Disney Movie Challenge: Frozen (2013)

 

 Disney Movie Challenge

Frozen (2013)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021. 

I don’t think there’s been a bigger animated movie than Frozen in the last 10 years. You can not overstate the phenomenon that it was. It was everywhere and even became a major talking point on Fox News for it’s supposed Liberal propaganda. There’s been so much written about it (the Wikipedia article has to be the longest for any Disney movie I’ve researched) that I’m not sure if I have anything new to contribute to the conversation. But that’s part of the challenge. 

If you haven’t heard, Frozen is about two sisters, Anna and Elsa. They are both princesses in the fictional kingdom of Arendelle. Elsa has a magical gift that allows her to create ice and snow on demand. After she accidentally shoots Anna in the head with a frost beam their parents take them to see the trolls. The leader of the trolls uses magic to make Anna forget what happened and instructs the parents to conceal Elsa’s powers. Elsa goes into a forced isolation and no one is allowed into the castle. After their parents die (it’s a Disney movie so of course they die) Elsa is set to become Queen and a big celebration is held. When Anna says she wants to marry a guy she just met Elsa says no and they get in an argument. It’s then that Elsa reveals her powers. She runs away but not before dooming Arendelle to eternal winter. Anna sets out to find her sister and make things right. On her journey she teams up with Kristof, his Reindeer friend Sven, and a Snowman named Olaf. 

The movie originally went into development as the “Snow Queen” with Elsa as the villain. The story bounced around in development for a long time.  It was when it was decided that Elsa and Anna were going to be sisters the story got changed around and started to gain momentum. But it was the song “Let it Go” written by married couples Kristin Anderson-Lopez  and Robert Lopez that really changed the course of the movie. “Let it Go” is a power ballad written for Elsa and when the Producers heard it they decided that they couldn’t have the villain sing the best song in the movie. So they changed the story to make Elsa more sympathetic. This change left a hole of a villain that was later filled by Prince Hans who Anna wanted to marry in the beginning of the film.  

Originally planned as a traditionally hand drawn movie and one of the reasons John Lasseter brought back Chris Buck who left Disney when they stopped making hand drawn animation.  But after Buck came back it was decided that some of the visuals were too complicated to do with traditional animation and the movie was done with computer animation.  One of the things I love about Disney is their willingness to push the envelope. When the technology wasn’t there to create realistic snow and footprints they created new technology.  Art director Michael Giaimo also focused a lot on clothing. Something that wasn’t a big focus on other Disney animated films.  Giaimo saw the film as a costume film and wanted authentic looking fabrics.  Since computer animated films allow costumes to be drawn separately from characters for the first time a Disney Animated Film had a “Costume designer”. This job went to Jean Gillmore who was a character designer normally.  They used real world examples to help build the very detailed costumes they were looking for.  The results of all of this was an amazing looking film.  Everything just popped off the screen.  

Undeniably one of best things about the film is the music.  Kristin Anderson-Lopez  and Robert Lopez wrote a total of 25 songs during the production of the film, only 8 of those songs made it into the finished film.  As mentioned earlier their songs ultimately drove the story of the film.  While “Let it Go” is the most popular song, songs like “For the First Time in Forever”, “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” and “In Summer” are all super catchy and fun songs.  The first 30 minutes of the film is almost entirely told by music and almost feels like it’s going to be a full opera.  The music recalls the early movies of the Disney Renaissance and there is a good reason for that.  Whenever the Lopez’s were stuck on a song they looked to Howard Ashman’s work on The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin for inspiration.  The one song that I feel doesn’t work at all is “Fixer Upper”.  Maybe that's because I really dislike the trolls (more on that later), but the film has some of the best songs of any Disney film.  

The story itself is mixed.  First let me just say I love the twist at the end that it’s not "true love’s kiss" that saves the day and the story of Elsa’s rejection of society and redemption to good as both are different from other Disney movies. Most of my issues lie with two aspects of the story.  First is the villain of the film and that twist, the second (as mentioned earlier) are the Trolls and the parents.

When it was decided that Elsa wasn’t going to be a villain Disney decided they needed a different villain.  At some point they decided that Prince Hans was going to be the villain. I am not sure how much of Prince Hans was written before they decided that, but it feels like it was a very late change.  There is nothing in the beginning of the film that even hints he might be evil. His turn to a villain comes out of left field and seems that the writers felt they needed a villain and just changed his character.  I love twist endings but you can’t just change a character mid movie like that.  It also seems like he had a half assed plan to marry the younger sister of the Queen and then kill them both. It's almost like when Elsa turned evil he just lucked out.  I think the film would have been better if they just left out his villainous turn and just focused on the sisters which is the heart of the story anyway.  

Now let's get to the parents and the trolls.  This is the biggest thing that irks me about this film.  When they discover that Elsa has dangerous magic powers they just lock her in her room, isolate her from everyone, and tell her to “conceal it, don't feel it".  Why would the troll king even suggest that?  That’s like the worst advice ever.  Instead of trying to teach her how to use her powers he tells them to just lock her away.  For someone that is supposed to be old and wise he seems pretty dumb.  Which brings us back to the parents.  Why would they even listen to him?  Did they not realize that what they were doing was hurting their daughter?  I know they try to make the trolls lovable creatures but to me they are the real villains in the film.  When Kristof brings Anna to the trolls for help all they do is try to get them married.  They don’t even care.  And when they decide that only true love’s kiss will cure the spell the Troll King doesn’t even correct them and say it could be any true love.  It’s obvious they are the worst.   

Overall: It’s a film I feel is overrated.  I always thought people loved the great music and made them nostalgic for the Disney Renaissance era.  While the animation and music are great it’s the story choices that really bug me.  

Random Facts

The scene where Elsa builds the ice castle was so complex it required 30 hours to render each frame, with 4,000 computers rendering one frame at a time.

Jennifer Lee was brought on to be a screenwriter but was so instrumental to the film she was given a co-director credit also.  She became the first female director of a Walt Disney Animation Studios feature film and the first female director of a feature film that earned more than $1 billion world wide at the box office.  

Originally Olaf was going to be Elsa’s evil minion.  

The movie was Disney’s first non-Pixar animated film to win Best Animated Feature at the Oscars.  The only PIxar movie released that year, Monsters University, wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar.  

The movie is based on "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen. There is a nod to this with the names of the characters, Hans, Kristof, Anna, Sven.

Disney Movie Challenge: Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021. 

Wreck-it Ralph is a movie that sounds like it shouldn’t work.  It’s about a video game villain who sneaks into other video games.  The movie is filled with random references to other video games and seems to want to tap into that 80’s nostalgia by making the main game an 80’s like arcade game.  Despite everything going against it the movie works.  

The movie starts with Ralph (John C. Reilly) at “Bad Anon” lamenting how he is tired of being a bad guy.  We then learn that it’s the 30th anniversary of his game “Fix-it Felix Jr”.  Jealous that Felix (Jack McBrayer) gets all the credit, Ralph sets out to find a medal.  When he hears there is a new first person shooter game called “Hero's Duty” that hands out medals if you win he jumps into that game.  Causing total chaos in the game he eventually gets his medal but is chased out of the game by psy-bug and he crashes into a different game called “Sugar Rush”.  “Sugar Rush” is a car racing game that takes place in a land full of candy.  After Ralph crashes there one of the bugs from “Hero’s Duty” gets sucked into a taffy swamp and a character from “Sugar Rush” named Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) steals his medal.  The other racers in her game consider her a glitch and won’t let her race.  With the medal she is able to enter the race.  Meanwhile with Ralph missing, his game is threatened to be shut down for good.  Felix heads out to find Ralph and teams up with Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch) from “Hero’s Duty” to get Ralph and the bug that escaped with him.  Back in “Candy Rush” Ralph finds out that King Candy (Alan Tudyk) rules the land like a dictator and he teams up with Vanellope to take him down.  Everything collides at the end with a big race,psy-bugs that begin to eat all the candy, and an evil secret about King Candy comes out.  

The idea of making an animated movie about video games goes back to the 80’s.  Disney’s first attempt at a story was called “High Score” in the 90’s it was changed to “Joe Jump”.  Finally they started working on a story with Fix-It Felix as the main character.  Eventually they came to realize that a bad guy looking for redemption would make a compelling story and made Ralph the central character and was tentatively called “Reboot Ralph”.  According to director Richard Moore they didn’t want to base the movie on an actual game because "there's so much mythology and baggage attached to pre-existing titles that I feel someone would be disappointed,". It turns out that it was probably the right idea as most movies based on video games fail. Being able to make their own mythology lets the story be more freeing.  But also filling the film with other video game references lets the audience have fun with the familiar.  The balancing act with that is to not do too many references where those that don’t play video games would get bored.  They walked that thin line perfectly and those that know will get some jokes but there's so much other stuff going on that those that don’t know can still stay interested.  

Setting the movie in a world of video games let the animators create a bunch of unique worlds.  From the 8 bit world of “Fix-it Felix Jr” to the frenetic energy of “Hero’s Duty” and the ultra colorful world of “Sugar Rush” each had a feel all their own.  Not being tied down to one look makes Wreck-it Ralph stand out among other Disney movies and really adds to the world building and mythology of the movie.  

What truly makes this movie work is the clever writing by Phil Johnston and Jennifer Lee.  They were able to take video game caricatures and not only give them personalities but also give each one a backstory.  These three dimensional characters really came to life and you felt a connection with each one.  Obviously the friendship between Ralph and Vanellope takes center stage but you never feel like any of the other characters get the short end of the stick.  The writing team also came up with clever bits.  One of my favorites is the opening bit with all the bad guys.  It is so much fun and the bad guy's affirmation cracks me up.  

Overall: A fun movie with clever writing and great visuals.  While those familiar with video games will get a kick out of some cameos (I personally love the Q-Bert cameo) you don’t have to have any knowledge of video games to enjoy the film.  

Random Facts

The animators spent all their life learning how to animate motion so it looks smooth that they had to unlearn everything to animated the 8-bit jerky motion of 80’s video games. 

Disney had permission from Nintendo to use Mario but they couldn’t find a place to make it work without it feeling forced. 

Made $49 million on its opening weekend.  At the time it was the largest opening weekend for any Disney animated film. It was also the 12th biggest film of the year. 

Lost to PIxar’s Brave for Best Animated FIlm at the Oscars.  This was considered an upset as most thought Wreck-It Ralph was better.  In fact most people felt that Wreck-It Ralph felt like a Pixar movie and Brave felt like a typical Disney Princess movie.  

King Candy’s voice and design was based on Ed Wynn’s Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland

  

It has been reported that there are 188 classic video game characters in the movie. 

The high score on Fix-It Felix Jr is 120501 which is a reference to Walt Disney’s birthday of 12/5/1901

Disney Movie Challenge: Winnie the Pooh (2011)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Winnie the Pooh (2011)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021. 

As we enter the 2010’s Disney is at the start of their “Revival Era”.  But they had one more traditional animated film ready to go that doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the films.  In 2011 Disney released Winnie the Pooh. As of 2021 it is the last traditionally animated film Disney has released. At 63 minutes it is also the shortest film in Disney Canon.  

Similar to The Manny of Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in 1977 Winnie the Pooh tells a collection of Pooh stories.  Unlike the earlier film this one tells it as one continuous story instead of using an anthology format. The three A.A. Milne stories the movie is based on are “In which Eeyore Loses a Tail and Pooh Finds One”, “In which Roo Meets a Heffalump”, and “In Which Rabbit Has a Busy Day and We Learn What Christopher Robin Does in the Mornings”.   We follow Pooh as he searches for honey, then finds out that Eeyore’s tail is missing. All the animals in Hundred Acre Wood get together to try to find a replacement.  But nothing seems to work.  Later Pooh goes to find Christopher Robin and finds a note that says he will be back soon. Owl misreads it as Backson and thinks that Christopher Robin was kidnapped by a monster and all the animals attempt to rescue Christopher Robin.  Tigger decides that Eeyore should have a spring for a tail and recruits him to be his sidekick in the hunt for the Backson.  Eventually everyone falls in a pit and Piglet needs to rescue them.  In the end Pooh finds Eeyore's tail and they have a big celebration with lots of honey.  

There isn’t much to say about the movie.  It’s what you would expect from a Winnie the Pooh movie.  Low stakes, not much drama, and very little action. Craig Ferguson’s Owl took a little getting used to, but the rest of the voice acting was pretty spot on.   The songs are catchy and fun. They were written by married couple Robert Lopez & Kristen Anderson-Lopez.  Disney leadership liked their work so much on this film that they asked them to write the music for Disney's next Princess Musical Frozen.

Overall: A movie good for little kids and Pooh fans. Not sure anyone else would get much out of it. It's not really boring but nothing happens. The music is the best part.

Random Facts

The Lopez's had a young daughter at the time and some of the songs were made after sleep deprived nights. In "The Backson song" there is a line that says the Backson will "wake up babies at one and three". Appropriately this line was sung by Kanga who was voiced by Kristen Anderson-Lopez.

While the Winnie the Pooh theme song is pretty similar to the original version except the lyrics were slightly changed to include Tigger.

The Backson doesn't appear in the film it does appear in an end credit scene.

As of 2021 the movie was the last G-Rated animated film to be released by Disney.

The movie did poorly at the box office despite mostly positive reviews. This is most likely due to the fact it opened up against the juggernaut that was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

Random personal fact. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh came out in 1977 the year I was born. Winnie the Pooh came out in 2011 the year my son was born.

Disney Movie Challenge: Tangled (2010)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Tangled (2010)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021. 

After The Princes and the Frog failed to “Ignite the Box Office” the title and marketing of Disney’s next movie changed.  Originally going to be called Rapunzel the folks at Disney thought it would be dismissed as another “Girly Princess” movie so they changed the title to Tangled and marketed it as an action adventure movie. The trailers focused more on the male character Flynn Rider to help appeal to boys.  

Tangled retells the Grimm fairy tale of Rapunzel.  In this one princess Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) is born with a magic gift that lets her hair heal people and keep them young.  Because of her special gift the evil witch Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy) kidnaps Rapunzel and locks her in a tall tower that no one can enter.  Every year on her birthday the king and queen release lanterns in the hopes that their daughter will return.  Rapunzel sees these and while she doesn’t know they are for her she senses the connection between them and her birthday.  On her 18th birthday she asks Mother Gothel to let her go see the lanterns. Of course Gother says no, but does leave Rapunzel alone while she goes to get a birthday gift.  Meanwhile Flynn Rider steals a crown from the King and Queen and is being chased by guards.  While trying to escape he finds the tower and climbs up it.  After Rapunzel knocks him out with a frying pan she agrees to let him go if he agrees to take her to the lanterns.  It's then their adventure begins.  While both keep secrets from the other they begin to fall in love and with the help of a horse Maximus and a chameleon Pascal they reunite Rapunzel with her family. .  

Glen Keane had been working on a version of this story since 1996.  In 2001 Michael Eisner told Keane he could make it but it had to be computer animated.  At the time Keane didn’t think computer animation would do the movie justice, but in 2003 it was announced that Rapunzel Unbraided would be released in 2007 and would be computer animated. But Keane just never felt the story was quite right.  They had developed a more irreverent Shrek like version of the story but that was eventually scrapped. When John Lasseter took over as Disney Animation supervisor the film was restarted as a more traditional telling.  Still not happy doing it as a computer animation, Keane held a conference with the Disney Animators he called “The Best of Both Worlds” to look at the best way to combine traditional and computer animation.  Keane also pushed technology with the goal to get the computers to "bend its knee to the artist".  Eventually they came up with a way to keep the Disney aesthetic and again used non-photorealistic rendering and some new technology to give it the look they were looking for.  The hardest part to animate was Rapunzel’s long hair and new technology had to be developed to give that a natural look especially when it was floating in the water.  Unfortunately for Keane he suffered a heart attack in 2008 and had to step down as director but remained as executive producer.  

While it’s reported to be the most expensive animated movie of all time the hard work paid off.  The movie looks great.  The lantern scene in the beginning is just breathtaking.  Knowing the hair would probably be difficult to animate, I expected it to be kind of flat, but they managed to make it look natural.  While the idea of using non-photorealistic rendering seems odd it actually makes sense.  Disney films have never looked real and part of the magic of animation is that it doesn’t have to look real.  

The Princess and the Frog saw Disney return to the musical format it occurred to me while watching the film that Tangled was a return to the Broadway style music of the Renaissance era.  After I watched it and looked up who wrote the music it became clear why that was.  Turns out Alan Menkin (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin) wrote the music for the film.  While some may feel that it’s derivative of his earlier Disney stuff it still packs an emotional punch.  The song “Mother Knows Best” is a great villain song and Donna Murphy just seems to have fun belting that one out.  

The story itself is a bit so-so.  From the start you kind of know where it’s going to go and has very few surprises.  Although the scene in Snuggly Duckling did take a fun and unexpected turn.  Despite being a pretty standard story it’s still fun and keeps you interested.  The most fascinating thing to me about the movie was the villain Mother Gothel.  While she has a fairly typical motive of everlasting life at all costs, her methods are different. While she isn’t physically cruel to Rapunzel her use of gaslighting and manipulation sets her apart from other villains. She is one of the most diabolical characters in the Disney cannon.  

Rapunzel herself is also an interesting character.  I love the way we feel her internal conflict and it’s something we don’t see often in a Princess movie.  Most princess movies have a Princess that has an external struggle but not much of an internal one.  Rapunzel on the other hand show she is physically capable of almost anything but she begins to question everything she believes.  We see the illusions that Mother Gothel put up slowly crumble and Rapunzel begins to see the real world.  Unfortunately how she figures out the truth that Mother Gothel had been lying to her for 18 years feels rushed and out of nowhere.  I wish we had more time and really got to see her figure things out for herself.  Instead it feels more coincidental and magical.  

Overall: An enjoyable movie.  Has great animation, good music, and the voice cast works really well together.   While the ending felt rushed I loved the internal conflict and Mother Gothel is the perfect example of someone gaslighting a character.  

Random Facts:

The first Disney Princess movie to be PG. 

Mandy Moore and Donna Murphy never met while making the movie.  Mandy Moore only met Zachary Levi once to record the duet.  

Was nominated for Best Song but not nominated for Best Animated Feature.  The movies nominated for Animated Feature that year were Toy story 3, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Illusionist.

Both Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel audtioned for Rapunzel. While neither of them got it they were both cast in the next Disney Princess movie Frozen.