Latest / Project Geekology / Celebrating a Decade of "Frozen": Disney Magic, Anime Trends, and Gaming Adventures

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Celebrating a Decade of "Frozen": Disney Magic, Anime Trends, and Gaming Adventures · Project Geekology

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Project Geekology.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: This is Episode 67.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm one of your hosts, dakota, and I'm joined, as always, with Anthony, and today we're covering Frozen, the first film that came out over 10 years ago now and that's kind of crazy to think about because it's such a huge phenomenon.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: We kind of assumed that it came out a little bit more recently than 10 years ago, but a lot has changed in those 10 years.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Sequels come out, several expanded universe, titles have populated like book store shelves and stuff, and we're going to touch on a little bit of that.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: But the main focus of today's show is definitely going to be the 2013 film, frozen, and basically not only the impact that it had, but like just talking about the film itself, like getting into the nitty-gritty of why did Elsa do this, what happened to their parents, their queen, stuff, like that.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: So we look forward to talking about Frozen and all the many things that come along with it, and we hope you enjoy the ride as well, because we know this isn't everyone's cup of tea.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: We know this is a little bit more for a younger audience, generally speaking, but I think that it's something that can be enjoyed by pretty much anyone.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: It's a pretty four quadrant film, if you allow it to, you know, just tell its own story.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: So before we get into any of that, anthony, what have you been up to lately?
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Well, we just had the month of December pretty much come and go like a blink.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: We just had that whole holiday season just come and go and now we're about halfway into January.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: I know it's a little bit longer than I wanted to get this first episode out in the year, but the month has just been flying by.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I want to apologize a little bit about our tardiness.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I know we do this pretty regularly at this point, but we promised you a podcast about Hayao Miyazaki's most recent film, the Boy and the Heron, last time after we covered Castle in the Sky, and we did not do that.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I think it's a mix of a couple things.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: We both had a lot going on in our lives.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I'm going through preparing for a literal life move, like I'm moving somewhere else, so there's a lot of packing, a lot of planning involved in that, and Anthony has a lot of stuff going on with the holidays and stuff.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: So I think it just kept like getting in the way of every time we wanted to film, something kept coming up on both of our ends the Boy and the Heron.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you felt this too, anthony, but that's a movie that you need to cover like directly after watching it.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, there's a lot that's going on Like that movie felt like one giant metaphor and I do want to cover this film, but I have to watch it again, because there is a lot that happens in that film.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't be able to cover it now just based on memory.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: I'd have to watch it again 100%.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: So I think we're going to wait until that's on some streaming service or on Blu-ray whatever, just so that we can cover that with some semblance of just being comfortable with what we're actually putting out, because there is so much in the movie.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I like what you said about it being a giant metaphor because you know, it goes into like Miyazaki's own life story.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: It goes into, like, what he wants his art to represent.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: It goes into the friends you make along the way and there's so much more.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: It's a huge metaphor for art and life in general and I think that to really nail that Down in podcast form, you need to discuss it right after watching it.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: So I think that's a movie that we're gonna have to hold off on, even though we promise you the next episode would be boy In the hair and, alas, it's frozen.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, which?
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: it's a good time of year for frozen because we are in the winter season, so and that's a very cold film.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I know you know all about the cold living in South Florida.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Oh man, we are preparing for the blizzard that will never show up as soon as it hits like 70 degrees in Florida.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: You know your grandparents are making you wear like heavy jackets and you know, oh, it's freezing, oh, be careful.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as soon as the temperature hits 60, like people are putting on, like.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Parkers.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, they look like they're about to go skiing.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, skating in Florida.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I tell you that I used to live in South Florida.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I visit pretty regularly.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I'm actually I'm planning on visiting pretty soon just because I have a bunch of family down there.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Anthony's down there, so we hang out occasionally.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: But yeah, Anthony, what have you been up to lately?
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: You know, man.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, aside from, you know, dealing with all the the holiday stuff, my anime Consumption has like really like uptick.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: There's a new one that just dropped.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: That's pretty popular.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: It's probably gonna be on par with like a jujutsu kaisen and a demon slayer.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: It's called solo leveling.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: It's been pretty popular.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: There was some buzz around it for a while and when they finally announced that the anime was gonna drop, like people were just Getting so like crazy excited.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: I think I started seeing some people Cosplay beforehand, kind of like when they announced chainsaw man.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I saw so many cosplay chainsaw man Before the anime even dropped.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh man, this guy's the head of the curve.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Most of these anime come from manga beforehand, like long beforehand every once in a while you get something that is Like kind of its own thing.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: But yeah, a lot of it is Inspired by.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I would say we're directly translated from manga the anime that only lasts like one or two seasons are generally not Manga first.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: As far as, like my experience with anime goes, I haven't been super caught up with it lately.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of stuff I have to catch up on.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I'm still trying to catch up with one piece a little bit.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: There's been some one piece news recently.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've kept up with that.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: I know we talked a little bit on the side right, I saw that, so we have a Prequel to one piece called monsters.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: That's coming out later this month and like less than 10 days.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: So what?
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: is it a prequel of?
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Is that like when the great pirate era began?
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: It's gonna center around the character that you get to See in the wano wano country arc which is later on.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not there yet but, like I said, I watch a good bit of the one piece and then I'll take a break and I'll watch other anime Everyone's on.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna be honest with you, sometimes I want to take a break from the shonen stuff or the action stuff.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: There is action anime that's not shown in style that I will watch, but sometimes I'll watch like slice of life stuff and then sometimes there there's like comedy ones that I like to watch.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: There's one called rent a girlfriend, which is like absolutely ridiculous yeah, it's pretty funny.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: And another one that's pretty interesting that I've been watching is called Ashinoko.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: So in that anime you come across this doctor that is a big fan of a Japanese idol which you know is like a singer, and the biggest reason why he's a real big fan of this idol and her name is I Hoshino, and the biggest reason why he's a fan is because he had this young girl that was Under his care and she was terminally ill and so they kind of connected over that and so he just kind of like became a big fan and I guess like he kind of held on to that after this girl passes and there's this belief in this world that sometimes, when somebody dies, they'll be reincarnated as a celebrity's baby.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what happens in this anime.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: The doctor gets killed and he gets like reincarnated as this idols child because she has, like these secret children and that like she, she, she kind of goes to his hospital because his hospital is like out in the mountains, and so Things get crazy.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I know like I've really dived into some spoilers here, but it's been out for a little while.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: But there's a lot more to it than just that.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Like cuz I mean that this literally just the first episode, so there's a lot of other stuff that happens.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Kind of him navigating life.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: It's kind of weird because they remember their past lives like he remembers it's not, no, no, it is weird.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Like everything you described is a weird thing, but it's interesting.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: It kind of like grabbed me for that kind of reason.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: I've been trying to step out of my normal anime circle and Try different things and it's really it's been pretty fun.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: I've been really enjoying.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: I feel like my relationship with anime has evolved and it's changed, so I've been really enjoying it.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, nice.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: So what are your thoughts on Wit studio doing a one-piece remake?
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember reading about that that now that now that they're done with attack on Titan, like that's what they, that's like the next project they want to work on, which is a crazy thing because we're talking about one of the big three anime Ever one piece, bleach and Naruto, and they're just redoing it.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Attack on Titan is a huge anime too, like it's huge and and the animation is beautiful but I took them forever to finish it.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: It did.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: It took them forever to finish the craziest thing is is that, like how they really like Drew it out like attack on Titan, the final season part one, attack on Titan the the final season part two, and then they just kind of like kept on parting it out.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: I'm like what is?
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: yeah, dude, it was like attack on Titan, part three, second half.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: I'm just like come on.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but like part three, first I'm not.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not cut up.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I'm not cut up with attack on Titan, and it's been years since I've watched it.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: But that's one of the shows that I definitely want to catch up on, because I've heard that they they nailed it in the anime.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: So it's so good it's definitely Worth giving that the watch, like you know.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I had seen the, so that that one piece remake it's definitely one of those things.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: You were initially really upset by it or not really upset, but you were just kind of like, but why?
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people are, you know it's so I understand what they're trying to do.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: I I think what?
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Because I mean, obviously the stuff is happening with Oda, you know there, and I think the biggest thing that he wants to do is Update some of this like older, the older seasons, because I mean like when you watch the other season.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: It is definitely dating like they're old.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: It's night, it's 90s, animation it's yeah exactly.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: And so, honestly, like when you watch the current anime, they kind of stay faithful with that 90s animation look, but it looks a lot more vibrant and it looks a lot crispier, you know.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: So so I I'm trying to think, if do they want to update the look?
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Are the characters gonna be look different?
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Are they gonna try to Maintain the look of the characters but like kind of update them?
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: I mean that Netflix did a really good job with the live action.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: I think that you know if they really just follow under the say of Oda, because I mean, yeah, the manga and the anime have lasted for so long for a reason.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: So I mean, look, if you're keeping an anime alive for over 20 years, yeah, you're gonna listen to this man, you know yeah, I also heard with the wit studio one-piece remake that they wanted to Cut some of the fat and I know you had a bit of an issue with like the idea of that when we talked about it briefly like you felt like the current anime cuts a lot of the fat, but right, so the thing about one piece and you know you can look up online Is that the one of the biggest reasons why one piece is so renowned is that it doesn't rely heavily on Fillers like a lot of these anime do.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Dbz was notorious for it.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Naruto was Absolutely ridiculous with it.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: I'm like dude honestly, like when it comes to anime, like if you don't have the story ready, like just give me a shorter season, I don't want to watch all this extra stuff, just because whatever right now there's like so much recap and then like, yeah, no, I totally hear you.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: So what I've realized about the one-piece anime is that it's pretty faithful as a one-to-one, like reenactments of the manga, where they'll try to do about an episode per chapter of the manga.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: And you know it's a weekly manga, it's not long, it's maybe 20 pages, 25, 30 pages in length, and they basically elongate that into a 23-minute episode With credits and stuff.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: So it's altogether probably like 18 minutes of actual right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: I was like like, when you cut out the intro and the outro, yeah, you're getting about 18 minutes.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's a lot shorter when you skip those recaps.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: You'll get like the intro and then like a three-minute recap.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my gosh, you're cutting out like five minutes.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no way I need to know all of this information.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I do not need to know what.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: I just watched it.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: I literally just watched this, like two episodes ago but, that being said, sometimes it's going chapter by chapter.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: From the weekly manga series it does feel like filler.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I'm currently stuck on the black cat Kuro pirates, which is really early on.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: There's like 10 episodes where they're fighting on the beach and I'm just like I literally just read this in the manga.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I just want to get back.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: That's also probably what makes it a little bit harder is that you read it.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: I literally read it, so see like I wasn't, like I'm just straight up watching the anime, I'm not watching and reading the manga alongside.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: And by the time we got to the live action or the one piece live action, I had already passed this point like a long time ago.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: So by the time we got to the one piece live action, I'm in skype yet I'm going about this totally backwards, because I've watched.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: I watched them.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: I watched the live action first, then I went to manga and now I'm in the anime.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: So you're out of order.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Usually people go anime, manga and then live action if they even get to live action but actually a lot of people have watched the live action and this year alone one piece has skyrocketed in popularity.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I think it's because of Netflix and what they're doing over there.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: You know, what's crazy is that one piece was on Netflix for a good while, then they took it off earlier in the year and then all of a sudden it all came back.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to understand why it came off to begin with because they had that live action lined up, but now that it's like they haven't brought back, now they're continually updating and bringing on more episodes, although, like I just watch it on Crunchyroll.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I think it's a little bit like the Disney vault theory If you know that it's going to be gone for a little period of time, you'll binge watch it and then when it comes back you're just like, oh, it's back on In the lead up and following the live actions popularity on Netflix that brought a lot of people to like watching the anime.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: The subreddit for one piece went from 1 million followers to over 3 million in the span of a year.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: The whole IP is just booming right now.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: You spoke about the prequel series that they're coming out with on Netflix.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Netflix is also sponsoring that WIT Studio remake of One Piece.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: They have the live action that did so good.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: It was the number three English speaking show on Netflix for the entire year of 2023.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: It was massive and they're going to be filming the second season this coming year.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: So you know it's looking good for One Piece right now.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: From what I hear, it's become one of the best fantasy series period.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: It's pretty low tier fantasy like in its first fantasy, but I've seen a lot of people who are genuinely into fantasy and like fantasy series that say One Piece is top tier fantasy when you actually get through it Because the part of the like.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: What works about it is the journey.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: We're like 23 minutes into this.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: We're stuck in One Piece forever.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: But really quickly, let me talk about what I've been up to.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: What have you been up to?
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: One Piece, what was it you said?
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Continuation of One Piece is what you've been up to.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah so.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: I've been reading One Piece.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I got into it.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: You're going to be very proud of me.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: I got into a video game that I really enjoyed.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: That is a Hogwarts legacy.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: It was Avatar, frontiers of Pandora.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, have you been talking about that, yeah yeah, yeah, I had started it a little bit ago.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: It's definitely interesting.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: It's very.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: The world is very vibrant.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I'm very impressed, not necessarily with the story.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's pretty mild story, wise those open world games are tough, man, when it comes to like story.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: It's tough to build a narrative around it Because when you have those open world games you can really get lost in these side objectives and sometimes that can water down the main narrative of a video game.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Sure, A game that does pretty well with the side stuff is the Witcher.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: So my experience with Avatar, frontiers of Pandora this is a game that I always knew I was going to be playing, just because I'm pretty invested in James Cameron's Avatar as a whole right now.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: I made that timeline video about a year ago and that really popped off for my YouTube channel, geek Routique.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: So I knew I wanted to play this because I knew it was going to be a canon entry into that series.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: So I went into it like from a lore perspective, like what can I learn about Pandora and the timeline and everything about this?
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: But what I gained wasn't so much lore, it was more just an appreciation of, like the intricacies of Pandora itself and just like the different planned life, flora, fauna, the stuff that you can do as a Navi.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: And what I find really amazing that I can't experience necessarily in any other game is there's nothing in Frontiers of Pandora that you can do that I can't picture like solely or neitiri doing in the Avatar movies.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Every item you craft, every person you talk to, every quest you do it feels like something that actually belongs in the world, as opposed to like I can't say the same for like Hogwarts Legacy, like doing some of like the I forget what it is called, but like that type of magic that the main character unlocks in Hogwarts Legacy, that's not something that really jives well with the story of the Harry Potter series.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: You can build it around that, but it doesn't feel like it's authentic to the world.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Right, or just being a student that's just running around doing unforgivable curses At the middle yeah, all right.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: so my biggest issue with Hogwarts Legacy yes, that's a big one that you can just unforgivable curse however much you want, there's no repercussions.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: One of the first story quests sneaking around the library at night.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: You do that you're thinking like oh man, this is going to be really useful sneaking around Hogwarts at night, because you're not supposed to do that.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: There's a curfew.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: And then they don't ever enforce curfew ever again in the entire game.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Dude, you just yeah, you can just like you get free reign everywhere.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: I don't, you know, it's fun, I don't hate it at all, but there's stuff like that that doesn't happen in frontiers of Pandora, if you know what I mean.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Like everything that you can do or can't do makes sense, story wise, within the world, and I think from that perspective, I think it's a really, really strong game and I'm really impressed with how well visualized the entire world, the open world, feels.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: You know not just like from a horizontal and linear plane but like a vertical plane, because there's so much of the game is like verticality in terms of like climbing up the floating mountains and stuff.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: I think it's pretty cool.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Speaking about video games something that I'm well, there's two games that I'm super stoked about, and you probably know one.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: We have the remake of persona three coming out.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Persona three reload.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Super stoked about that.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: I was going to say I was going to say dude, if you say persona, I'm going to turn off the mic.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: But, dude, like I mean, we have persona three reload.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: That was when they started to modernize, or what persona is now?
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: I played a bit of persona three.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: I didn't get far into it.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: I got maybe about a couple of hours into it and when this was announced I was like, ah, you know what, let me, you know, let me just wait to play it like updated.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: I don't want to play this now and then if the story is like super similar, then I'm not going to really want to play it.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: So you're excited about the remake, right, I'm super excited about the remake.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: It's, you know, it's like a ground up remake type thing.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: The other one was kind of like a point and click in some instances and then you could run around the dungeons and some areas.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: So they definitely changed this one up a lot.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: By the way, to everyone listening, you can always tell when, like, we haven't recorded in a while because we have so much to say to each other before we actually talk about the topic at hand.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Right, we're 30 minutes in, so and then, yeah, just for us the other game, and then, just real quick, we have Final Fantasy seven rebirth.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: I kind of thought that it was going to be Final Fantasy.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: That's going to be huge.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: All right, without further ado.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: We're 30 minutes into this recording.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: We're halfway through discussion.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Let's actually talk about the now.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I would consider it a Disney classic at this point.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: It's Disney, it's like gold when it comes, when it comes to, like a Disney IP at this point, because frozen became such a huge phenomenon even before it hit theaters, because it had, like that, that one single let it go that played forever.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Right yeah, frozen had such a chokehold on the.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Disney community for such a long time.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be honest with you.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of a Disney movie that, like really gripped people, like that there's been very few.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: I would probably say Lion King had a similar grip on pop culture in the nineties in terms of everything.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I think Lion King kind of changed everything about like what we can expect from, you know, a Disney movie as well as like an animated movie with, you know high level pop musicians performing songs for and everything.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: It was a really good hit.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: And this one, which really brought in a more Broadway style vibe to it Frozen brought the Lopez couple to make a Broadway type musical element to it.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: That really took it to the next level and let it go.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: So let it go is interesting because Elsa was actually going to be the protagonist, like the antagonist in the movie.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: She was going to be like I don't know if she was going to be a villain, but like she was going to be evil or then what?
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: they made in the movie.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Then they wrote, let it go.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: She's almost like an anti protagonist.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she doesn't even want to be the good person, she just wants to like like she.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: she doesn't want to be bad, but she kind of has gotten fed up with being told to like hide who she is and, to be fair, I feel like her parents kind of like shutting her in and forcing her to not be who she is is probably what sped up the instability of her powers.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: So let's, let's talk about that, let's talk about the instability of her powers, because for a long time after seeing the first movie I just didn't get it.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: You know, I mentioned earlier in the podcast that I have like a fantasy background and that kind of has instilled in me the notion that there are rules to magic, there are logical limitations to how big and powerful your powers can get.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: There's always like a magic system where there are tears and levels of you know getting to where Elsa is.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: But the real first time that we see her unleash her powers, she unwittingly, you know, puts the entire kingdom under a literal frozen spell and that's like in the middle of the summer.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: In the middle of the summer, yeah, yeah, a real holler in July, yeah, no, it's big summer blowout.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I love Oak and Dude, but yeah, it really bothered me for a long time.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I just didn't understand how people could reconcile, like how she could possibly be so powerful, and that there was like no real ramifications of all that.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: After the fact, you know, like none of the crops died, everything seemed to like magically fix itself once Arundel defrosted and stuff, and I would come to terms with the fact that it's just a fairy tale, you know right.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: I think it relies on the, the suspension of disbelief.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's just like oh, it's a flash freeze, you know it froze, so quick, like it didn't have time to die, and you know I could say that and you know how long would you say the movie spans over like a couple days, I think it's two or three days, yeah, so right so.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: I would say that I don't think that stuff was frozen long enough for it to like completely die, like maybe.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: I mean it was okay, sure, at a critical point, but I'm overthinking it, I know, I know, guys don't, don't yell at me look, look, I do too, and then sometimes I just try to find a logical way to suspend my disbelief.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Have you watched the sequel yeah, yeah, it's been a while since I've seen it, but yeah, I've seen it so one thing that I'll say.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: I know that most people consider the first movie to be better.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I will say that all the issues that I had with the first movie were addressed in the second movie and that retroactively made the first movie better, like a better experience right, like you had that in the back of your minds like the explanation for some of this stuff now I know why she's so powerful.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay, because of this, this and this.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, she's like this because of that.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, her parents were doing this, oh.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of answers that the second movie gives you.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: That really made me enjoy and like really appreciate the first movie way more than I ever thought I would, to the point where I eventually I literally just recently, guys I made a frozen timeline, which seems kind of dumb if you say it out loud, just because there's only two movies.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: So you're just like oh, let's put it in in the timeline, or frozen one and then frozen two.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: But no, there's like a whole bunch of other like elements to that, like you know, pinpointing what year exactly the frozen films take place, putting in order all the different frozen short films.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Then you have like three young adult novels, a bunch of comic books and stuff like that.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: So you got stuff that you can really wrap a timeline around and I had a lot of fun with that and I think that's why I pitched this episode as a frozen episode to Anthony and I'm glad that he chose it, because I have a lot to say about it.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: It's almost kind of like the same with Avatar, the Last Airbender.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: People think that you know they're thinking just the cartoon and I'm not even including Korra, but there's all the like comics and novels, that kind of end with it.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Honestly, same thing with a lot of really popular pop culture, especially with like Star Wars.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of like in between stuff.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: So they did the same thing with Frozen.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: There, I mean, I haven't read any like books or read or any of the comics, but it seems like they wanted to do a little bit more to build on the lore and stuff.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and it's really fun.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, I have a lot of fun with the series because I think that they do have a good time with the lore.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: That's like it makes sense for the most part, like logically, like why stuff happens.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: I like when expanded universe stuff tries to like tie stuff together between projects and fills in gaps that would have otherwise been plot holes or whatever stuff like that really fires some neurons in my head, like I love that kind of stuff and I think that's why I love, you know, star Wars so much too is that there's such a large quantity of books and comics that expand on the lore you just like but Anthony, what in general?
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: yeah, yeah, for sure, anthony.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: What was your first experience of frozen, when did you first watch it and what was your initial experience versus how you feel?
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: now.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: So frozen wasn't one of those movies that I went to see in the theater.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: It was one of those, both of us both of us were fairly older at that point.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: We were in our young 20s, if I remember correctly.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, 20 2013, yeah, so, yeah, no, you're right, it's so.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm not opposed to go into the movie theaters to see a Disney movie.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'm a little bit more open to it now.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Like back then I didn't really think about it, not because I was against it, but just because the stuff just really never was on my radar, right.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: But I remember talking to somebody about it I don't remember if it was Miguel, if I had seen it with Miguel or if I had, or if I had I know.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: I think I, I think I went to like a red box and like I was going through the movies and like it was like the year after, like 2014, and I had seen frozen on there.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: I was like you know what?
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Frozen has been huge.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: It's like this huge phenomenon for everybody.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: So I decided to rent that, along with a couple other things.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: I watched it in like early 2014 and, yeah, I was like you know, it got to that part where you know where the the let it go and I was like, okay, so this is the part that everybody has been singing.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's so funny, like how big of a movie this is, because it made its way into Kingdom Hearts 3 and that scene made it into Kingdom Hearts 3.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Dude, I cannot believe that, but that's the funniest thing ever.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: As you were talking about the let it go, I was literally thinking.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Also, there's that scene in Kingdom Hearts 3.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: If you don't know, kingdom Hearts is a series that bridges Final Fantasy and Disney franchises in a multi franchise, almost like multiverse sort of way, where you have characters that go to different Disney universes and kind of live out a version of the right p in question.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: But with Frozen it was very, very similar to the actual Frozen movie to the point where, like when Elsa's saying let it go, they literally let the song play out for like three minutes, like it was just like the entire thing just re-announced.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like the.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Kingdom Hearts graphics.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Seriously, and then it's like what they changed about it was that, like Sora, donald and Goofy were kind of like following like you know who's this person singing, and then at the end one of my favorite lines.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Oh man, I don't remember it word for word, but the gist of it was like right after Elsa finishes singing, let it go.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: You have the three characters, sora, donald and Goofy, and, and Sora goes.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Well, that was strange.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: There's something like that.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that series is the most unlikeliest multiverse to ever exist.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Like it makes no sense why it exists, but it does and I love it anyway.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, everyone loves it but anyway, we're gonna talk about Kingdom Hearts today.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: We're talking about Frozen.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Right, right, right it was relevant enough because Frozen made such an impact that it was an event For sure for sure.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: So you were saying that you watched it on Red Box.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: You got to the scene where let it go happen, and you were like oh, so this is the, this is it.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, I finished it, you know to well, yeah, yeah, I was like I'm not gonna just stop at the end of the saying well, okay, movie over.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: I did notice.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: So I think it was the second watch where, like, I really started to notice some of the, the changes.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: This movie changes a lot for a Disney princess movie.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: You know, when you think of Disney princess movie you think of a princess and the true love.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: You know the, the prince Right, true love's first kid Right.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: So this one changes a lot.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: This one, this movie is about sisterhood really, and so it was like an act of true love.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: You know, prerequisite for the magic spell over Anna to break.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: And so it wasn't true love's kiss, it was Anna, like sacrificing herself in the moment.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: So Anna sacrificed herself at the end of the film to save Elsa's life, and that was an act of true love.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, nobody would argue that like.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: That was definitely an act of true love.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: It didn't need to be a kiss.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: It could have been a kiss, probably, but it didn't need to be.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Right right.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Anna was able to do, but also, like you were talking about, like things that it like subverts from, like the.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: The Disney mold, as it were, is like the, the prince that comes to save the day.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: You know, like for for a good portion of this movie, prince Hans of the Southern Isles is that guy like who's just like you know.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: He's an upstanding citizen.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: He's, you know, handing out towels to people who are cold and errandel.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: He's not even from around there, but he like kind of puts himself in charge of, like maintaining peace among the people and then, as soon as Anna needs him, it's like no, the thing that I like about this movie is that it makes fun of like a lot of those tropes about love at first sight, you know, like marrying just right away.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: And yes because Anna.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Anna calls a lot, calls a lot of it, and so does Elsa Elsa's, just like you can't marry somebody that you literally just met.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true and so it definitely plays on that really well and then we get the loveable Oph in Olaf and I never considered him as the lovable Oph but, like I wonder if that's why his name is Olaf, because it's very similar to a lovable Oph.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I mean he is because, like he just does a lot of like dumb things, but sometimes smart and he definitely does get smarter within the boundaries of the sequel because he's more well read Right right now.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: He understands that summer is bad.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, dude, I love that whole song that he has about like frozen things in summer and it's and then like Kristoff's, just like I'm gonna tell him.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: I think part of the charm with this movie is the characters are all really well realized and there's chemistry between them all.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: So I saw Disney's latest movie a couple I think it was last month.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I saw it and it's a fairly it's okay.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: There are parts where it's just like, wow, this is really good.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: And then there's other parts where it's just like this is really forgettable.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: And I think the magic sauce that makes frozen work where like wish doesn't is frozen, uses its songs to push the story forward.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: It uses its songs to express character change.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Let it go is literally, is literally a character change?
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: And she, she moves into.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: It's like her, like molting from a cocoon to a butterfly, you know it's literally that song and there's imagery for that.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: You know, like the change in the dress she kind of like uses yeah, it's like she uses her powers to change her dress.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: She has this whole like ice palace that like builds up around her.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, the song really pushes that forward and it works so well with what's happening on screen.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: And that idea of the songs leading the story instead of songs interjecting the story is what makes frozen so good.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: I think about, like in the second one spoilers, I'm sorry, but there's a scene where Elsa dies for like 10 minutes and then Anna is alone because without Elsa, olaf also is gone.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: The song the next right thing.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: It's literally about taking the next right step.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: So it's moving that character from immobile to moving that formula right.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: There is why these movies work so well and that's why wish did not, because the songs are just feel good pop songs in wish and the most character centric song in the entire movie was the villain's theme, king Magnifico.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: His descent into madness song was the only time that I experienced that type of music in the wish movie.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's a huge mistake for them to like gloss over that when frozen did it so well.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Right, another movie and I'd love to cover this down the line.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: That does it really good, and I know that we're just talking about other stuff, but I would say that frozen really inspired a lot of other Disney movies to do the same is that Moana does a really good job at using their songs to push the story.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: You get to learn who Maui is through the song.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: You know like his powers, how he became Moana's people, who they were, you know like they did a lot of that and I would say that I feel like the turning point for these types of movies started with frozen.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: You know, frozen the animation was like next level to.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: They did a lot there.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: I feel like there was some really big advancements with frozen that they took and they put into a lot of their other films afterwards.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so frozen learned a lot from Tangled, which came out a couple years before frozen.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: You know, tangled is the movie about Rapunzel.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, when I first saw frozen, I had seen Tangled for the first time.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Briefly before that I saw frozen.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Way after you I saw it in like 2017.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: That's when I first was introduced to it.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: So, like I was saying, we were in our early 20s, it wasn't really in our wheelhouse, it wasn't something that we needed to see.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: So when you're like late teens, early 20s, kids, stuff really doesn't do anything for you.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of a weird thing where, like Disney stuff, I'm not really I don't care.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it's going to be nice for kids, whatever.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: I'm an adult now I don't need to do that, but I think as an actual adult late 20s, early 30s you can appreciate the artistic value of something like frozen, something like a Tangled.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: So I watched Tangled.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: I really liked it.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: I thought it was a really really strong movie.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: And then I didn't like frozen, for you know part of the reasons that I told to you earlier, I just didn't get it.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: I didn't understand why, like frozen was such a huge phenomenon when I thought Tangled was clearly the superior movie.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: But now that I have grown up with frozen, you know, allowed it to like sink in a little bit.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: It's one of Jen's, my wife's, comfort movies, so it's always on in the background while she's doing homework or whatever.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: And I've kind of learned to realize like the lore, or like the possibility of lore in frozen is just so much stronger, you know, like there's so much more they can do in that universe.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: And I think that that's part of why like that, that wonder of like what's next and like you know, why did this happen in this movie is so powerful.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: So I think that's why it works ultimately for me in the long run and why I appreciate it more now.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Well, I feel like what makes some of these other Disney movies harder to like expand on lore is because a lot of these stories are already like established.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: You know how like Disney dug into the fairy tales of the Grim Brothers, you know and.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, even Frozen did get like.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Disney did get an inspiration for Frozen from a fairy tale called the.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Snow Queen.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: Right and so.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: But I feel like like we all know a lot of these other stories.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: You see Cinderella.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: When you see Cinderella, snow White, rapunzel, all these other things, and you hear that there's a darker version of them, you're like okay.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: Then you like kind of like look into the to the details of it.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: It's like you're not going to really expand on the lore of that stuff.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: But, like with Frozen, I feel like it was enough of their own IP, that yeah, they could expand upon that, you know.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah no, I totally agree with that.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: When it comes to, like, the actual advancements in you know, cgi, that was a period of time where, like, they were incorporating more of like Pixar into the Disney fold.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: You know, I think at that point I believe that Bob Iger had bought Pixar for Disney.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: If it wasn't before Frozen, it was shortly after Frozen.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: I know it was like within that like two to three year period where, like Pixar and Frozen and you know, the Walt Disney Company transitioned into mostly you know, hard 3D imagery for their animated stuff.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: And they I mean at that point they had it.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: They had pretty much become like synonymous with one another.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: Because, you know, I'm gonna be honest, as a kid like I didn't understand that it was a different company working with Disney.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: I thought it was just.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: I was like, okay, pixar, that's Disney, right.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, even though they were different companies at that point, pixar fits so well within the Disney mold he wouldn't bad an eye about it.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: You know if it's way better.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: In my opinion, if it's way better than Star Wars and Marvel.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: You know, right, right, they've made it work.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: That's why, like it's not like, when you go to a Disney park like Hollywood Studios and you see, like Toy Story Land and there's a slinky slinky dog dash and there's like the Buzz Lightyear ride, you don't bad an eye about it because it fits so seamlessly within.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: You know, the mold of the Disney Company.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: Right, it's Disney, you know it's Disney.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: But yeah, frozen, it's become so big.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Have you seen some of the footage from, like, the Frozen land in Hong Kong?
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: I have not.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: I didn't even know there was a frozen land.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: They just opened it.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: They just opened it like a month or two ago.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: It looks so cool, dude, like Frozen Disneyland or Hong Kong Disneyland has a frozen land.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Literally it's like Galaxy's Edge, but for Frozen, and it looks super awesome.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: I would.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: I'd love to go.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: I don't think I'm going to Hong Kong anytime soon, but that's like it's become like one of the parks I definitely want to visit just because of that.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: That's so cool.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would love to check that out.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: I'll look that up to see what it looks like you mentioned the Snow Queen, the book that this was based off of, and that's partly why, like, elsa was originally supposed to be a villain, because the Snow Queen was evil.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: But that was a Hans Christian Andersen story, just like Little Mermaid was, and I think that's why they tease Little Mermaid in the second movie.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: If you rewatch it and like, go to the end where, like Elsa is going through Ata Holland's memories, she sees an old conversation with her father and mother, where, like he's reading a book that clearly has the Little Mermaid logo or like the Little Mermaid silhouette on the cover, and she goes what are you reading?
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: He's like just a new Danish author and that's Hans Christian Andersen.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: So I don't know, and I don't know if this has ever been confirmed I know I'm rambling at this point, but it's all comes full circle.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know if this has ever been confirmed, but some of the character names in the Frozen movie kind of sound like if you put them together, it sounds like Hans Christian Andersen.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: So you actually have Hans, the villain of the first movie.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was thinking about that actually.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Hans Christoph Anna Sven.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: If you say that all together, Hans Christoph Anna Sven, it sounds like Hans Christian Andersen.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: Let them sneak in his name into the movie through their names, yeah jerk yeah, so anyway so we were.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: so one of the biggest things and you were talking about tangled and how you felt that it was strong or the stronger movie, but then you kind of like started to understand Frozen a little bit.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: I think also like one of the biggest draws from it was the fact that it was about sisterhood and that they strayed away from the true love thing.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: There was a love story in there.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: There was, you know, something going on between Anna and Christoph, but it wasn't the normal lovey-dovey stuff of like the usual Disney stuff where they're, you know, walking down this amazing thing and their eyes meet.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: You know they do meet beautiful places together that are very magical, but usually it's like in those moments there's not romance happening.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: Like, remember, that whole area where they meet Olaf, it's such a beautiful and it's a beautiful area that honestly they could have put a strong romantic moment in that thing, but it was honestly it was like their butting heads at that point, right?
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: So I just got a call from Jen, my wife.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: She's on her way home, but she wanted me to tell you and the listeners of the podcast that Frozen is great.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: She watches it two times a year at least and I was just like that's, that's cutting.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: You know, that's a very low bar.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Like, obviously you watch it two times a year, you watch it two times a month.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: What are you talking about?
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: But she, she wanted to say specifically a part that like annoys her is in the second movie, early on in the opening song.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Something's never changed.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: At the end of it also promises the people of Arendelle that the flag will always fly and then, literally like five minutes later, the wind spirit wakes up and, like, takes the flag of Arendelle away.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: So, that's something that really bothers her every time.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I also just lied to people, even though she had no control over that, obviously.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: The second one also brought in a crossover from one of our favorite cartoons.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it did you know.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: It brought in the song into the unknown from remember okay, that's the name of the intro and outro for the really weird cartoon network cartoon that we covered.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, are you talking about Over the Garden?
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes yes, yes.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: That's the name of the song Into the Unknown.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, you're right, I didn't even realize that.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: It's so wild.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: That's why, like when we're covering it, I kept on making frozen references.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: You're right.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so if you go back you know 10, 20 episodes, maybe even more.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: We had a whole podcast on probably one of the best Cartoon Network limited series ever over the Garden Wall.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Must listen, must watch.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: That's such a fun show.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: If you ever get the opportunity to watch over the Garden Wall, it's amazing.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: And also it's like a perfect autumn show, like.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: I watch it pretty regularly when it comes like August, september, that time of year it's just like it's so good.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: But yeah, the whole reason why I brought it up was because the name of that song.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Into the Unknown.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Right, right, although the song in that cartoon is a lot different than that.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: But you made a good point earlier about how Christoph and Anna, like they're put in situations that normally would be like meet, cute situations in like movies where, like the two characters would start falling in love with each other.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: But they don't.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the times they butt heads in, you know, in Frozen, like they don't always get along In that moment.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: It's like a.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: Instead of it being a romantic moment, it's a comedic moment, because that's where we get the introduction to Olaf, you know.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: Where we start really seeing more of Christoph's character shine is after Elsa, or after they make it to Elsa's palace and she hits Anna in the heart by accident with her magic.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Hans really takes care of her.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: He will do anything to keep Anna alive at that point, even though he doesn't love her.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: It's a selfless act and I think that's where we really see his character.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: There's nothing in it for him if Anna dies, but he's just a good guy and I think that's ultimately what Anna sees by the end of the movie.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: I really do enjoy his character.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: While he has, like, his moments of stubbornness, he's not like a blockhead, he's definitely smart.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: He's been around the block.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: He's just a very enjoyable character and the natural growth between him and Anna was like it was refreshing for a Disney movie.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: I guess the progression felt a lot more natural than some of the older Disney movies.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: I also feel like he's kind of like an introvert type person.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Where like he lives alone.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: He lives with his radius and his best friend.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: When we first meet him, when he goes into Oak and Shed and he's like covered in snow, he's all cold and like he doesn't really want to talk to anyone.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: He's just like carrots, carrots behind you.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: You know like that's all he says to Anna.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: But then when we see him in Oak and Shed, you know like later on, when he's camping for the night, he's got his loot.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: He's playing a song rangers are better than people.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Blah, blah, blah.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: And it really gives him a lot of much needed character development.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: It gives him a lot of much needed coloring.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: You know like it filled in the gaps of like who this person is.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Like he's just a very cold, seemingly heartless person until you see like oh, he's just introverted.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: He doesn't like talking to people, he likes talking to his ranger.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: I totally get what you're talking about, because he even has like those moments where he like speaks for Sven.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, he literally speaks for the reindeer.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the characteristics of Anna and Elsa.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: We have Elsa, who we spoke briefly about, where she's destined to become Queen.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Her father, the king, died three years before the start of this movie and in that time she's waited to be coordinated, but she's always been in the shadows because she's had to hide her powers so that Anna doesn't remember that she has powers and potentially get worse again.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: This always kind of put her in a box, and I don't think she ever really wanted to be Queen, but it was always a duty that she needed to accomplish.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: What do you feel about Elsa?
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: Elsa is, you know, coming into this.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: She's definitely.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: She's an interesting character and, like you said, you don't really understand too much about her until you get to the second film, as far as like why she's so powerful.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: But I always saw her as this individual and I feel like I've seen this a lot in different movies where there's a character with a magical power that is very unstable and they just they don't know how to filter it, you know, and so I'm trying to think of a perfect example.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: I know I've seen a ton of them, but I can't think of an example.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: But she just doesn't know how to control she's.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: It's literally so unstable that she can't touch anything without her gloves because it'll freeze in her hands.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally get what you're saying and if you try to, like, really put a fantasy spin on it, it's pretty much like she's an open channel for ice magic.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: You know, she doesn't know how to close it.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Like she doesn't know.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: It's like leaving a hose on full throttle and she doesn't have the spigot to be able to control it.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: It's just on all the time.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: Right so.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: And you have the, the Anna, who's the complete opposite.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: She's, she's bubbly, she's outgoing, she doesn't want to be stuck inside at all.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: She won't.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: I don't think she necessarily wants to be queen even though she becomes queen later on in the story but I think she's naturally more adept at being personable, which is a quality that you know a good ruler or a good leader needs to have.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: So I think that her eventual becoming queen in the second movie really is a good fit for her versus, you know, elsa, who does it more for duty.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: Right right.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, anna definitely does have that.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: She's better with having that personal interaction with people.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: That, I would say, is very important for any good ruler.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: But she's young enough where she can be taken advantage of, which did happen in the first movie, where you know Prince Hans.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Basically had that.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: They have that almost like a whole new world scene where, like the two just kind of like fall and fall all over each other, like like madly enough, and they, they fall in love and basically an evening.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: Right, they finish each other's sandwiches, you know.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: That's what I was going to say.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: I don't think you've watched my frozen video.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: If you guys haven't, I highly recommend it.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: I tried my best to litter as many frozen like one liners or like song lyrics in there as much as possible and I had a guest on for that video.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: I had Josh from Modern Mouse, who does a lot of Disney stuff.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: I had him actually play like an actual historian, like from within Arendelle, so he was playing like an in-universe character and I was like the narrator and like he would interject with certain thoughts or whatever.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: There was literally a moment in the video where I was just like you know, princess Anna and Prince Hans got so close very quickly that they were basically finishing each other's, and then I had Josh like jump in with sandwiches.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: It was fun.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: I had a really good time writing and like recording that.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: So if you guys ever, we'll leave it in the show notes.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: We'll put it into the show notes.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: I mean it's very relevant for what we're covering.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: It's extremely relevant.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah I know, it really is funny.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: The song really does show how naive she is.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, she's been shut from the world for so long, you know.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: But what's amazing about the song is that it tricks the viewer because there's nothing in that moment where you feel Hans isn't trustworthy.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: You can even rewatch the movie after knowing that Hans is the villain and you kind of realize, oh, he's kind of a cool dude, he's kind of a nice guy, he gets along with Anna.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: Everyone loves Anna, right.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: Really and they perpetuate that for so long into the movie.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I was watching that.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: I was like I know because I've seen it before.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: I'm like I know that this is the bad guy, but literally this guy wants to do the right thing.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: He's even like don't kill Elsa.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's interesting Like he plays the long game really well.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: He really does Like that man he's been working his favor but, like you know Right.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: It's not until the end, really, that he's revealed to be the bad guy.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: You know, we're thinking that it's mostly, like you know, like his father, who's the one that's like not really doing the right thing, which I guess could be a foreshadow that the son is bad.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: But right, Anthony.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Is there anything else you want to say about Fresno before we close this conversation up?
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: Love is an open door man.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good one.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: I will say what this film has going for it.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: even if you haven't seen it or like don't appreciate Disney movies, whatever, this is a very charming movie you know, like it has a certain aesthetic, a certain vibe, it's a certain mood that like totally charms you and that's a very that's something that all films kind of strive for, you know, is to get you to feel something.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: And what this gets you to, or what this gets me to feel, is it just puts me in a certain life is easy mood, you know, like it just kind of like all all my day to day worries are gone when the movies on.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: Basically, you know and I think that that's an important thing when it comes to escapism in entertainment, because, you know, with any entertainment there's a level of escapism.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: You want to experience what other people are experiencing, right, but with this it's a whole new world really.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: They, you know, they adapt, like Norway, sorry, they adapt Norway into this, like you know, 1800s fantasy setting, and it's so cool.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: I think they do a really good job with it.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: I think that Frozen is really good.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: I think that it does a lot for Disney movies.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: It's not just a change in story and, you know, changing the dynamic between a princess and Prince, charming and sisterhood, but there was a lot of technological advances.
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: You talked about how the use of music to push the story forward.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: They did a really good job with that stuff and it's really no wonder that it's as popular as it is.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: Right, I think that a lot of this stuff is stuff that people don't know or understand why they like it, but these are the reasons why yeah no, I agree, Guys.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to Project Ecology Episode 67.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: We look forward to recording our next episode.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: Not sure what it is yet, but we will find out and we will let you know.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: And if you are interested in figuring out what we're going to be covering before we cover it, please be sure to follow us on our socials.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: We will leave them in the show notes, but follow Project Ecology on Instagram or Peeke Ecology on Twitter, as well as our individual handles there Again, which you'll find in the show notes.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: You will figure out what we're up to in advance.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: And, yeah, we'd love to hear what your thoughts are.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to leave us any feedback whatsoever, five Star Reviews are always welcome.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: We'd love to read them.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and yeah thanks, thanks, guys, thank you Bye.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Have a good one, let it go.