The Spirited Sixth Sense ...

[Kuzcotopia]

I think a lot of Frozen's popularity comes from the characters. In the disney pantheon, any female character with powers or any real self-efficacy has been a villain.

A good female character with superpowers is very appealing. I don't think Disney anticipated how popular she would be (and it IS Elsa who's popular. Anna's along for the ride).

I have a 5 year old daughter who's seen a Christmas and a Birthday since the movie's come out. I've seen racks of Elsa stuff completely empty at most stores, right next to a ton of unsold Anna merch.

 

[GiveMeTheMusic]

3D combo yes, but I'm not too sure about more bonus features. Disney has been quite cheap in that department for some time now, so I don't think it's a given like so many online expect it to be. Do the 3D combos out now in the UK or South Korea have more bonus features?

I think they'll have to provide more bonuses or there'll be no incentive to double dip - 3D isn't a good enough reason for most people, as most people don't have 3D TVs. I'd be surprised if the new combo pack wasn't plussed up.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I think they'll have to provide more bonuses or there'll be no incentive to double dip - 3D isn't a good enough reason for most people, as most people don't have 3D TVs. I'd be surprised if the new combo pack wasn't plussed up.

Nothing would surprise me with WDSHE. They've failed to follow through with plans many times and have no problems making cuts to quality.

 

[wogwog]

A quick update...

Was disney truly THAT blindsided by the success of Frozen that they didn't order enough/have enough available merchandise to meet demands?

I popped into the Disney Store @ south hills village mall in search of, hopefully, an Elsa dress (I know, fat chance. Haven't seen one since November) or an Anna dress for my little cousins upcoming 4th birthday. The entire store did not have a single item of Frozen merchandise. Instead, they overstocked the shelves with animators dolls and tons of Rapunzel dresses and dolls. I asked the only available employee (three others had a Mickey dance party thing going on in the back of the store) and she said "ma'am, all I hear all day long is 'why y'all got no frozen stuff' and I keep giving everyone the same answer, we are completely out and they haven't sent us anything for weeks!"

So I checked Target, once again, and the Disney shelves, once again, were wiped out, minus a few baby dolls that apparently no kid likes.



This is almost identical to how this exact aisle looked months ago when I took a pic of it and posted it here.

Did Frozen really knock Disney for a loop or were they simply being cheap with the designs and merch and now it's biting them on the ?

And please pardon spelling or wrong word errors, my iPad has a mind of its own today :/

I think the same folks who try to run all this MM minus junk also order the souvenir junk. You would think congress is in charge of Disney now.

 

[Soarin' Over Pgh]

I think a lot of Frozen's popularity comes from the characters. In the disney pantheon, any female character with powers or any real self-efficacy has been a villain.

A good female character with superpowers is very appealing. I don't think Disney anticipated how popular she would be (and it IS Elsa who's popular. Anna's along for the ride).

I have a 5 year old daughter who's seen a Christmas and a Birthday since the movie's come out. I've seen racks of Elsa stuff completely empty at most stores, right next to a ton of unsold Anna merch.

They both seem very popular here but Elsa definitely has a foot up on Anna. Olaf is also popular, but I haven't seen much merch for him.

I think the same folks who try to run all this MM minus junk also order the souvenir junk. You would think congress is in charge of Disney now.

It sure seems that way.

How are the parks on Frozen merch? Anything on the shelves? More importantly, anything left at the end of the day?

Honestly I haven't sen anything like this merchandise issue since monster high came out, it was a simple few dolls without a dedicated spot on the shelves but you couldn't find a doll. They were selling before being unbowed. Now they're everywhere...but still selling very well.

 

[Soarin' Over Pgh]

Nothing would surprise me with WDSHE. They've failed to follow through with plans many times and have no problems making cuts to quality.

Ok I'm usually pretty good with the abbreviations but what is WDSHE?

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Ok I'm usually pretty good with the abbreviations but what is WDSHE?

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, formerly Buena Vista Home Entertainment.

 

[Cesar R M]

Disney's prices have outpaced inflation on an exponential level, the charts have been posted here multiple times. Vacation wise, it doesn't get much more costly than $600+ a night for a hotel room, and that's a frequent occurrence at the deluxe resorts, which is why their occupancy is so low.

For the cost of tickets, food and Disney resort nights for a family of four, they can take a world-class vacation on a luxury cruise liner (notice I didn't say DCL, which is stupidly expensive as well) or God forbid, go someplace outside of the country. When you can blow $7K in a week at WDW, there are definitely other options at that price level that don't involve theme parks that have less in them now then they did 10 years ago.

I'm still surprised they are not even trying to use the whole thing in their favor!
aka lower prices, make everyone go to their resorts and only increase park prices to keep the load balanced.

they could even sold packages with certain days for certain parks to balance the load of each park as well.
but they seem to try their best to squeeze as much as they can from the dwindling resort visitors instead of making them returning customers.

Interestingly and somewhat related, the lovely Maui hotel the DW and I honeymooned at over 20 years ago costs about 20% more today than it did in the early 1990s.

20 years, 20% price increase, same beautiful facility.

I wish I could say the same for WDW.

what is the name of the hotel?

It just goes to show how blatantly out of touch most Disney execs are with what people want. Getting blindsided by Frozen's success is inexcusable, and if it were a real company, heads would roll.

The thing is, the bigger you screw up at Disney, the bigger your promotion. Look at Jay Rasulo!

You make sound like disney is the military version of a fraud related to weapons.

I think a lot of Frozen's popularity comes from the characters. In the disney pantheon, any female character with powers or any real self-efficacy has been a villain.

A good female character with superpowers is very appealing. I don't think Disney anticipated how popular she would be (and it IS Elsa who's popular. Anna's along for the ride).

I have a 5 year old daughter who's seen a Christmas and a Birthday since the movie's come out. I've seen racks of Elsa stuff completely empty at most stores, right next to a ton of unsold Anna merch.

Isnt also due of the fact that Elsa is the first disney "queen" to be one one of the main protagonists?

 

[Nubs70]

Not to write much about the Walking Dead but !!!!!!

 

[Buried20KLeague]

That bacon ball thing is at the Gazebo, which is to the left of Crystal Palace. It's basically at the edge of World Bazaar. They had it last May and in November, so I'd be shocked if they don't have it now.

If they don't for some reason, here's an alternative snack: the Tipo Torta in a stand across from Pinocchio in Fantasyland. Order both flavors. They are sort of like churro, except approximately 19 times better.

Well that explains that... They have a new menu. Seafood chowder, and what seems to be chili CONE carne imported from Cali. :/

 

[JimboJones123]

Awhk update...

Was disney truly THAT blindsided by the success of Frozen that they didn't order enough/have enough available merchandise to meet demands?

I popped into the Disney Store @ south hills village mall in search of, hopefully, an Elsa dress (I know, fat chance. Haven't seen one since November) or an Anna dress for my little cousins upcoming 4th birthday. The entire store did not have a single item of Frozen merchandise. Instead, they overstocked the shelves with animators dolls and tons of Rapunzel dresses and dolls. I asked the only available employee (three others had a Mickey dance party thing going on in the back of the store) and she said "ma'am, all I hear all day long is 'why y'all got no frozen stuff' and I keep giving everyone the same answer, we are completely out and they haven't sent us anything for weeks!"

So I checked Target, once again, and the Disney shelves, once again, were wiped out, minus a few baby dolls that apparently no kid likes.



This is almost identical to how this exact aisle looked months ago when I took a pic of it and posted it here.

Did Frozen really knock Disney for a loop or were they simply being cheap with the designs and merch and now it's biting them on the ?

And please pardon spelling or wrong word errors, my iPad has a mind of its own today :/

Quarter to half billion dollar merchandise blunder?

Whoops.

 

[JimboJones123]

I don't think he's bad mouthing it, I think he's more commenting on the Walt Disney company's inability to build anything in a timely fashion…

4 years for a mini coaster is a bit much.

 

[Nubs70]

Not to write much about the Walking Dead but ***!!!!!!

Holy double #####!!!!!!

 

[aladdin2007]

Holy double #####!!!!!!

Triple that, yikes

 

[wogwog]

4 years for a mini coaster is a bit much.

Be nice now. They devoted a lot of resources and a few $$ making you a nice rubber bracelet, so they have been busy.

 

[JimboJones123]

Well, and I'm the second person you know.

Yeah, I frankly don't get the fuss either. But the movie has somehow struck a very resonant chord with the general public, and that's a good thing. It's boosted Walt Disney Animation tremendously, and as a Walt Disney fan, I couldn't be more pleased.

It is the desperate need to fill a gap left empty since Aladdin.

Since Lion King was animals, it was missing a human element, but Aladdin was the last time I felt a real human connection tia Disney Animated Feature.

A Whole New World has yet to be topped in representing the human experience in Disney song. The Elton John, Phil Collins, Randy Newman forced pop tunes have not been cutting it.

Let It Go is a great song. It truly sparks the listener for the first time since A Whole New World. It is a pretty great song. When was there a song that encouraged one to fight through the incredible pressures of the world and be true to yourself in a Disney film? True To Your Heart was a pop/cheezeball forgettable mess.

It is not an easily dismissible song.

 

[ford91exploder]

Quarter to half billion dollar merchandise blunder?

Whoops.

Yes a whoops but also a sign of a frightened management team which is so concerned about expenses that they under-ordered merchandise because it's better to sell everything than to have even one item left over as expenses are the sole item which DIsney can control, You see the SAME behavior at Gasparilla's where they run out of snacks by 6PM but management is afraid to order more snacks - 'what happens to me if all the snacks don't sell'

Once again TWDC concentrates on picking up pennies while dollars fly over their head.

 

[JimboJones123]

I enjoy Frozen. Unlike Tangled which I feel is a boring and mediocre mess, I found Frozen to be a pleasant surprise and is solid/good/etc. But it's not some sort of masterpiece that can even hope to touch the likes of Beauty and the Beast and the other renaissance era Disney animated movies. It's a step up for non-Pixar Disney animation and gives hope for the future of their core Disney-made movies again (especially now that Pixar just produced three stinkers in a row and i'm now troubled about their future quality). But it's important to remember that with only a couple of rare and notable exceptions such as Meet the Robinsons (which I love) and also the recent Winnie the Pooh and Wreck it Ralph, it's still just a step up from what has largely been mediocrity at best, sometimes even outright bad to horrible movies such as Home on the Range and Chicken Little. It's a big step up to be sure, but remember that it's a step up from pretty much rock bottom most of the time. And there's still yet a VERY long way to climb before they're even close to where they were before. Plus despite enjoying Frozen myself, I can completely understand why some people wouldn't like the movie. It's not perfect and has a lot of flaws underneath that keep it from touching the pre-2000's masterpieces.

In regards to at least the music, the creators at Disney weren't wrong about it being blah IMO. I'm not a big fan of Let it Go at all, without the hype i'd probably consider it ok to decent at best, but nothing special like it's hyped to be. It wouldn't surprise me if it's going to turn into a sort of "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" going forward where it's over-played everywhere so people end up sick to death of it (I've already heard this complaint even from people who like it that they're tired of hearing it everywhere, it doesn't have that beautiful replayability of Tale as Old as Time that only gets better the more you hear it for instance)... I actually far prefer the arrangement of Let it Go used in World of Color to the actual film version, it adds a sort of epic orchestral flair that the movie version is missing. First time in Forever is ok, nothing special but at least it hasn't been played to death like Let it Go. Do you Want to Build a Snowman is probably my pick for favorite song in the movie, the only one I'd consider outright good and i've even hummed it a few time around the house (still not up there with BATB, Little Mermaid or the majority of Hunchback of Notre Dame however). The rest of the soundtrack i'd say is actually anywhere from bad to straight up annoying... I mentioned this before, but soon after seeing Frozen I decided to see Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera for the first time (luckily there is an official recording of the 25th anniversary London Cast's version made available on DVD/Bluray so I had a watch). I adored it and was in awe at the entire show, the absolutely spectacular music and singing served as a truly amazing palate cleansing after coming away let down by Frozen's music.

I did enjoy Frozen's story, to some extent at least. Thought it was an enjoyable movie to watch unfold, though I had some serious gripes with some plot elements and the pacing was off at times. The villain was completely stupid though, I didn't enjoy that part whatsoever or the character (I expect at least SOME entertainment and interest out of a Disney villain at the very least). I even kind of had a feeling they would pull something like it considering all the blatant jabs they were taking at classic Disney movies from the early-mid 1900's. Hoped they would be more clever with it though. Wouldn't even have minded them poking fun at old Disney movie plots had they been more subtle about it and had this movie been a little better constructed, with a more interesting and better developed/designed villain to boot. Poking fun at classic Disney story development was something Shrek 1 and 2 did far better though.

I can't speak for others who enjoyed the movie, but I honestly think the driving reason it was a pleasant surprise for me personally was because I had my expectations at rock bottom going in. I did not let the hype get me excited after being misled and burned by the extremely disappointing and mediocre Tangled. Seeing the incredibly stupid early teasers of Frozen centering around stupidity with Olaf didn't help my expectations any (who yeah is a very annoying and unfunny character but graciously shoved to the side in favor of the other main characters so we didn't have to put up with him TOO much). I went into Frozen expecting garbage and came away pleasantly surprised at how surprisingly solid it was, but it STILL didn't blow me away. I can't help but wonder how i'd have felt about it if I had gone in expecting Beauty and the Beast like many people were hyping it as. I've a feeling I would have been very let down (again). Still think it's much better than Tangled, but low expectations I believe are the reason I enjoyed it to the extent I did.

But suffice to say, I still enjoyed Frozen, glaring problems and over-hype aside. So that is something. I don't blame anyone for not liking it though, I completely get why they wouldn't. I hope the creatives at Disney continue to ascend up the staircase and further improve their future films. Unfortunately mandating a Frozen sequel like Iger wants is likely to just throw the studio back down to the bottom again, potentially nullifying the progress they've made so far and making it ever more difficult to climb back up. Movie was good, i'd say it deserves to do well, but they can't just milk it and fall right back into the same failure they were in prior to it (like Iger apparently wants).

Why do you need a strictly defined and archetypal villain? I thought it was refreshing not to have a lingering threat waiting in the background as part of a checklist to get to the finish.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Why do you need a strictly defined and archetypal villain? I thought it was refreshing not to have a lingering threat waiting in the background as part of a checklist to get to the finish.

You don't, and that's not my argument. The villain in Frozen is bad IMO because of poor writing, not because the concept of creating different and unusual villains is inherently a bad idea. We've already seen that Disney is capable of creating villains that break common villain archetypes, with good writing to create a still interesting and compelling character- Gaston (definitely not your traditional type of villain at least at first). He even had a pretty neat story arc in his own way, and did an infinitely better job at twisting the traditional fairy tale stereotypes than Frozen. Not to mention he has a really great (but funny and unusual) theme song as well. The one in Frozen was simply bland, predictable, under-developed, non threatening and overall completely uninteresting. Felt shoehorned in at the last second in order to add more drama instead of creating a more interesting threat. I'd have preferred the movie had no real villain at all over the one they just crammed in there, I was actually satisfied with a lack of one until they pulled that twist out of their butts. I like Frozen way more than Tangled in most respects, but at the very least Tangled had a far superior villain in Mother Gothel (a potentially fantastic villain with an amazing singing voice tragically held back from her full potential due to the poor writing and meh music). She also bucked the trend of stereotypical villains as well in many ways. Frollo even had a lot of complexities as far as traditional villains go.

As for Frozen's villain, Pixar did something very similar with Stinky Pete in Toy Story 2, but the right way. He is similar in a lot of ways to Frozen's villain, just so much better written, more memorable, better development etc. Frozen's villain is quite similar in many ways to Pete, just written far worse and much more predictably and bland. Even Lotso was a better handled villain than Frozen (and he already just felt like a far blander and less shocking retread of Stinky Pete).

I think it's a great idea to create non-stereotypical villains. I love the traditional Disney villains as well, but I also fully support bringing in some more different ones as well. Frozen's was just completely bland though. You can screw up more stereotypical villains as well, i'm not a huge fan of Clayton from Tarzan for example (despite really enjoying most of the rest of the movie).

 

[JimboJones123]

You don't, and that's not my argument. The villain in Frozen is bad IMO because of poor writing, not because the concept of creating different and unusual villains is inherently a bad idea. We've already seen that Disney is capable of creating villains that break common villain archetypes, with good writing to create a still interesting and compelling character- Gaston (definitely not your traditional type of villain at least at first). He even had a pretty neat story arc in his own way, and did an infinitely better job at twisting the traditional fairy tale stereotypes than Frozen. Not to mention he has a really great (but funny and unusual) theme song as well. The one in Frozen was simply bland, predictable, under-developed, non threatening and overall completely uninteresting. Felt shoehorned in at the last second in order to add more drama instead of creating a more interesting threat. I'd have preferred the movie had no real villain at all over the one they just crammed in there, I was actually satisfied with a lack of one until they pulled that twist out of their butts. I like Frozen way more than Tangled in most respects, but at the very least Tangled had a far superior villain in Mother Gothel (a potentially fantastic villain with an amazing singing voice tragically held back from her full potential due to the poor writing and meh music). She also bucked the trend of stereotypical villains as well in many ways. Frollo even had a lot of complexities as far as traditional villains go.

As for Frozen's villain, Pixar did something very similar with Stinky Pete in Toy Story 2, but the right way. He is similar in a lot of ways to Frozen's villain, just so much better written, more memorable, better development etc. Frozen's villain is quite similar in many ways to Pete, just written far worse and much more predictably and bland. Even Lotso was a better handled villain than Frozen (and he already just felt like a far blander and less shocking retread of Stinky Pete).

I think it's a great idea to create non-stereotypical villains. I love the traditional Disney villains as well, but I also fully support bringing in some more different ones as well. Frozen's was just completely bland though. You can screw up more stereotypical villains as well, i'm not a huge fan of Clayton from Tarzan for example (despite really enjoying most of the rest of the movie).

You lost me at Gaston is a great Villain.

KILL THE BEAST!!!!
Cookie cutter as they come.

Shoehorned in at the end?

Did you even watch the first 35 minutes?