Frozen 2 is actually good - Apparently there are still good writers in Hollywood

mindlessobserver

mindlessobserver

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The writers of Frozen 2 had a near insurmountable task. Make a sequel to what was a self contained female empowerment fantasy that was wildly popular but also a self contained story with a ton of plot holes. They could have gone the usual route of hollywood writers these days and listened to Twitter. Given Elsa a girlfriend, gone for maximum woke points and called it a day.

Instead these mad lads decided to go with the most difficult story arc in Fantasy. The Divine Ascension. What is a Divine Ascenscion story arc? In simple terms it's a story where the protagonist becomes a God. And it almost ALWAYS fails. Because it's so easy to turn a divine ascension story into a power fantasy fanfiction. In every story I have personally read or watched, the only other author I have seen stick the landing on this was Brandon Sanderson with Mistborn. The other visual medium to try this that comes to mind, Battlestar Galactica, failed miserably. Starbuck became an insufferable deus ex machina mary sue in the last season.

So what makes Frozen 2s story arc good? They actually set the stage for once with backstory. Then they use the plot of the movie to fill in the holes of the previous. Not to retcon but to logically progress. And most importantly they force the protagonist to work to reach her goal, and just like in Sandersons mistborn the reaching of the goal comes with severe costs that require direct intervention by a supporting charachter. One does not lightly seize the power of a God. Of course this is Disney, so the costs get mitigated in the end, but it still has the necessary emotional weight.

This focus on intelligent charachter development and logical story made the very obvious correlation between Arendelle with the United States and the Northundra with the Native Americans a far more forgivable, and impactful message. Less a condemnation and more a call to be better and to not let the past define the future. A shocking level of self awareness for Hollywood.

Props to Jennifer Lee for writing this artifact of culture. I would reccomend people watch it. It's a solid piece of work. Inevitable disney corporate shenanigans prevent it from being a great classic. But it is good.
 
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Sayon said:
It's embarassingly obvious that the original cut/s had Elsa die or at least be forever out of Anna's reach.
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Yeah, that is my major gripe. Their needs to be consequences to taking on Godhood that go beyond having to stay in a far away land. And Olaf should have stayed dead. But it's clear corporate demanded the final happy ending. Which is why it's not a classic and just solid. Because everything up until that point was good.
 
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It's not like there's anywhere else to take Elsa now that she's a god. The only options left are either:

A. Writing the sequel/es in such a way that Elsa's new status doesn't matter.

B. Keep focus on Anna and Kristoff keeping Elsa a strictly emergency character.
 
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I also saw Frozen 2. I didn't think much of it, but the Michael Bolton/REO Speedwagon inspired song was fun and it was funny seeing some leftists getting pissed that the white characters weren't punished for their ancestor's sins.
 
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Marco Fucko said:
I also saw Frozen 2. I didn't think much of it, but the Michael Bolton/REO Speedwagon inspired song was fun and it was funny seeing some leftists getting pissed that the white characters weren't punished for their ancestor's sins.
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Oh yeah. It's very "subversive" in that regard in that they managed to sneak in nationalism which was so bizarre to see. "We will always live in the kingdom of plenty, that stands for the good of the many, and the flag of Arendelle will always fly! Our flag will always fly!"

I have no idea how that slipped past the modern day censors, but it was very poignant.
 
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Reminder Jennifer Lee worked on the A Wrinkle in Time remake. She can't write a screenplay by herself, she needs someone (men, specifically) to balance her bullshit out (the movie still bombed despite having a man writing with her, though).

But the divisive nature that Frozen 2 brought out in people was rather amusing.
 
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I haven't watched either of the two frozen movies, and couldn't tell you much of anything about the plots of either, but it's obvious that the blonde chick and the redhead are lesbians. It was disgusting, and regressive that Disney isn't ok with lesbianism in the current year.
 
The first movie was very mediocre, I liked Elsa's character arc initially, but the end of her arc was lame and had to come back to being sweet and nice, virtue of being a Disney movie. The villain, and majority of characters, were uninteresting. I suppose it's a dumb criticism given that it's a movie made for children but when you have to watch it while supervising children you'll pay attention to it at some point. Frozen 2 took this a step further and not only introduced meaningless story elements, like the spirits and the forest, but the fact that Elsa was a spirit. The characters went through no development, because though it seemed like they had character conflict, they came out the other end mostly the same. The only change in the world from the beginning and end of the movie is there is now no mist on the forest. Oh, and the Frozen 2 songs sucked. Overall, Frozen 2 was a really shit movie even to watch in the background.
 
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Frozen 2 was way worse. It retread all the same plots that were already resolved in the first one (Elsa not being honest with Anna, Elsa not being comfortable with her powers). The tension between Anna and Kristoff was cringy, and randomly resolved off screen by Kristoff by himself even though Anna was the one with the problem. They cucked out of having an actual villian to the point of making the villian a long dead guy. Why was the forest punishing the people who lived in the forest that didn't do anything wrong? Elsa doesn't come to Anna's coronation but is going to come to charades later? @Sayon 's theory makes sense for that ending, but how sloppy.

They also don't examine the fact that Elsa and Anna's parents were actually pretty shitty. They got themselves killed trying to "fix" Elsa when they're the ones who put it in her head she was some kind of broken freak.

I also didn't like some of the more muted color choices and style decisions. Elsa's hair at the end is bomb though.
 
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melty said:
They also don't examine the fact that Elsa and Anna's parents were actually pretty shitty. They got themselves killed trying to "fix" Elsa when they're the ones who put it in her head she was some kind of broken freak.
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That's a side-effect of removing the bits in the draft that had Elsa be an outcast from her subjects for her magic but keeping the "loner who has nobody outside of her sister) element.
 
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