Frozen Through The Years

Frozen Through the Years

Yearly Spotlight: 2021

Written by @secretsofthestorymakers

2021 brought the release of several short Frozen books such as the picture book Family Game Night and La Bibliothéque Rose books, 14 short chapter books written in French. In addition, the official Frozen II manga was released. Frozen was also included in the official book of the Ultimate Princess Celebration, Tales of Courage and Kindness, with two original stories: The Unhappy Forest featuring mainly Elsa, and Cloudberries for a Queen featuring mainly Anna.

As COVID-19 restrictions lifted, Frozen: The Broadway Musical opened on West End for the first time and the North American Tour resumed after being shut down due to the pandemic.

In regards to digital content, Myth: A Frozen Tale released on Disney+ as a “flat” version of the original VR short, allowing many more fans to have access to it for the first time. On November 12, Olaf Presents - 5 short episodes of Olaf summarizing other Disney movies - was released on Disney+. Olaf Presents was the result of fans’ overwhelmingly positive reaction to Olaf’s humorous summary of Frozen in the film Frozen II. Finally, to finish out the year, Disney released a new version of the Arendelle Yule Log on Disney+ that was handmade out of paper by visual development artist Brittney Lee.

Ultimately, 2021 came with small additions to the lore of Frozen in the form of short content. Nevertheless, fans were excited by each new addition and wondered what would be next in the future of the story.

Stay Tuned for More

👆🏻 Click above if you want to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Frozen. The due date is April 12, 2024.

We look forward to seeing your memories ❄️

Frozen Through the Years

Yearly Spotlight: 2019

Written by @toriofthetrees

After six long years, 2019 saw the release of the long-anticipated sequel, Frozen II.

The lead-up up to the release was intense to say the least.

The first teaser trailer premiered in February, opening with Elsa on a black-sand beach stripped down to her bare essentials, barefoot, ready to take on a raging sea. She attempted twice to cross the torrential waters before the trailer turned to Anna’s shock of hundreds of diamond-shaped glass covered in strange symbols, taking over Arendelle. Following closely behind were several moments of Elsa, Olaf, Kristoff, and Anna taking on dangerous challenges, and a show of strange, foreign magic. All of this was centered around this new, mysterious setting known only at the time as an autumnal forest.

It gave just enough of a preview to hook millions.

The trailer was viewed and downloaded several million times on Twitter and YouTube within a short amount of time. In the fandom, a storm of news, posts, speculation, and discussions broke out over several platforms, too chaotic to keep track of. The months that followed the teaser were absolutely brimming with excitement! Across cinemas, television, and the internet—both in the US and internationally—came many trailers, sneak peaks, and posters about the upcoming movie. Alongside this came leaks as well, all of it sparking speculation in the fandom over what the plot of the movie could be.

Countless books about Frozen II came onto the market before the film was even released, notably without the end of the film printed within their pages. This lead to fans in many locations to protest the shops selling these books, wanting their money back.

Most of these protests lead to no results.

Success for Disney Studios, specifically. contributed to the exposure for Frozen II. ~In March, Disney invested billions of US dollars in company acquisitions across the film and TV industry, creating the most powerful media company in the world in the USA. ~This was the year of the 6th Disney D23 Expo, the biggest Disney fan event of the year! It was held on August 23–25 at the Anaheim Convention Center in California, showcasing news and pictures around all the new Disney parks, resorts—and movies! Including Frozen II! ~On November 12, 2019, Disney launched its streaming platform Disney+ in several countries ~2019 ultimately proved to be Disney's most successful cinema year to date, regardless of which new film was released!

All of this led up to the release of Frozen II on November 20, 2019 in most countries (unfortunately some countries had to wait until the beginning of January).

This new installment to Elsa and Anna’s story saw the sisters and their found family making a long trek away from Arendelle… in order to save it. Mysterious magics send them up north to the Enchanted Forest, that is covered in an impenetrable mist. Yet, it parts for them. The deeper they go into the forest, the more they discover about themselves, their family, the spirits, Arendelle… so that only one thing can be said for certain: Nothing will ever be the same again.

This film was polarizing.

In the cultural zeitgeist, it was a massive success like its predecessor, exceeding Frozen as the highest grossing animated film of all time. It received mostly positive reviews and it would go on to be nominated for multiple awards, including an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. The Disney merchandising machinery was running at full speed and earned the company many more millions within a short amount of time. The limited edition dolls were sold out on the same day as release! However, it notably did not have the same cultural reach that its predecessor had. “Into the Unknown,” to many, was not comparable to “Let it Go.” And the film was nominated aplenty, but never actually received any awards.

However, it was within the fandom that this polarization was seen the clearest.

Frozen II made good on its promise that nothing would ever be the same for these characters. The sisters, though still as close as ever, no longer lived under the same roof by the end of the film. Elsa abdicated her crown for her duties as the Fifth Spirit and Guardian of the Enchanted Forest, while Anna took over as Queen of Arendelle. This separation, whilst to some was a step-up for the sisters, others saw as a step back. This debate rages in the fandom to this day, and many, many fans on Tumblr, Reddit, and other social media prefer Frozen to its sequel.

The fandom did gain some new content, including the addition of multiple ships. There were two that were rather popular. The first was Agduna (Agnarr/Iduna), which came about because of the major focus Frozen II had on them, the sisters’ parents. The second was Elsamaren (Elsa/Honeymaren), which came about because Honeymaren had a minor, but important interaction with Elsa in the film that sent her on the right path to Ahtohallan.

Just as Frozen II’s main theme—change—impacted the sisters, so to it did the fandom. The polarizing effect of the film lead to quite passionate arguments over its content. However, the fandom did not get any smaller or lose any passion. People continued to create, debate, discuss, and post about Frozen and Frozen II. In interviews, the cast and crew said that Frozen II was made to grow up with the audience who were there when the first film was released in theaters. With that in mind, the fandom no longer looked like it did when Frozen first came out.

Things change.

But we can still all agree on one thing: We love Frozen 💕

Stay Tuned For More

👆🏻 Click above if you want to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Frozen. The due date is April 12, 2024.

We look forward to seeing your memories ❄️

Frozen Through the Years

Yearly Spotlight: 2013 (Part 3 & Last)

Written by @toriofthetrees

In the wake of its massive success, Frozen had cultural impact that created fascinating (and sometimes intense) discussion. A fandom was quickly forming around Frozen, sprouting off of the long-established Disney fandom.

For many, Elsa and her story mattered. The film reverberated significantly with the LGBT community, in communities of mental health and neurodiversity, and generally with anyone who understood how it felt to live a life hiding who you are. Elsa's hugely popular number Let it Go would go on later to receive an Oscar, no doubt because it’s message of self-acceptance resonated with so many.

Let it Go is also remembered to be legendary at consuming the zeitgeist. It can be globally agreed that through all of Frozen's successes, the people who truly deserved an award were the parents who patiently sat through Elsa’s number over and over for love of their little Frozen fans.

Stay Tuned for More

👆🏻 Click above if you want to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Frozen. The due date is April 12, 2024.

We look forward to seeing your memories ❄️

Frozen Through the Years

Yearly Spotlight: 2017

Written by @secretsofthestorymakers

This year, we saw the addition of a new story to the franchise!

Olaf’s Frozen Adventure was released, a 21-minute short prefacing the premiere of the film, Coco. The short featured an entire unique plot and 6 original songs. It starred the original voice actors from Frozen, but had different directors and songwriters.

While it is commonplace with Disney animated productions to have a short film beforehand, 21 minutes is very long run time for a short film. Many fans of Coco, especially in Mexico, felt that having such a long short film before the movie was an insult, and that it should be removed. Disney relented and told film distributors to stop showing Olaf’s Frozen Adventure before Coco.

Despite this, Olaf’s Frozen Adventure still received reviews from critics. They were rather mixed, and yet, it was nominated for Best Animated Special Production, among other awards.

The other big thing in 2017 was the official announcement from Disney that Frozen II would be released on November 27, 2019; fans were happy and excited to finally have a definitive release date. By 2017, many fans were eager for Frozen II as the future of the franchise. Even if they didn’t have many clues as to what Frozen II would be about, it was clear to fans that it would be huge!

Stay Tuned For More

👆🏻 Click above if you want to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Frozen. The due date is April 12, 2024.

We look forward to seeing your memories ❄️

Frozen Through the Years

Yearly Spotlight: 2014

Written by @secretsofthestorymakers

Discussion around Frozen began to form it's own fandom, which really started taking off in 2014! People began to create online spaces to discuss the film and create fanworks inspired by it. All over the world, fans created hundreds of fanfics, fanarts, edits, and more! By this point, most of the world was aware of Frozen, as it had become a global phenomenon.

The soundtrack of Frozen became the No. 1 album in the United States by early January and remained at the top throughout the year. By March, Frozen had claimed the title of the highest grossing animated movie of all time, which it held until 2019 when it was replaced by Frozen II.

Let's see, what else...

Merch sales exploded, to the point that there was a nationwide shortage in the US. Frozen on Ice opened in September and immediately became Disney’s most popular ice show ever! The first half of Once Upon a Time Season 4 also premiered in September, bringing Elsa, Anna, old and new Frozen characters to Storybrooke. Halloween and Christmas was dominated by Frozen. 2014 was the year that Frozen truly started to blow up worldwide.

But for the fandom, this was only the beginning.

Stay Tuned For More

👆🏻 Click above if you want to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Frozen. The due date is April 12, 2024.

We look forward to seeing your memories ❄️