The Tudyk Trilogy: Frozen (part 4)

[spiderbraids]

Back to Arendelle main town, where some guys are discussing how to best store firewood with a piece of bark, and Hans is passing out blankets and offering hot glogg at the castle. The villagers are grateful for Hans, but the Duke is concerned about Hans giving away Arendelle's trade-able goods. Hans says he has orders from Anna, but the Duke adds: "Has it dawned on you that your princess may be conspiring with a wicked sorceress to destroy us all?" Hans: "Do not question the Princess. She left me in charge, and I will not hesitate to protect Arendelle from treason." Keep that in mind... as Anna's horse returns to the main square. Hans realizes that Anna is in trouble and decides to get himself some volunteers to look for her. Duke offers up the really tall guys flanking him, and tells them: "Be prepared for anything, and should you encounter the Queen, you are to put an end to this winter. Do you understand?"

Back with Anna and friends, as they're walking through (yep) more wintry terrain, this one filled with horizontal icicles. Kristoff: "So how exactly are you planning to stop this weather?" Anna: "Oh, I am gonna talk to my sister." Kristoff: "That’s your plan? My ice business is riding on you talking to your sister?" He accidentally bumps his nose into the tip of an icicle... talk about a close shave :-) "So you’re not at all afraid of her?" Anna: "Why would I be?" Olaf: "Yeah. I bet Elsa’s the nicest, gentlest, warmest person ever." :-D As he's saying this, he backs himself into another icicle, probably giving Alan Tudyk's fanbase (he does have one, right?) bad flashbacks to Serenity... as Olaf notices the icicle sticking right out of his chest: "Oh, look at that. I’ve been impaled." Can anyone say, foreshadowing? :-)

They're now at a really big stone wall. Kristoff looks in his bag: "I’ve only got one rope, and you don’t know how to climb mountains." Anna: "Says who?" Anna is trying to climb the wall :-D Kristoff: "What are you doing?" Anna: "I’m going... to see my sister." Kristoff: "You’re going to kill yourself" :-D So we spend some time with Anna trying to scale the wall, and it's clear that she simply does not have the know-how (but what else would you expect from someone who's lived behind the palace walls for like 13 years?)

Kristoff questions Anna's endeavor: "How do you know Elsa even wants to see you? You know, most people who disappear into the mountains want to be alone." Anna: "Nobody wants to be alone. Except maybe you--" Kristoff reminds her that he does have his love expert friends, but anyways, Anna gets stuck mid-climb... "Please tell me I’m almost there... Does the air seem a bit thin to you up here?" Not surprisingly, it turns out Anna didn't even manage to get higher than Kristoff's head :-D Olaf comes in: "Hey, Sven? Not sure if this is going to solve the problem, but I found a staircase that leads exactly where you want it to go." Anna: "Ha ha. Thank goodness. Catch!" After Kristoff does, she adds: "Thanks! That was like a crazy trust exercise :-)"

Okay, the gang sees Elsa's ice palace, and Kristoff is overwhelmed: "Now that’s ice. I might cry." Anna: "Go ahead. I won’t judge." :-) Since Sven can't get up the staircase, Kristoff has him wait at the base as they ascend the stairs, and appreciate the details. Anna is very reluctant to knock the doors (perhaps due to years of Elsa's rejection?) making Olaf wonder if she even knows how to knock. She finally does, and the doors open: "Ha. It opened. That’s a first" :-) She decides to have Kristoff and Olaf wait outside, because: "Last time I introduced her to a guy, she froze everything." Heh. She tells them to give her a minute... and Olaf decides to start counting. See? Comic relief :-)

Inside, Anna is awed by the breathtaking beauty... and then she sees her sister and her blue dress standing atop the staircase: "Elsa, you look different.... But it’s a good different.... And this place is amazing." Agreed on both counts there, Anna :-) Elsa: "Thank you, I never knew what I was capable of." Anna considers apologizing to Elsa for ticking her off, but... Elsa: "You don’t have to apologize.... But you should probably go, please." Anna: "But I just got here." Elsa: "You belong in Arendelle." Anna: "So do you." Elsa: "No, I belong here. Alone. Where I can be who I am without hurting anybody." Anna's about to use that to segue into her main concern when she's suddenly interrupted by Olaf getting to 60 and making his entrance. Elsa is bewildered by Olaf, being you know, alive, but seems pleasantly surprised by it.

Anna reminds Elsa that Olaf is the snowman they built when they were besties, and she reassures Elsa that they can be like that again... but that's easy for her to say, because she doesn't have the memory of getting a blast of Elsa magic to the face :-/ Elsa says no and starts backing up the stairs: "I'm just trying to protect you..." Anna: "You don't have to protect me, I'm not afraid..."

And this leads into a reprise of For the First Time in Forever, as Anna follows her sis up the stairs to the room leading to the balcony, telling her that "We can head down this mountain together. You don’t have to live in fear. ‘Cause for the first time in forever, I will be right here." Elsa tells her to go back home and open up the gates and leave her alone, because: "I’m alone but I’m alone and free. Just stay away and you’ll be safe from me."

Anna sees an opening to bring up her main concern and takes it, with a bit of lyrical laziness :-) "Arendelle’s in deep deep deep deep... snow." Elsa: "What?" Anna: "You kind of set off an eternal winter...everywhere." Snow is starting to fall around Elsa as she’s starting to look concerned: "Everywhere?" Anna: "It’s okay, you can just unfreeze it." You can probably feel Elsa's heart sink as she responds: "No, I can’t. I don’t know how." Anna: "Sure you can. I know you can." However, her sister doesn't share her optimism, as a snowstorm brews up in the room... and it's another scene with great use of 3D as we and Elsa gradually lose sight of Anna in the blizzard :-) Even though they're in the same room this time, the sisters' melodies are still separate (with Elsa more dominant here rather than Anna), and the snowstorm underlines their "separation", until eventually, Elsa ends up blasting the full brunt of the blizzard straight through, well, guess :-)

Anna clutches her chest, and a couple beats later, Elsa turns around to see Anna in pain. She's horrified at this, or maybe it's because Kristoff is rushing to her side... "Who’s this?... Wait, it doesn’t matter. You have to go." Anna channels her inner Paul McCartney: "No, I know we can figure this out together--" Elsa: "How? What power do you have to stop this winter? To stop me?" Anna has no idea, but Kristoff thinks they should leave, especially with ice spikes starting to grow in the castle... Anna: "I’m not leaving without my medal you, Elsa." Elsa: "Yes, you are." On that note, she conjures up a really big and scary snowman, who proceeds to toss Anna and friends out of her palace like a big bouncer... all the way to the bottom of the stairs, where Sven has his tongue stuck to the handrail :-D Olaf's head gets thrown into a snowbank: "Watch out for my butt..." And his butt and feet follow :-)

Anna yells at the bouncer snowman: "It is not nice to throw people!" Kristoff tells her not to retaliate, and she listens for a moment... before throwing a snowball right back at the bouncer snowman, and she must have quite an arm to throw that snowball all the way across the chasm to hit him :-)

Okay, so bouncer snowman's angry, so he sprouts ice spikes and decides to chase the gang... Olaf decides to distract him... and his butt and feet drop off the snowbank follow Sven, leaving his head behind :-D

We get a thrilling chase scene in which Anna and Kristoff slide down a icy slope, then continue running through a forest. Remember when Anna was dropped off under a tree by her horse? Well, here Anna decides to use another snow-covered tree to smack the pursuing bouncer snowman and Kristoff is impressed with her feistiness :-) And then a new problem comes up: A big cliff... Anna: "It’s a hundred foot drop." Kristoff: "It’s two hundred." Whatever, it's a big drop, okay? Kristoff makes a snow anchor by digging a U-shaped trench to bury one end of his rope, and ties the other around Anna and himself. In case they fall, according to Kristoff: "There’s twenty feet of fresh powder down there; it’ll be like landing on a pillow.... Hopefully."

I should note right here that this scene at least was still undergoing changes as late as summer, when a clip of it was featured as part of the official Disney Animation app. Most notably, whereas Anna in the "preview" was very apprehensive about jumping off, here she says "I was born ready" :-) Kristoff is counting to 3 for the jump when a tree flies straight towards them... insert really mediocre pun joke here ;-) as Anna jumps off, taking Kristoff with him... Kristoff: "Whoa! That happened" :-)

Olaf comes running out of the forest and he's out of shape... or rather, some of his pieces have been switched around :-D After switching them back: "Hey, Anna! Sven! Where’d ya guys go? We totally lost Marshmallow back there!" The bouncer snowman comes out, and he's not particularly fond of that moniker, and ends up punting Olaf over the cliff, and as Olaf passes Anna and Kristoff before breaking up again... "Hang in there guys!" :-) They continue climbing downwards, but are quickly jerked back up by Marshmallow, who promptly roars and sprays a load of snow on them :-) Anna takes out a knife to cut the rope... and they scream as they fall...

...before landing in the snow below. Anna: "Hey, you were right. Just like a pillow." Olaf screams "I can’t feel my legs! I can’t feel my legs!" Probably because his head is sitting on Kristoff's legs :-D Olaf's actual bottom half runs by, and he has Kristoff put his head on. And Sven shows up as well, so that's everyone accounted for :-)

The "preview" clip then went on to show them getting caught in an Elsa-induced blizzard, prompting Anna to say "That's not a blizzard, that's my sister"... which then ironically ended up persisting all the way into the final trailers used :-/ Here though, they just dig themselves out the snow and take stock of their injuries. Kristoff has bumped his head, but he's okay: "I’ve got a thick skull." Olaf: "I don’t have a skull.... Or bones" :-)

There does appear to be a little chemistry between the two, but Anna now has several things to worry about: "Now what?! Oh! What am I gonna do? She threw me out. I can’t go back to Arendelle with the weather like this. And then there’s your ice business--" Kristoff: "Hey, hey, don’t worry about my ice business... Worry about your hair!" Anna: "What? I just fell off a cliff. You should see your hair." Kristoff: "No, yours is turning white." And we actually see a good chunk of Anna's hair turning white as she's looking at it :-0 They realize it's the result of Elsa's strike... Anna: "Does it look bad?" After a really long awkward pause......

Kristoff: "No." Olaf butts in: "You hesitated" :-D (Holding his head up with his twig arms, I might add :-)) Kristoff: "No, I didn’t. Anna, you need help. Now, come on." Time for Anna to meet his love expert friends, as Kristoff reassures Anna that they'll be able to fix this. Why? Kristoff: "Because I’ve seen them do it before." As they head off, Olaf randomly says "I like to consider myself a love expert." Just you wait and see how that pans out...

Back at Elsa's palace, the ice has taken on a deep shade of red, as she paces around her room... "Get it together. Control it. Don’t feel. Don’t feel. Don’t FEEL!" But judging from the spikes continuing to encroach on the walls, it's clear that she's slowly losing her grip on her powers... And you know who else tried to talk herself into keeping her defect under control? ;-)


"Keep it under control, Vanellope. No more glitching."
(Disney Screencaps)

Back with Anna and friends, Olaf notices the northern lights above him and says "Look, Sven. The sky’s awake." Sound familiar? :-) Anna is feeling a little chilly, so Kristoff decides to bring her over to a steam vent to warm up a little, as he talks up his friends, or rather family, as he reveals that they took him and Sven in when he was a kid... "I don’t want to scare you, they can be a little bit inappropriate...and loud...very loud...they’re also stubborn at times, and a little overbearing. And heavy. Really, really heavy. But they’re fine.. You’ll get it. They mean well." Anna: "Kristoff, they sound wonderful."

Well, she probably doesn't think they're so wonderful once she sees that they're a bunch of rocks... And Kristoff beginning to talk to them doesn't exactly inspire confidence either. Olaf: "He’s crazy. I’ll distract them while you run." :-D So Olaf strikes up a convo with one of the rocks before telling Anna: "Anna, because I love you, I insist you run." Anna's starting to back out, when the rocks suddenly roll out to reveal themselves as trolls, one of whom says: "Kristoff's home!!" Olaf's reaction: "Wait? Kristoff?" :-D

After the trolls and Kristoff get caught up on things with each other (rock trolls can apparently get kidney stones :-)) they're overjoyed to see he's brought a girl :-) Anna is confused by their presence: "What’s going on?" Kristoff: "I’ve learned to just roll with it :-)"

The troll who adopted Kristoff way back in the prologue checks Anna out before deciding: "She’ll do nicely for our Kristoff." Kristoff: "You’ve got the wrong idea. That's not why I brought her here." Anna's not sure how to respond, and the troll responds: "What’s the issue, dear? Why are you holding back from such a man? :-)"

Misunderstandings are always wacky (as Three's Company has proven time and again ;-)) but this one leads into an entire song number, Fixer Upper, which is rather divisive, due in no small part to two issues: It's the last song until the credits (kinda like Mulan) and all this wackiness occurs in the middle of serious trouble for Anna (at one point Kristoff even says "Can we just stop talking about this?! We’ve got a real, actual problem here.")

But anyways, the trolls sing about Kristoff's flaws, like how bad he smells, how much he likes his reindeer, or that he tinkles in the woods (apparently to Disney, bodily function humor = PG rating :-)) They do tell Anna, though, that "You'll never meet a fellow who's as sensitive and sweet." Kristoff is "a bit of a fixer-upper" they say, but "The way to fix up this fixer upper is to fix him up with you."

Kristoff tries to fob them off by bringing up her pre-existing engagement, but they think that her engagement is a flex arrangement (their rhyme, not mine :-)) adding: "Get the fiancé out of the way and the whole thing will be fixed!" They really are trying to make Kristanna a thing, aren't they? ;-) Wouldn't be the first time we've seen something like that from Jennifer ...


(Disney Screencaps)

The troll who adopted Kristoff tells Anna that "Love's a force that's powerful and strange. People make bad choices if they're mad or scared or stressed. But throw a little love their way and you'll bring out their best." And then the trolls dress them up in what I suppose are outfits for a wedding. Yeah trolls, I think we get it :-)

But anyways, as the song fades out, the dresses come off and Grand Pabbie rolls in. So yeah, Kristoff explains the problem, and Pabbie reveals that she's in deep trouble: "There is ice in your heart, put there by your sister. If not removed, to solid ice will you freeze, forever." He also adds that unlike with her head, "only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart." The other trolls suggest a true love's kiss, and as more of her hair is turning white, Kristoff decides to take her back to Hans. So he has Sven pull them out and give them a ride back to Arendelle, and as they ride off into the sunrise Olaf says: "Let’s go kiss Hans!... Who is this Hans?!" :-D

Aaaand smashcut to Hans and the volunteers arriving at Elsa's palace :-) "We are here to find Princess Anna. Be on guard, but no harm is to come to the Queen. Do you understand?" Ooh, action sequence coming :-)

The posse is surprised to see a snow mound suddenly lurch up, as Marshmallow gets up to fight them off, and after quite a bit of fighting, Elsa peeks out the door and sees the mayhem going on and is either thinking "Well, so much for foraging for breakfast" (because they never address this issue... huh, so maybe that why she's been so stressed ever since meeting Anna ;-)) or "Oh crap!" Two of the volunteers spot her and sprint into the palace with their crossbows. Elsa runs upstairs, and the guys follow (without even any hint of slipping... huh) The upstairs room is now yellow, as she begs them not to shoot at her, but in spite of that plus Hans' orders, they shoot anyway... and an ice wall comes up to block the shot. So Elsa decides to use her ice powers to defend herself by pinning one of the guys to the wall and shoving the other out to the balcony, which also conveniently has the guard rail knocked away. Basically, we're getting a superhero(ine) fight in a Disney princess flick :-D

Back outside, Hans grabs a sword and chops off Marshmallow's leg. The snowman ends up falling into the chasm, but not before trying to take Hans off the staircase, leaving him hanging for dear life, but thankfully the other volunteers help him back up...

Hans reaches Elsa's room and sees the battle raging on: "Queen Elsa! Don’t be the monster they fear you are." This makes her stop attacking the guys... and then the one pinned to the wall lifts up his crossbow to aim at her. Hans rushes in to push the crossbow upwards, and the guy ends up firing the arrow right through the top of the chandelier (told you it'd be important :-)) Chandelier falls and Elsa rushes to get out of the way, but she ends up getting knocked over as we cut to black on a really high-pitched noise...

Coming up: Let's do the twist!