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(Characters left to right: Elsa, Kristoff, Sven, Olaf, Anna and Han) 

(SPOILERS BELOW)

So Frozen, it's been hyped a lot in the last few months around the internet.  And as always for someone who continues to blog about fandom and fannish life I'm the last one on earth to hear about this movie. Opinions have been hard and fast and staunchly divided in fandom itself.  The movie, Frozen is the latest animated movie to come out  of Walt Disney Animation Studios.

The film is about two sisters, Elsa (Idina Menzel) who has the power to manipulate and conjures ice and snow, and her normal , but quirky sister, Anna (Kristen Bell).  After an childhood incident where Elsa hits, and injures a young Anna in the head with her powers  Afterwards, it's decided that Anna's memories are too altered to have no memory of Elsa's powers and to isolate the family from the kingdom until Elsa has better control of her powers.  After the incident, Elsa withdraws from Anna fearing that she will hurt her sister again if she lets Anna get close to her .  Although Anna tries repeatedly to reach out to her, but due to Elsa's insistence to isolate herself a rift comes between them.  During their teenage years, their mother the King and Queen of Arendelle die while at sea, leaving Elsa as Queen, and unable to sit on the throne until  she reaches her majority.

On her coronation day, Anna meets or rather literally stumbles across a handsome prince by the name of Han (Santino Fontana).  Han, and Anna hit it off immediately.   Several hours after them meeting, Han and Anna believe that they are in love and ask for Elsa's blessing.  to marry.  Elsa, quite understandably in my opinion vehemently opposes the engagement, and Anna and Elsa get into a huge row.  During the fight, Elsa loses her shit, and  her powers go out of control basically outing herself to her whole kingdom.

With the whole kingdom frighten, and shouting accusations of sorcery, Elsa runs away.  And as she runs, her powers go batshit insane and take Arendale from mid summer  to a deep winter in moments.  Anna, who feels remorseful for what's she did, and worried about the safety of the kingdom goes after Elsa in hopes of reversing what she has done.  Before she leaves though, she leaves her fiancé Han in charge of the kingdom while she goes on her quest.

Along the way,  Anna manages to get an ice herder/mountain man, Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), and his loyal elk, Sven to help her.  As they journey to find Elsa they go from a sort humorous, but snarky relationship  to begrudging friendship.  Also why they travel they stumble across a magical snowman not unlike Frosty, who is hilarious and is fascinated with the idea of summer.

Frozen, has a surprisingly long genesis. The film is loosely based off Hans Christian Anderson, the same guy who wrote the original stories such as The Little Mermaid, and Thumbelina.  In 1943 Walt Disney and the owner of MGM studios Samuel Goldwyn wanted to adapt this story to a movie that would have a mixture of live action, and animated parts.  However, it was technology difficult and the fact that it was hard to make the character of the Snow Queen relatable to their audiences made them drop the project.

In the 90s Walt Disney's  studio's started their own adaption, but it was scraped in 2002.  It was picked up again in 2008, but the  production was problematic and fraught with difficulties. However, it was eventually it was released six years later.  This movie was literally 'The Little Engine that Could' of Disney movies.

On the fandom side of things, this movie automatically caught Fandom's attention. This movie is lauded as the first Disney film were a romantic relationship was the main plot of the film. Yet, another step for Disney to move out of their antiquated unfeminist version of their earlier films.  However, as the film came out opinions about the film was staunchly divided. Some lauded the film  as major achievement and milestone for Disney. Yet, others  were not impressed by Disney's efforts at a more feministic movie, or others feel that it was not worth the hype it just  was an okay movie.

"The film talks a lot about true love but never established its characters, plot, or importance, so the whole thing is a lot of uphill wandering to a climax that does nothing because there are no emotions in the movie, no rising and falling action, nothing. This movie is like a sugar cookie, lots of sparkle on top and nothing inside but over-sweetness and lies. "

- sigtryggr

"I don’t get the hype. It is just okay. The only thing standoutish is the contrast to princes always saving the day or “one true kiss” being the be-all end-all. The music and visuals are really nice though"

- filmseries

" So yes, while Frozen had a handful of flaws, they are ones I can personally look over, in favor of seeing the wonderful things it offers that is more than enough to make up for the flaws and then some. It is grand, it is bold, and it is powerful. Frozen may possibly be my favorite Disney film. Ever."

- thedizbizz

- "Yet denying it we are, in droves, and sometime since Frozen’s release the praise heaped upon it reached such a critical mass that it somehow has made us forget that Belle left both home and the Beast’s castle to save her father’s life; that Mulan risked death on the battlefield and execution for treason to protect her family; that Esmeralda chose immolation rather than give herself to a man she despised; that the archetypal Prince Charming hasn’t been seen in a Disney film since The Little Mermaid; and that no Disney heroine except Anna — even Ariel — has begun her story with love as her goal since 1959: all in favor of vapid, brainless, impulsive and flighty characters whose agency is stolen from them for the sake of comedy and wafer-thin plot contrivances. This is Disney’s good enough."

- Dani Colman

My Review

AlthoughI immediately fell in love with both Anna and Elsa. I really identified with them, both with Elsa's quest for control, while Anna dealt with her own loneliness and being shut out by sister and her best friend. However, I do agree with a lot of people that the characters were severally underdeveloped especially in the case of Elsa, and Han. I think honestly they were trying to do too many things, and there is no real strong antagonist, no real plot. There were plenty of things that should have qualified as subplots. I also like the themes about true love vs twu luv , and self acceptance that went throughout the film.  However, I honestly think that they tried too hard to shoehorn Anna relationship with both Han and Kristoff too way quickly.  I honestly think that this is another causality of the horrendously fast pace.

However, I would like to point out that Olaf and Han again were completely unnecessary to the plot. And,  the fact that they quickly made Han into a villain when he was trying to only do the right thing. This speaks of character assassination and also just bad characterization all around.   And now on the feminist opinion. I don't agree that this movie was not feministic enough.  Yes, Elsa could have not crawled into a little ball after she injured her sister, but this,  I argue was bad characterization that a whole lot of characters who were not female, suffered for as well. I also love that instead of Krisoff saving Anna in the end, and having the epic love type of relationship  (although it was implied). I don't think that Frozen was the first step, honestly I do agree with Dani Colman that Disney has written more feministic herons in their previous movies such as Mulan and Belle, from Beauty and the beast. In the end, I say that this movie was good, but nowhere near living up to the hype.

Fandom

It's small, like tiny , but with a lot of fandom buzz.   Yet unsurprisingly, do the similar in powers for Elsa and Jack Frost gets crossed over with last year’s hit winter fandom, 'Rise Of The Guardians' a lot.   The main pairings are Anna/Elsa (Elsanna) and Anna/Kristoff (Kristanna).

Not a big surprise, because they are a lot of slashy moments with Anna and Elsa.  Also their relationship to me resembles to me a lot like Sam and Dean Winchester's relationship on supernatural.  The other is the canon relationship of Anna/Kristoff. I do agree they have the sparks and chemistry enough onscreen to actually fuel this ship.

You can read more about this fandom here.