(This is a late translation from the original post in Spanish, back from Jan/2014. Tools like deepl, and google translate were used here, even though I have worked as a technical English-Spanish translator. But not only those tools speed up the process, I will definitely need them to attempt a translation of this post into German.)
PART 1: Introduction
In his book "The Screenplay," Robert McKee assures us that if a film's final moment fails, the film will die within the first week of its release. I understand that Frozen is still a huge box office hit, several weeks after its release, and has a very good rating on IMDb (at the time of writing: 8.1/10), in fact currently higher than "Tangled" (7.8/10). My nieces, whom I consider little Disney experts, think Frozen is the most beautiful movie they have ever seen. Nothing, then, indicates that Frozen's climax fails. However, I think it was the least satisfying experience of all in this film.
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING TEXT SHOULD NOT BE READ BY ANYONE WHO HAS NOT SEEN FROZEN - SPOILERS ABOUND. If you haven't seen Tangled, perhaps you shouldn't read it either, but I assume that to be interested in reading something about Frozen, you've most likely seen Tangled as well.
Here, in my own words, the moments leading up to the climax of this latest Disney installment, Frozen:
PLAY...
Anna is dying because her heart is freezing due to Elsa's wrathful spell. The old troll told us that the only thing which could save Anna from her progressive and complete freezing would be an act of true love. There are already several indications that a kiss from her beloved could be the key to her salvation, but Hans, upon learning that Anna is dying and depends on a loving kiss, confesses to her that he does not love her, that he is only interested in the kingdom, and that he plans to kill Elsa and become the kingdom's savior. The man we thought might be Anna's lover turns out to be the film's villain (plot twist.) Hans then locks Anna away to freeze to death without kissing her. Meanwhile, Elsa has escaped from her handcuffs and prison, and unleashes a kind of apocalyptic thermonuclear storm that threatens to bury the entire kingdom under a hurricane of ice and snow. Anna, freezing from inside and dying, also manages to escape from her confinement thanks to the little snowman Olaf, who also makes her see that, if there is a kiss of true love that could save her, that kiss should come from Kristof (duh.) And Kristof is precisely approaching the winter apocalypse to try to save Anna from that hecatomb. And in this moment, Hans the villain finds Elsa fleeing in the middle of the storm and makes her believe that Anna is already dead because of her spell, and Elsa falls to her knees crying, overwhelmed with pain. The storm subsides, visibility improves, and snow floats in the air as if time has frozen. Anna is indeed on the verge of certain death because of her heart freezing. Her fingers are blue, and she can barely move. Kristof suddenly sees her in the distance and runs toward her, and Anna sees him too and waits for him at last, and they're about to meet and hug, and with that, we understand that perhaps Anna will be able to save herself from her freezing, but just at that moment, a metallic "shinnnnk" is heard from nearby, and before Anna can hug Kristof, she sees out of the corner of her eye that the sound came from a sword that Hans has just unsheathed. He is about to kill Elsa, who is on the ground sobbing, her back turned, and can't see him. And then...
PAUSE...
Welcome. We're at the climax of Frozen.
Plot-wise, the Disney creators have done an exceptional job up to this point, with a magnificent apocalyptic rise to the climax. But here, right at that most critical moment, and in just a couple of seconds, they ruin everything (in my opinion). Let's take it step by step.
PART 2: What I liked most about Frozen
Before going into detail about how flawed I find the climax in Frozen, especially in contrast to how good I thought the climax in Tangled was, I would like to first list quite informally what I liked most about Frozen.
The beginning of the film was somewhat hyperrealistic: the ice and the light passing through it, both on the surface of the lake and on the blocks. All of that was amazing. Then, when the magic comes into play, it seems much less impressive to me; the ice always looks too "glassy" afterward. Only on very rare occasions do we see again in the film that hyperrealistic ice as it was shown at the beginning.
"Ugly Anna," waking up with disheveled hair and a runny nose, is perhaps when she looks most adorable in the entire movie, also very sexy, puffing out her bust. Clumsy Anna, calling Hans "gorgeous" and then wondering herself out loud and annoyed: "Wait what?" In general, I liked the humor in the film. Kristof telling Anna if she had been raised in a barn, and his spit falling on Anna's face. Anna cheering herself up before jumping with Kristof to escape the snow monster - how hilarious!
Several graphic details were excellent, in particular: Elsa's purple cape. That color and texture, the light on it, and also the movement of the cape as Elsa runs across the lake. It is a shame she ends up tossing it to the wind on the mountain. Anna's purple cape is similar, but it never impressed me as much as Elsa's. After the credits, the snow monster ought to have kept that cape over the lost crown.
The colorful costumes. The shapes and movements of the hands in general also seemed very well done all over. The soft lighting throughout the coronation party was worthy of an award.
How the surface of the lake freezes with each of Elsa's stomps. The same detail of the stomp unleashing its freezing magic. They used that very well several times.
Upon her transformation/liberation, I would say Elsa becomes one of the sexiest princesses/queens Disney has ever designed. The only exception I can think of would be Jessica Rabbit, but Jessica's size and proportions are clearly very voluptuous and exaggerated. With Elsa, it's different, something very refined. They pulled off that touch very, very well.
A detail of Elsa as she finishes her song in the freshly built mountain castle: the ice doors close, but just before they do, we see her arrogant yet elegant hand gesture; that detail, and also the sound there, not the song ending but what follows, and the gesture, and the BAM of the slamming door. I think all of that was excellent. They also close a song about breaking free (letting go) by literally closing the doors of an ice castle the singer herself built, leaving her trapped there of her own free will. The irony is interesting.
That entire song in Spanish, well... More on the music below.
Speaking of sound, a ship collapses on the ice in the final storm (almost crushing Kristof and Sven.) That powerful sound was spectacular. The final storm in general was spectacular (sound and graphics,) as was the mini-storm inside the castle when Elsa casts her spell on Anna.
An excellent coloring was that of Elsa's castle when it becomes bloody and volcanic, dark, due to her frustration after her encounter there with Anna.
Sven's antlers tangled with vines and ice beads, and Sven, fascinated, looking around with his tongue out: so funny!
The things I liked about Olaf: when he says "I don't have a skull," when he tells Kristof "You hesitated," when he tells Anna "He's crazy!" and when he slides through the village and makes a woman scream in terror.
The underlying morals, and breaking off from Disney stereotypes, where always or almost always there had been a prince saving a princess, and a hero with superpowers (the latter had already been broken by Tangled, though.)
So far, that is what I liked most.
PART 3: What I liked least about Frozen (apart from the climax)
Now I will get to the things I did not like, starting with the music.
I exaggerated a bit in a comment I made on Facebook saying that I didn't like any of the music in Frozen. That is not true. I liked two songs (and I'm always referring to the Latin American Spanish versions; I haven't been able to see the film in English.) First, the song about the ice workers on the mountain, and then the one that follows, with Anna as a child singing: "Y si hacemos un muñeco?" ("Do you want to build a snowman?") Those two, for me, start naturally, and are also very pleasant to listen to, very entertaining, vocally, musically, and visually.
The first song that plays in Frozen precedes those two, and it's that a cappella tribal chant that opens the film when the title is shown. They also repeat it at the end of the film. I did not like that chant. It does not fit with the film at all, not at the beginning, not at the end, not anywhere. And I did not like the other songs either. In particular, Anna's song with Hans at the party... I'm not exaggerating: every time they sang the sharp "O" in the Spanish phrase "La puerta hacia el amOOOOOOOrr" ("Love is an Open DOOOOOOR") I made an involuntary gesture of suffering in the dark, seriously wanted to cover my ears. Anna's grown-up singing voice always seemed a bit shrill and uncomfortable to me. The song that said "FinalmEEEnte y como nUUUnca" ("For the First Time in Forever") didn't strike me as pleasant either. The worst song of all, though: the one with the gray smurfs/trolls.
The main song, "Libre Soy" (Latin American version of "Let it Go",) which Elsa sings on the mountain while building her castle, seemed too Broadway-like to me. The interior of the castle itself is clearly more stage than castle. The Latin American singer's voice was a bit shrill and affected, especially at the end. Even some of Elsa's movements seemed affected, despite their sexy quality.
(Update 01/23/14: after searching for "Let It Go" in several languages, the voice I find best sounding for this song is the Serbian one --"Sad je kraj" or "Now it's over," sung by Jelena Gavrilovic.)
In general, I also did not find what I would call musical coherence right —e.g. the DJ's taste in combining some songs with others. Starting with the tribal chanting in the opening and closing, as already mentioned, which does not fit with anything else. Aside from that, there were some extremely dramatic and tense songs, not so much Broadway-esque as almost operatic. (I understand musicals are an evolution of opera, after all.) For example, Elsa and Anna singing intertwined dramatic arias. We get that alongside extremely clumsy and slapstick songs like the one sung by the trolls, or Olaf's very dissonant tap-dancing "Summer" song.
As for the visuals/graphics:
The mouths in Frozen disappointed me compared to those in Tangled. I always find Rapunzel's mouth in Tangled beautiful, practically flawless at all times, no matter the gesture: smiling, laughing, complaining, sad, euphoric, playing, doubting, crying, suffering, etc. etc. I thought I'd find something even better in Frozen, given the potential improvements accumulated over three years, but no. Not only was there no improvement, I think it did not even reach the level of Tangled. Neither in Anna nor Elsa. Their mouths of frustration/pain, also often when they're singing, their teeth, I think looked bad on multiple occasions. There was something artificial or forced about them. Anna's mouth at the end, when she gives Kristof a gift, that also did not look good.
As for movement, there was a somewhat accelerated part when Anna and Hans dance outside the party and climb onto a table. Something there lacked the fluidity that characterized the rest. Anna arriving at the cabin with fire/smoke, with her dress frozen. It's a comical scene, but Anna's body at that moment, when she climbs onto the cabin floor, looked like a rough draft of the animation. Not just the character moving with difficulty in a funny way. For a moment it did not look like a final version.
I found the design/graphic style somewhat inconsistent between the human characters on the one hand, versus the fantasy characters on the other: the snowmen (Olaf plus the giant monster) and the trolls. Dissonant. Just as I found "musical coherence" poor, these different graphic styles did not mesh very well together for me either.
Olaf's dissonance was multi-dimensional. His "Summer" completely breaks with the film's look and icy palette, and it intrudes when Anna and Kristof were in that kind of shimmering, paradisiacal garden filled with ice pearls, something that looked absolutely beautiful. That got interrupted by Olaf's tap-dancing and warm colors clashing with the snow. The film's pacing was very good overall, but I think they put it in a bit of danger there, at least with the Spanish version of the song.
By the way, that beautiful frozen garden, where Sven gets so funny, almost ranks among my favorite things. But first, it reminded me too much of the luminous tree in Avatar, and second, it's diluted precisely by Olaf's intrusion and his summer fantasy.
I also did not like the clichés of Olaf explaining already obvious things in an overly explicit and unnecessary way.
There was a slightly exaggerated emphasis on that clue, which we never manage to validate whether true or false: the bit about a kiss of true love perhaps able to save Anna.
An explicit reference when Anna addresses the painting of Joan of Arc. It may be a homage, but it felt a bit strange and out of place.
The snow-covered mountain and the camera movement at the beginning of Elsa's song climbing the ridge reminded me too much of a scene from Lord of the Rings. The fall of the snow monster also reminded me of the fall of the Balrog after its confrontation with Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. The only thing missing was the whiplash.
But those evocations are minor compared to the number of things that seemed actually copied or recycled from Tangled:
- Anna hitting her face with the curtain cord while dancing. It's too reminiscent of Rapunzel hitting her head with the frying pan in front of the mirror.
- When Anna starts running on the dock, just before falling into the boat and meeting Hans. Her movements in that brief run are identical to Rapunzel's running away from the tower for the first time.
- Hans's horse is extremely similar to Maximus. Anna tickles Hans's horse, and Rapunzel tickles Maximus the same way. Maximus is also very similar to the horse Anna rides up the mountain to find Elsa.
- That horse, by the way, abandons Anna and returns to the kingdom, and Hans tries to control and calm it when he arrives. It's a brief scene, but it's reminiscent of Rapunzel trying to control Maximus to defend Eugene (the camera angle and character positioning are the same.)
- Two villains attacking Elsa in her castle. Analogous to the two gorilla bullies in Tangled.
- The kingdom of Arrendel facing the water. The kingdom in Tangled facing the water. In both films, a horse is also shown trotting across the bridge that connects those kingdoms.
Adding here another point I did not like, which I only belatedly discovered thanks to my niece (see first comment below.) It's something she did not understand, about which she asked me a question, and only when she asked me did I realize it also bothered me in the film. The old troll erases Anna's memory of Elsa's power. Why? I replied that in principle it was intended to protect her, so she would remember the fun but not the magic. But I also told her that she's right about not understanding why he did it, because it's not very clear. It is in fact part of what causes the whole problem later on, and on the other hand, it could be considered very unfair, a complete violation of rights, for someone to erase other person's memories, supposedly "for their protection." Thanks to my niece for this suggestion, and I'm adding it here to the list of things I did not like.
PART 4: Examples of somewhat similar, but well-achieved climaxes
If all of the above sounds very negative, they are all actually minor issues compared to the more serious flaws I find in Frozen, all of which are located in the climax.
Tangled offered a flawless mouth on Rapunzel's face, and it offered us a climax that I also find flawless.
This, of course, raised my expectations for Frozen on both fronts.
Tangled is one of my favorite Disney movies. “The Incredibles” is another big favorite of mine, but it’s not a musical, so it had covered a lot of ground already by simply not being one. However Tangled and Frozen are musicals, and I generally hate musicals. The unusual thing in this case was that, to my own surprise, I liked all of Tangled’s songs. In fact, it has three of the songs I consider to be among the best in the entire Disney repertoire: “I’ve Got a Dream,” “Mother Knows Best,” and the Oscar-nominated “I See the Light.”
No song in Tangled seemed forced to me. The way they started seemed always natural, somewhat strange because I almost always dislike the way songs start in musicals. And the singers had pleasant voices throughout, both in English and Spanish. Tangled excels in all the areas where I, as a viewer, enjoy films: its visuals, the colors or "palette," the computer animations, especially the eyes, mouths, and body movement. The graphic/visual coherence throughout the film. Also the music and musical coherence. The voices, the humor, the action, the rhythm, the visual and sound effects, etc. etc. But above all of that, in general, the most important thing for me, as I think perhaps for most people, is the climax. And in Tangled, I was also surprised by how flawless it was. For me, Tangled is a 9/10 animated film, that is, almost perfect. Almost.
There is one single detail that bothers me about Tangled, and it's minor, but it's always there. You'll remember that the two big villains, while detained and handcuffed, were able to take down an armed guard with a simple headbutt, and then managed to escape without much effort by opening the links of their own chains with a spear. These are huge, tough, and strong guys. I can accept that they take down that guard and break chains. What I cannot accept is that a woman with the build of the villain Gothel is capable of taking down those same two huge guys with a simple club, and at the same time at that. No matter how many clubs she used, not even the famous frying pan, I don't think Gothel would be able to take down even one of those two gorillas, even if she caught him off guard; much less be able to take them both down simultaneously. It's just not plausible to me. Eugene and Maximus surviving the fall was handled much more believably. So because of that silly detail between Gothel and the bullies, I don't give Tangled a perfect 10/10. I do give it a 9/10 (on IMDB.com). I could have given it a 9.4/10, but decimals are not allowed.
Why do I think the climax in Tangled is so good? Let's take a closer look.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD FOR “TANGLED”
PLAY...
Eugene is dying, as he warned us from his very first words in the film: “This is the story of how I died...” The worst part is that he's dying at a juncture that also seems to ensure a terrible doom for his beloved Rapunzel. Eugene can be saved only if the healing magic of Rapunzel's hair intervenes in his bleeding wound. But if Rapunzel saves Eugene, then she will remain a slave to her stepmother Gothel forever (she keeps her promises, and she just made that promise.)
PAUSE...
Let's say Eugene might think of doing something as foolish as committing suicide right there by jumping off the tower to prevent Rapunzel from keeping her promise and enslaving herself forever under Gothel's will. But that would be a "stupid suicide," in the sense that it wouldn't prevent the stepmother (or others) from wanting and being able to continue enslaving and exploiting Rapunzel. It's true that, once Eugene is dead, Rapunzel would no longer be under the pressure to enslave herself for her promise to save him, but she would still be at the mercy of Gothel's chains, and also at the mercy of the rest of the world's greed. So Eugene committing suicide could be seen as a "gesture of gallant love," but it would still be a very stupid and corny sacrifice due to its very limited effectiveness—in other words, its uselessness.
The decision Eugene makes at that climactic moment in Tangled is, however, surprising, and above all, very intelligent, because it undoubtedly guarantees the final salvation of his beloved Rapunzel.
PLAY...
Eugene tells Rapunzel not to heal him or she will be enslaved. She insists, and he tells her to wait a bit. He caresses her face, seemingly about to kiss her. Suddenly, both of Eugene's hands make unexpected, swift movements: one hand holds all of Rapunzel's hair, and in the other, he holds a broken glass from the many scattered on the floor. With that glass, he cuts all of Rapunzel's hair. Rapunzel's hair darkens, losing all its magic, and Eugene dies.
STOP.
It's clear that Eugene puts Rapunzel's salvation above his own life, but not only that, he wasn't interested in merely temporarily freeing his beloved from her current enslaver. He wanted to free her permanently and safely, without taking any risks. He doesn't commit any suicidal act with a low probability of saving his beloved, such as perhaps trying to defeat Gothel with the glass while he's wounded, while Gothel is healthy and has a dagger (and Rapunzel is chained.) Nor does he commit any act of "stupid suicide," such as jumping off the tower to his death. Fortunately, nothing like that happens. Eugene (which really means Disney) makes a brilliant decision here, the best possible one, and not only the hero, also Rapunzel, the stepmother, and especially we, the viewers, immediately understand the brilliance and effectiveness of this sacrifice: it eliminates all immediate and future threats to the beloved Rapunzel, and constitutes a guaranteed salvation for her.
Aristotle already told us that an ending must be both inevitable and unexpected, and by "inevitable," he meant: everything that happens must be not only possible but unavoidable. In that climax of Tangled, there's nothing that requires imposing special or convoluted logic to understand what happens, the causes, and the consequences. Suddenly, we see Eugene holding a piece of broken glass, one of the many scattered on the floor. It doesn't take much imagination to explain how he came to possess that piece of glass. And we already know that Rapunzel's hair can be cut. And we already know what happens when it's cut. And we already know what will happen to the mortally wounded Eugene if Rapunzel's hair doesn't heal him... There's nothing forced in that climax. Everything is perfectly logical within what the plot has shown us up to that point. Everything fits together effortlessly. Everything is "inevitable."
What I've already mentioned about the excellent climax in Tangled would be enough to explain how flawed I think the climax in Frozen is, but I would like to support the idea with other relevant examples.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD FOR "HELLBOY 2: THE GOLDEN ARMY"
As in Frozen, in "Hellboy II: The Golden Army," the climax of the entire film is also based on an unexpected sacrifice between siblings, although in a very different context and for very different reasons.
Princess Nuala's life is connected to that of her twin brother, Prince Nuada, in a very special way: if one of them is injured, the other suffers the same wound and pain. They are something like Elves, a race of half-gods/half-demons like Hellboy, and they are the last of their kind. Prince Nuada is the villain of the film, and he wants to gain control of the so-called Golden Army, an immense mechanized and magical army that is indestructible, with which he intends to exterminate the human race. Let's recall the climax of the entire film:
PLAY...
Prince Nuada has managed to kidnap his sister, and as a ransom, he acquires the last piece of a special key that grants him absolute control over the Golden Army. Hellboy, however, qualifies to claim the right to control the Golden Army, provided he can defeat the prince in combat, and so he challenges the prince. This great duel will be extremely difficult for Hellboy for two reasons: 1) The prince has already established himself as an exceptional warrior, and has already demonstrated that he can mortally wound our hero Hellboy (from which Hellboy was barely saved by a great sacrifice for the future made by his beloved Liz.) 2) Due to the connection between Prince Nuada and Princess Nuala, if Hellboy hurts the prince too much, he will also hurt the princess, who is innocent and a great defender of peace and humanity, and is also the beloved of his best friend, Abe. It will therefore be a very asymmetric fight in terms of each opponents' intent to harm the other. After a hard battle and some very good action, Hellboy defeats the prince fairly and squarely, without hurting him too much, which seems like a happy ending. He then gains control of the Golden Army, but in a moment of carelessness, the defeated prince approaches Hellboy and is about to kill him by treachery. However, just before he succeeds, we see the prince stop as if mortally wounded. He is, in fact, mortally wounded, but not by Hellboy. Princess Nuala saw through his intentions, and before the prince could kill Hellboy, she decided to stab herself in the heart. Hellboy survives thanks to the Princess's sacrifice, and she and the prince die.
STOP.
One can call a "suicidal" act any action that carries a high risk of death. In this case, the final battle Hellboy must face is, of course, "suicidal." Princess Nuala, however, doesn't just commit a "suicidal act," she actually commits suicide, which is something very different, and she does it precisely to kill her brother (not to save him,) thereby also extinguishing her own species. It is extremely tragic, but when it happens, we immediately understand that her sacrifice provides an immense and unquestionable benefit to many of her loved ones: it guarantees the survival of Hellboy and his allies, including her own beloved, Abe, and, no less importantly, it guarantees the survival of the entire human species. It's a brilliant and surprising climax, very powerful.
I also want to highlight here why this suicide is so effective in the climax. Although both Princess Nuala's suicide in Hellboy 2 and Eugene's in Tangled are unexpected, it seems to me that the reason for their effectiveness lies only partly in that element of surprise, because a suicide, or any unexpected event in a plot in general, could still be rendered inconsequential. The reason these sacrifices have such a significant impact in these climaxes is that we, the viewers, immediately understand that they alone determine the definitive elimination of the threat and the unquestionable and complete salvation of the loved ones who were under that threat.
As soon as we see Princess Nuala's suicidal/fratricidal act, there's no room for confusion: we all understand not only why she commits suicide, but also the guaranteed effect that will result from this suicide: the complete elimination of the threat posed by Prince Nuala commanding the Golden Army. And it's thanks to the definitive elimination of that threat that Hellboy and all of humanity are saved.
Something similar happens in Tangled: it's perfectly understandable why Eugene's sudden and intelligent suicidal act will undoubtedly guarantee the definitive elimination of any enslaving threat to Rapunzel. We know Eugene understands it. We know Rapunzel understands it. We know even the stepmother understands it. And of course, we, the viewers, understand it too.
So the element of surprise I think is not the most crucial element in these climaxes with a suicidal act by the hero.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD FOR “WRECK-IT RALPH”
At the end of Wreck-It Ralph, our hero Ralph commits suicide to save his friend (Glitch,) but it's not a surprising sacrifice. Ralph understands that an immense beam of light is needed to exterminate the plague of monsters destroying Glitch's world, and the only way to create that beam will be to collapse the Mentos roof on the mountain where Glitch lives, so that they fall into the Coca-Cola and explode. Between the moment Ralph realizes and decides to collapse that roof, and the moment he manages to free himself from the villain in mid-air to land on it and deliver his final devastating blow, bringing it down, minutes pass, and in all that time we know he is trying to commit suicide to help his friend. So it's not something that takes us by surprise at all. But throughout all that time, we viewers have always clearly known that this suicidal act will undoubtedly guarantee the extermination of the monsters and the salvation of Glitch and her world. The emotional effectiveness of this suicidal act at the climax is therefore not due to surprise, for it is not surprising. What makes it so effective and powerful is that we know in advance that it is the only way to eliminate the threat and guarantee salvation.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD FOR “HARRY POTTER 7”
Another example of a non-surprising hero sacrifice at the climax is the finale of the Harry Potter series, book 7 and the corresponding film. Harry Potter's suicidal disposition, like Wreck-It Ralph's, does not take us by surprise. We have known it for many chapters prior to the event. But it still has a clear purpose, and most importantly, both Harry and we know that this sacrifice will ensure the complete elimination of a threat and grant certain salvation.
Summarizing: the climaxes in all these excellent films (Tangled, Hellboy 2, Wreck-It Ralph, Harry Potter 7) are characterized by a self-sacrificing hero having no doubt about the salvation his sacrifice will bring. And not just the hero. We, the audience, either right there at the moment of the climax (if it's a surprising suicide,) or even beforehand, understand clearly how and why this suicidal act of the hero will indeed eliminate the threat completely, and will guarantee an inevitable salvation for the beloved.
We could then outline a kind of theoretical conjecture about climaxes involving the hero's suicide, in which there is no reason to include the element of surprise:
Postulate 1: In a plot, a climax involving a heroic suicide is most effective when both the hero and the audience immediately understand how this sacrifice will completely eliminate the latent threat, and will inevitably save the threatened loved one.
We can then also outline a kind of corollary:
Corollary 1: In a plot, a suicidal act (whether surprising or not) whose ultimate effectiveness is unknown to the hero and the audience (e.g. there is no immediate guarantee of the elimination of the threat or the salvation of the loved one,) is a potentially ineffective suicidal act, and is therefore also potentially inconsequential, potentially corny/stupid, or potentially disastrous, all of which weakens the effectiveness of that sacrifice in a climax.
PART 5: Frozen's climax: the great disappointment
Let us remember the moments leading up to the climax in Frozen, the grandiose ascent as we saw it at the beginning of all this text:
LAST WARNING: SPOILERS FOR “FROZEN” BELOW.
REWIND...
PLAY...
Hans the villain finds Elsa fleeing in the midst of the storm and makes her believe that Anna is already dead because of her spell, and Elsa falls to her knees on the ground overwhelmed with pain, she weeps, and the storm then subsides, visibility improves, the snow floats in the air as if time itself has frozen. Anna is indeed on the verge of certain death because of her freezing heart. Her fingers are blue, and she can hardly move anymore. Kristof suddenly sees her in the distance, runs towards her, and Anna also sees him and waits for him at last, and they are about to meet and embrace, and with that we understand that maybe Anna can be spared from the freezing, but just at that moment a metallic “shinnnnk” is clearly heard nearby, and before Anna gets to embrace Kristof, out of the corner of her eye she sees that this sound came from a sword that Hans has just unsheathed, and he is about to kill Elsa, who is sobbing on the ground, turned, and not seeing him. And then...
PAUSE...
Welcome back to the climax of Frozen.
Here we are all on the edge of our seats, only wondering: But what will happen? Will Elsa turn around? Will Elsa be able to do anything? And what will Anna do? What will she do? So let's get further into the climax:
PLAY...
And then... we see that Anna has reacted impulsively and, at the very same time Hans' thrust descends to kill Elsa, Anna, already dying, manages to interpose herself between them, and Anna's hand, almost fully transformed into ice, tries to block the edge of the sword...
PAUSE...
First of all, this surprising and suicidal act that Anna does can be considered a very logical reaction of the character. Speaking in Aristotelian terms, it is not only unexpected, it is also “inevitable.” We know that Anna is impulsive and spontaneous, not calculating, and she is also loving towards her sister Elsa (the character development in the film has established all this very well.) So we understand that she has reacted impulsively, without measuring the consequences. Anna acts as perhaps a mother would also act trying to stop a speeding train that is about to run over her child stuck on a rail. The reaction is instinctive, no matter the cost to her own life.
But let us as an audience consider the possible consequences of this sacrifice. How feasible is it that this suicidal act of Anna could secure Elsa's salvation? Let us speculate what might logically occur at this point in the climax.
If we look at it coldly (nod to Frozen,) this suicidal act by Anna may perhaps be able to delay Hans' attack long enough for Elsa to escape a deadly thrust and then take matters into her own hands. But maybe not. We just don't know. What we can surmise with more certainty is that Anna's act has at the very least a very high chance of resulting in irreparable damage to one of her upper extremities, to put it diplomatically. For what we know as an audience up to this point, either she will lose her entire hand or arm, with the sword then remaining stuck in her body, or the sword will remain stuck in her arm if it fails to sever it entirely. And this will happen regardless of whether she is turned to ice shortly before, or right at the moment, or shortly after her encounter with the sword. It does not take a Mythbusters analysis to regard all of the above as valid expectations. The only thing that could prevent the sword from doing any kind of damage to Anna-ice would be for Elsa or Kristof or something to intervene in time, or for something else to happen that we cannot anticipate...
In any case, we know that Anna has performed an impulsive suicidal act. She, who was already dying, is willing to lose an arm and even her life for her sister Elsa. But the fact is that she does not know if she will be able to save her, and with the information we have been given so far, we the audience also do not know if this suicidal act will guarantee Elsa's salvation or not. We have nothing to hold on to yet to know.
That makes this climax significantly different from all the ones we have analyzed above. In Frozen, a suicidal act is presented (in a surprising way,) but neither the hero nor we know immediately if this act will guarantee the elimination of the threat and the salvation of the loved one in an inevitable way. I consider this the first serious flaw. Technically, it is a suicidal act that may be inconsequential or “stupid,” or even disastrous in terms of Elsa's longed-for salvation.
The uncertainty is short-lived, but right off the bat, the impact of this climax in Frozen I think is reduced (we could say applying Corollary 1) compared to the other climaxes we saw before.
On top of this initial flaw, the creators at Disney apparently decided to continue this climax with the firm intention of making it worse:
PLAY...
The edge of Hans' sword comes down and hits Anna between her delicate fingers and hand, but she has just turned completely into a statue of ice, and the sword inexplicably does not stick or make a single dent in that ice. The sword shatters into a thousand pieces when it hits the ice that Anna has turned into, and Hans is shot backwards as if blown by an explosion.
STOP.
One second, ladies and gentlemen of Disney... What?
Let's look again at something from Aristotle. This climactic denouement in Frozen is “unexpected,” true, but it does not fulfill the Aristotelian aspect of “inevitable.” For a metal sword need not break into a thousand pieces upon colliding with a little arm of ice (indeed, it need not break into a thousand pieces even upon colliding with something indestructible.) Moreover, such a sword upon collision need not create any explosion that knocks the swordsman down. What is inevitable is that the sword will either stick into that ice, making a considerable dent in it, or it will shatter it and run its course. In any case, nothing in the movie supports as inevitable the facts that, on the one hand, the ice would remain intact, and on the other hand, the metal sword would break like a powder keg.
So there go two absurdities, Disney, and simultaneous at that. Two.
Recall the beginning of the movie, when the mountain workers cut the ice covering the lake with metal saws, and chop and fracture it with picks and tridents, all metal tools, all capable of breaking and cutting and digging into the ice, and all remaining intact after doing so. But is that “natural” ice, not “magic”? Even up in the mountain castle, the staircase to the castle by the way is also partially broken, being ice created by Elsa. And when the assassin guards attack Elsa, one of them shoots an arrow at her with a crossbow and she defends herself by creating some ice barrier, but that arrow actually goes through that ice. The body of the arrow is trapped in the ice and does not reach Elsa, but the metal tip of the arrow went through the ice without breaking. A second arrow deflected by Hans actually breaks the “magic” ice and causes the giant chandelier hanging from the castle ceiling to fall. As it had to be, because the ice created by Elsa's magic, you yourselves, gentlemen of Disney, have established that it is ordinary ice, that is, it breaks relatively easily, just as normal ice breaks in the real world. So it should be unable to remain unshattered by the blow of a sword, and a little hand made of ice should be unable to stop a sword and make it explode into a thousand pieces.
That Elsa could deform her handcuffs we could understand and accept because of the accumulation and expansion of the ice she creates from her hands. And that she could break the walls of her dungeon, maybe because she had thrown large masses of ice against those walls. Both explanations are logical and consistent with what we have seen she can do with her magic. But Anna-ice out of nowhere being indestructible, and a sword suddenly exploding when it hits ice, are both illogical. There is no historical precedent to justify or explain such things, what is even worse, in Frozen itself there are precedents clearly contrary to those two things. You drew it yourselves, ladies and gentlemen of Disney: metal cuts, breaks, and fractures ice, not the other way around.
I suspect that Disney must play rock-paper-scissors very badly.
Enumerating the flaws:
1) Anna's suicidal and surprising act does not immediately guarantee for us spectators the elimination of the threat nor Elsa's salvation (weakened entrance to the climax.)
2) First absurdity: Anna-ice is left without a dent.
3) Second absurdity (simultaneous to the previous one): the sword explodes into pieces.
And that's not all! We also have:
4) Hans suddenly gets blown away as if hit by an explosion.
This last one is also completely absurd, there is no precedent whatsoever supporting why it happens.
If Anna's suicidal act at the entrance of the climax was already weak, note that it is the absurdities 3 and 4 (and not Anna's act) what really eliminate the threats and save Elsa's situation. I mean, no matter how many broken swords, if Hans had been left standing and intact (conscious) there so close to Elsa, well, he would have remained quite a threat to Elsa. But Disney decided to disable Hans with this explosion that, in a very timely manner, moves him several meters away, and leaves him unconscious. And just like that, threat eliminated. The same explosion, however, does absolutely nothing to Elsa, despite the fact that she was also there right next to Anna. In addition to being absurd in its origin, it is a very very selective explosion in its effects. Hmm...
Anna's suicidal act, in itself, also has an illogical component that I have not mentioned, and could be considered a fifth flaw preceding the previous ones. And that is:
5) Anna could hardly move towards Kristof anymore because of her freezing. How could she then move so quickly towards where Hans and Elsa were, to stand between them?
So there are at least five major failures in the climax of Frozen, and they all occur in just a couple of seconds. It must be a record. I reckon it could define a new concept in creative writing, something like a “Deus ex Machina plusquam Frozen Absurdum.”
The most frustrating thing is to observe that they did that barbarity after how perfect the climax in Tangled was.
Let us play with alternate endings for a second. Here I dare to suggest what could have been a more satisfying climax at least for me, although it also has serious flaws: freezing-Anna ignores Kristof (the same act in principle “suicidal” but weak) and tries to go towards Hans and Elsa to try to help her somehow without knowing how. Anna ignores as well as us viewers how she will be able to help Elsa, but she is impulsive, reacts and goes to them to do something, but she doesn't know what, and we don't know what either. However she barely manages to take one step and... she never finishes the second, because she is already unable to move. She is almost immobilized with her freezing, and then, just before she dies, seeing that Elsa is going to be killed, no longer able to do anything about it, she stretches out her arms screaming a torn NOOOOO in horror as her last breath, and suddenly produces the same portentous magic Elsa does. Anna then, from afar, freezes Hans in the last fraction of a second, just before the sword made contact with Elsa, and just before Anna herself expires, completely frozen.
This alternate climax at least respects the internal logic of the whole plot. There are no ultra-fast displacements impossible in the given circumstances. No indestructible ice, no steel swords that explode in an absurd way when their edge collides with just fingers and little hands of ice. No inexplicable explosions that knock down the assassin, rendering him useless. It would also be a climax where the final elimination of the threat and the salvation of the threatened is truly an achievement of the heroine herself (that is, of Anna and her own magic,) and not of external inexplicable absurdities.
The first problem with this alternate climax, however, is that there is no indication in the plot that Anna could have magical gifts but just failed to manifest them before. We could argue that Elsa transferred magic to her twice after all, and that they are sisters. Anna also received some magical “cure” from the trolls. But all of that would be somewhat weak justifications. As the plot stands it would not be very satisfying. Most damaging, however, is that this alternate climax destroys the paradigm that Frozen's climax posits, and that we can appreciate: that Frozen's heroine has no superpowers. She only has her own love, and yet she turns out to be the heroine. That is a great idea, it is the same idea they applied to Eugene in Tangled in a masterful way, and of course it pays off in a climax. Why did they have to surround it with absurdities? That I cannot explain. For me it would have been infinitely more satisfying any alternative Ending preserving that idea, but without so many absurdities bundled together as there are in Frozen's climax.
Adding this paragraph belatedly (September 2014.) Anna having no magical gift could be debatable. She manages to move quickly despite being frozen. Frozen-Anna ends up indestructible. Hans' sword explodes upon colliding with it, and that explosion repells and disables Hans, without affecting Elsa. Again: hmm... All that is certainly inexplicable and “magical,” but it doesn't seem to derive from Elsa's freezing magic. Something additional is that while on the sleigh, Anna holds a flaming blanket and throws it at the wolves, without her getting burned at all. So Anna, our surprise heroine in Frozen, perhaps did have some magical powers after all? This prospect, however, would keep things bad for Frozen, or make them even worse. For not only would it destroy the paradigm that Tangled used impeccably (hero with no superpowers,) the resolution of the climax would still seem full of absurdities rather than “logically magical.” On the one hand, let's revisit the worst of my alternate ending: the plot as it stands does not strongly support the appearance of magic in Anna. On the other hand, assuming that holding the flaming blanket without burning could be considered a hint of magic, if anything it would be magic perhaps related to fire, but not at all related to all the absurdities that occur in the climax.
Frozen has beautiful images and colors, valuable morals, good underlying ideas, and the plot was so well-crafted, the rise to the climax captivates us wonderfully. But despite McKee's rule and what box office success suggests after several weeks, despite the awards it receives and what my little nieces say, Frozen, for me, made a real mess of things, putting together what I consider one of the worst climaxes in a Disney animated film in many decades, perhaps in its entire history.
Frozen has beautiful images and colors, valuable morals, good underlying ideas, and the plot was so well-crafted, the rise to the climax captivates us wonderfully. But despite McKee's rule and what box office success suggests after several weeks, despite the awards it receives and what my little nieces say, Frozen, for me, made a real mess of things, putting together what I consider one of the worst climaxes in a Disney animated film in many decades, perhaps in its entire history.
PART 6: Summary of my review of Frozen
First, the negatives:
- The WTF climax, with five serious flaws.
- Recycling (at least apparent) of many things from Tangled.
- Animation with open mouths not as sophisticated or polished as in Tangled.
- I didn't like the songs and their voices (in Latin American Spanish) for the most part.
- Musical inconsistency.
- Inconsistency in the graphic style between human and non-human characters.
- Dissonance in Olaf's summer fantasy, both graphical and musical.
- Olaf and trolls.
- The old troll's memory wipe on Ana.
And to close on a positive note, what I liked most:
+ The hyper-realistic ice, and the light effects passing through it at the beginning of the film.
+ Anna waking up "ugly."
+ Anna's comedic side.
+ Hand movements in general.
+ Elsa's cape, the colors of the costumes in general.
+ Lighting at the coronation party.
+ Elsa's sexy transformation when she "breaks free."
+ Elsa's song, but sung by the singer from Serbia, or perhaps also the one from Poland or Spain (not so much the one from Latin America or the USA.)
+ The closing of Elsa's main song: "Let it go."
+ The castle in its dark and almost bloody form.
+ Sven the moose.
+ The storms.
+ The morals.
+ The entire rise to the climax.
I'll wait for the Blu-ray to be able to listen to it in English. (No theater in Venezuela has it in English.) Over time, I'll check and sometimes adjust my ratings on IMDB. Maybe I'll raise its score for the songs and voices in their original language. Tangled is a 9/10 for me. Frozen, due to its flawed climax, barely earns a 6/10 for me. Actually, I got it at 5.5, but then again, IMDB does not allow decimals.
Update February 2, 2014: I was finally able to watch Frozen in its original English surround sound (you might imagine how I managed to do so here in Latin America :P)
I'm still not a huge fan of the song openings, but there are some notable improvements: the singing voices in general seemed less shrill to me (especially Anna's), although I'm still not a fan of Elsa's voice (Idina Menzel.) I far prefer the song "Let It Go" sung by the Serbian singer, even though I've only been able to hear the latter in a poorly recorded YouTube video. Another important improvement: The Duke of Weselton's voice, who never sings, but still: it sounds much better in English. In Spanish, it's too clownish, too laughable. More importantly, I think the film maintains its rhythm better during Olaf's song in English compared to the Spanish version. The most notable differences for me were the encounter between Anna and Elsa at the top of the castle. The phrases differ in significant ways between the two languages, unfortunately for the Spanish version. For example, while in Spanish Elsa tells Anna "Get out of here!", in English she says "You are not safe here!" which indicates concern for her, not simply wanting to kick her out. Elsa's outburst makes much more sense with the English lyrics and rhyme. The drama of the scene seemed much more powerful and impactful to me when Elsa (Idina) ends with her scream of "I CAN'T!" (I've seen it in Spanish four times now, never perceived such impact nor had the scene seemed so powerful.) I might add that the absence of shrill voices in English also allows for a better appreciation of the instrumental music in general, both when there are songs and when there aren't, i.e. intense or dramatic background music, etc. For all these reasons, I'd definitely give the film at least one extra point in English. So Frozen as a musical in English for me achieves a 7/10.
