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OK edited :) To summarize my mind, I think the only american animated movie that's worth saving in the last 10 years is Disney's Frozen. It has some harshness,

OK edited :) To summarize my mind, I think the only american animated movie that's worth saving in the last 10 years is Disney's Frozen. It has some harshness, complex character relationships and appeals both to adults and children.

wegs 6y ago
Frozen teaches kids all the wrong lessons. Shirk your responsibilities. Ignore your community. Focus on yourself. "Let it Go" is like an ode to everything I dislike about American culture. It's so very American. Best animated movie I've seen in the past decade was probably Moana, but I can't say I've seen many.
- Closi 6y ago
  Well, actually the moral of Frozen is the absolute opposite - by shirking her responsibilities the community suffered, and she had to go back and face reality to restore the kingdom. The moral of the story was 'running away is not the answer'. "Let it go" as a song needs to be considered along with it's reprise: Elsa: "I'm such a fool, I can't be free. I can't escape from the storm inside of me... I can't control the curse! Oh I'm afraid I'll only make it worse. There's so much fear - you're not safe here, i.... i.... can't...." It's the same underlying moral story as the Lion King - Simba runs away and starts living the easy life, only for the community he left behind to suffer, and he has to become brave and face his responsibilities. The song "Let it go" is basically just "Hakuna Matata" from a story perspective. Is Hakuna Matata an ode to everything you dislike about American culture too? (Also the underlying story of Frozen is actually Danish)
  - jfengel 6y ago
    The uplifting music of Let It Go is an odd contrast to the film's message. As is the whole character of Elsa, who is seen as the protagonist of the film, when in fact she's practically the villain. Ana is the protagonist, but almost comes off as a sidekick. You can feel the film's heritage, in which Elsa really was supposed to be the villain. It didn't evolve that way, setting up a genuine shock at the big reveal. Let It Go ends up mashing the I Wish song and the Villain Song, and (with Menzel's breathtaking voice) comes out doubly exciting. It makes the film feel a little uncoordinated, in a way that I like because it doesn't just follow the tropes. But I think they didn't even understand that success themselves, and the sequel was rather poor. It dismissed the fact that the first film turned out to be about sisterhood, in a genuinely touching way, and thus lost its heart.
- jerome-jh 6y ago
  "Let it go" is pretty early in the movie, that's not the conclusion. To the contrary at the end Kristoff turns its steps to help stop a feminicide.
- jimbob45 6y ago
  I’m fairly sure they created “Let it go” before they really knew what the story would be about. They knew it was a snowy movie, knew they wanted something to rhyme with the traditional “Let it snow”, and vaguely had the idea that an angsty girl would be singing the song. As a result, the lyrics are incredibly generic and hardly seem to fit her specific situation.
  - Closi 6y ago
    You are half right, according to the song writer Robert Lopez the original movie structure and plan just had the placeholder title “Elsa’s Badass Song” and he was told to go write it, and then came up with let it go. But it was still very early in the process and it was the first song to be written that actually made it into the movie. The extended soundtrack includes quite a few of the early songs that didn’t make it into the movie where they were still trying to work out what the style of music was going to be and who the characters are, so the music and story were definitely co-developed together.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Frozen teaches kids all the wrong lessons. Shirk your responsibilities. Ignore your community. Focus on yourself. Reading Frozen as teaching that is like reading Veerhoeven’s Starship Troopers (which, sure, is abysmal on all sorts of other grounds) as an endorsement of Fascism. Yea, those things occur in the movie, but the movie is quite specifically about it producing bad outcomes that must be dealt with by people doing exactly the opposite.
  - wegs 6y ago
    You don't read Frozen. You watch Frozen. You watch it in first grade through maybe through eighth grade, but probably at that point, you're too embarrassed to go to a little children's movie. As much as I understand the more nuanced messages which could be taken out by a more sophisticated audience, much more so, I see the impact the movie has on actual real-world little kids. I both read and watched Starship Troopers as an adult.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > You don't read Frozen. “read” as in “to understand and give a particular meaning to written information, a statement, a situation, etc.” > You watch it in first grade through maybe through eighth grade, but probably at that point, you're too embarrassed to go to a little children's movie. Well, I mean I was a lot older when I watched it, but when my then-four year old watched it his commentary indicated that he saw the problems stemming from the behavior problem it highlighted pretty well. Not sure my almost-three-year-old got it, but she hasn't shown any sign of inverting the message as badly as you have.
dmitriid 6y ago
Frozen is as cliched and as boring as possible. Compare it to, say, Coco. Or Zootopia. Or Klaus. Or, if we're talking about relationship with parents, Inside Out.
- jerome-jh 6y ago
  Truly it has quite a bit of depth and is not predictable from the start. Certainly it appeals more to girls. Pixar movies tend to be rather didactic: "OK we are going to talk about [death|depression|aging|following your passion]" whereas the best kid movies just tell a great myth.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    > Truly it has quite a bit of depth and is not predictable from the start. It... really isn't. There's not much depth or unpredictability. It's the regular Disney hero journey: oh, I'm a misunderstood loner, oh, I've found my own path, oh, I've prevailed. Oh, and comic reliefs. There are "unexpected" twists as in "wow, these sisters don't need a strong man to save them", and that's as much depth as it gets. Unlike, say, Coco. Which actually: - "has harshness". There's an actual murder involved. There's the uncomfortable truth of people losing their memory. People facing death etc. What harshness is there in Frozen that we haven't seen 15000 times before? Most Disney musicals from before 2000 have significantly more harshness than anything Frozen has. - "complex character relationships". The relationship between Miguel and his relatives, especially grandmother. The ever evolving relationship between Miguel and Hector. In Frozen there's next to zero character development except "suddenly we don't talk, suddenly I'm strong, suddenly we're good, suddenly sister powah". - "appeals both to adults and children". Coco definitely caters to a more grown up children who understand the concept of getting old, and death. Frozen is for the kindergarteners who will hug an Olaf plushie and sing Letitgo on repeat. The scene where Miguel sings to Mama Coco is such a gut punch to anyone who has relatives with memory loss, Frozen couldn't even approach the depth of it in the wildest dreams. The same goes for all other movies in my list. Frozen is a flashy loud entertainment for kindergarteners. It's definitely not "the only American animated movie that's worth saving in the last 10 years". > whereas the best kid movies just tell a great myth. And Frozen fails to tell that myth. It's flashy, loud, with memorable songs. And the first quality animated musical in a long while. That's why it is memorable. But "the only animated movie in the past 10 years that deserves to be preserved"? Hahaha, no.
pdpi 6y ago
10 years is a lot of time, and "worth saving" is a very low barrier. I'd classify Kubo And The Two Strings, and Inside Out as must-watch films. Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse set new boundaries for what's possible with animation. Moana, Zootopia, Big Hero 6, Wreck-it Ralph, The Incredibles 2 and Finding Dory are all pretty good films, and definitely tick all the boxes you listed. I'm not even looking at Anomalisa, Isle of Dogs, and other such more adult-oriented animated films.

wegs 6y ago

Frozen teaches kids all the wrong lessons. Shirk your responsibilities. Ignore your community. Focus on yourself. "Let it Go" is like an ode to everything I dislike about American culture. It's so very American. Best animated movie I've seen in the past decade was probably Moana, but I can't say I've seen many.

Closi 6y ago
Well, actually the moral of Frozen is the absolute opposite - by shirking her responsibilities the community suffered, and she had to go back and face reality to restore the kingdom. The moral of the story was 'running away is not the answer'. "Let it go" as a song needs to be considered along with it's reprise: Elsa: "I'm such a fool, I can't be free. I can't escape from the storm inside of me... I can't control the curse! Oh I'm afraid I'll only make it worse. There's so much fear - you're not safe here, i.... i.... can't...." It's the same underlying moral story as the Lion King - Simba runs away and starts living the easy life, only for the community he left behind to suffer, and he has to become brave and face his responsibilities. The song "Let it go" is basically just "Hakuna Matata" from a story perspective. Is Hakuna Matata an ode to everything you dislike about American culture too? (Also the underlying story of Frozen is actually Danish)
- jfengel 6y ago
  The uplifting music of Let It Go is an odd contrast to the film's message. As is the whole character of Elsa, who is seen as the protagonist of the film, when in fact she's practically the villain. Ana is the protagonist, but almost comes off as a sidekick. You can feel the film's heritage, in which Elsa really was supposed to be the villain. It didn't evolve that way, setting up a genuine shock at the big reveal. Let It Go ends up mashing the I Wish song and the Villain Song, and (with Menzel's breathtaking voice) comes out doubly exciting. It makes the film feel a little uncoordinated, in a way that I like because it doesn't just follow the tropes. But I think they didn't even understand that success themselves, and the sequel was rather poor. It dismissed the fact that the first film turned out to be about sisterhood, in a genuinely touching way, and thus lost its heart.
jerome-jh 6y ago
"Let it go" is pretty early in the movie, that's not the conclusion. To the contrary at the end Kristoff turns its steps to help stop a feminicide.
jimbob45 6y ago
I’m fairly sure they created “Let it go” before they really knew what the story would be about. They knew it was a snowy movie, knew they wanted something to rhyme with the traditional “Let it snow”, and vaguely had the idea that an angsty girl would be singing the song. As a result, the lyrics are incredibly generic and hardly seem to fit her specific situation.
- Closi 6y ago
  You are half right, according to the song writer Robert Lopez the original movie structure and plan just had the placeholder title “Elsa’s Badass Song” and he was told to go write it, and then came up with let it go. But it was still very early in the process and it was the first song to be written that actually made it into the movie. The extended soundtrack includes quite a few of the early songs that didn’t make it into the movie where they were still trying to work out what the style of music was going to be and who the characters are, so the music and story were definitely co-developed together.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Frozen teaches kids all the wrong lessons. Shirk your responsibilities. Ignore your community. Focus on yourself. Reading Frozen as teaching that is like reading Veerhoeven’s Starship Troopers (which, sure, is abysmal on all sorts of other grounds) as an endorsement of Fascism. Yea, those things occur in the movie, but the movie is quite specifically about it producing bad outcomes that must be dealt with by people doing exactly the opposite.
- wegs 6y ago
  You don't read Frozen. You watch Frozen. You watch it in first grade through maybe through eighth grade, but probably at that point, you're too embarrassed to go to a little children's movie. As much as I understand the more nuanced messages which could be taken out by a more sophisticated audience, much more so, I see the impact the movie has on actual real-world little kids. I both read and watched Starship Troopers as an adult.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > You don't read Frozen. “read” as in “to understand and give a particular meaning to written information, a statement, a situation, etc.” > You watch it in first grade through maybe through eighth grade, but probably at that point, you're too embarrassed to go to a little children's movie. Well, I mean I was a lot older when I watched it, but when my then-four year old watched it his commentary indicated that he saw the problems stemming from the behavior problem it highlighted pretty well. Not sure my almost-three-year-old got it, but she hasn't shown any sign of inverting the message as badly as you have.

dmitriid 6y ago

Frozen is as cliched and as boring as possible. Compare it to, say, Coco. Or Zootopia. Or Klaus. Or, if we're talking about relationship with parents, Inside Out.

jerome-jh 6y ago
Truly it has quite a bit of depth and is not predictable from the start. Certainly it appeals more to girls. Pixar movies tend to be rather didactic: "OK we are going to talk about [death|depression|aging|following your passion]" whereas the best kid movies just tell a great myth.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  > Truly it has quite a bit of depth and is not predictable from the start. It... really isn't. There's not much depth or unpredictability. It's the regular Disney hero journey: oh, I'm a misunderstood loner, oh, I've found my own path, oh, I've prevailed. Oh, and comic reliefs. There are "unexpected" twists as in "wow, these sisters don't need a strong man to save them", and that's as much depth as it gets. Unlike, say, Coco. Which actually: - "has harshness". There's an actual murder involved. There's the uncomfortable truth of people losing their memory. People facing death etc. What harshness is there in Frozen that we haven't seen 15000 times before? Most Disney musicals from before 2000 have significantly more harshness than anything Frozen has. - "complex character relationships". The relationship between Miguel and his relatives, especially grandmother. The ever evolving relationship between Miguel and Hector. In Frozen there's next to zero character development except "suddenly we don't talk, suddenly I'm strong, suddenly we're good, suddenly sister powah". - "appeals both to adults and children". Coco definitely caters to a more grown up children who understand the concept of getting old, and death. Frozen is for the kindergarteners who will hug an Olaf plushie and sing Letitgo on repeat. The scene where Miguel sings to Mama Coco is such a gut punch to anyone who has relatives with memory loss, Frozen couldn't even approach the depth of it in the wildest dreams. The same goes for all other movies in my list. Frozen is a flashy loud entertainment for kindergarteners. It's definitely not "the only American animated movie that's worth saving in the last 10 years". > whereas the best kid movies just tell a great myth. And Frozen fails to tell that myth. It's flashy, loud, with memorable songs. And the first quality animated musical in a long while. That's why it is memorable. But "the only animated movie in the past 10 years that deserves to be preserved"? Hahaha, no.

pdpi 6y ago

10 years is a lot of time, and "worth saving" is a very low barrier. I'd classify Kubo And The Two Strings, and Inside Out as must-watch films. Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse set new boundaries for what's possible with animation. Moana, Zootopia, Big Hero 6, Wreck-it Ralph, The Incredibles 2 and Finding Dory are all pretty good films, and definitely tick all the boxes you listed. I'm not even looking at Anomalisa, Isle of Dogs, and other such more adult-oriented animated films.