Frozen Worries

Recently Disney’s adaptation of the fairytale The Snow Queen, now called Frozen, has come up a couple of times on the internet and in conversation. And honestly, the more I hear about it, the more apprehensive I get.

Before I get into that, let me tell you about the original Hans Christian Andersen fairytale so you understand where I’m coming from. It was a favorite story of mine when I was little, partially due to the beautiful illustrations that accompanied the simplified version I was reading then. Several years ago I picked up a collection of all the tales and discovered, to my delight, that one of my most beloved tales was actually a thirty-five page (in my version) story! There was so much more plot and more interesting characters involved. It can be found here, although below I have written a (slightly lengthy) synopsis for the sake of convenience. As always, reading the original version is best, because Andersen fills it with many amusing and interesting details and writes beautiful descriptions of the places that Gerda visits.

The story begins with a sort of prologue: an evil troll constructs a mirror that reflects the good things in life so as to make them appear ugly and terrible, and which magnifies the bad things in life. He and his minions decide to reflect Heaven and see what will happen, but as they get closer the mirror quivers until it shatters into millions of pieces, which fall to earth, each piece retaining the properties of the whole. Then we meet Kay and Gerda, two poor children who are neighbors and grow roses together. One winter night, Grandmother tells them about the Snow Queen, and later when he is alone Kay sees her outside the window. He is frightened and runs away. In summer, Kay is later struck with a mirror shard in his eye, which causes him to see the bad in people, and one in his heart, which turns his heart into a lump of unfeeling ice. Kay turns cruel and scornful of “childish” things. In the winter he goes sledding in the square, and ties his sled to a large sleigh that pulls him out of the city. The sleigh belongs to the Snow Queen, who kisses him twice, which makes him colder and wipes his memory of Grandmother and Gerda, and Kay journeys on with the Queen to her home in the storm clouds. Everyone thinks that Kay is dead, drowned in the river, and Gerda does as well until spring, when the sunshine and swallows convince her otherwise. She goes to the river and offers her prized red shoes in return for Kay, but in trying to throw them far enough in she becomes trapped on a boat that drifts into the current and carries her away. Eventually an old woman with a lovely colorful house pulls the boat ashore. Gerda immediately asks if she’s seen Kay, but the woman offers her some delicious cherries and combs Gerda’s hair, using a little magic to make her forget Kay. The woman then hides all of her roses, afraid Gerda will see them, remember her quest, and leave. But she forgets the painted rose on her hat – which Gerda sees. When the girl runs out into the garden and cries because she can’t find any roses, her tears make the plants come back, and in answer to Gerda’s query they tell her that Kay’s not dead, because he’s not in the ground. She runs out of the garden gate only to find that many days have passed – it’s now autumn. A well-meaning crow strikes up a conversation with Gerda, who pours out her woes to him. He think he might have a lead for her, and tells her about a very intelligent princess who wants a husband she can actually have conversations with, so puts an advertisement in the newspaper. Everyone who applies is too awed to say anything of interest, until the third day when a boy matching Kay’s description marches up, not the least bit intimidated, and intending to only hear the princess’ wisdom and not propose. (Of course, they take to each other.) With the help of the crow and his tame sweetheart, Gerda sneaks into the castle and finds the prince in his bed, but it’s not Kay. He and the princess readily help her (and set up the crows with permanent court positions so they can have a good retirement), by letting her rest and then giving her a horse, carriage, and boots so she can keep looking for Kay. Unfortunately, Gerda is attacked by robbers and her attendants are killed. The robber crone decided Gerda will make a tasty meal, until the crone’s daughter bites her and insists that Gerda will be her playmate. The two girls go for a drive in the carriage, where Gerda relates everything that has happened. They spend the night at a robber castle, where the wood pigeons mention having seen Kay, and say that the Snow Queen probably went to Lapland, where her summer home is. A reindeer, the robber girl’s pet, is from there, and the robber girl frees him in the morning, telling him to run to Lapland and take good care of Gerda. In Lapland Gerda and the reindeer are helped by a Sami woman and a Finn woman. The Finn woman confides to the reindeer, who had asked for a magic drink that would give the girl the strength of twelve men, that Gerda is already powerful from having traveled so far and her strength is in her heart. She also tells him that Kay loves being with the Snow Queen and won’t leave unless the mirror pieces come out from his heart and eye. The reindeer drops Gerda off at the nearby Snow Queen’s garden, where she is confronted by snowflake sentries. She says the Lord’s Prayer and her breath becomes angels that defeat the sentries and protect her from the cold. But then we catch up with Kay. He’s blue from cold but can’t feel it, and is working on a sort of puzzle challenge that the Snow Queen has given him. Gerda walks in right after the Snow Queen leaves for the warmer countries, and rushes to the cold, stiff Kay. She cries hot tears on him, which melt the ice in his heart and consume the bit of mirror, and then she sings a hymn they used to sing together when they were younger, which makes Kay cry out the piece of mirror in his eye. Gerda and Kay have a very happy reunion, and then lie down in the shape of the correct answer to the Snow Queen’s puzzle, freeing Kay completely. They walk out of the place to find the reindeer and another reindeer waiting, and are carried to the Finn and Sami women who give them information about the journey home and new clothes. At the first sign of green the reindeer leave them, and a magnificent horse appears carrying the robber girl, who has decided to travel. She promises to look them up if she’s ever in their city, and gives Gerda news of the prince and princess and helpful crow. Upon returning home, Kay and Gerda find that everything is just as they left it – but now they are grown up. However, they still remain children in their hearts.

Now tell me that would not make a kickass story! Not only does it have a compelling, fantastical plot, there are loads of varied female and male characters, with a great range of economic classes too. All are strong and have interesting motivations, even Kay when he’s under the influence of the mirror. (In the story he actually becomes really good at math and logic, although this is shown to be not as valuable as spiritual morality.) There’s even a lot of potential for the usual Disney animal sidekicks. Naturally, when I heard that there was a possibility for a Disney film of this, I was over the moon. It’s such a beautiful fairytale, and there are very few prevalent adaptations in any medium. It was probably around 2010 when I came across this potential for the first time, which is actually when the film – originally begun (sort of) in 2002 – was put “on hold.” And after seeing some of the concept art for the Snow Queen herself, and one sketch of Gerda that I can no longer find, I was beyond disappointed.

But then, hope was restored: at the end of 2011, it was announced that The Snow Queen was back in production. And I recalled hearing somewhere that Disney wanted to do a traditional animation movie every other year, and that this film would follow Winnie the Pooh on the cycle. In this 2009 article, it seemed all would be as I imagined it, considering the synopsis given: “From what I can gather, the Hans Christian Andersen story can be distilled down to a tale of a young boy and girl who fall in love. Unfortunately, the boy becomes infected with a fragment of a shattered demonic mirror that makes him see only the worst of the world, and ultimately leads to his seduction by the Snow Queen, while the girl goes on an adventure to find and free him. It seems like the film would be filled to the brim with beautiful wintry environments.”

Earlier in the year, the film was given a new title along the same lines as Tangled; the film is now known as Frozen. All right, I thought, that’s nice and simple. And while reading up on all this tonight, I learned that Idina Menzel will play the Snow Queen, which would undoubtedly be awesome. The songwriters have a lot of success on Broadway, which is always good to hear. I was getting ridiculously excited, especially with a release date in November 2013! That is, until I came across this article with the new synopsis for the film, released this month: “In “Frozen,” a prophecy traps a kingdom in eternal winter, so Anna must team up with Kristoff, a daring mountain man, on the grandest of journeys to find the Snow Queen and put an end to the icy spell. Encountering Everest-like extremes, mystical creatures and magic at every turn, Anna and Kristoff battle the elements in a race to save the kingdom from destruction.”

Um…what? That doesn’t sound anything like The Snow Queen. It sounds like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Snow White and the Huntsman decided to combine forces. And, if I didn’t know that Frozen was supposed to be an adaptation of The Snow Queen, I would probably say that it sounded like a great movie. But I do know, and I admit that the more I think about that new synopsis the more upset I get. Not only that, but it appears that the movie will now be CG animation instead of traditional 2D, and that makes me even more disappointed. This video explains why a lot of the changes were probably made.

All right, have you got all that? Because now I’m going to start analyzing why this makes me unhappy. And I’m warning you, you might not like it.

Let’s take a look at two films that have had a deep impact on my thoughts tonight: Tangled and Brave. I loved Tangled; I remember seeing Rapunzel when she still looked like this and her name was still in the title of the film. Like The Princess and the Frog, Tangled was a return to the popular Disney princess movie, with songs and silliness and love interests and animal sidekicks. I’ll be honest: this formula really works for me, despite a lot of unfortunate implications in some of the films. I think the classic princess films are some of the best things Disney ever turned out, so whenever I see they’re about to make another I get really happy. Tangled fits into this model, although it is much more comedic and more of an adventure film than a straight-up fairytale. And that’s fine. I enjoyed seeing the genre livened up a little, between that and The Princess and the Frog.

But I also think Tangled is responsible for a lot of the changes to Frozen that I’m not convinced will be for the better. Like Tangled, Frozen will be an adventure story – except that the original fairytale was also an adventure story, a great one, so I’m not sure why that needed to be changed. Apparently there were story problems? Frozen also had its title modified to sound less like a fairytale, much like Tangled. Understandably, this broadens the marketing appeal, since it is much more stigmatized for boys to participate in perceived “girly” activities (such as seeing an obviously princess movie) than it is for girls to show interest in traditionally male-coded ones. A name change is perfectly reasonable. But I’m not so sure when it comes to almost completely altering a story from the source. Tangled still has the basic elements of the Rapunzel tale – a woman is pregnant, and lusts after a witch’s plant. In retaliation, the witch takes the child and locks her up in a tower, because she is too beautiful, or rather, her hair is powerful, and the only way in and out is by the girl’s hair. A man comes and exposes Rapunzel to the outside world, inciting the witch’s fury. Eventually, after some misadventures in the forest, all is resolved. The beauty of Tangled is that it takes these elements and plays them in different ways, such as Flynn, who was a prince in the fairytale but a thief in the movie. But I can’t see much of the plot of Andersen’s story at all in that synopsis. I’m not sure if the people at Disney realize that although they made an entertaining, successful version of Rapunzel, part of that success does come from being faithful to the original story. Then there’s the matter of animation. Tangled is a great film to be done with 3D computer imaging, in large part because of the life it gives to Rapunzel’s hair. And the animation is nice, but I don’t think it’s quite right for Frozen. The movie draws its inspiration from an old world tale, and is quite dark. Somehow, I don’t see that coming off properly in the type of animation they used for Tangled. If it were at the standards of Pixar’s Brave or Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon, I might be able to say “Yes, stepping away from traditional animation is a good choice.” But I imagine this film as having a similar aesthetic to Anastasia, and that movie would never have worked in 3D computer imaging. Without traditional animation, it would lose a lot of its magic. Where does Tangled come into this particular problem? Well, it was a lot more financially successful then the traditionally animated The Princess and the Frog, sending the message that traditional animation is less financially viable. Like a lot of what I’ve mentioned here, this is not really the fault of Tangled, which is still an excellent movie; Tangled just seems to be an indirect cause of a lot of the changes to Frozen.

Now let’s consider Brave. This film is not technically Disney, but Pixar, which I generally hold to have better storytelling ability. John Lasseter, formerly just in charge of Pixar, now also heads Disney, and it seems some of his and his team’s creative habits (like getting the story just right) are carrying over. A friend of mine couldn’t get excited at all about Brave, which I did not understand very well (but now perhaps I do). She was worried because it was Pixar’s first female protagonist, and she had no idea what the plot would be – but we went to the midnight opening, and she loved it. It seems, though, that critics share her initial ambivalence even after they see the movie, and I’m not sure why to be honest. I can’t help feeling like they just don’t get it, or that their lukewarm response is a lingering cultural rejection of the feminine and the fairytale formula. Because, as one (very positive) review put it, “…Brave feels like a classic fairy tale that you've just somehow never heard of before.” And that is essentially what The Snow Queen is, right? A rather unpopular but nonetheless classic fairytale. It’s also dark, much like Brave, and also focused on female relationships, specifically the different types, even though Kay and Gerda's incredible friendship with him is the point of Gerda’s quest. Better yet, there’s no Smurfette Principle. If Pixar can pull off a movie like that, why can’t Disney see that there’s clearly a place, and a demand, for more like it?

And finally, let’s take a quick look at some of the concept art. This may be slightly unfair, seeing as it is concept art, but my goal is less to criticize than to provoke thought.

In the middle is the design I originally saw for the Snow Queen. Isn’t it great? It actually looks wintry, fits in with one of the descriptions in the story, and points to the Scandinavian roots. It’s the design on the right that concerns me. It just looks so…blah. Kind of generic villainess wear. I wouldn’t know she’s supposed to be the Snow Queen unless you told me. There’s also the different expressions between the figures’ faces. The two to the left look coldly, perfectly beautiful; they’re lovely but it’s unnerving. On the right, however, the Queen looks menacing and evil, and she’s really not. In the Andersen fairytale the Queen is an antagonist; she is a force of nature and does pretty much what she likes, but she’s not evil. She’s kind to Kay in a way and offers him a fair way to escape. I know that I get spoiled with Miyazaki and Pixar, but I happen to like my villains a little morally ambiguous.

With all of that, I’d like to pose one more thought. Do you remember what the first animated movie ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture was? It was Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. No matter how may times I watch it, I can still see why it received that honor. It was gothic, and character driven, and magical, and ultimately a journey of self-discovery for both Belle and the Beast. I just don’t know why Disney would pass up the chance to make a movie like that again.

I hope now it makes sense why I’m more than a little worried about Frozen. There are still a lot of great things going into the film, so I’m probably going to see it; I just don’t want to be disappointed when I do.