The Tudyk Trilogy: Frozen (part 5)
Sep. 12th, 2015 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderbraidsTime to bring it home...
After being knocked out, Elsa wakes up in a jail cell, with shackles around her hands, and peering outside the window, she's shocked to see the effects of her ice magic on Arendelle. Enter Hans...
Elsa: "Why did you bring me here?" Hans: "I couldn’t just let them kill you." Elsa: "But I’m a danger to Arendelle. Get Anna." Hans: "Anna has not returned." Wait, you mean that your posse (carrying an unconscious Elsa, I might add) managed to beat her back to Arendelle? Huh...
Hans tells her to get that glitch under control: "If you would just stop the winter, bring back summer...please." Elsa: "Don’t you see? I can’t. ...You have to tell them to let me go." Hans leaves: "I will do what I can." Elsa doesn't seem to trust him though, as the shackles begin to freeze...
Sure enough, we cut to Kristoff and Sven still rushing Anna back to Arendelle, with Olaf sliding alongside... Kristoff puts his hat on Anna's head to keep her warm (DAWW...) as they reach town. Olaf plans to meet them at the castle, and Kristoff tells the snowman to stay out of sight. Olaf: "I will..." And then literally two seconds after he slides off screen into the village, he freaks out some villagers with his alive-ness :-D
The others arrive at the palace gates, gates open and the concerned servants take Anna in before shutting them again, and Kristoff sighs before turning back with Sven... Inside the palace, Hans plans to go out to look for Anna again, but a couple foreigners object to that: "You cannot risk going out there again..." "If anything happens to the Princess, you are all Arendelle has left." While he's pondering this, here come the servants with Anna :-) Anna tells Hans she needs a kiss from him, and the servants decide to give her and Hans some privacy, and leave the room with the foreigners.
After finding out about what happened, Hans says of Elsa: "You said she’d never hurt you." Anna: "I was wrong." Hans puts Anna on the couch as she adds: "She froze my heart and only an act of true love can save me." Not surprisingly, Hans understand why she needs a kiss (or so she thinks) Rather surprisingly, he doesn't lay one on her, because it's time to do the twist :-)
Hans: "Oh, Anna. If only there was someone out there who loved you." Anna: "What...? ...You said you did."
(Tumblr)
As he closes the curtains, he launches into a monologue, but since Brad Bird made them so passe way back when, let's just stick to the main points: Remember those brothers Hans mentioned? Well, they're also the reason he's doing this, because he had no chance of getting to the throne in his homeland. Elsa was his preferred choice, but "You were so desperate for love you were willing to marry me, just like that." And since everything else has played into his plan, all he has to do now is bump off Elsa. And as he's saying all this, he also puts out the candle and the fireplace. Anna: "You’re no match for Elsa." Hans: "No, YOU'RE no match for Elsa. I, on the other hand, am the hero who is going to save Arendelle from destruction." Pretty much the only missing from all this is Hans cackling like a madman, but since that'd be too on-the-nose for the new Disney, they settle for the next best thing...
Anna: "You won’t get away with this." Hans: "Oh, I already have."
And on that note, Hans may have said he'd never shut Anna out... but he never said anything about locking her in, and that's exactly what he does. Pretty divisive twist we got here... On the one hand, Disney villains used to be blatant and obvious, so it's refreshing to see something different, and shall we say, more realistic.
On the other hand though, besides his monologuing and hackneyed dialog, his scheme for taking the throne also relies a bit too much on "Let's not and say we did", as he returns to the foreigners (and the Duke, not that he'll be important going forward) and claims that he and Anna got to exchange their vows before she kicked the bucket. And remember how he talked about protecting Arendelle from treason? Well, he then announces with a heavy heart that he's sentencing Elsa to death for treason :-0
Back in Elsa's jail cell, she hears the guards converging on the door and decides "Screw this, I'm outta here" and uses her dangerous powers to save herself from the bad guy trying to kill her... hey, wait a minute...
(Disney Screencaps)
So while Hans is really peeved to see a really big hole in the ice-covered wall and a broken pair of Elsa shackles in the cell, we cut back to Kristoff and Sven on the mountain heading away from Arendelle's main town. Sven doesn't seem too happy with Kristoff and starts making some noise of his own, prompting this response: "I don’t understand you when you talk like that" :-D Sven takes matters into his own hooves by picking Kristoff up with his antlers and dumping him on the ground. Kristoff: "No, Sven! We’re not going back!... She’s with her true love." Sven's facial expression says it all, though... and then Kristoff suddenly sees a storm brewing near the Arendelle castle and he decides to head back for his Anna. Dawww :-)
Palace. Anna is shivering when she hears someone working the door... and that someone is Olaf with his carrot :-) Olaf sees Anna slumped on the ground and the fireplace put out and gets to work relighting it. Yes, the snowman is trying to work the fireplace :-) He dumps some wood in the fireplace, quickly realizes he threw his arm in and takes it out :-D before lighting it... "Whoa! So this is heat.... I love it." And then one of his twig hands catches fire :-D "Ooh! But don’t touch it!" :-D
After helping Anna to the fireplace, Olaf asks about Hans and the kiss, and is surprised and confused to hear that he wasn't really in love with her... "But we ran all the way here?" Anna is worried about Olaf sitting next to the fireplace: "Please Olaf, you can’t stay here; you’ll melt." But Olaf is persistent: "I am not leaving here until we find some other act of true love to save you. ...Do you happen to have any ideas?" Anna: "I don’t even know what love is." You'd almost expect a certain song by Foreigner to play in the background over the scene (and YouTuber ChiefBrodyRules was inspired to make an early 90s VHS-style trailer featuring the song :-))
Olaf: "That’s okay, I do.... Love is...putting someone else’s needs before yours. Like, you know, how Kristoff brought you back here to Hans and left you forever." Huh, so Olaf was right about being a love expert :-) Anna seems confused at what he's implying: "Kristoff loves me?" Olaf's carrot nose begins to droop a bit (for obvious reasons) and he pushes it up as he reacts: "Wow, you really don’t know anything about love, do you?" :-) Anna: "Olaf, you’re melting." Olaf: "Some people are worth melting for." Then Olaf has to quickly prop up his melting face: "Just maybe not right this second" :-D
A gust of wind pushes the window open, and Olaf goes to get it, and in a nice little bit of symbolism, the wind knocks over a chess piece on a chessboard... (The white queen, more specifically :-)) Olaf spots something outside the window, and takes a conveniently placed icicle and uses it as a telescope (with awesome 3D stick-out :-)) "It’s Kristoff and Sven! They’re coming back this way." Anna: "They are?" Olaf: "Wow, he’s really moving fast. Huh.... I guess I was wrong. I guess Kristoff doesn’t love you enough to leave you behind." :-D Anna tries to get up, but Olaf tells her to stay by the fire... Anna: "I need to get to Kristoff." Olaf: "Why...? Oh, oh, oh, I know why. There’s your act of true love right there, riding across the fjords like a valiant, pungent reindeer king! Come on!" And they better hurry, because the Elsa storm is making even the inside walls in the room ice up... and also creating spikes that block their path in the hallways outside, so the only option is to crack open a window and slide down the snowmound that has accumulated on the palace ... which causes Olaf to accumulate a lot of extra snow :-D Olaf gets split up and blown away by the storm winds as Anna makes it to the fjord: "Keep going, Anna!"
So we find ourselves frequently intercutting between Anna and Kristoff struggling mightily against the blizzard for the next couple minutes. We see Kristoff riding Sven into the blizzard, while Anna is trying to will herself forward against the wind, and we see that her entire head of hair has turned white.
Kristoff races past a ship as it's tipping over, avoiding the debris falling from the ship... and the big stick thing protruding from the front of the ship. The rod slams into the ice, breaking it up, making Sven fall into the water, but not without managing to throw Kristoff to safety. He looks for the reindeer, and after several uneasy moments, sees him clawing up on to a big block of ice, and tells him to stay there before going alone...
Back with Anna... Anna sees her hands starting to ice up... and she desparately cries out to Kristoff. Kristoff hears this and starts heading in the proper direction...
Back with Elsa, who's been running blindly across the fjord in a storm of her own making, when Hans catches up and tells her "You can't run away from this!" Elsa tells him to take care of her sister... and Hans swipes a play from the Scar playbook, and not only tells her of Anna's demise, but also blames it on her. This makes Elsa collapse in utter grief... and it also makes the crazy winds stop, thus allowing Kristoff to see where Anna is... and Anna to hear/see Hans taking out his sword to give her catatonic sister the chop :-0 Anna decides to shuffle off in Elsa's direction instead, much to Kristoff's confusion...
Okay, so here we go... As Hans takes a swing, Anna channels her inner Tim Howard and races in, extending her right arm up as high as she can... as she suddenly freezes, and I don't mean like just holding her position, I mean like literally turning into a statue of ice :-0 Hans' sword shatters again her frozen right hand and the sudden freeze apparently knocks out Hans as well, and we cut to the face of the Anna statue, as a steamy puff of breath comes out... Pretty striking image there.
Elsa gets up from her catatonic state, discovers the Anna statue and hugs her as she cries... The utter silence, except for Elsa's sobbing and Olaf (now whole again) coming in and saying "Anna..." is very effective (especially in the cinema with a polite crowd :-)) Kristoff is sad... Sven is sad... Olaf is sad... The crowd of people gathered on the palace balcony are sad...
And suddenly, Anna begins to thaw, starting from, well, guess :-) Sven nudges Kristoff when he notices this, and Olaf starts to smile... (And not that anyone brings it up, but that white streak in her hair is also no more :-))
Elsa is more than relieved to see her sister alive and kicking and embraces her HARD :-) "You sacrificed yourself for me?" Anna: "I love you." And just like that, the LGBT are all over this movie like a pack of dogs on a piece of meat (not that there's anything wrong with that :-)) Indeed, Olaf remembers: "An act of true love will thaw a frozen heart :-D" He's so enthusiastic about this that he holds his head up on his twig arms :-D After all, this kind of love, the familial kind, is what the film (and ultimately, the original story) is really about :-)
This gives Elsa an epiphany (even Anna's a bit surprised at its suddenness), and, to the strains of the same melody that opened the film, she uses her powers to break up all the snow and ice and make them recede into the sky... and conveniently enough, they find themselves standing on one of the boats in the frozen fjord as she does this :-) One guess what shape the snow and ice take as they gather in the sky :-)
The giant Elsaflake scatters, leaving behind nothing but warm weather, as Anna proudly says "I knew you could do it :-)" Olaf: "Hands down, this is the best day of my life...and quite possibly the last." Why? Because as he's saying this, he's melting, and in a nice touch, one of his twig arms falls off ("hands down", geddit? :-)) Elsa: "Oh, Olaf. Hang on, little guy."
With her powers, not only does she restore Olaf back to normal, she even gives him his personal snow flurry, so for him, having a cloud perpetually hanging over his head is actually a GOOD thing :-) Meanwhile, Hans gets back up, rubbing his chin from the earlier hit... (There has been some evidence suggesting that Kristoff was supposed to do the "honors" for that, but I digress...)
Kristoff heads over, but Anna wants to handle Hans herself... Hans is confused at Anna's alive-ness: "Anna? But she froze your heart." Anna responds with a great line: "The only frozen heart around here is yours." On top of that, she clobbers him in the face, knocking him off the boat into the drink, much to the delight of the dudes on the balcony (doesn't make much sense when you really think about it but whatever :-)) The sisters embrace again, with Anna peering over at Kristoff and smiling. Dawww :-)
Epilogue! We see some boats sailing out of the fjord, and we see Hans being thrown into a small cell on one of the ships. Foreign dude: "I will return this scoundrel to his country. We shall see what his twelve big brothers think of his behavior." As for that other guy, a couple of guards take the Duke to his ship, even as he demands to see a doctor for the pain in his neck, or perhaps meet the Queen. It just so happens that random castle guy has a message to him from the Queen: "Arendelle will henceforth and forever no longer do business of any sort with Weaseltown." Talk about holding a grudge :-D
Back with Anna and Kristoff now, as she leads him blindfolded across the bridge, smack dab into a pole :-D Anna brings him to the square, where he takes off his blindfold to discover, well, guess...
That's right, Anna's stuck to her promise and given him a new sled. Anna: "And it’s the latest model :-)" Kristoff: "No. I can’t accept this..." Anna is insistent: "You have to. No returns. No exchanges. Queen’s orders. She’s named you the official Arendelle Ice Master and Deliverer." Even comes with its own medal I might add :-) Kristoff: "What? That’s not a thing." Anna: "Sure it is. And it even has a cup holder :-) Do you like it?" Kristoff lifts Anna up and twirls her in the air :-) "Like it? I love it.... I could kiss you!" Though he seems a bit shy about that :-) "...I could. I mean I’d like to. I’d... may I? We me....I mean, may we? Wait, what?" Anna kisses him on the cheek and answers: "We may." And so...
Dawww :-)
(Disney Screencaps)
Elsewhere, Olaf is delighted to get to experience summer, as he walks over to some flowers in a basket at a flower shop and says "Hello :-)" Of course, savvy viewers will recognize this as how the original teaser trailer opened, albeit in a completely different setting... Just like in the teaser, Olaf literally sneezes his nose off, in this case straight into Sven's mouth :-D... and just like in the teaser, Sven returns Olaf's nose to him :-) Olaf and Sven snuggle, and thankfully we're spared Olaf being allergic to Sven's fur and sneezing his head off (literally! :-D) Instead, we get to see the reindeer grab one of the snowflakes falling from Olaf's cloud with his tongue :-)
Castle courtyard with Elsa asking the populace if they're ready to kick it :-) The people cheer, and Elsa stomps the yard to create an ice rink, and even adds some decorative atmosphere, including freezing the water in the fountains :-) The people skate around on the newly-made rink as Anna comes in: "I like the open gates." Elsa: "We are never closing them again." You know, I'm starting to think that all this stuff about opening and closing doors and gates is some sort of metaphor for their relationship or something ;-) Big sister even has one extra special surprise for Anna: her own pair of skates made from ice (what else?) Anna doesn't skate, but Elsa's all too eager to teach :-)
The sisters skate on the rink, as we see Olaf teaching them how to glide and pivot and Kristoff and Sven passing through, as we pull out to a wide shot of the Arendelle palace, now with some icy decorations :-)
And so, the film ends with a rightful ruler, having been restored to power, using her powers to do some really cool things... huh, more deja vu :-)
(Disney Screencaps, YouTube)
We play out with a credits "music video" set to a rather mediocre Demi Lovato cover of Let It Go (but at least the visuals are glorious :-))... plus a post-credit scene that I suppose only exists because some animator was playing around with the resources, put Elsa's crown on top of Marshmallow's head, and thought it looked cute :-)
So yeah, as mentioned at the top of this recap, Frozen was a major phenomenon in the cinemas (and on the DVD/Blu-Ray shelves even), and not only picked up Oscars for Best Song and Best Animated Feature, but also spawned a short film follow-up which helped the film it was attached to become a smash (before you ask... guilty as charged :-)) The studio even announced that they were formally developing a sequel, to much rejoicing :-) though it may have also had the side effect of Disney seriously considering developing a sequel to Idina's other Disney musical as well (really, look it up :-/) So anyways, where can you possibly go from creating the biggest animated phenomenon since The Lion King?
Well, now that Marvel's under your umbrella, how about adopting a really obscure comic book? ;-)
After being knocked out, Elsa wakes up in a jail cell, with shackles around her hands, and peering outside the window, she's shocked to see the effects of her ice magic on Arendelle. Enter Hans...
Elsa: "Why did you bring me here?" Hans: "I couldn’t just let them kill you." Elsa: "But I’m a danger to Arendelle. Get Anna." Hans: "Anna has not returned." Wait, you mean that your posse (carrying an unconscious Elsa, I might add) managed to beat her back to Arendelle? Huh...
Hans tells her to get that glitch under control: "If you would just stop the winter, bring back summer...please." Elsa: "Don’t you see? I can’t. ...You have to tell them to let me go." Hans leaves: "I will do what I can." Elsa doesn't seem to trust him though, as the shackles begin to freeze...
Sure enough, we cut to Kristoff and Sven still rushing Anna back to Arendelle, with Olaf sliding alongside... Kristoff puts his hat on Anna's head to keep her warm (DAWW...) as they reach town. Olaf plans to meet them at the castle, and Kristoff tells the snowman to stay out of sight. Olaf: "I will..." And then literally two seconds after he slides off screen into the village, he freaks out some villagers with his alive-ness :-D
The others arrive at the palace gates, gates open and the concerned servants take Anna in before shutting them again, and Kristoff sighs before turning back with Sven... Inside the palace, Hans plans to go out to look for Anna again, but a couple foreigners object to that: "You cannot risk going out there again..." "If anything happens to the Princess, you are all Arendelle has left." While he's pondering this, here come the servants with Anna :-) Anna tells Hans she needs a kiss from him, and the servants decide to give her and Hans some privacy, and leave the room with the foreigners.
After finding out about what happened, Hans says of Elsa: "You said she’d never hurt you." Anna: "I was wrong." Hans puts Anna on the couch as she adds: "She froze my heart and only an act of true love can save me." Not surprisingly, Hans understand why she needs a kiss (or so she thinks) Rather surprisingly, he doesn't lay one on her, because it's time to do the twist :-)
Hans: "Oh, Anna. If only there was someone out there who loved you." Anna: "What...? ...You said you did."
(Tumblr)
As he closes the curtains, he launches into a monologue, but since Brad Bird made them so passe way back when, let's just stick to the main points: Remember those brothers Hans mentioned? Well, they're also the reason he's doing this, because he had no chance of getting to the throne in his homeland. Elsa was his preferred choice, but "You were so desperate for love you were willing to marry me, just like that." And since everything else has played into his plan, all he has to do now is bump off Elsa. And as he's saying all this, he also puts out the candle and the fireplace. Anna: "You’re no match for Elsa." Hans: "No, YOU'RE no match for Elsa. I, on the other hand, am the hero who is going to save Arendelle from destruction." Pretty much the only missing from all this is Hans cackling like a madman, but since that'd be too on-the-nose for the new Disney, they settle for the next best thing...
Anna: "You won’t get away with this." Hans: "Oh, I already have."
And on that note, Hans may have said he'd never shut Anna out... but he never said anything about locking her in, and that's exactly what he does. Pretty divisive twist we got here... On the one hand, Disney villains used to be blatant and obvious, so it's refreshing to see something different, and shall we say, more realistic.
On the other hand though, besides his monologuing and hackneyed dialog, his scheme for taking the throne also relies a bit too much on "Let's not and say we did", as he returns to the foreigners (and the Duke, not that he'll be important going forward) and claims that he and Anna got to exchange their vows before she kicked the bucket. And remember how he talked about protecting Arendelle from treason? Well, he then announces with a heavy heart that he's sentencing Elsa to death for treason :-0
Back in Elsa's jail cell, she hears the guards converging on the door and decides "Screw this, I'm outta here" and uses her dangerous powers to save herself from the bad guy trying to kill her... hey, wait a minute...
(Disney Screencaps)
So while Hans is really peeved to see a really big hole in the ice-covered wall and a broken pair of Elsa shackles in the cell, we cut back to Kristoff and Sven on the mountain heading away from Arendelle's main town. Sven doesn't seem too happy with Kristoff and starts making some noise of his own, prompting this response: "I don’t understand you when you talk like that" :-D Sven takes matters into his own hooves by picking Kristoff up with his antlers and dumping him on the ground. Kristoff: "No, Sven! We’re not going back!... She’s with her true love." Sven's facial expression says it all, though... and then Kristoff suddenly sees a storm brewing near the Arendelle castle and he decides to head back for his Anna. Dawww :-)
Palace. Anna is shivering when she hears someone working the door... and that someone is Olaf with his carrot :-) Olaf sees Anna slumped on the ground and the fireplace put out and gets to work relighting it. Yes, the snowman is trying to work the fireplace :-) He dumps some wood in the fireplace, quickly realizes he threw his arm in and takes it out :-D before lighting it... "Whoa! So this is heat.... I love it." And then one of his twig hands catches fire :-D "Ooh! But don’t touch it!" :-D
After helping Anna to the fireplace, Olaf asks about Hans and the kiss, and is surprised and confused to hear that he wasn't really in love with her... "But we ran all the way here?" Anna is worried about Olaf sitting next to the fireplace: "Please Olaf, you can’t stay here; you’ll melt." But Olaf is persistent: "I am not leaving here until we find some other act of true love to save you. ...Do you happen to have any ideas?" Anna: "I don’t even know what love is." You'd almost expect a certain song by Foreigner to play in the background over the scene (and YouTuber ChiefBrodyRules was inspired to make an early 90s VHS-style trailer featuring the song :-))
Olaf: "That’s okay, I do.... Love is...putting someone else’s needs before yours. Like, you know, how Kristoff brought you back here to Hans and left you forever." Huh, so Olaf was right about being a love expert :-) Anna seems confused at what he's implying: "Kristoff loves me?" Olaf's carrot nose begins to droop a bit (for obvious reasons) and he pushes it up as he reacts: "Wow, you really don’t know anything about love, do you?" :-) Anna: "Olaf, you’re melting." Olaf: "Some people are worth melting for." Then Olaf has to quickly prop up his melting face: "Just maybe not right this second" :-D
A gust of wind pushes the window open, and Olaf goes to get it, and in a nice little bit of symbolism, the wind knocks over a chess piece on a chessboard... (The white queen, more specifically :-)) Olaf spots something outside the window, and takes a conveniently placed icicle and uses it as a telescope (with awesome 3D stick-out :-)) "It’s Kristoff and Sven! They’re coming back this way." Anna: "They are?" Olaf: "Wow, he’s really moving fast. Huh.... I guess I was wrong. I guess Kristoff doesn’t love you enough to leave you behind." :-D Anna tries to get up, but Olaf tells her to stay by the fire... Anna: "I need to get to Kristoff." Olaf: "Why...? Oh, oh, oh, I know why. There’s your act of true love right there, riding across the fjords like a valiant, pungent reindeer king! Come on!" And they better hurry, because the Elsa storm is making even the inside walls in the room ice up... and also creating spikes that block their path in the hallways outside, so the only option is to crack open a window and slide down the snowmound that has accumulated on the palace ... which causes Olaf to accumulate a lot of extra snow :-D Olaf gets split up and blown away by the storm winds as Anna makes it to the fjord: "Keep going, Anna!"
So we find ourselves frequently intercutting between Anna and Kristoff struggling mightily against the blizzard for the next couple minutes. We see Kristoff riding Sven into the blizzard, while Anna is trying to will herself forward against the wind, and we see that her entire head of hair has turned white.
Kristoff races past a ship as it's tipping over, avoiding the debris falling from the ship... and the big stick thing protruding from the front of the ship. The rod slams into the ice, breaking it up, making Sven fall into the water, but not without managing to throw Kristoff to safety. He looks for the reindeer, and after several uneasy moments, sees him clawing up on to a big block of ice, and tells him to stay there before going alone...
Back with Anna... Anna sees her hands starting to ice up... and she desparately cries out to Kristoff. Kristoff hears this and starts heading in the proper direction...
Back with Elsa, who's been running blindly across the fjord in a storm of her own making, when Hans catches up and tells her "You can't run away from this!" Elsa tells him to take care of her sister... and Hans swipes a play from the Scar playbook, and not only tells her of Anna's demise, but also blames it on her. This makes Elsa collapse in utter grief... and it also makes the crazy winds stop, thus allowing Kristoff to see where Anna is... and Anna to hear/see Hans taking out his sword to give her catatonic sister the chop :-0 Anna decides to shuffle off in Elsa's direction instead, much to Kristoff's confusion...
Okay, so here we go... As Hans takes a swing, Anna channels her inner Tim Howard and races in, extending her right arm up as high as she can... as she suddenly freezes, and I don't mean like just holding her position, I mean like literally turning into a statue of ice :-0 Hans' sword shatters again her frozen right hand and the sudden freeze apparently knocks out Hans as well, and we cut to the face of the Anna statue, as a steamy puff of breath comes out... Pretty striking image there.
Elsa gets up from her catatonic state, discovers the Anna statue and hugs her as she cries... The utter silence, except for Elsa's sobbing and Olaf (now whole again) coming in and saying "Anna..." is very effective (especially in the cinema with a polite crowd :-)) Kristoff is sad... Sven is sad... Olaf is sad... The crowd of people gathered on the palace balcony are sad...
And suddenly, Anna begins to thaw, starting from, well, guess :-) Sven nudges Kristoff when he notices this, and Olaf starts to smile... (And not that anyone brings it up, but that white streak in her hair is also no more :-))
Elsa is more than relieved to see her sister alive and kicking and embraces her HARD :-) "You sacrificed yourself for me?" Anna: "I love you." And just like that, the LGBT are all over this movie like a pack of dogs on a piece of meat (not that there's anything wrong with that :-)) Indeed, Olaf remembers: "An act of true love will thaw a frozen heart :-D" He's so enthusiastic about this that he holds his head up on his twig arms :-D After all, this kind of love, the familial kind, is what the film (and ultimately, the original story) is really about :-)
This gives Elsa an epiphany (even Anna's a bit surprised at its suddenness), and, to the strains of the same melody that opened the film, she uses her powers to break up all the snow and ice and make them recede into the sky... and conveniently enough, they find themselves standing on one of the boats in the frozen fjord as she does this :-) One guess what shape the snow and ice take as they gather in the sky :-)
The giant Elsaflake scatters, leaving behind nothing but warm weather, as Anna proudly says "I knew you could do it :-)" Olaf: "Hands down, this is the best day of my life...and quite possibly the last." Why? Because as he's saying this, he's melting, and in a nice touch, one of his twig arms falls off ("hands down", geddit? :-)) Elsa: "Oh, Olaf. Hang on, little guy."
With her powers, not only does she restore Olaf back to normal, she even gives him his personal snow flurry, so for him, having a cloud perpetually hanging over his head is actually a GOOD thing :-) Meanwhile, Hans gets back up, rubbing his chin from the earlier hit... (There has been some evidence suggesting that Kristoff was supposed to do the "honors" for that, but I digress...)
Kristoff heads over, but Anna wants to handle Hans herself... Hans is confused at Anna's alive-ness: "Anna? But she froze your heart." Anna responds with a great line: "The only frozen heart around here is yours." On top of that, she clobbers him in the face, knocking him off the boat into the drink, much to the delight of the dudes on the balcony (doesn't make much sense when you really think about it but whatever :-)) The sisters embrace again, with Anna peering over at Kristoff and smiling. Dawww :-)
Epilogue! We see some boats sailing out of the fjord, and we see Hans being thrown into a small cell on one of the ships. Foreign dude: "I will return this scoundrel to his country. We shall see what his twelve big brothers think of his behavior." As for that other guy, a couple of guards take the Duke to his ship, even as he demands to see a doctor for the pain in his neck, or perhaps meet the Queen. It just so happens that random castle guy has a message to him from the Queen: "Arendelle will henceforth and forever no longer do business of any sort with Weaseltown." Talk about holding a grudge :-D
Back with Anna and Kristoff now, as she leads him blindfolded across the bridge, smack dab into a pole :-D Anna brings him to the square, where he takes off his blindfold to discover, well, guess...
That's right, Anna's stuck to her promise and given him a new sled. Anna: "And it’s the latest model :-)" Kristoff: "No. I can’t accept this..." Anna is insistent: "You have to. No returns. No exchanges. Queen’s orders. She’s named you the official Arendelle Ice Master and Deliverer." Even comes with its own medal I might add :-) Kristoff: "What? That’s not a thing." Anna: "Sure it is. And it even has a cup holder :-) Do you like it?" Kristoff lifts Anna up and twirls her in the air :-) "Like it? I love it.... I could kiss you!" Though he seems a bit shy about that :-) "...I could. I mean I’d like to. I’d... may I? We me....I mean, may we? Wait, what?" Anna kisses him on the cheek and answers: "We may." And so...
Dawww :-)
(Disney Screencaps)
Elsewhere, Olaf is delighted to get to experience summer, as he walks over to some flowers in a basket at a flower shop and says "Hello :-)" Of course, savvy viewers will recognize this as how the original teaser trailer opened, albeit in a completely different setting... Just like in the teaser, Olaf literally sneezes his nose off, in this case straight into Sven's mouth :-D... and just like in the teaser, Sven returns Olaf's nose to him :-) Olaf and Sven snuggle, and thankfully we're spared Olaf being allergic to Sven's fur and sneezing his head off (literally! :-D) Instead, we get to see the reindeer grab one of the snowflakes falling from Olaf's cloud with his tongue :-)
Castle courtyard with Elsa asking the populace if they're ready to kick it :-) The people cheer, and Elsa stomps the yard to create an ice rink, and even adds some decorative atmosphere, including freezing the water in the fountains :-) The people skate around on the newly-made rink as Anna comes in: "I like the open gates." Elsa: "We are never closing them again." You know, I'm starting to think that all this stuff about opening and closing doors and gates is some sort of metaphor for their relationship or something ;-) Big sister even has one extra special surprise for Anna: her own pair of skates made from ice (what else?) Anna doesn't skate, but Elsa's all too eager to teach :-)
The sisters skate on the rink, as we see Olaf teaching them how to glide and pivot and Kristoff and Sven passing through, as we pull out to a wide shot of the Arendelle palace, now with some icy decorations :-)
And so, the film ends with a rightful ruler, having been restored to power, using her powers to do some really cool things... huh, more deja vu :-)
(Disney Screencaps, YouTube)
We play out with a credits "music video" set to a rather mediocre Demi Lovato cover of Let It Go (but at least the visuals are glorious :-))... plus a post-credit scene that I suppose only exists because some animator was playing around with the resources, put Elsa's crown on top of Marshmallow's head, and thought it looked cute :-)
So yeah, as mentioned at the top of this recap, Frozen was a major phenomenon in the cinemas (and on the DVD/Blu-Ray shelves even), and not only picked up Oscars for Best Song and Best Animated Feature, but also spawned a short film follow-up which helped the film it was attached to become a smash (before you ask... guilty as charged :-)) The studio even announced that they were formally developing a sequel, to much rejoicing :-) though it may have also had the side effect of Disney seriously considering developing a sequel to Idina's other Disney musical as well (really, look it up :-/) So anyways, where can you possibly go from creating the biggest animated phenomenon since The Lion King?
Well, now that Marvel's under your umbrella, how about adopting a really obscure comic book? ;-)
