw a little love their way.
And you'll bring out their best.

None of those messages are positive on face value.

I also agree with you maybee that earlier they were so against a quick marriage, and that's an awesome message given how quickly everyone generally gets married in Disney movies, but then suddenly they are promoting it as being a fantastic idea again with a peppy song.

Bless <3

If Kristoff/ Anna had a more romantic Disney song that was more about how they feel, that what Kristoff's troll family feels, then it would of felt less sudden, more honest, more genuine.

Kristoff/ Anna was supposed to feel really honest, to defeat the falseness of Hans/ Anna, but it doesn't. It feels like Disney trips over the carpet during the last moments, and it's sad, because it could of came out alot stronger and more passionate.

A Whole New World, Can You Feel The Love, So This Is Love, Part Of Your World

They are all special, heart-warming and shows the love and desire between the two lovers, and they are all special songs, no matter how much they age.

Even the Lady And The Tramp pasta love song, does a better job at this, and that was a love story between two pet animals.

I pray that when Frozen 2 comes out, and it will, because money, that they strongly develop these two guys, and make their love seem more real and more stronger.

Oh yes

Beginning of Frozen- quick marriages are a bad and horrible idea.

Yes good.

Ending of Frozen- quick marriages are okay and should be celebrated !

Wait-

What ?

[Ayen]

I'm going to try and warm up my writing skills, before attempting a movie review ever again, it may be a while, a long while.

Your choice at the end of the day, but I'm going to put it out there that the best way to improve is to keep writing movie reviews. It's hard to get better at something if you avoid it entirely.

You wrote a review, post it, promoted discussion and held your ground when people criticized your points. You're already well on your way.

[Mirage]

As a bit of hopefully constructive criticism, I think that if you write a review that is meant to give someone who hasn't seen a movie some insight into what the movie is like and if it is worth checking out or not, you should probably avoid spoilers. It might be difficult to write about certain things in a movie without talking about them in a way that gives away the plot, but that's one of the challenges of writing a good review, I guess. If I had not seen it already, I would have been very annoyed to find out which characters were bad guys, and it might have killed my desire to actually watch it, even if the review gave me the impression that it was a good movie.

I too agree that the final score does not reflect the rest of the review accurately. There is a chance that you have fallen victim to the as of late very common score-inflation that we see in video games, where 1-6 is trash, 7 is OK, 8 is good and 9-10 is great, effectively using a ten-point scale as if it was a 4 point scale. In either case, I think you should think about this the next time you set a final score. Of course, there's nothing wrong with a 4-point scale either, but why use 10 points for it when 4 is enough, right?

I actually kind of like 4-point scales because it forces the reviewer to take a stand, as there is no number to represent "completely, utterly, perfectly average". You have to make a decision, is it ultimately a good movie, or a bad movie?

[Miss Mae]

Not every review is designed to be a 'preview' of a movie/book/etc. Writing an analysis of a text and referring to it as a review is also perfectly acceptable. A spoiler alert so that people who haven't seen the movie knew that this was the approach being taken might've helped, but maybee's review analyses deeper themes of the movie and uses evidence to support her claims, and that can definitely still be referred to as a 'review'.

[Jiro]

Perhaps it is not a review in the preview sense. Given that Frozen came out November of last year, it is unlikely that any publications anywhere would run a review that doesn't critically analyse it in more depth. Including spoilers is perhaps the best way of gaining readers for a piece like this. Call it a critique, instead of review, if that helps semantically.

The final score represents her opinion on the film. Should she dedicate her time to waffling on about the things that she thinks were good? The entire rest of the world has a hard on for Frozen. Everything good about it has been said a thousand times before. Maybee's review would contribute nothing to the discourse if she worried about praising the good things. Highlighting the negative aspects is important. Does Frozen deserve a 2/10 because it thinks it does better at undermining tropes than it actually does? No. No it does not. It has great animation and the voice acting and singing are wonderful and it is an entertaining film. There's your positives. Now let's highlight the negative aspects which everyone tends to overlook because of the whimsical desire for a fairytale of their own. People spruik it as being the most progressive Disney film with really great messages and all of those fall flat when actually examined.

[fire_of_avalon]

1) Films are not always parables. They can be art, they can be entertaining and they can have themes like any story but it is really important to separate films with a lesson or moral center from feel good films with more general themes of goodness.

2) Despite the statement above it was fairly obvious to me that the song "Fixer Upper" was ironic. In reality it is about the pressure young people feel to conform to ideals placed on them by their family. The fact that Kristoff's family were dismissive of their actual feelings is a dead give away to the fact that the message of the song is obviously meant to conflict with the overall message of the film (that we need to examine our feelings and share them so we don't close ourselves off like Elsa and Kristofferson nor do we experience hyper emotions a la Anna.). If you think this is too heavy or mature an interpretation, my five year old cousin got it.

3) I disagree with the idea that Anna and Kristoff sharing a kiss at the end is in conflict with the message about the dangers of infatuation. A kiss is not marriage. A kiss is not an indicator of true love. A kiss is an experiment to see if you really like someone.

[Mercen-X]

Elsa's fear is what causes her powers to activate without her intent.

Her parents don't know this and she didn't tell them. Why would she when she's too young to know it's important?

Perhaps, I don't know, parenting your child would go a long way to making sure she doesn't blast anyone in the face with ice magic. Teach her how to be calm and test her to see what causes it to happen so that she can control it.

While we live in an era where we do actively try to determine the cause of something because we realize it is the best way to potentially control it, Frozen seems to not be in that era at least when it comes to things that affect human beings. It could be said that in an attempt to stay true to said era, they decided to embrace the fear. How else would Elsa become a Snow Queen if things did not go in such a bad direction? I suppose she could have accidentally killed her sister... but then she really would lose her mind and go evil.

the mention of True Love's Kiss and Anna going "oh snap does Kristoff like me? well I better kiss him" undermines the whole bit where we ask: Does Anna actually have romantic feelings towards him, or is she just happy to take anyone who is interested in her?

It may be difficult to derive Anna's feelings at the moment as she is patly more concerned with surviving and trying to help her sister. And why should she be concerned with how she feels toward him when Kristoff wasn't even really aware of his feelings toward her?

Hans is great. His motivations are horrific but he plays the nice guy really well. I can't fault Anna for trusting him because she is a moron.

Strong word. Anna has had no experience with the outside world and doesn't have a grasp of the depths of deceit. Her sister doesn't trust people because she has had to keep her powers a secret to protect the family. Thus she has a better grasp of human nature.

Marriage is not a "solution" for another betrothal. This teaches children that if they can steal somebody's love then they should. Can you imagine a generation of girls who backstab each other to win boys? Far out. The fact that this is a musical jingle makes it problematic.

Have you ever heard of "AIFILAW"?

This is personal opinion and not a universal definition for the term fixer-upper. If a guy beats you, just show him love: he's a fixer-upper and loving him will help him! If a girl is clingy and doesn't let you see your friends, stick with her anyway: a little love can change the world!

Except that neither of those traits are mentioned in the song. In no way does it encourage people to think of control freaks, stalkers and abusers as fixer-uppers. It also doesn't say anything about settling into a lost cause.

[Miss Mae]

This is personal opinion and not a universal definition for the term fixer-upper. If a guy beats you, just show him love: he's a fixer-upper and loving him will help him! If a girl is clingy and doesn't let you see your friends, stick with her anyway: a little love can change the world!

Except that neither of those traits are mentioned in the song. In no way does it encourage people to think of control freaks, stalkers and abusers as fixer-uppers. It also doesn't say anything about settling into a lost cause.

"People make bad choices if they're mad,
Or scared, or stressed."

But you should love them anyway. He's mad so he hit you? Bit of love will fix him. She's scared so she's clingy? Bit of love will fix her too. It's really not a stretch at all to derive those themes from the lyrics.

[Mercen-X]

I never thought I'd use this phrase, but "I think you're reading too much into it."

[Jiro]

Hardly. The concept of changing and improving a man (or woman) exists in our society and the Fixer-Upper song reinforces that. The song doesn't directly reference that, but there's a reason people complain about rape culture alongside the actual problem of rape. It perpetuates a type of thinking that is dangerous.

If Elsa's parents weren't going to put the effort in to figure out what the hell was going on, why would they let her live? Her power could grow to the point where she unintentionally blasted the entire castle and killed everyone. They had no idea what was going to happen. Sure, there wouldn't be much of a story if her parents weren't idiots, but there's a really great story in Obama launching nukes but he doesn't do it because it's stupid. Just because a story exists doesn't mean it makes sense or should exist.

The problem with Anna is that, as soon as the castle is being opened to people again, she wants to fall in love. She falls in love with the first guy she sees. Then she falls in love with the second guy she sees... maybe. Anna doesn't directly admit to the extent of her romantic feelings toward Kristoff, but when Olaf says "omg Kristoff loves you" she goes "well great that must be true love's kiss" without actually showing a sign that she truly madly deeply loves him. Especially since she hasn't seen him since she abandoned him (okay so she was ill w/e) to go and kiss her other true love. She's just an immature little princess, and she behaves like a moron. Perhaps it is a strong word but I feel it is relevant. I don't care if she doesn't have social interactions down; if she behaves stupidly, I'll call her out on it. People can't just be given allowances for every action they take, they have to bear some responsibility.

All is fair in love and war is a great maxim but does it truly hold up? How many people get tried for war crimes? How many people get imprisoned for crimes of passion? I think AIFILAW is a terribly flawed idea that we should not in any way, shape, or form teach to our children.

PS Fairytales have always been used as a way to teach children. That's their point. I recognise that Disney can make entertainment but it is using a formula that carries connotations. Frozen is a fun movie. It has some dangerous messages, especially ones that contradict the intent. That is my point.

[Mercen-X]

Admittedly, the story is jumpy. Were it a live-action affair, it could have gone the way of the epic 2-3 hour flick which could have given leeway in the story enough to cover these plotfunks (like automatically assuming the new winter was eternal). Perhaps maybee is right at least in the fact that Disney gave too much consideration to the number of songs rather than the quality of the tale. So much time spent singing but only the first song a "time-passing montage". Something I came to observe recently in many cartoons (most recently, the second Spider-Man series) was that giving yourself a limited window of time through which to tell a story often forces you to shoehorn plot elements. (SPOILER)I watched an episode where Spider-Man is confronted by group of men with guns and doesn't know what they want. He ducks around a corner not 10 feet away and the group immediately shouts their reason for chasing him as if the group itself was too stupid to know what they were after. This would be fine as shoehorned exposition, but then in-story Spider-Man actually hears the idiot shouting and knows what they want. There's no in-story reason explaining that these mooks are "slow". It's just a plot-device to hurry the show along. Three scenes pass and each contains a mindraping plot device just so the show can meet its "quota".

There's really no escaping a jumpy plot when a story has to be condensed for time, but some have been able to do it better than others.

[Mirage]

Not every review is designed to be a 'preview' of a movie/book/etc. Writing an analysis of a text and referring to it as a review is also perfectly acceptable. A spoiler alert so that people who haven't seen the movie knew that this was the approach being taken might've helped, but maybee's review analyses deeper themes of the movie and uses evidence to support her claims, and that can definitely still be referred to as a 'review'.

That's why I said if it was meant for someone who hadn't seen it and wanted to see if it was their cup of tea.

If it isn't, my comment obvs doesn't apply