Frozen
You guys you guys! I just saw Frozen in the theater and IT IS AMAZING. I mean, everything about it is amazing, except the annoying comic relief snowman, but WHAT CAN YOU DO. I have hated Disney comic relief characters ever since Mushu, clearly there is no pleasing me in this regard.
But everything else is awesome! And the visuals are just as stunning: I love the careful detail put in everything, the painted decorations on the door and the embroidery on the dresses (all the clothes are beautiful. If they sold Anna's boots in stores, I would so buy them) and especially the excellent animation of snow and ice. It's at once enchanting - it reminded me of the scene in Tangled where everyone releases their lanterns into the sky, not in the particulars, but in that it had the same overwhelming loveliness - while being, at the same time, always cold and hard edged.
This is a dangerous place as well as a beautiful one, and that is clear right from the first shot, when the ice cutters saw through the ice and sing.
And I loved loved loved Anna and Elsa, right from the first scene when Anna wakes Elsa up to come play in the snow. Not because it has snowed, but because Elsa can conjure snow and ice with her magic powers, and they like to have snow adventures in the ballroom. How adorable is this?
Of course it all goes wrong: Elsa accidentally zaps Anna with her snow powers, and their parents rush off to the trolls to ask for help. The grandpa troll is all, "Everything will be fine if Elsa can learn to control her powers, which she can do if she's not afraid."
Elsa's parents clearly take that to mean, "Be afraid, Elsa! Be very afraid! If you every accidentally reveal your powers to anyone YOUR WORLD WILL COLLAPSE AROUND YOUR EARS." They give Elsa a mantra to help her remember this: "Don't feel, conceal." (It's a bit longer than that, but that's the gist of it.)
Of course poor Elsa is terrified and is so busy trying not to feel anything that she has no control over her powers at all. When she finally accidentally reveals her powers by turning the entire town to ice, she's actually relieved that she's finally an outcast and she has a stunning song about how now she has her very own ICE PALACE, dammit, and she can be herself without having to hide her magical ice powers anymore.
And ANNA OH ANNA OH ANNA I LOVE ANNA SO. I love Anna so much. I love how she keeps trying to be friends with Elsa throughout their childhood, even though Elsa spends most of her time hiding in her room panicking about her uncontrollable ice powers; I love how she just won't give up, even in the face of insurmountable odds, like when she follows Elsa into the unseasonable winter after Elsa accidentally reveals her powers and flees.
And I loved that Anna saved herself in the end. Or at least, that was how I interpreted it: the act of true love that saves Anna from the shard of ice in her heart is not Elsa's weeping, but the fact that Anna herself acted with true love when she threw herself in the way of Hans's sword in order to save Elsa.
AND SPEAKING OF HANS, how effectively evil he was! Not least because he seems so awesome at the beginning: I can totally see why Anna was completely swept off her feet by his goofy-in-love act (I wonder if he's honed his skills on previous princesses?) - I love the song for that, too. They decide to get married after knowing each other less than a day. Elsa is all, "HECK NO."
(Another thing I liked was that, while Elsa turns out to be right to have forbidden Anna and Hans to marry, she's right for the wrong reason. She says they shouldn't marry because it's too soon, which is true, but really she's just panicked at the thought of having another person in the palace who might learn her secret.)
So the moment when he turns on Anna - right when he's supposed to give her true love's kiss - is so effective; because on the one hand he seems so real and sincere, but at the same time, looking back, you can see these little indications that he's simply not quite on. It's a surprise, but a surprise that follows perfectly on what went before.
I suspect his twelve brothers are going to be totally unimpressed when he shows up again. I mean, Anna literally handed him the kingdom and he still couldn't find a way to make it stick.
And speaking of the kingdom, I liked that the town felt like a real lived in place with real people, so saving it felt truly important. And not just the town itself, but the visiting dignitaries from trading partners made Arendelle feel like a real place, connected to other place, not isolated and floating in space. It made the movie feel bigger, in a way, than many other Disney movies.
But everything else is awesome! And the visuals are just as stunning: I love the careful detail put in everything, the painted decorations on the door and the embroidery on the dresses (all the clothes are beautiful. If they sold Anna's boots in stores, I would so buy them) and especially the excellent animation of snow and ice. It's at once enchanting - it reminded me of the scene in Tangled where everyone releases their lanterns into the sky, not in the particulars, but in that it had the same overwhelming loveliness - while being, at the same time, always cold and hard edged.
This is a dangerous place as well as a beautiful one, and that is clear right from the first shot, when the ice cutters saw through the ice and sing.
And I loved loved loved Anna and Elsa, right from the first scene when Anna wakes Elsa up to come play in the snow. Not because it has snowed, but because Elsa can conjure snow and ice with her magic powers, and they like to have snow adventures in the ballroom. How adorable is this?
Of course it all goes wrong: Elsa accidentally zaps Anna with her snow powers, and their parents rush off to the trolls to ask for help. The grandpa troll is all, "Everything will be fine if Elsa can learn to control her powers, which she can do if she's not afraid."
Elsa's parents clearly take that to mean, "Be afraid, Elsa! Be very afraid! If you every accidentally reveal your powers to anyone YOUR WORLD WILL COLLAPSE AROUND YOUR EARS." They give Elsa a mantra to help her remember this: "Don't feel, conceal." (It's a bit longer than that, but that's the gist of it.)
Of course poor Elsa is terrified and is so busy trying not to feel anything that she has no control over her powers at all. When she finally accidentally reveals her powers by turning the entire town to ice, she's actually relieved that she's finally an outcast and she has a stunning song about how now she has her very own ICE PALACE, dammit, and she can be herself without having to hide her magical ice powers anymore.
And ANNA OH ANNA OH ANNA I LOVE ANNA SO. I love Anna so much. I love how she keeps trying to be friends with Elsa throughout their childhood, even though Elsa spends most of her time hiding in her room panicking about her uncontrollable ice powers; I love how she just won't give up, even in the face of insurmountable odds, like when she follows Elsa into the unseasonable winter after Elsa accidentally reveals her powers and flees.
And I loved that Anna saved herself in the end. Or at least, that was how I interpreted it: the act of true love that saves Anna from the shard of ice in her heart is not Elsa's weeping, but the fact that Anna herself acted with true love when she threw herself in the way of Hans's sword in order to save Elsa.
AND SPEAKING OF HANS, how effectively evil he was! Not least because he seems so awesome at the beginning: I can totally see why Anna was completely swept off her feet by his goofy-in-love act (I wonder if he's honed his skills on previous princesses?) - I love the song for that, too. They decide to get married after knowing each other less than a day. Elsa is all, "HECK NO."
(Another thing I liked was that, while Elsa turns out to be right to have forbidden Anna and Hans to marry, she's right for the wrong reason. She says they shouldn't marry because it's too soon, which is true, but really she's just panicked at the thought of having another person in the palace who might learn her secret.)
So the moment when he turns on Anna - right when he's supposed to give her true love's kiss - is so effective; because on the one hand he seems so real and sincere, but at the same time, looking back, you can see these little indications that he's simply not quite on. It's a surprise, but a surprise that follows perfectly on what went before.
I suspect his twelve brothers are going to be totally unimpressed when he shows up again. I mean, Anna literally handed him the kingdom and he still couldn't find a way to make it stick.
And speaking of the kingdom, I liked that the town felt like a real lived in place with real people, so saving it felt truly important. And not just the town itself, but the visiting dignitaries from trading partners made Arendelle feel like a real place, connected to other place, not isolated and floating in space. It made the movie feel bigger, in a way, than many other Disney movies.