Quick Thoughts on Frozen

The release of Disney’s [amazon_link id=”B00G5G7K7O” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Frozen[/amazon_link] on DVD and Blu-ray gave me the opportunity to see if my initial impression of the story held (multiple viewings are good like that). While the movie does make me smile, there are some quibbles I have that linger. Keep in mind that this isn’t a review, just a commentary.

(Obviously, since I’m going to talk about the movie, there will be spoilers for those who haven’t seen in. Out of respect to spoiler-phobes (of which I am not one), this is your one and only chance to bail.)

One of the niftiest tidbits we were fed from the scant bonus selections was the revelation that Elsa was originally intended to be somewhat evil-ish. That would certainly influence how you’d tell the rest of the story and gives reason for some of my minor complaints of the movie.

But first…to address the snowman in the room: Olaf’s song “In Summer”. A featured song. Really? For the comic heroic sidekick character, it seemed a bit much. Also, it (and all the green) took me out of the story. At best it should have been part of a sidekick medley with Sven and Kristoff.

That aside, I think the one thing that I’m consistently wanting is a few more sisterly moments with Anna and Elsa. The brief banter at the coronation ball was simply charming. A little more of that would have helped lighten the mood and, perhaps more importantly, given Elsa a little more dimension.

Elsa is given less shrift than she deserved. In some ways she’s treated as the villain of the piece…which given the previously mentioned comment, now makes more sense. But in the released version, she isn’t a villain. She’s as much a victim of circumstance as Anna. In the years before their parents were lost, Elsa wasn’t trained to control her power, as the trolls were assured. Instead, she was admonished to hide it. (Hiding the power from Anna post-accident doesn’t make a lot of sense, but whatever.)

So…cut Olaf’s song and use that time to maybe have Anna poking around the ice castle’s closets before seeing Elsa. Maybe a brief scene before they are orphaned showing them wanting to connect but being kept apart by their parents. Losing this main character development made some of the rest seem a little less tied to story arc than to scene sequences — making the story’s flow not as…er, flow-y as it could have been.

But, like I said, minor complaints. It’s a solid movie. Not quite at The Lion King level, but close enough that it’ll be re-watched many times, I’m sure.

What did you like or not like about Frozen? Scroll down to leave a comment.