Frozen II should have been a Show
Frozen II and Raya and the Last Dragon. Both would have worked better as shows than they did movies.
Sometimes when a story’s pacing isn’t working, the form of the story needs to be changed. A novel should become a novella. A screenplay should become a traditional play. A movie should become a show.
The reason people don’t do it is because a full fledged show is a much bigger risk than a movie.
It’s the risk of spending more time, and possibly more budget, on a show that may not get the needed attention for it to pay off. Because from the audience perspective, committing to a show takes a lot more time and energy than it does to commit to a movie.
However, it’s a risk Disney can afford to take, and I bet for these two films in particular, it would have resulted in success.
For example, Raya’s advertising brought a lot of hype to the movie. And while it looked beautiful and told a compelling story, the pacing of that story was rushed, because they tried to fit so much into just a couple hours of screen time.
But upon seeing the trailers, people were already comparing it to Avatar: The Last Airbender. Raya could have very well been Disney’s Avatar! And it was released around the same time that Disney+ launched, which would have drawn more people to the streaming platform.
It wouldn’t have needed to be a long show. Certainly not as long as Avatar, spending full seasons focusing on one aspect of the show: water; earth and fire. Instead, Raya could have dedicated a few hour long episodes to exploring all the different parts of the world.
Or they could have done exactly what Avatar did and dedicated full seasons to that, which would have been more of a risk, but either way, it would have resulted in better pacing.
Then we have Frozen II. Ooooh, Frozen II. Let’s not beat around the bush. We all know this sequel was only made because of the success of the first movie. Disney only made it to make money.
But to give credit where credit is due, the writers of the film still tried to tell a good story. But once again, they tried to fit too much into too little time. And the story they told wasn’t even worth it.
The animation? Stunning! The music? Phenomenal! But the story? While an attempt was made, it did not do the characters justice.
At least, not on the surface level.
See, Anna becoming queen could have worked, if they’d set it up better. There was a song removed from the original movie where Anna expresses her desire to prove that she was more than just second in line for the throne. More than just the spare in case something happened to Elsa.
The song could have been re-vamped and reused in the sequel! And it would have worked! It would have made Anna becoming queen feel less random.
But also, she needs to earn it. Anna loves Arendelle, but we haven’t seen her doing much to take care of it. The most we saw was her leaving it in Hans’ care when she left to go look for Elsa in the first movie. If the sequel had been a series, there would have been more time for Anna to show off her capabilities as a possible ruler!
Then we have Kirstoff. In the first movie, it was okay that we didn’t get more backstory on him because that really wasn’t the point of the story. And honestly, in Frozen II, it was acceptable for the exact same reason. But imagine the possibilities of his character if we’d been given a show for a sequel instead of a movie!
In Tangled: The Series, we learned more about Eugene’s past, and it was awesome. It fleshed him out more as a character, rather than him just being Rapanzel’s love interest. It provided him opportunities to make choices, and made it more difficult for him to do so. And above all, it was compelling.
We could have gotten that with Kristoff. He may not be a prince, and frankly, we don’t want him to be. But to find out what happened to his parents, how he met Sven, why the two of them were left alone. That would have been awesome too. And it would have provided more opportunity to see Kristoff and Anna bond.
And then finally we have Elsa. Her leaving Arendelle and becoming the fifth spirit was such a random and contradicting character arc. Where the first movie was about Anna bringing her back from living isolated in the North, the sequel was about Elsa leaving Anna to live isolated in the North.
The point of Elsa’s character arc in the sequel was her discovering her worth, which is supposed to build off the development she made in the first movie, but really just discredits it. Because if you watch the first movie without seeing the sequel, that character arc already seems finished. By the end of the first film, she has learned the power of love and how to let people close to her.
And those lessons seemed completely forgotten in the sequel, because most of the time, she is either ignoring Anna or directly pushing her away. All for the sake of following a voice she randomly started hearing one day.
Oh, and the voice thing? I’m sorry, but that was stupid.
I love Aurora, her voice is always ethereal and beautiful, but the concept of the voice itself felt too random. Mainly because there wasn’t any explanation as to why Elsa started hearing it when she did. If it was Ahtohallan calling her to her purpose (I guess?), why didn’t she hear it sooner? Might have saved her a lot of grief in the first movie. Considering the voice served as her call to action, an important role in any story, it felt too random.
Elsa’s whole narrative in this movie just felt like lazy writing in general. It followed the same Avatar recipe of the four elements but with far less substance.
Here’s the thing about the four elements recipe. It’s a quick fix when you don’t have a plot. It provides a goal for your characters and what they have to do to achieve it, without much brain power.
Examples of the four elements recipe:
Avatar, obviously. But Avatar isn’t lazy writing. They took a simple premise, and made it something grand.
The Dragon Prince has six elements. The six primal sources of magic. Again, this writing isn’t lazy. In fact, they don’t even follow the recipe verbatim. There isn’t one main protagonist mastering everything. There are many different characters all being exposed to a little bit of the elements at a time.
Raya and the Last Dragon. The five kingdoms of Kumandria. It wouldn’t have been bad writing if they had more time to make this simple premise something interesting.
But if Frozen II had been a series instead of a movie and they still used this recipe, it would have been too similar to Avatar. But again, without the substance. Basically, Elsa becomes the Avatar, but with less work. She doesn’t master the elements per se, she just uses her powers to “tame” the spirits of the elements. In other words, she shot ice at them until they calmed down.
They could have done something far more interesting with Elsa’s character. Something that would definitely take more time to execute properly, but it would have been so worth it.
In the first movie it was implied that Elsa was simply born with her powers, and that’s just something that happens sometimes. That was an explanation I was totally cool with. It did not need further elaboration. Some people may disagree, but for me it was fine, because unlike Frozen II’s voice, the source of Elsa’s powers does not play an important narrative role. All that matters to the story is that she has powers.
Then in Frozen II they decided they needed to elaborate, and gave the explanation that Elsa was gifted magic because her mother saved her father. Which is… fine I guess. Begs the question why Anna wasn’t also given powers, but okay.
But what if they hadn’t given that explanation, and we were left with the idea that, while rare, people can simply be born with powers sometimes? That means it could happen more than once!
I would have loved to see Elsa meeting other people with powers! Fire powers, gravity powers, electricity powers, all kinds of powers! And that would have been such a great way to complete her character arc.
Can you imagine? Elsa opening up a school to teach little kids how to use their magic? Hell, that could have been why she eventually gives up the throne to Anna! That would have been a much better conclusion for Elsa. She spent most of her life feeling like she didn’t belong because of her powers, so she goes on to create a place where people like her can belong. I would have loved to see that!
And since she’s already meeting more people with powers, we could finally get that Frozen/Tangled crossover, instead of a brief cameo. Can you imagine a Frozen series that looks like this?
Credit: @ Arendelle_Times on Twitter
It would have been great. And it would have been great to see Elsa talking with her long lost cousin, Rapunzel, bonding over them both growing up isolated with some form of magic.
Sometimes, deadlines and profit take priority over good storytelling. I don’t blame the writers for the fact that neither Raya nor Frozen II worked. I blame Disney, but not the people that work for it. I truly believe that in both cases the writers were trying to tell the best story possible with the limited time they were given. But if they had been offered the option to make these stories shows instead of movies, it would have resulted in something magical.
No, it's not about giving more time to tell a good story. It's about using the time you have efficiently and intelligently. Many many many other films are able to tell an adequate to phenomenal story in an hour and a half. Let's not confuse gluttonous writing by stacking too many plot points together with actual good story writing that could have worked if they had more time.
That brings me to another point. WDAS has the same schedule for all films and is able to bring original stories to the silver screen very well within the time frame. Frozen II had an already established world and so many assets made that would have reduced the time and stress even needed to make the film. They had a foot in the door already so to speak. All they had to do was update some models and write a story that builds from the first installment, but nope! They completely threw out any logic, setting, and motivations previously set and shot themselves in the foot.
Here is when a story should be a series vs a film:
Films are event driven. They present stories of a character’s transformation due to external events. We witness the characters evolve or mature over the course of a plot’s beginning, middle and end. When you write a TV series, by contrast the stories are character driven. We experience the drama between characters as they battle external events attempting to change them.
Star Wars focuses on the evolution of Luke Skywalker as he transforms from a naïve boy into a hero. The conclusion is finite, making Star Wars a ‘feature’ storytelling style. By contrast, Star Trek’s Captain Kirk does not change, nor do the characters making up his crew. This allows them to encounter one adventure after the other as they defeat the external events in each episode attempting to change them. At the end of each episode, Kirk and his team remain unchanged which makes Star Trek a ‘series’ storytelling style.
Of course these are examples and not the finite rule to series vs film writing. My point is more about the fact that more time isn't the answer to save a good story. You are expected to finish your work on time to meet deadlines whether it be high-school or an animation studio. You cannot say "I couldn't finish because I didn't have time". You properly budget your time and use the resources given to you intelligently.
