disney concept art: the most beautiful dynamic original thing i have ever seen
disney finished project: rubber same face minimalism regurgitated plots
concept art:
final version:
What makes me so mad is that snow queen is such a lovely tale and there was an evil mirror that shattered and froze the queen’s heart. So the first thing the newly evil queen does is PLUNGE THE KINGDOM INTO ETERNAL WINTER.
And the kid Anna is based off of is actually this sweet peasant girl who is rescuing her best friend whom everyone else thought drowned and whom no one cared for because mirror shards got in his eyes and he only saw beauty in snowflakes while everything else was just disgustingly foul to him. Except he didn’t drown because he was whisked away by the snow queen.
Like this girl gives her shoes to the river to find out he didn’t drown. Her hair ribbons to the birds to find out who took him. Works her hands raw to get to him and has to suffer a mental breakdown because she got SO FUCKING CLOSE to saving him and he won’t even look at her because he wants to solve this puzzle the snow queen gave him.
And then her sobbing wakes him up and he cries and washes the shards from his eyes and the fact that she saved him is enough to melt the snow queens heart and she brings spring back to the kingdom.
Wow Frozen really is some weak shit
Let’s not forget Gerda’s journey takes her along a long road that includes meetings with multiple women, many of them old, most of whom are not evil witches but wise women who aid her in her quest. She’s also at one point held captive by a bandit princess who swaps clothes with her and insists on sleeping in the same bed and routinely threatens her with a knife, but she eventually lets Gerda go with a magic talking reindeer she was also holding captive. The bandit princess cries because goddamn Gerda you’re so NICE and PRETTY and BRAVE and you clearly care about this stupid guy I GUESS and I can’t bear it just GO ok just GO and also you better fucking take care of her reindeer or I will CUT YOU.
The story is full of interesting complex women of many ages and magical talking animals and it’s a real shame we didn’t get an adaptation closer to the original ‘cause it’s really cool.
hey good news about the adaption:
There was a Soviet animated movie from 1957, that doesn’t brush over any of the things you just listed.
You get Gerda on her journey, meeting all of those people that both hinder her quest and help her, with older women from different regions of northern europe, as well as several princesses who aid her
also the art style and animation is absolutely gorgeous and I always feel like it’s a shame that older Soviet animation is barely recognized around the world
you can see the entire thing with english subtitles here
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I’m certain I’ve seen the soviet one dubbed in english before. I loved it.
The 1998-2003 cartoon, The Fairytaler, a show telling all of H.C. Andersen’s most famous (and not so famous) stories - it’s really good plz check it out, also had a 2-parter episode telling of The Snow Queen that also covers the story in pretty great detail, tho it’s compressed into an hour of runtime.
and then there’s an animated movie from 1995 I watched as a kid, tho I don’t remember if it was any good
I would like to draw attention to Russia’s Wizart animation studio, which is just now screening the 4th movie in their series of Snow Queen movies, which are all very lovely, I have to say.
The first one was marketed like a Frozen ripoff when it was actually in production and released (2012) before Disney’s version (2013). They might not be as polished or even consistent with their bizarre established canon, but I like them, at least.