Really good! Great animation and the Mickey short is soooo good.
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Really good! Great animation and the Mickey short is soooo good.
Agree. Although, I could have done without about half the songs. Wonderful story, though. Very touching.
Just saw it. Loved, loved everything about it. Disney definitely got this one right....:cloud9::cloud9:
I gotta say...these might be two of Disney's best Princesses. Such great personalities!
I had no desire to see this until you said "Mickey short"! Now I gotta go!
Going tomorrow! Can't wait...makes me feel like a kid again...going to all these cartoon movies! :mickey:
We went yesterday and everyone (ages ranging from 12-72) LOVED it. I'm taking the boys back tomorrow to see it again :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
can't wait for this to come out in the UK but I have to wait another week :(
Definitely another wonderful Disney movie! My girls are still singing the songs!!
The mickey short was awesome! felt very 'Philharmagic'y! :cloud9:
I hope everyone noticed that Mickey was voiced by Walt Disney himself. I thought they did SUCH a great job with that. It wasn't awkward at all.
We went to see it late Thanksgiving night and the theater was empty because everyone was out for the pre black friday sales. I thought it was really good. Actually this is the first Disney movie in a while that the music actually stuck with me after the film so I got the soundtrack. Something else not so important but added to my enjoyment was the color was very vivid & really popped. I might even go see it again if I can find the time.
In my humble opinion, this is the best Disney animated feature since Beauty and the Beast. Music was wonderful, the story kept me laughing - and in tears at times. How many of you stuck around to see the end of the credits? :)
Was there anything to see at the end of the credits? We had a time crunch situation (show was late as the cleanup from earlier shows backed them up-and the trailer/ads running time was ridiculous).
NYTimes has a story on the Walt Disney voice work today.
Yes, a brief scene involving Queen Elsa's snow monster. I don't want to spoil it, but I'm sure you could find it online somewhere if you searched hard enough.
As for the movie, I thought it was terrific -- Disney animation's best effort in many years. Between this and "Tangled," my faith is slowly being restored.
I took my daughter to see it last night and we both really enjoyed it. I thought it was great. The animation was beautiful and the story was very strong.
I do agree with Natalie that a few of the songs seemed unnecessary but that is a really minor complaint and I would definitely watch it again.
Was Idina Menzel singing the unnecessary songs? ;) I could listen to her all day long.
Hopefully I get to see it today, and if not one day this week. Really looking forward to it!
I have had no desire to see this judging from the previews. But the rave reviews everywhere have me curious and happily optimistic. I'll check it out eventually.
I can't believe these rave reviews. My kids (DD 14 and DS 11) were both so furious it was a princess movie that they haven't said anything about the story or the movie itself. They felt tricked into seeing it because the previews did not make it appear to be a princess movie.
It may be because my daughter is 5, but we were well aware the heroines were princesses. My daughter already had an Elsa doll before we saw the movie and the merchandise has been everywhere but I agree the trailer did not mention the word princess and mention that the heroines are princesses. At least not that I can recall.
I'm sure others might weigh in too but this is my take. Is it a "princess" movie because the heroines are princesses? Yes, definitely. Is it a traditional "princess" story? I didn't really think so. It did have some aspects of it but it was definitely not the main focus of the movie. At least not to me.
I'm sorry your children did not enjoy it. I think Disney does not always do a great job with their trailers when it concerns princesses. They seem to walk a fine line between letting their core "princess" market know that it is their type of movie without alienating or keeping away the market that stays away from anything princessy. I think they started that trend with the marketing of "Tangled" when they changed the name from "Rapunzel" to "Tangled."
This is not a traditional Disney Princess movie at ALL. It is a tale about the love between siblings and the fact that they happen to also be princesses is just because that is how most fairy tales are spun. I LOVED that this movie took the traditional fairy tale formula and chucked it out the window. I would expect that most older kids and adults would think "it's about time" rather than be angry that it is a Princess movie. I know I was thrilled with the way the story unfolded. I HATE the traditional princess storylines.
This movie was based on The Snow Queen, which is a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. The working title for the movie was, in fact, The Snow Queen. However, as we've seen lately with Disney, the names of the movies are created in a way that allows Disney to copyright them. Names like "Rapunzel" and "The Snow Queen" cannot be granted a Disney copyright, so we got "Tangled" and "Frozen" instead.
The trailers are deliberately misleading in order to bring in the highest number of theatergoers possible, especially in the summer months and Holiday seasons. It worked for my boys. And they enjoyed the movie. If the trailer had shown Anna and Elsa dancing around and singing about snowmen, I probably would not have taken my boys to see it, and we all would have missed out.
The marketing for this film was an embarrassing disaster. I just don't understand why after decades of success, Disney is convinced it can longer advertise its fairy-tale films for what they are. The company used the same strategy with "Tangled," and it certainly led to skepticism about what turned out to be a lovely movie.
The issues start with the name: This should be titled "The Snow Queen," as it was supposed to have been called. Olaf the snowman, if he must exist at all,shouldn't be the focus of the trailers and commercials. (I'd rather eliminate Olaf altogether, but I recognize that's probably a losing battle at this point.)
For decades, Disney animation produced beautiful, mature films that appealed to all ages. These movies relied on brilliant storytelling and fully realized characters to create memorable and magical experiences. "Frozen" does so much right -- it has fabulous characters, an exciting soundtrack, stunning artwork and genuinely challenging subject matter.
That should be the focus of the marketing. Not a ridiculous snowman.
No, her songs were great. She only got two though. Maybe?
I could have done without:
-Love is an Open Door (just TOTALLY random in its timing and relevance)
-Olaf's Summer Song (really disrupted the flow of the movie)
-He's a Bit of a Fixer Upper (completely irrelevant and the music style did not mesh well with the other songs)
The fixer upper song is great on its own. I could listen to it on its own and enjoy it a lot. I just found the timing of it in the film to be completely bizarre and so it felt jarring and out of place to me. The mood went from desperate, grim to upbeat and Broadway-like, and then immediately back to serious. It totally threw me off. That song could have been put at a different point in the movie and I think would have been fine.
FWIW, I liked the inclusion of Olaf. I though it was sweet that he had a relevant "backstory".
She had one song on her own - Let It Go and one with Kristen Bell -For the First Time in Forever.
That was my problem with that song as well. I really liked the song but it just didn't fit where it was placed.
I like Olaf and of course my daughter loved him. I think he was in it just enough. I do agree with Jared though that too much of the trailers was spent on him compared to his actual screen time.
Uh, the new World of Color: Winter Dreams is hosted by Olaf. In fact, the summer song gets play, but the show itself is 25+ minutes long.
I loved the movie! So well done, and I'm buying the soundtrack momentarily. I do agree the Fixer Upper song was odd. Maybe a bit long, and too light for what was happening at that point in the movie. I actually kind of thought the trolls were an odd inclusion. I loved Olaf.
A few times, I found Elsa's spoken word and lyrics reminiscent of Elphaba in Wicked.
I stayed until the end. I personally found the disclaimer about boogers 10x funnier than the bit at the very end.
Yeah, Idina Menzel apparently has a stranglehold on all roles involving the disturbed half of a pair of once-close, now-estranged females.
Actually, I've been thinking a bit over the past few days about the decision to cast Menzel in the role of Elsa. Her performance is spectacular, and her rendition of "Let it Go" is stunning -- it's probably the highlight of the entire movie. The song is powerful and theatrical and will sound great when "Frozen" is inevitably adapted for a Broadway musical.
But was she the right choice for the film version? One thing that stands out to me about the "Frozen" soundtrack is that nobody -- especially no child -- will be able to sing along with "Let it Go." (At least, no normal person will.) It's no different than how no normal person can really sing along with "Defying Gravity," perhaps Menzel's signature song.
It's so inaccessible, and it required a voice like Menzel's for it to work. You think back to some of the most popular songs from the Disney renaissance in 1990s. What made them special, in my mind, is that they were simple and catchy: "Under the Sea," "Hakuna Matata," "Be Our Guest" -- these were all easy tunes that any toddler could hum along with. I don't think that's the case here.
Now, that's not a criticism. "Let it Go" is a spectacular song, and the animation that went along with it is a true achievement. But I do think it could make for a worthwhile discussion about what these Disney animated features are supposed to be: Should the creators of these movies worry about whether that elementary-school kid could sing along? Or do we just want to hear the best singing come from the screen? If it's the latter, Menzel was the perfect choice.
Personally, I loved Menzel's performance, and "Let it Go" will probably win an Oscar because of her. I'm just not sure this is the way to go with all future films.
I absolutely loved this movie and plan to see it again. A few thoughts I had. This movie revealed itself to be much like a traditional Broadway musical. It is common to have an up-beat, "seems out of place" song at the top of Act II after a gloomy tragedy that ended Act I. The music was fantastic. It seems very likely to me this movie was planned to be adapted for the stage with the way the show-stopper "Let It Go" was written and sung. Did anyone notice that the husband & wife songwriting team of Robert Lopez (Avenue Q) and Kristen Anderson-Lopez composed the songs? They wrote the musical adaptation Finding Nemo - the Musical playing daily at the Animal Kingdom. :mickey:
We saw Frozen for the second time last night. Can someone answer a dumb question for me and tell me who voiced the younger Anna and Elsa.
:mickey: I alway use the IMDb (I think it stands for International Movie Database) for all things movies and TV. Type that in your search engine and away you go! (It didn't have the singing voice for Anna though. I learned that from an interview with the songwriters that I read.)
We saw it the day after Thanksgiving. We really didn't know what to expect, had only seen a couple of Olaf-centered trailers. We thought it would be just cute and fun but we ended up really loving it! The songs were fabulous, although I agree that it would have been fine with fewer songs. I loved Olaf! He really made us laugh. And, while the main characters are princesses, I agree that this is not a princess movie. It came across as much more than that to us. We did not stay through the credits. We make sure to do that with the Marvel movies, but they're pretty much guaranteed to have one of those little bonus scenes. Didn't expect one for this movie. We'll have to either search for it online, or just wait and watch it on the DVD.
Worth noting that the advertising for this film is apparently different in Europe than in the US. In Europe, the advertising focus is on the princesses. Here, on the snowman. I think the fault might lie with American audience expectation and not Disney Marketing. Considering how well the film is performing, I think they know their target audiences around the world (well, not always, there was that major John Carter fail, but I think people were fired over that one).
As Cindy mentioned, the marketing beyond advertising has been fairly heavy on the princesses, so princess fans were in the know. And, as Natalie points out, Disney can have more ownership and control over Frozen as their own product vs. The Snow Queen-- though you can't copyright a title regardless.