{"id":859,"date":"2020-03-30T20:21:03","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T20:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/?p=859"},"modified":"2020-03-30T20:27:02","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T20:27:02","slug":"how-frozen-2-follows-the-massive-first-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/how-frozen-2-follows-the-massive-first-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"How Frozen 2 Follows the Massive First Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

The wait is over: six years after Disney Animation Studios\u2019 Frozen<\/em><\/strong> took the world by (ice) storm in a way that no one, not even the studio, saw coming, the adventures of royal sisters Elsa and Anna continue in Frozen II<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Loosely inspired by a story from fairy tale master Hans Christian Andersen, Frozen<\/em><\/strong> was instantly acclaimed as one of the best Disney animated features of all time. Its subtle subversion of \u201cprincess\u201d tropes, along with its moving dynamic between the two sisters, dazzling imagery, humor, and masterful songs\u2013highlighted by the iconic \u201cLet It Go\u201d\u2013also made it into the highest grossing animated film of all time and a staple for children all over the globe.<\/p>\n

The question of how to follow up such a phenomenon didn\u2019t just weigh on directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee (the latter of whom also wrote the screenplay for both), but was the main subject of a press conference in Los Angeles recently. It was there that Lee, Buck, producer Peter Del Vecho, composers Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, and stars Idina Menzel (Elsa), Kristen Bell (Anna), Josh Gad (Olaf), Jonathan Groff (Kristoff), and Evan Rachel Wood (Queen Iduna) gathered to discuss the film prior to its premiere.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think it really started about a year after the first film came out,\u201d Lee said about the journey of Frozen II<\/em><\/strong>. \u201cWe did a small short [\u201cFrozen Fever\u201c]\u00a0and when we saw the characters animated again, we got emotional because we missed them. Peter had been traveling around the world, and this one question kept coming up, which was: Why does Elsa have powers? Then there were more questions: What the girls were meant to do with their lives? They\u2019re on the precipice. They finally got together. What happened? Where were their parents really going?\u201d<\/p>\n

She continued, \u201cIt just kept rolling, and we realized that we had those questions, so we naively said, \u2018We have more story to tell, and we\u2019re not ready to leave this world. We love this world.\u2019 There\u2019s never been a musical sequel to a feature film, so we were going into the unknown, completely. We just knew that we loved the characters and we wanted to be with them again, and we couldn\u2019t wait to find out what was going to happen to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Menzel, who is best known as a singer and stage actress, voicing Elsa put her on a different trajectory entirely\u2013one that never stopped even years after the first film came out. \u201cThere\u2019s the macro and the micro,\u201d said Menzel about returning to the role. \u201cThere\u2019s returning to this family and this beautiful film and this project that\u2019s gifted us with so much joy in our lives, where I get to connect with another human being like Kristen, who\u2019s this sister, and make beautiful art, which is something that we\u2019re proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

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She added, \u201cThen there\u2019s taking that out into the world. It never really ended because I\u2019m singing the music from it all the time, all over the world, and looking out to an audience and seeing people of all ages, really singing this music and reminding me how they\u2019ve been touched by it, and how they\u2019ve learned to celebrate that thing inside of them that makes them feel extraordinary in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bell could concur that the power of Frozen<\/strong><\/em> never left her life.<\/p>\n

Said Bell, \u201cIt definitely never really ended. I\u2019m very similar to Anna. I try to infuse a ton of me into this character, maybe more so than I\u2019ve ever done. Even though we\u2019re roughly the same age, since my early 20s, I have been living for Idina. She was on Broadway very young and just blew up, and I remember when I was studying in New York and watching her onstage. She\u2019s my idol. It was very cool and terrifying to be told by Disney, \u2018Maybe go to Idina\u2019s house, before this table read, and prepare a song, just so we can hear what you guys sound like together.\u2019 So I drove to her house, stood by a piano, and was terrified. My palms were sweating. But it was almost immediate, this genuine sisterly bond.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chemistry between Menzel and Bell was palpable to all when the first Frozen<\/em><\/strong> was made, and played a role in altering the early character of Elsa from a villain into a much more complicated and empathetic creation\u2013a transformation represented by the classic \u201cLet It Go.\u201d When it came time for a follow-up to that song\u2013a new anthem for Frozen II<\/em><\/strong>\u2013the Lopezes created the inspiring \u201cInto the Unknown,\u201d another rousing song to describe Elsa\u2019s state of mind in the new story.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Menzel said she never felt any pressure to repeat the performance she gave on \u201cLet It Go\u201d when performing \u201cInto the Unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKristen and Bobby can write such memorable, impactful melodies,\u201d Menzel said, \u201cbut also tell a story and involve your character, through all of that, which is quite a gift. I can just go in there and have fun. The only thing that I do is that I warm up a lot because I know that they\u2019re going to push me to hit the tops of my range. And on a good day, I do. I\u2019m like, \u2018Let\u2019s go for some of these high notes.\u2019 And then, when I\u2019m out in the middle of Amsterdam on a tour and I have a cold, I have to take it down a key because they\u2019re really challenging songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Idina, if you\u2019re given a Stradivarius, you write to a Stradivarius,\u201d said Anderson-Lopez. \u201cI danced around to Rent<\/em><\/strong> in my apartment and even auditioned for Maureen [Menzel\u2019s breakout Rent<\/em><\/strong> role] a couple of times when I was a mediocre actress. So I knew Idina\u2019s voice. When you hear it, it feels like a warm hug. She has this warmth and this vulnerability down low. And then, as you bring her higher and higher, she gets stronger and stronger, and more powerful. She just reaches into your soul when she\u2019s singing these big, giant songs. I really truly think that we are the lucky ones to get to write for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to \u201cInto the Unknown,\u201d one of Frozen II<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s showstopping numbers is \u201cLost in the Woods,\u201d in which Kristoff sings of his love for Anna in the style of a 1980s power ballad\u2013complete with music video. \u201cI couldn\u2019t even pinpoint whose idea it was,\u201d said Anderson-Lopez about the song\u2019s genesis. \u201cI definitely remember breaking up with my eighth grade boyfriend and just listening to Bryan Adams\u2019 \u2018Heaven,\u2019 over and over again. You want to wallow and feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robert Lopez added, \u201cThe competing idea lost by a landslide. I just remember that we had it down to two ideas, but the other one was a Snow White-type \u2018I\u2019m Wishing\u2019 song.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is that Bobby and I adore \u201880s music,\u201d continued Anderson-Lopez. \u201cThe melodies are really complex. And most importantly, it\u2019s very hard to have a man sit down and sing, \u2018Here is who I am, here is what I want\u2019\u2026So in order to thread the needle of allowing us to do that, it needed to be a fun moment. We\u2019ve been in the woods. We\u2019ve learned some really heavy things. We\u2019ve just seen terribly scary earth giants go by. We needed to have a moment of fun. But we also didn\u2019t want to lose the tether to real emotion and real problems of transformation that are happening in the woods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each of the characters gets a moment to shine in Frozen II<\/em><\/strong>, including Olaf, the magically living snowman who no longer wants to just innocently melt in the sun.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight around the time that we were going into production, I told [the filmmakers] a story about when my oldest child was about five-years-old,\u201d says Josh Gad. \u201cShe was sitting at the table and laughing and, all of a sudden, tears started streaming down her face. She looked at me and my wife and went, \u2018What if I don\u2019t wanna grow up?\u2019 It was so unbelievable. We all have had that experience, as kids, but it\u2019s so traumatic that you just forget about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the way I feel about Olaf,\u201d Gad continued. \u201cIn the first movie, he was this innocent ball of naivet\u00e9 who was willing to go out into the summer sun because he didn\u2019t know any better. In this movie, he\u2019s almost gone from toddler to fully grown child, where now he\u2019s starting to ask those questions that don\u2019t always have easy answers. From a comedic perspective, that gave me so much to play with. But more importantly, from an emotional arc, it was just such a beautiful journey of that moment in life when you start to realize that maybe the world isn\u2019t just raindrops and lollipops, and roses.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that sounds like Frozen II<\/em><\/strong> is perhaps a somewhat darker movie that its predecessor, Jennifer Lee agrees that this is the case. \u201cSometimes we forget, but if you go back to old traditional fairy tales, they always have a moment that gets a little scary,\u201d she explained. \u201cThat\u2019s part of what fairy tales are for. They\u2019re so that you, as a child and as a person in your life, can experience things, safely in the seat. Then it helps you cope with life. I think that\u2019s really important . . . we\u2019ve had incredible responses from kids going through those moments and just coming out the other side with triumph. For us, we grew up in those fairy tales, and we didn\u2019t want to be afraid of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bell agreed with Lee that fairy tales like the Frozen<\/em><\/strong> movies can challenge kids even while entertaining them. \u201cI have two little girls,\u201d she said. \u201cThe more that I\u2019ve thought about it, and then having shown it to them, my conclusion is that we don\u2019t give kids enough credit. They\u2019re projections of us and we want them to be happy because we want ourselves to be happy all the time. We don\u2019t give them enough credit for their ability to digest complex situations and trauma and struggle, and I think that\u2019s why the first one hit.\u201d She added, \u201cI actually think that it\u2019s great for kids to be a little bit on the edge of their seats because it\u2019s a safe environment to try on those emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for what she wants audiences to feel as they leave Frozen II<\/em><\/strong>, Bell remarked, \u201cThere are a few times in life where you get this paradox of feelings. One of them, which is my very favorite, is the moment when you wake up from a nap, and you know you don\u2019t have to get up and you\u2019re still in dreamland, and you can just stay there for a while, but you\u2019re awake. The other one is when you have the feeling that you are ultimately fulfilled because all of these different types of love that we\u2019ve explored\u2013self-love, familial love, romantic love\u2013are all full, and you feel like you\u2019re capable of going out in the world and accomplishing things. It\u2019s that feeling between purpose and fulfillment and drive. So I hope that when people leave, they feel fulfilled, but they also feel like stepping into the unknown might be exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The wait is over: six years after Disney Animation Studios\u2019 Frozen took the world by (ice) storm in a way that no one, not even the studio, saw coming, the adventures of royal sisters Elsa and Anna continue in Frozen II. Loosely inspired by a story from fairy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,2],"tags":[56,53],"class_list":["post-859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-interviews","tag-56","tag-frozen-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-dR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":860,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions\/860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}