The 2013 3D computer-animated musical Walt Disney Animation Studios film Frozen was inspired by "The Snow Queen", and closely followed the original Andersen story early in the film's development. The film has since been adapted to a successful Broadway musical, also produced by Disney.
FROZEN is an original story, loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's “The Snow Queen.” Published in 1845, “The Snow Queen” begins when a magic mirror created by trolls shatters, causing pieces of it to lodge in the heart and eye of a boy named Kai.
Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Snow Queen", the film depicts a princess who sets off on a journey alongside an iceman, his reindeer, and a snowman to find her estranged sister, whose icy powers have inadvertently trapped their kingdom in eternal winter.
Initially, the film began with a prophecy: "A ruler with a frozen heart will bring destruction to the kingdom of Arendelle." Anna is a pure-hearted heroine, much like her character in the final version, but Elsa is evil incarnate.
Towards the end of the movie, when Kristoff is holding Anna in his arms, his thumb passes through her torso for a moment. When Anna and Kristoff first meet Olaf, Anna throws Olaf's head back onto his body. At this point, from our perspective Anna is on the left and Kristoff is on the right with Sven.
How Frozen Could Have Been Drastically Different (Disney)
Is Frozen considered a fairytale?
Frozen is also one of the popular fairy tale films released in 2013 by Walt Disney pictures. Frozen is a revised version of a fairy tale, The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen (1966).
Hearing rumor across the land of a possible cure for diabetes, the king and queen set sail. Months go by, yet the royal parents never return. (Truth to tell, Elsa might be better off without them.) Eventually crowned queen of Arendelle, Elsa still struggles with displaying her diabetes in public.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs came out in 1937, debuting the very first Disney princess with Snow White herself. Voiced by Adriana Caselotti, she's incredibly of her time (i.e. dated af).
Indeed, the plot is loosely based on the tale of The Snow Queen by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, who based many of his books on old Scandinavian folktales.
Strong and independent. Alongside from Sadness from Disney's Inside Out and Eeyore from the Winnie The Pooh franchise, Elsa is a metaphor for mental health. Ever since she was born, she's always been different while her parents, her sister and her royal subjects are literally powerless.
In the film, Olaf represents the happiness Elsa and Anna shared as young children. His desire to experience summer is symbolic of how Elsa wants to return to the old days of her childhood with her sister as her best friend.
Heavily influenced by Norwegian nature, culture and traditions, Frozen introduced us to unforgettable characters like Queen Elsa and her sister Anna, the ice harvester Kristoff and his reindeer Sven, Olaf the snowman and a bunch of cheeky trolls.
Anna as she appears in Frozen (2013). Created by co-writers and directors Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, Anna is loosely based on Gerda, a character from the Danish fairytale "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen.
Ever since the release of Disney's Frozen, there have been numerous comparisons between the film and Broadway's Wicked; so much so that there is an underlying belief among many that Frozen was actually inspired by Wicked, though it is loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen.
Anna's parents rush her to the sacred realm, where discussions with the trolls reveal that Elsa was born with her powers/ depigmentation and deafness, rather than them being due to illness or accident. Grand Pabbie troll heals Anna but removes her memories of Elsa's magic.
Although Elsa's disability is encoded as a magical ice power, the language the film uses to talk about her condition maps on to the experiences of people with physical, mental, and intellectual disabilities in recognizable ways.
But is it healthy? In Part I of the Frozen series, I suggested that Elsa experiences something like borderline personality disorder (BPD). In this interpretation, Elsa's frozen rages are an outward display of the emotional dysregulation she feels inside.
Honeymaren, a member of the Northuldra tribe who was trapped in the Enchanted Forest by the curse, could return for Frozen 3 as Elsa's girlfriend based on the two characters' shared chemistry.
This reflects her fear of her own power and the way in which she closes herself off from everyone around her, including her sister. As she becomes more confident in her magic, she sheds these constricting garments and we see her in a dress made of ice that appears to be growing organically from her skin.
Princess Rapunzel and Eugene appear in Frozen as a brief cameo, indicating that they exist in the same universe as Elsa and Anna. It also implies that the two royal families might be close, as Rapunzel is likely being sent to Elsa's coronation as a representative of the Kingdom of Corona.
The story also advocates the idea that “your actions affect others”. Elsa had magical powers with ice, but she was unable to control her powers and unintentionally hurt her sister. The story portrays the power of sacrifice.
