Is Frozen overrated?

[Drtooth]

I really think that having to stop production on Newt screwed them up somehow. Book of Life seems to have beat Pixar to the punch with their Dia de Los Muertos movie, but I've heard nothing of it since the small legal trouble Disney had trying to copyright the name of a sacred holiday as it was the movie's title. They probably had no other films finished enough to put in place of Good Dinosaur, so having to bump up a year was inevitable.

And I agree. The Muppets deserve a better TV special than the Gaga thing. Like I said about Gervais, family minded conservatives felt she was a smut peddler and cannot distinguish between The Muppets, Sesame Street and Barney. Meanwhile, all too hip, too smart, and too arrogant hipsters felt her fifteen minutes were up because someone on some funny articles site told them. Off subject, I'm sick of Year One-ing celebrities because they make one bad movie and some hipster says we have to stop liking them. Yeah, that's free thinking right there.

Anyway, the next Muppet special needs clear, careful consideration. The Gag thing was rushed to death, sure, but LTS suffered gaps that another pass at the script would have fixed. The Halloween special they were planning to do, the time is right to revisit that for next year.

As for Frozen, I'll say this... it's overrated in the sense that there's a lot of oversaturation and focus on it, and most of it is Disney, but a lot of it is the fanbase itself. You could say that about anything. The characters specifically from that movie weren't tossed in OUAT by Disney, but rather they were added at the request of the writers. That show's overrated in its own right. As for the film, it's a quality film that managed to get both boys and girls in to see a Disney fairytale film (something Princess and the Frog and Tangled didn't do), it speaks to people, and it made a crapload of money so it's only logical for Disney to push that. Meanwhile, there are a lot of kid's films that are far overrated in the more negative sense. I already mentioned Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (which was okay, I guess at best) and Ice Age. And frankly, I'd rather see more of Olaf the Snowman than Sid the Sloth (and I liked Sid). Frozen will probably just be one movie and a series of shorts... Ice Age will out sequel Land Before Time.

 

[jvcarroll]

I really think that having to stop production on Newt screwed them up somehow. Book of Life seems to have beat Pixar to the punch with their Dia de Los Muertos movie, but I've heard nothing of it since the small legal trouble Disney had trying to copyright the name of a sacred holiday as it was the movie's title. They probably had no other films finished enough to put in place of Good Dinosaur, so having to bump up a year was inevitable.

And I agree. The Muppets deserve a better TV special than the Gaga thing. Like I said about Gervais, family minded conservatives felt she was a smut peddler and cannot distinguish between The Muppets, Sesame Street and Barney. Meanwhile, all too hip, too smart, and too arrogant hipsters felt her fifteen minutes were up because someone on some funny articles site told them. Off subject, I'm sick of Year One-ing celebrities because they make one bad movie and some hipster says we have to stop liking them. Yeah, that's free thinking right there.

Anyway, the next Muppet special needs clear, careful consideration. The Gag thing was rushed to death, sure, but LTS suffered gaps that another pass at the script would have fixed. The Halloween special they were planning to do, the time is right to revisit that for next year.

As for Frozen, I'll say this... it's overrated in the sense that there's a lot of oversaturation and focus on it, and most of it is Disney, but a lot of it is the fanbase itself. You could say that about anything. The characters specifically from that movie weren't tossed in OUAT by Disney, but rather they were added at the request of the writers. That show's overrated in its own right. As for the film, it's a quality film that managed to get both boys and girls in to see a Disney fairytale film (something Princess and the Frog and Tangled didn't do), it speaks to people, and it made a crapload of money so it's only logical for Disney to push that. Meanwhile, there are a lot of kid's films that are far overrated in the more negative sense. I already mentioned Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (which was okay, I guess at best) and Ice Age. And frankly, I'd rather see more of Olaf the Snowman than Sid the Sloth (and I liked Sid). Frozen will probably just be one movie and a series of shorts... Ice Age will out sequel Land Before Time.

Technically everything that's popular is overrated. I think you're on the right track about Newt. I still think they should have gone with it. I didn't even consider that the same thing is happening with the Day of the Dead film. Eeep!

As for the Gaga special, the reasons for the lack of success are these:

• It was barely barely publicized (usually a sign of the network's lack of confidence).
• Gaga was off her game. Many fans commented on how "out of it" she seemed in her Muppet interactions and she's since admitted as much about her performances and projects in 2013.
• This was a sloppy and rushed special. The Muppets, Kristin Bell and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were last minute additions. Bell was there as a product of Disney synergy with Frozen and the special appearing on ABC. Levitt had just filmed a scene with Gaga in Sin City 2. And the Muppets were reportedly plopped in there without much notice.

I don't really fault anyone about it. There were some fun moments. But this really was one of those times where they threw an idea against the wall to see if it would stick. Sometimes stuff like that does. This...didn't.

 

[Drtooth]

I'm pretty disappointed you haven't joined the discussion on This thread. We're looking at some really bad stuff. Mostly foreign produced DTV's and horrible stuff like Food Fight and Hero of Color City. Even those who really hated Frozen for some reason have to admit, it's much better than soulless garbage like that.

 

[jvcarroll]

I'm pretty disappointed you haven't joined the discussion on This thread. We're looking at some really bad stuff. Mostly foreign produced DTV's and horrible stuff like Food Fight and Hero of Color City. Even those who really hated Frozen for some reason have to admit, it's much better than soulless garbage like that.

I've been over there. I just don't see the point railing on content I wouldn't otherwise see.

 

[Drtooth]

From an artist's standpoint, you have to admit, some of those films don't even look good. Or professional. Stuff like that exists, stuff like that gets made, somehow Disney doesn't even find them worthy to sue (the ones that are blatant Pixar/Disney ripoffs anyway). Most of them are dumped at Redboxes, a few manage to slither out and get a national release.

But somehow, the bigger picture for me is that, on the plus side, these horrible little CGI films released by fifth party studios (regardless of theatrical or DTV releases of varying budgets) prove that families aren't as gaga for CGI effects as they were 10 years ago. But on the other hand, it does have a negative impact on the good ones. They make the medium look disposable. And I agree that more should be done with 2-D animation, but as I always say, the same amount of bad studios made bad 2-D films when Disney was having a string of hits. Worst of all, they had some real talent roped into horrible stuff like The Troll in Central Park! At least with Food Fight, it's visually unappealing. Supposedly, even the artists hated working on it. I'm starting to think the theft of the hard drives on that one was an inside job. That film really shouldn't have seen the light of day.

Worst of all, the main character's a total ripoff of Ace Hart/Yu. So there's that.

 

[antsamthompson9]

I like Frozen, I really do, but I don't see how so many males doing covers of Let it Go can not change the gender-specific lyrics and have it not come off as awkward. I recommend watching the ABC special. http://movie25.ws/the-story-of-frozen-making-a-disney-animated-classic/

 

[jvcarroll]

I like Frozen, I really do, but I don't see how so many males doing covers of Let it Go can not change the gender-specific lyrics and have it not come off as awkward. I recommend watching the ABC special. http://movie25.ws/the-story-of-frozen-making-a-disney-animated-classic/

Um...who the heck cares about pronouns? There are only two: "queen" and "girl" and I don't see why that should really bother anyone. Maybe I've lived in such a wonderfully accepting atmosphere too long, but pointing something like that out completely negates the spirit of acceptance the song stands for. Wow.

 

[Drtooth]

You know, I've seen bits and pieces of the movie (all unintentional), but none of it the whole way through. Considering I just got cable, they had that movie on a lot, but never when I expected it, and when I did, it was opposite something else I wanted to watch. Then the movie channels had to be gone after a couple months or they charge extra.

Anyway, I avoided the special out of spoilers, and it was opposite something else I was watching. I did catch the end with the Big Hero Six promo. So, I'd say it was a bit of cross promotion for both movies. Otherwise, the timing of the special was strange.

 

[jvcarroll]

You know, I've seen bits and pieces of the movie (all unintentional), but none of it the whole way through. Considering I just got cable, they had that movie on a lot, but never when I expected it, and when I did, it was opposite something else I wanted to watch. Then the movie channels had to be gone after a couple months or they charge extra.

Anyway, I avoided the special out of spoilers, and it was opposite something else I was watching. I did catch the end with the Big Hero Six promo. So, I'd say it was a bit of cross promotion for both movies. Otherwise, the timing of the special was strange.

You bring up a good point. I'm thinking that Disney might have noticed the sluggish box office this year, seen the figures of Dragon 2 and thought that Frozen fans could help out Big Hero 6. Most of the public didn't know who any of the Guardians of the Galaxy characters were and the premise was so absurd, but advertising changed all of that. Maybe that's the sort of thing they're attempting here. People connected with the colorful characters and didn't really need to know what the story was about. Same thing here. But how do you make people watch a pitch ad? Enter Frozen. The nature of advertising is changing. It's so easy to fast forward or click through ads. Something like this inspires people (and families) to sit and watch. It's a brilliant move. Or am I giving them too much credit?

 

[Drtooth]

You bring up a good point. I'm thinking that Disney might have noticed the sluggish box office this year, seen the figures of Dragon 2 and thought that Frozen fans could help out Big Hero 6. Most of the public didn't know who any of the Guardians of the Galaxy characters were and the premise was so absurd, but advertising changed all of that.

Cross promotion's what there thing really is. They did that with a Marvel Cinematic Universe special which is when they revealed GOTG's trailer. I'm just surprised they didn't release this closer to Big Hero 6's release date.

On the subject of Frozen's popularity, it's been reported that the movie itself has made about 1 billion dollars worldwide, and the merchandising has made almost that amount. If something's that successful, of course they're going to milk it. I'm only disappointed that Wreck-it-Ralph never became a subbrand of gamer related merchandising and T-shirts after the initial Disney Store offerings... it was those darn Sugar Rush plush. They didn't sell when virtually everything else did. Though outsider, collector friendly WIR stuf is managing to pop up.