Overly-Long Thoughts on Brave and Frozen · 6:02pm Nov 24th, 2014
As I’ve said before, I’m a very slow consumer of media. You know that song you’re sick of? I’ve probably never heard it. Your favorite video game? I probably haven’t played it. All those movies at the Oscars? I’ve never seen any of them. I tend to live in my own brain because I’m too poor (cheap) to afford easy access to these things, and I don’t have the motivation to figure out torrents and the like.
What happens because of this is that I see just a few movies a year, and they tend to be older. Something my wife and I can pick up at the store on sale. A few weeks ago, she picked up Frozen and Brave. I watched both last night, and kinda wished I hadn’t by the end of things.
Spoilers ahead
Brave was firmly okay. Not great, but not actively bad. I was caught a little off-guard by the thrust of the film. I was fully on board up until the bearification, and from that point on, the film became a baffling series of weird decisions by the characters.
One of the things this movie does that I detest is that it highjacks Merida’s character for the sake of convenient plot. When meeting with the witch, she makes sure to give her a very vague idea of what she wants. The movie tries to set this up with earlier snippets of dialogue, but I don’t buy it at all. Merida is a headstrong teenage girl who knows exactly what is bothering her: She doesn’t want to get married. Yes, I know it’s deeper than that, but the marriage is the primary concern. But she doesn’t ask the witch to make is so that she doesn’t have to get married. She asks her for the very broad “I want a spell that will change my mom. That will change my fate.”
This does not sound to me like natural phrasing. It feels like the script’s author is trying to be clever about things. Contrast this with the wish Geppetto is granted at the beginning of Pinocchio. Geppetto is a lonely man, and when granted a wish, he knows exactly what he wants. He doesn’t ask for something vague. He wants his creation to be a real boy, not for his creation “to experience life.” Aladdin doesn’t as the genie to “change my life somehow.” He wishes to be a prince. Ursula tempts Ariel by saying she can transform her into a human, not that she could give her something the prince might like. She’s very direct about it.
So when Merida meets a weird stranger in the woods, doesn’t worry at all that the witch might not have the best intentions or if she even knows what she’s doing, then gives her an obviously vague set of instructions, it makes me roll my eyes. It’s established early on that Merida is at least somewhat enamored with magic, but come on. With that kind of set up, you either make me question the writers of the character herself. Either the writer is being lazy or the character is kind of dumb. I don’t like either of those options. It think it would have been better to introduce the witch a little earlier. Merida could have heard her offer and refused, then caved when things were looking bad for her. It would have felt a lot more natural to me than just taking the word of some bizarre stranger that she just met all of a sudden.
The mother is shockingly okay with becoming a bear. I mean, she’s obviously concerned, but they kind of play it mostly like, “Gosh! Isn’t this very awkward?” rather than “Holy shit, my daughter just completely ruined my life!” Not that I wanted it to fully swing in that direction, but it felt odd to me.
Then when it’s found out that they have two days, they basically spend the first one bonding. That’s nice and all, but, um, your… your mom’s a bear, Merida. Like, she’s going to be permanently a bear really soon. Some urgency in the solving the bear problem would be nice.
This film also has a pet peeve of mine going on: People not listening to extremely shocking news. Merida tells her father repeated that the bear is her mother. She’s in a room in the castle… with a bear… that is not mauling her… telling her father that it is her enchanted mother… and he never stops and says, “Wait, what?” I know that they said he doesn’t believe in magic, but that’s just defying any level of rational curiosity.
My last real gripe with the film is the mending the tapestry thing. The idea of that is fine, but why on earth would they try and get back into the castle? Have Merida go in and get it. They can mend it outside! Have the boys sneak it out! Yes, I know they were bearified at the time, but Merida didn’t know that. Not that it impeded them in any way. Tell a guard to go and get it. She’s still the princess. Anything other than “Let’s drag a huge bear through a castle filled with people that like to kill bears.”
Besides story structure, there was a lot to like about the film. The voice acting was top notch. Character design was appealing. The humor was generally good. I loved Merida’s hair, especially when she was a little girl. I was deeply enchanted by the way she said, “I missed” right at the beginning of the story.
Overall, I liked this film, but I liked it less than I expected. I was completely caught off guard by the bear thing. I was expecting a heroic journey kind of thing. I don’t really mind that they went in another direction, but it was surprising. My quibbles with the movie are more based in details than the overall plot.
If you haven’t seen this film, I think it’s worth checking out, but it isn’t Pixar’s best.
On the other hand, I thought Frozen was actively bad. It seems like this movie needs a director’s cut or something, because there seemed to be whole swatches of information missing. The trolls just, um, keep Kristoff? And no one cares? Anna never gets to see her sister, and her parents don’t have some kind of rationale for that? How does Anna know where Elsa is when she flees the city? How did the snowman get into the castle to free Anna? Just on and on. I kept watching and thinking, “Wait, how…?”
I didn’t particularly care for any of the songs except for Let It Go. I just found the music in the whole thing to be generally lackluster.
Lots and lots of plothole and contrivance in Frozen. Way too many to just wave off as “Well, no film is perfect.” For example, Elsa wants solitude and can control ice in cold to such a degree that she can make a pretty fantastic castle up on a mountain. A castle with a huge friggin’ door that everyone can come in through. All the people that she doesn’t want to see. Just a parade of people coming through those doors…
Or, um, isn’t there a regent or a chancellor or something in the kingdom? The parents died pretty early on, and it’s pretty obvious that the girls weren’t running things, so why is control giving to some random dude that showed up all of a sudden. Granted, he’s apparently a prince from some neighboring place, so I guess he has cred(?), but that’s just a bizarre thing for everyone else to accept.
But mostly I felt like Frozen was a collection of good scenes that weren’t held together very well. Watching any scene by itself, I’m sure I’d like it, but it rarely felt to me that one scene was a logical progression from the one before it.
Also on display here was some writer contrivance that I can’t stand. For example, Kristoff and Anna show up to meet the trolls, and this whole scene is a nightmare to me, but what I gritted my teeth at is that the trolls are in rock mode when they show up and stay that was for no good reason other to allow Olaf and Anna to have a joke-y scene where Kristoff is talking to rocks. Exactly why are they just standing stock still and not responding? I don’t know, I have no good explanation other than “Well, it wouldn’t be funny if they didn’t.” Then we get into a song about marriage that doesn’t really serve any purpose.
Now, I’ve always said that I don’t mind if a story meanders off from the main plot for a while, and I stick by that, but the caveat is that it must be entertaining. Douglas Adams is the master of that, in my opinion. He can write things that are basically totally irrelevant to the plot of the story, but are wildly fun to read about. Probably a quarter of the Hitchhiker books are useless errata, but we love them for it.
That’s the problem here for me. We go off on this marriage song and dance, but it didn’t entertain me at all. That’s just a personal opinion, of course. Given this movie’s success, I’m probably in the minority about that scene, but it was like nails on a chalkboard to me.
I could go on and on about the storytelling problems in that movie, but I’m sure you get the gist of it by now. There is a school of writing where the author moves the plot along by what seems to be the first thing that comes to mind. In MLP terms, this is kind of what Merriweather Williams seems to do. Bats! relentlessly moves forward, ignoring much better, completely obvious solutions. Frozen suffers from this, though it’s considerably better than Bats! Much, much better. However, I still got the feeling that someone would say, “But why didn’t the parents have some explanation as to why their eldest daughter is a recluse” and the room would go quiet for a moment, then someone would finally say, “Oh, whatever. It’s just a kid’s movie.”
And if you don’t think that happens, think again. I have a friend that works for Hasbro, and he has lots of stories about execs using the “Whatever, it’s just for kids” line. Tangentially related to that is his many stories he has about how dumb they think that kids are. Lots of decisions and discussions where he has to argue not to assume kids don’t understand a single thing.
Back to Frozen. It’s not all bad. The character designs were nice. The animation was pretty good, though at certain points it had this kind of bizarre stop motion feel. I happen to love stop motion, so I was good with that, but it was a little strange to get that stuttering effect all of a sudden. I kept wondering if my blu-ray copy was messed up somehow. It felt very Rankin Bass at times. And like I said, the individual scenes themselves often were satisfying to watch.
Overall, I just can’t recommend Frozen. I enjoy lots of flawed movies, but this one just had too many of the things that specifically irritate me. It’s a smash-hit, though, so my opinion should be taken with a huge grain of salt. I’m definitely not the target audience, it would seem.
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Admittedly, the whole "my mom turned into a bear" thing felt kinda gimmicky.
I think it's slapstick that wasn't necessary in old Disney movies because the expectations for children's animations was different. Disney movies were able to pull their humor from the world around them and it was enough to keep audiences entertained at the time; now, cartoons have to basically be injected with humor to keep up with their competitors. Some unnaturally ridiculous things have to happen in most Blockbuster cartoon movies because that's what's expected of them nowadays.
That's my take on it, at least. I think a world without marriage for Merida to have to go through would have told a far richer story than her mom turning into a bear.
I mean, yeah, you expect a certain level of rationale from fictional characters. If the characters acted entirely like us, there wouldn't be all that much point to fantasy, though. Characters that are heroic in nature, or willing to be brave and face down monsters... that's entertainment, but it's hardly realistic. A character that's so thoroughly convinced in the inexistence of magic that he would ignore all reason to nearly kill his wife is also entertaining, and you shouldn't expect a high degree of realism from such a thing.
Character development, suspense, comedy, etc. These are all fulfilled by putting the bear in the castle. If everyone acted according to logic and reason, the story wouldn't be very good.
Sure, it's contrived as all hell, but that doesn't mean you should come into this movie expecting a mind-blowingly relatable story.
I didn't expect to like it, then I read something about it having a strong female role model or whatever in it. I decided it would merit a watch and was surprised at what I expected and what I saw.
I think they could have done far better with what they had. They had a strong female role model and... occupied all of her time dealing with her bear mom. Oh, there was so much she could have done! She looked like the adventurer type. She was great with a bow. It should have been--
Amen.
I think Merida would have been ten times more amazing in something along those lines.
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I thought I was the only one.
"Ramshackled together," I think is the words you need.
It did feel somewhat disjointed.
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"Whatever, it's just for female bodybuilders."
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2614021 That was great!
You nailed it.
Brave was not what I've come to expect from Pixar (and they cancelled Newt to make it, which really makes me grit my teeth in annoyance), and Frozen was a meandering trainwreck (especially for something being billed as "the best Disney musical since Beauty and the Beast" -- give me a break). I saw Frozen in theaters with my family when it came out, we all went in pleasantly excited for something that looked so good and we had been assured would be good, and came out politely bewildered at why anyone cared. I forgot about it until weeks later, I saw a headline on reddit claiming it had become the top-grossing animated film of all time worldwide or something along those line, and I thought I'd misread the title.
I just... don't get it.
Huh. I loved Frozen. I'd be curious to see your take on Book of Life.
Yaknow, I adored Brave when I saw it. It's only been since then that I've discovered the internet apparently hates it, and that distresses me. :(
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Being heroically, epically brave and facing down monsters isn't realistic for us, but it's realistic in the context of the film. For that character, it's realistic. To me, a world has to operate with an internal logic. If they wanted the father to be that unwilling to listen because he doesn't believe in magic, they needed to set it up more strongly. It would be one thing if all evidence wasn't pointing to this as something he needed to pay attention to, but it's hard for me to excuse him basically blatantly ignore that. They didn't set him up to be that big of an idiot during the story, so it conflicts with the internal logic when present. He's definitely not as together as the mother, but up until that point it doesn't seem like he's that way because he's dumb. He's just more hands-off and basically likes a rougher style of life. But if that's what they wanted, they could have given him a line when Merida is trying to convince him where he declares there's no such thing as magic and lunges in. Or he could have been a berserker. Or he could have taken a blow to the head and not been able to hear Merida. There are any number of better ways it could have played out without sacrificing the overall story.
I agree that it set these up, it's not the only way it could have been done. There are lots of entertaining ways they could have approached the tapestry. That's just a matter of skilled writing. Contrived doesn't need to happen, but contrived is also in the eye of the beholder. I'll admit that I'm overly-picky about almost everything.
2614902 I certainly didn't hate it. I rather liked it, to be honest, but some of the choices just baffled me. But it's pretty hard to make a bad Pixar movie. Even the ones that I don't think are the best are still pretty good.
This. This sums up Brave for me perfectly. I also totally agree with your analysis of the witch and the spell. Completely contrived. Having said that, I do feel that the other lords and Merida's father were absolutely hilarious, and without them, the film would have been a lot worse. I disagree with your assertion that Frozen was the weaker of the two. This one was worse to me. And yes, the animation was pretty excellent, especially her hair. Very good.
As for Frozen, yeah, most people fixate on Let it Go, of course, and rightfully so. It's a stellar song that deserved the Oscar. I have it and the Nightmare Moon version in my music folder. Do You want to Build a Snowman wasn't so bad either.
But that f****** troll song. Those trolls in general, man. I mean, I get that they have to be in there because of the old wise one, but that scene when they're singing and Ana is LITERALLY DYING AND LETTING THEM DO IT just pisses me off, really. If my fiancee was dying and the doctors decided to put the surgery off to do a song and dance number about how much of a cute couple we were, there would be hell to pay.
Also, Hans being the bad guy... no. Weselton was a perfectly fine villain. They set it up so poorly. Everyone I've talked to said that Ana should end up with Hans, and Elsa should end up with Kristoff. You know, ice and ice, and all that.
Basically, Frozen needed one more re-write.
First brave, your'e right about the phrasing, absolutely. The easy soloution is have the which say it after Merida is more direct but gives out just enough info the witch decides things on her own. they set up how odd and mysterious she is plenty well, so her using the phrasing would be natural because it isn't. As for waiting, that would be against Merida's character. She's a risk taker, but also stubborn, so either jump at the chance and to hell with the risks or, seems to risky, turn around and never come back.
Denial is a very reasonable reaction the the impossible and that was the whole point. No matter what happened she was trying to just go on like nothing changed. Over time she got better and began to adapt and accept she was a bear instead of just trying to pretend things were the same, but humans are very good at denial. Just like before she became a bear she refused to accept that she is not in the sort of high court she's used to and her daughter is not the sort of girl she wants her to be.
Also isn't the bonding scene before they find out about the time limit? Though if I'm wrong there is no excuse there. And yes the dad didn't listen, but he also clearly was not being rational so it's easy to excuse. To us it's, why is he being dumb, she's not acting like a real bear. To him, it's "oh shit, bear" and that's all he sees. It's plenty realistic, even if it is irrational. But yea, I have no idea why taking it out wasn't the first plan. That made no sense and what they ended up doing anyway in the end.
Frozen. First off Kristoff doesn't seem to have parents, and since this is Disney they must be dead making him an orphan. That would be why he's wandering about freely as well. Though yea, the movie sure could have said this. It would have been nice. Yes a reason would have been good, but the whole point of build a snowman is the king and queen are dumb and didn't come up with one, they bassicaly just told her, be horribly antisocial and lock yourself in your room and hide the secret, even from your own sister. Then they die so they never have a chance to correct her even though it makes Elsa obviously miserable. Anna has no clue where she's going or what she's doing, we learned a scene or two ago how impulsive she is. She knows jack squat, but she learns it at some point, I think from Sven, but maybe it's the innkeeper. It's about some oddity on the mountain Elsa is on, I forget what. And the snowman is made of snow, or like Olaf he threw his peices in then put himself back together. Or for all we know he can move though ice like it's air because magic.
The castle wasn't a fortress. Being on a mountain in the middle of nowhere when it's super cold is enough to keep most sane people away in normal circumstances. She just made the doors that way because it looked nice and she would at least want to go outside at some point since she's clearly immune to the effects of cold. Remember she didn't know she froze everything until way later. She only made the snow giant to keep her sister away, she didn't think an army would come and so didn't remodel immediately. The regent thing bothered me too, but I just shrugged and moved on. Since we never saw him it was easy enough to accept whoever was in charge wasn't up to leading in a crisis and pretty boy to end up in charge.
Yep, they just lay there unmoving trying to get a reaction out of him. Doing something to try to get the other person to make themselves look like a fool. It's like they were, what's the word, tolling him? *ba-dum-tish* Seriously, it makes more sense if they were being jerks on purpose, at least at first. I think you missed the point of the marriage song. It's all about their reactions to the song and how by the end they're up to, well maybe it's not that ridiculous even if the trolls are being silly and the two of us are nowhere near that close yet. The trolls were there and doing silly things singing a silly song, but I don't remember any of that, I remember the looks on Anna and Kristoff's faces as it went on around them.
Oh, and the king and queen may be dense, but I am the King/Queen is enough of a reason in your own kingdom. They didn't need any excuse, just, we're closing the gates and you don't get to see either of our daughters for the foreseeable future. Yes being really unrasonable with this sort of thing tends to lead to a revolution, but becasue we say so works here. This is true in two ways for Anna of course.
2615532 It wasn't set up poorly, it was set up perfectly. We learn more and more about Hans as the movie goes on, but it's all surface, he's charming, he's brave, he seems to be a literal prince charming, perfect in every way, but there is this weird shallowness to his character, he's all archetype and nothing else. Then bam, character depth and reinforcing the idea that yes Anna was being way too impulsive about a guy she didn't know, just like she thought fairly badly of Kristoff in the beginning.
I enjoyed Frozen more for its themes than its plot, so I guess I managed to overlook a bunch of these inconsistencies. The inconsistencies never bothered me anyway.
2616815 I dunno. It just didn't sit right with me. He seemed so needlessly evil, too. Sure, I'll murder both of them violently and gleefully. It would have added a ton more depth of he did it, but seemed not so gleeful. Like he felt he had no other choice but there was a hint of real regret. That would have been interesting.
2616815 Ugh! I just wrote up this big response and then accidentally deleted it. Sigh. I'll try to respond again later...
2617039 I think it's more interesting that he doesn't, and he's not really gleeful about Anna's death, but how well things are working out for him. Hans is a complete sociopath, he doesn't really care about anyone, just puts on a good act of being a normal person. He's so happy because now he doesn't have to go the trouble, and risk, of killing Anna himself and hiding it, he can just leave her alone locked in a room. He also wants to gloat to someone about how clever he is, and since she's about to die she's a good choice.
2617856 But that's just so cliche! We've seen that from Disney villains over and over and over and over again. Heck, villains in general. It's not new. Take the best Disney villain: Judge Frollo from Hunchback. He's doubtlessly evil, but he thinks he's doing the right thing and there's major conflict there (Hellfire is best Disney song nonstop) between his beliefs and lust. Hans is pretty one dimensional in comparison. A sociopath? Been there.
2617967 Actually most aren't sociopaths because they really do delight in the mayhem and evil. Also they tend to be very obvious about it. Hans is far more subtle, he only gloats to Anna who is about to die, and only tries to kill Elsa directly after she escapes and he has a good excuse to kill her. He keeps playing the good guy the whole time, and is attempting a nearly bloodless takeover of the nation through trickery. In fact I think the next most subtle villain was a frikin voodoo priest which is saying something. His plan was actually pretty subtle, but Like Jafar he oozed so much menace you can't help but question why anyone trusted him at all.
I liked Frozen a lot, but I do agree that the marriage song and dance was one of the weakest parts. As for the rest of Frozen, basically you have to accept fairy tale logic for a lot of it.
Also, in regards to Hans.