Let It Go: A Look Back at Frozen

“Some people are worth melting for.”

Filmology Rating: 3.66 out of 4

A fearless princess sets off on a journey alongside an ice man, his reindeer, and a magical snowman to find her sister whose icy powers have trapped the Kingdom in eternal Winter.

The concept of 'The Snow Queen' goes all the way back to the late 1930s. After the success of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', Disney had plans on moving forward with 'The Ice Queen' project. However, the animation revolving around her icy powers was too difficult to conceptualize in hand-drawn animation. Plus, World War II began soon after and the US was focused on war propaganda. It wasn't until the Disney Renaissance of the 1990s that 'The Ice Queen' project was finally pulled out of a drawer. However, nobody could quite figure out the character of The Ice Queen as she was originally the antagonist. So for over a decade, the concept was thrown around, but later shelved and the idea for 'Tangeled' was greenlit.

After Disney had purchased Pixar in 2006, John Lasseter (director of 'Toy Story') was approached about being involved in 'The Ice Queen' project. But in 2010, nobody could figure out the out-dated character of The Ice Queen as she was too one-dimensional.

However, it was because of Lasseter that the concept kept chugging along. It wasn't until Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez wrote the song 'Let It Go', that Lasseter, Chris Buck, and Jennifer Lee had finally cracked the idea that The Ice Queen was to be a young girl who has no control over her powers because of her suppressed love for her sister. The idea of taking the "an act of true love" and twisting it from a romantic angle into a sister story is where the film finally lifted off the ground. With a short timeframe and long nights, crew was pushed to the last second to reach the release date of November 27th of 2013.

The script was constantly being re-written as well as the songs and the budget kept ballooning to finally peaking at one-hundred and fifty million dollars.

'Frozen' is lighting in a bottle. This is a film people worked day and night to make and because of that, 'Frozen' became the highest-grossing animated film of all time. It's success that cannot be replicated.
This is, by far, the best Disney-animated film since the renaissance of the 90s. It's a film where you just sit back and watch the film hit every single mark.

It's a film that captures that sense of whimsical magic that Disney has strived to frame their image around for decades.

Anna and Elsa are the emotional center of this film and the concept in pre-production was that "an act of love could thaw a frozen heart." In this film, it's the bridging of two sister's relationship when they drifted apart over the death of their parents. Due to such, Elsa no longer has a guiding hand on how to control her powers and she's afraid that she'll hurt Anna.

So she keeps her distance until she runs away and just lets it all go. She doesn't care what anyone thinks of her; she is going to be who she is and she doesn't care who thinks what of her.
The many people who wrote the songs for this film are geniuses. They're so ear-wormy and empowering while sending good messages for kids. Absolutely terrific music that people still know to this day.

Olof is a lot of people's favorite in this film- voiced by Josh Gad. And Olof is simply not there to be the wacky comic-relief, but he also symbolizes Anna and Elsa's past relationship when they used to be closer.

The animation itself still looks magnificent. Lasseter said he wanted to give it a scope like 'Lawrence of Arabia' in Norway. And it really is a meeting of that and something like 'Narnia.' The 3D animation also utilized the cinemascope format to enhance that grand scale that Lasseter wanted. The film may seem to fall into the lockstep of a traditional narrative, but it constantly subverts those old cliches like "true love's kiss." Which the film subverts twice in a clever way.

All the characters in this film are very punchy. Nobody feels flat or boring. It's like the idea that every character is just happy to be existing and it lends to a very fun tone that carries parents and kids throughout.

You can say what you want about this film and its cultural popularity, but it was an original idea that many people worked in for almost eighty years. This film has a terrific sense of wonder and slap-happy about it that lots of classical Disney films used to have with terrific music and animation. "Children's films" are not just meant for children. The idea of a "children's movie" is to bring out the child in you. That's why this is such a universally understood film. That's also the reason why all you thirty year-olds lined up to see 'Toy Story 4.' It will be curious to see how to sequel does because it is the sequel to a film that was "lighting in a bottle." It's also six years after the first film. So those six year olds who liked the film when they were younger, are probably over the whole 'Frozen' thing now that they're twelve. It will be interesting to track.

I would highly suggest re-watching 'Frozen' and putting aside its popularity and just watching the film. You know your film is good when it becomes a theme park attraction.

Rating: See It

-Nolan