Frozen

[Lakov_Sanite]

3.2 mil blu-ray/dvd sales in the first day.

[Phildo]

Characters in Frozen basically stayed awake for four days straight.

[Fordel]

This is a super fast to video release for Disney. Movie was still in theaters (still is?) like a few weeks ago.

[Merusk]

Oh good. I thought I just had a super senior moment about how long ago it was out. It's not just me.

[Lakov_Sanite]

This is a super fast to video release for Disney. Movie was still in theaters (still is?) like a few weeks ago.

Not as fast as you think when you realize the movie was released on thanksgiving. 

[Sjofn]

Oh good. I thought I just had a super senior moment about how long ago it was out. It's not just me.

Not just you, I was also like, "Jeez, already? Wasn't it still out a few weeks ago?" I mean, I know it was released last year (I didn't remember it was all the way back at Thanksgiving, though), but I was still surprised.

I might buy it. Hmm.

[Soulflame]

Frozen is still in theaters.

[Simond]

It sort of makes sense if you consider that the schedule was set up weeks/months ago for "generic movie" rather than "most successful Disney film in two decades".

[Lakov_Sanite]

Iwhen you consider the oscar winning end if December movies already came out a week or two before it's a perfectly normal release schedule for a thanksgiving movie, even a good one. 

[shiznitz]

I finally saw this last night (Amazon digital rental).  It was the third viewing for the kids.  It lacked any charm for me.  I thought Tangled was superior as a parent/child combined experience.  Still, the kids loved it.  My 10 year old daughter can sing all the songs a cappella by heart.

[Samwise]

I saw this on the plane and was kinda underwhelmed after all the praise it's been getting.  It's probably just that I'm way past the point of being too old for this stuff, but the snowman sidekick was grating, the story was paper-thin, and the songs all sounded like they'd been cranked out of a machine that manufactures bland Broadway musicals.  I liked Tangled better, maybe because the focus on two characters made those characters more interesting.

[Merusk]

and the songs all sounded like they'd been cranked out of a machine that manufactures bland Broadway musicals.  

Coincidentally...

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/frozen-musical-is-headed-broadway-670651

[Sjofn]

Most of the songs were bleh, and it's easily my biggest issue with the movie. That said, I also found most of Tangled's songs bleh, and I like the story of Frozen a lot more, in part because it was ... well ... different. The Problem Solving Love was sisterly love, and as a big sister, it was wonderful to see that being acknowledged as just as valid and important a love as  romantic love.

Of course, I fucking hated the end of Tangled.

rant ahoy:


Mother Knows Best was a great bad guy song, though!

[Shannow]

That sorta over thinking reminds me of the conversation my wife and I had about Anna and Elsa's parents and the absolutely GODAWFUL job of parenting they did dealing with Elsa's powers. Seriously wear gloves and cut yourself off from almost all human contact? Yeah that'll work!

[Sjofn]

Yeah her parents taking that approach was pretty "gosh I can't imagine how that managed to backfire."

[Lakov_Sanite]

It's a really old superhero/villain trope.  See:Every X-man comic ever.

If you think of her as a mutant in the comics it makes a lot more sense. 

[pants]

"Let it go" is mind cocaine.  The damn thing just won't get out of my head. 

[Kitsune]

That sorta over thinking reminds me of the conversation my wife and I had about Anna and Elsa's parents and the absolutely GODAWFUL job of parenting they did dealing with Elsa's powers. Seriously wear gloves and cut yourself off from almost all human contact? Yeah that'll work!

I think the whole locking herself in her room thing was Elsa's idea, not theirs.  In their little montage thing, mom and dad try to approach her, she freaks out because she thinks she might hurt them, she recoils from them.  I never got the impression that their cunning plan involved her living in her room for the rest of her life.  They just kept people away so word wouldn't get out that she's a mutant, which is a fairly sensible step one, the only place they failed was in not having a professor X handy to work on step two.

[Ironwood]

rant ahoy:


Mother Knows Best was a great bad guy song, though!

Whoa.   

[Shannow]

That sorta over thinking reminds me of the conversation my wife and I had about Anna and Elsa's parents and the absolutely GODAWFUL job of parenting they did dealing with Elsa's powers. Seriously wear gloves and cut yourself off from almost all human contact? Yeah that'll work!

I think the whole locking herself in her room thing was Elsa's idea, not theirs.  In their little montage thing, mom and dad try to approach her, she freaks out because she thinks she might hurt them, she recoils from them.  I never got the impression that their cunning plan involved her living in her room for the rest of her life.  They just kept people away so word wouldn't get out that she's a mutant, which is a fairly sensible step one, the only place they failed was in not having a professor X handy to work on step two.

Pfft, that's why they're parents. Don't let the kids run the asylum. Hrrrm room is covered in frost, maybe the whole 'wearing gloves and locking yourself in your room away from almost all human contact' isn't the best plan. Maybe we shouldn't run a huge guilt trip on you for shooting your sister in the head with a bolt of magic ice so that you feel this way. But then we wouldn't have awesome songs and tiara loving snowmen so whatever.

Oh and Sjofn if you want to be angry at Tangled, lets not forget the fact that Anna and Elsa's parent were most likely traveling to Rapunzel and Flynn's wedding when their ship sunk!!


Where are my pills.

[Lakov_Sanite]

We live in a world where comic books are a real thing, where the idea of being able to control your powers is a given.  It's really not all that cut and dry in the frozen universe and if you substitute ice powers with "highly contagious deadly disease" girl in the plastic bubble makes a lot of sense.

I've seen people condemn the parents going so far as to say it was child abuse and it just doesn't make sense for two reasons.  First off Elsa seems as interested in keeping herself away from others as anyone and secondly we are all watching with the knowledge that this is a disney movie and of COURSE she can control her powers and not instantly freeze the city and kill everyone accidentally which to those people was likely a real concern.

[shiznitz]

Call me crazy but if one of my kids started demonstrating superhero-like powers, I would want them to practice practice practice, not become hermits.

[Phildo]

Practice, practice, practice while living like a hermit on the mountain sounds better to me.  Which is more or less what she ends up doing.

[Ironwood]

I am reminded of Wolverine skewering that Mutant that couldn't control his 'burn the flesh off human bones' power.

I think Dillon did the art.

[Lakov_Sanite]

It's like I was saying, we live in a world where the idea of "practice using your powers" equals control.  From what little we know of their world, there is no way to assume practicing would help in any way or be better than the idea of control by suppression that they tried.   

We knew they were wrong, the movie proved them wrong but there was no indication they should have known better.

[Ingmar]

Hmmm. I'm pretty sure the locking her away thing was so you know, she didn't get burned as a witch or some such.

[shiznitz]

Hard to burn a master of ICE MAGIC!

[Polysorbate80]

Ice powers or not, telling your child to suppress and conceal all emotions except for fear (especially after the troll grandpa says "fear is your enemy") is just plain bad parenting.

There's no way that shit will help, regardless of the outcome of "can I control this or not".

[Rishathra]

Yeah, that was the part that bugged me the most.  Almost immediately after the troll says 'the absolute WORST thing you could do is be afraid,' the World's Greatest Dad decides to drench his daughter in every kind of fear he can throw at her.

[Kitsune]

Anyone calling Elsa's parents abusive are woefully ignorant of actual child abuse.  Which I guess is a good thing, as it means they didn't grow up being abused?  But yeah, mom and dad fucked up, and their bad call damaged Elsa, but it was a very understandable mistake for them to make after she almost killed her sister with no more effort than flicking over a domino.  The whole fear is the enemy thing is writ large through the plot; their fear and Elsa's fear led to Elsa's isolation and made everything worse; Anna's fearlessness broke through it and made everything better.

[Rishathra]

Which is a perfectly fine theme to explore, and a perfectly understandable reaction by the parents... except for the whole part with Grampa Troll being VERY specific and VERY emphatic about fear being a really bad idea, and then smash cut to the parents deciding that the best thing to do was use every fear-based tactic they could think of to try to control the situation.

[Ingmar]

It's almost like that's how fairy tales work.

[Khaldun]

I never know how to react to the frequently expressed view on these boards that many stories would have been much better if they ended five minutes after they started because everyone in them behaved like a paragon of moral reason and emotional wisdom.

[Merusk]

Shake your head, move on. They don't affect you, only themselves.

[Sjofn]

I never know how to react to the frequently expressed view on these boards that many stories would have been much better if they ended five minutes after they started because everyone in them behaved like a paragon of moral reason and emotional wisdom.

Never said it would be better! Just that yep, that sure was a crappy way to deal with the problem. I am perfectly aware that to tell a story about how sometimes people screw up and stuff happens ... people have to screw up for stuff to happen. Pretty sure most people who say "man, it was silly for <screw up> to be <screwed up>" are aware of that. It's still funny when it's a particularly obvious-seeming screw up, though.