For a long time, fairy tales and animated films represented by Disney are like a one-off deal: out of the rigid demand of child supply, "Happily ever after" as a necessary conclusion means that the story/narrative should be self-consistent. To a large extent, it is difficult to achieve parallelism with modern business practices.
How to make/operate an unnecessary and unnecessary fairy tale sequel (to make money) has become a difficult and important challenge. The continuation of Grimm’s fairy tale "Magic Black Forest" provides an interesting direction, while DreamWorks' early "Shrek" series is based on the spirit of spoofing in a variety of ways, and it is reversed to the fairy tale Mobius belt.
As the home base of Hollywood fairy tale movies, Disney's sequel policy is also changing rapidly. Animation sequels before the new millennium often do not land on the big screen like their predecessors, but achieve a natural continuation on traditional home television media. However, with the rapid evolution of the market environment, long-term IP operations have been unable to meet increasingly short-sighted business purposes.
Disney and its fairy tales are still going on, but they are already on the fast lane of CG live-action movies. The pursuit of the (animation) sequel also began to accumulate experience and reserves with the Marvel MCU and Pixar in the pocket. After the violent death of "Alice in Wonderland 2", Disney Headquarters finally launched two fairy tale sequels in 2019: "Maleficent 2" and "Frozen 2."
Although the two sequels have many similarities in the setting of the story-both can be seen as a Disney-style transplant of "Game of Thrones" and a "Romeo and Juliet"-style transformation-the pressure and challenges faced by the latter obviously require Much larger than the former. As Disney's grand slam, 2013's "Frozen" has a historical position that connects the past and the future, and the importance of brand protection is naturally self-evident.
It is also true that "Frozen 2" ushered in a rare comeback screenwriter/director in the animation industry (and Disney). In the sequel, Jennifer Lee and Chris Barker changed the ice blue tone of the previous work, and also brought a broader Nordic scene for adventure and exploration, and provided ample room for growth for the characters.
Although the story itself lacks a sense of urgency-there is even no real villain and strong drama conflict-but these changes have also allowed Disney to finally achieve PG hegemony in "Frozen 2", and even dominate Hollywood. The last hurdle of this decade.
Undoubtedly, "Frozen 2" cannot match the height of its predecessor, but this is not a problem. After all, there are only a handful of sequels that can achieve this goal; Animated movies that are out of the blue are even harder to find.
Six years ago, "Frozen" can be regarded as one of the best animated films of this era. It not only inherited Disney's traditional advantages in musicals, but also became the fourth wave of women with amazing forward-looking and creative passion. One of the few lovable female films in the socialist movement.
Obviously, "Frozen 2" has a clear understanding of the creativity from nothing at that time, and has never tried to challenge the status of the predecessor full of surprises. The story of the sequel has a clearer focus-the two sisters in the previous work have more obvious growth and more mature goals, and accordingly learn how to use their abilities to take on greater responsibilities. And the shortcomings in originality, there are shocking visual effects, and the Disney industrial system that has been honed by the MCU to make up for it.
A sequel movie that seems to be very lively, but in fact it is calm, can also form a good protection for the brand under good operation. "Frozen 2" is smarter in the script, and its narrative efficiency has also been significantly improved.
It is precisely because of this that what "Frozen 2" lacks is the expressiveness of the predecessor. This can be seen in the Oscar-winning music production team, Christine Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. The two music producers were deeply involved in the script creation of the sequel, which also made "Frozen 2" closer to the audience's expectations in character and plot creation-based on the vitality of music-rather than brand new. Challenging temptation.
This also makes it difficult for "Frozen 2" to join the ranks of "Toy Story 3". However, considering that the first task of the sequel is to meet expectations, despite the obvious lack of surprises, the attention to detail and success in "Frozen 2" that can do everything is satisfactory.
When the producers wanted to turn every movie into a movie universe, "Frozen 2" took a steady pace to find a good balance between satisfying the fan service of fans and the creative desire of the creators. "Frozen 2" did not want to get rid of the shadow of the former, but tried its best to stretch freely in the shadow of the former.
The result of this is naturally the same as MCU movies, while meeting the needs of both the producer and the audience. But a terrible and dangerous reality is that these shackled dancers—especially the Disney dancers—are dancing better and better.
Martin Scorsese's concern about the film's excessive entertainment and lack of risk is not unimportant, and even imminent. When the audience is boiled in warm water, we need to see that the challenges faced by Frozen 2 and similar movie sequels in development cannot be compared with original movies: because they lack The corresponding price. In the new era of big studios, the allure of a successful brand is far greater than the importance of the original spirit:
A piece of "Thor 2" cannot stop "Thor 3" and "Thor 4", and a piece of "Justice League" cannot stop "Wonder Woman" and "Aquaman". Under the restraint of shackles, the value of free creation has also shrunk greatly, and it is firmly controlled by the producer's "stability maintenance" policy.
But today's Disney is not only unmatched in IP ownership, but also broke the quasi-law that "sequel movies are far inferior to predecessors". Such a Disney is far more terrifying and intimidating than a bad film.
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