While there might not be a lot of new Christmas-related Disney stories to report, there is one wintry seasonal piece of news: the first concept image and story details from next year’s “Frozen.” “Frozen” is Disney’s adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Snow Queen,” a story that’s been in the works for years.
Production on “Frozen” has been off and on for almost ten years, with the film looking like it’s getting made, and then being shelved. It’s back on for real this time, and it even has a release date: November 27, 2013. Just in time for most of the country to head into their own wintry weather. Entertainment Weekly has more details.
Because this is Disney, “Frozen” isn’t going to resemble the original fairy tale very much. The original is Anderson’s longest, and as such it’s rather dense. The Disney version stars two sisters: Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) and Elsa (voiced by Idina Mentzel). Elsa was born with the power to control wind and ice. Now, years later, the world has been stuck in a perpetual winter. Anna journeys into the mountains to confront her sister, who’s surely the cause: in addition to the clear line drawn between Elsa’s powers and the never-ending winter, all the ice bears Elsa’s own snowflake mark.
Anna doesn’t travel alone. This is a Disney animated movie, after all, there’s got to be a bit of romance to it (though “Wreck-It Ralph” was refreshing in that the only romance was on the sidelines). Anna travels up to the mountains to find her sister with her “cliff-hanging” friend Kristoff. He’ll be voiced by Jonathan Groff.
While “Frozen,” like most other Disney fairy-tale films, will be set in a fantasy realm, it draws inspiration from real areas. In this case, it’s Scandinavian, which makes sense, given both the original fairy tale and who wrote it. Beyond that, we don’t have any more details on the movie or its story. It’s being directed by Chris Buck, who directed “Tarzan,” and also did character design on “The Little Mermaid,” “The Brave Little Toaster,” and “Pocahontas.” Jennifer Lee is co-directing and writing the screenplay, and she was also one of the two screenplay writers on “Wreck-It Ralph.”
“Frozen” is suffering a bit from “Tangled” syndrome; the name of the fairy tale has been replaced with a one-syllable title, to disguise the fact that this is a story starring a woman. That ended up working for me with “Tangled,” because it was as much Flynn’s story as Rapunzel’s. Even so, why the female-phobia? Shouldn’t we be proving that a woman’s story can also be interesting for men and contain well-realized male characters? Given the many things I’d like Disney to improve on, however, this is a bit lower on the list.
We’ll just have to wait until next year to find out, and given that I’m always a sucker for a good fairy tale, I can’t wait. If you want to check out the first piece of concept art for “Frozen,” head over to Entertainment Weekly’s website
*(The above image by Katie@! is licensed under the Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution License).