I read that completely differently because
Elsa is completely alone when she sways her hips in her newly chosen duds. She’s friends with her body now; her sexuality is for herself, not anybody else. It’s because she’s free of the fear of hurting anyone with her powers. Of course, that she’s still doing it by isolation is part of the journey she has to get past. But she can’t get through it without learning that freedom and self-acceptance first.
Olaf is cute, funny and not at all as annoying as Jar-jar Binks. My kids (8 & 10) liked him best. My complaint was that he had no purpose - he never helped nor hindered the situation in any way and could probably be cut from the movie entirely without changing the plot in any way. It would have been nice if they gave him some sort of function or some knowledge/ability that helped the heroes. 
His voice actor spoiled the flow of the movie. I knew that I’d heard him before and I spent time thinking of where instead of watching the move. I waited until AFTER the movie to pull out my phone and verify my suspicions. Yes, he played Richie Cunninham in the Book of Mormon.
Absolutely incorrect. Olaf was essential to the plot when…
[spoiler] He helped warm Anna up as she was starting to freeze. He got her near the fire, and when she warned him that he was melting, he said, “Some people are worth melting for,” foreshadowing and encouraging the major resolution at the end of the movie (Anna would melt away the frozen curse by helping save her sister’s life and risking her own).
Anna would have died without him, and his words were some of the sweetest most sincere words written in a Disney movie, or any movie really.[/spoiler]
in addition, his accidental creation is essential to the plot when Elsa realizes she can create life and creates the bigger snowman Marshmallow, who kicks our heroes out of the castle which leads to the third act.
He’s not only essential to the plot, the supernatural silly snowman actually makes the story flow more organically.
Hmmm. Good points, Drew and Nio, and I’ll agree that he helped/saved Anna by building the fire, but I guess I didn’t feel like he did something that couldn’t have been fulfilled in other ways. Perhaps his biggest contribution to the actual plot was that he led Anna and Kristoff to Elsa’s castle… but they were headed that way and were looking for her to begin with, so I felt that they would have found her with or without him.
It would have been a stronger choice to have him hold special knowledge of the snow/the safe path to take, etc - have him be the reason they were able to reach the castle. I still can’t agree that he was essential to the plot and I wished he had been given some cool, special talent… (maybe an ability to navigate a blizzard or some such thing, make the snow freeze so they could go super-fast, etc.?) which he could use to be more instrumental.
As for him being the catalyst for Elsa creating Marshmallow, the fact is that Elsa was discovering her powers and she created the monster - he didn’t exactly contribute to the action - she could have/probably would have made the monster even if Olaf never existed.
I think he served a purpose and was important because of what he represented - the love and innocence between the sisters when they were little and built the snowman. He was not only comic relief, but a symbol of their love and he had many lines that emphasized the importance of love.
If he was totally removed, the story would still have unfolded in much the same way - with the exception of the fire-building… you’d have to assign that task to another person or have Anna muster the strength to build it herself. He added to the story but didn’t seem integral to the plot, in my opinion.
Although, I’ve only seen it one time. YMMV
Olaf also was the bridge between the present and past memories of the sisters. “Would you like to build a snowman”.
Indeed! And he also demonstrated how Elsa’s power had been growing in all the years she had been trying so desperately to suppress it. As a girl, she could create a snowman. As a young woman, she could create a living snowman, without even intending to do so. I think it’s important to show the still-present if strained connection between the sisters that the first thing that Elsa creates once she’s accepted that her power is out in the open that isn’t a swirl of snowflakes is the snowman that she had made for her little sister back when they were the best of friends.
Olaf is sweet, loving, simple, and happy, but he has true courage and loyalty. I found him to be a well-done element in an outstanding movie.
corkboard, if you’re still reading this, I get where you’re coming from, but I think the vital part to remember is that the expectations that are set up get dashed and that kids often watch Disney movies dozens of times. After the first time, they’ll know the shape of the story that is being told in the film and can see how each character fits into that story without being misled by the red herrings that they wouldn’t have seen though that first time around.
As the mother of a daughter, and as a female-type person myself, I loved and was pleasantly surprised by the ultimate message of ‘Frozen.’ Plus, I have been belting ‘Let It Go’ in the car almost daily.
Some viewers may find Olaf annoying- that’ s an individual call.
But remember that there’s a HUGE difference between Jar Jar and Olaf! Olaf appears in a Disney cartoon that was marketed explicitly to kids! The Star Wars series certainly had millions of kids among its fans, but it was NOT originally crafted or marketed as a kiddie entertainment.
Jar Jar Binks probably would have been annoying in any movie, but he seemed worse in ***The Phantom Menace ***because he felt like a cutesie cartoon character who stepped in from an entirely different movie. To some extent, the Ewoks in ROTJ had felt the same way.
Um…really? Then who did Kenner make all these toys for? Back then, no one was marketing action figures to twentysomethings.
Did you ever get around to watching it?
Frozen is one of the few movies that has made me go back and really think about all the layers, symbolism, plotting choices, etc in a long time. It is a movie that has a lot of depth, and I can’t wait to buy it on Blu-Ray (it will be the first movie I bought on Blu-Ray in over a year I think) so I can watch it and experience it again.
It is extremely clever and much deeper than I got at first viewing. After reading this and other threads, and listening to the soundtrack again and again, I’ve gotten a lot out of it and it’s even better than I imagined.
You should definitely see if if you get the chance!
Just wanted to say that Josh Gad, the voice of Olaf, won the Annie (the industry animation awards) for Best Vocal Performance in an animated feature, 1 of 5 awards that Frozen took, more than any other film.
I’ve never heard of Annies before. Are they highly respected and sought after in the animation world?
That’s not much of a cite. There are billions of awards out there, lots of which no one in the various industries take very seriously. Even for an industry’s top award (like Grammy’s for music), many don’t even take very seriously because there are just so many categories that basically everyone wins grammies.
My question I guess is, does winning 5 annies constitute a huge achievement in the same way a movie winning 5 oscars would? Or a pulitzer prize?
Olaf was hilarious and a great addition to the movie. Not like Jar-Jar at all.
The trolls, on the other hand, felt like they were invented for the movie solely as a marketing tie-in.
I agree, the trolls are the movie’s Jar Jar Binks, if it has them.
Olaf is pretty central to the plot for the reasons stated above, and very funny to boot. For example in his song the lines “Winter’s a good time to stay in and cuddle, but put me in summer and I’ll be a … happy snowman,” sung as he’s about to step in a puddle. Great timing and delivery. I liked the voice acting by Josh Gad (he also played the President’s son in a recent short-lived sitcom that’s name escapes me. 1600 Penn maybe?)
The only thing I don’t know is why the last indoor scene with Olaf and Anna didn’t count as an “act of true love.” (I’m being vague because I don’t know how to make spoiler boxes. I mean the scene with the “some people are worth melting for” line).
As the father of a little girl, I’m pretty happy with the overall message of the movie, although it was not perfect (the characters still have weird body proportions, and I noticed the same things corkboard did). My five year old girl feels strongly that Anna should have said “no” to Hans’s proposal, and at that point in the soundtrack (which was playing in a constant loop everyday for a few weeks) she said so every time.
So she gets that, even though she doesn’t understand what happened to Anna and Elsa’s parents – she thinks the sisters grew up in a different castle and went on a ship to Arendelle when they grew up. We’ve tried to level with her.
Without adding anything other than just a consenting opinion as a huge animation nerd, the annie’s are basically the cartoon Oscars. They are really quite special.
I wholly agree with this. The thing I said after I left the theater was that this movie had the greatest story (IMO) of any Disney animated movie. It was such a good tale to tell that had to many different things going on that I was very impressed.
Actually, I’d say it’s a fairly substantial cite. One clue should’ve been that it’s in its 41st year, much older than most awards (even the SAGs, the Golden Satellites, or the LA Film Critics awards). Also from the website: “The Annie Awards is animation’s highest honor” Of course, anyone can claim that, but in this case, it is fairly undisputed–can you name another?. Also, from the website, look at all the industry sponsors and partners (every major name in animation)–not something you’d automatically get from some five-&-dime trinket ceremony.
Yes, like Sir T-Cups said, it is the animation Oscar. Aside from the real Oscar/Emmy (they do TV too), the highest and most prestigious award you can get in the genre, because it’s bestowed by their animation colleagues.
Remember, the troll doesn’t specify what sort of act or what sort of love it needs to be, or which heart is supposed to be doing the loving. I thought the fact that this scene didn’t break the spell was, frankly, brilliant.
[spoiler]Only true love can melt a frozen heart, it’s true. But it has to melt by loving, not by being loved. Ana has to thaw her own heart by thinking someone else is worth melting for.
I love this take on the traditional “only love can break the spell” trope. I hate that the true love is always expressed by someone else taking action and/or making a sacrifice for the accursed one, so that you have both the idea that you should just sit around waiting for someone else to solve your problems and the idea that what you can get someone to do for you is what true love is really about. Those are both such horrible ideas to plant in someone’s head, you know? This ending turns both of those ideas on their ears and pisses firmly in their faces, because Ana’s the only one who can break her curse and the whole point of the ending is that true love is about what you’re willing to do for someone else. [/spoiler]