Frozen 2 Characterizations: Thoughts and SPOILERS

Well, now that Star Wars IV is out, I have other movie critiques on my mind, but I promised my loyal readership of ~40 my take on Frozen 2’s characterization issues, so here you go!

Elsa

1. In the last movie, Elsa was supposed to have learned her lesson about isolating herself and trying to go it alone. So what does she do the minute things get tough in Frozen 2? She puts Anna and Olaf in an ice sled/boat and pushes them down the mountain so they can’t follow her. (She then proceeds to not worry at all about what might happen to them as a result. But who cares because she can ride a WATER HORSE.)

2. The movie makes the case that Elsa is the fifth elemental spirit. As pointed out by the Pitch Meeting guy, ice is water, so how are Elsa’s ice powers really that different from the water spirit’s? Also, Elsa isn’t a spirit. She’s a person. Was there no fifth spirit until she was born? Are we claiming that she gets reincarnated like the Aang in Avatar: The Last Airbender? It feels unclear . . .

Anna

In the first movie, Anna was a warm-hearted person who cared about everyone and thought the best of them. In this movie, Anna only seems to care about Elsa and her welfare. She’s so preoccupied with her sister that she pays no attention to her boyfriend, even though they’re close enough that she’s willing to marry him. She sneaks off in the middle of the night without even trying to find Kristoff (and since the Northuldra leader goes and finds him in the morning, that lady obviously knew where he was and could have told Anna if she’d thought to ask). Anna also gets all weird and misinterprets everything Kristoff says. And, most frustrating of all, when Anna is at her lowest, when she loses Olaf to the flurries and believes her sister is gone, she doesn’t spare one thought or tear for what could have happened to her boyfriend. She doesn’t think about him at all.

I assume the movie-makers were trying to pass Anna off as so focused on Elsa that she couldn’t think about anyone else, but I think that sells Anna short. I think Anna from Frozen 1 would have thought of and worried about Kristoff because she’s that kind of person. She would have cared about him even if he weren’t her almost-fiancé, and he is. I think she would have hoped that he would find her and/or help her with her task to break down the bridge. This Anna seems to entirely forget he exists. This flaw in how Anna is presented takes away from the most powerful song of the movie, “The Next Right Thing,” which I think could have been enhanced if Anna had also been mourning Kristoff, missing him or realizing that she shouldn’t have left him behind, in addition to mourning losing Elsa and Olaf.

Kristoff

Lastly, Kristoff was presented in this movie as a buffoon who couldn’t do one thing right. And the one thing, the only role he had in this movie, was to repeatedly try and fail to propose. And then to disappear for a long time and be forgotten by everyone until he swoops in on Sven to scoop up Anna so she doesn’t get crushed by rock giants. Super exciting. But we’ll throw a 90’s boy band song about how he’s completely lost without his girl, so it’s okay. I don’t know if this was the intent, but it seems like the movie tried to play up the sister bond and girl power while making the boy look silly and helpless. That’s unfortunate if it was the intent and, even if it wasn’t, it was the result. Frozen 1 did a great job of showcasing a strong sister bond while also having a strong male character. In that movie, Kristoff was rough around the edges, but kind and level-headed and selfless. He wasn’t the focus of the movie, but he was a well-rounded, strong character. In this movie, he became a caricature of himself, and it’s sad.

Everyone else in the show:

Fodder for merchandise. Why develop characters who add to the plot when you can create cute animated things to sell as stuffed animals and action figures instead?

So there you are with my thoughts on the characterization in the movie. I didn’t like much about it, but I think the character issues sprang at least in part from a weak plot, and the weak plot came from making a sequel of a movie that was clearly meant to be a standalone.