Thread by @OhMyAlishaJade

I just got back from seeing Frozen 2 and I have a lot of thoughts on set up vs payoff, character,, and colonialism. This is gonna be a long thread, so strap yourself in. If you haven't seen the film and care about not getting spoilers, please don't read.
1/60 ish, not a joke.

Before we begin, obligatory because this is the internet disclaimer that everyone enjoys media differently. You're not a bad person based on your opinion of a movie. I come at this as a storyteller. You may not. It's fine.

First, setup vs payoff. It's important to write characters well because if you don't your entire story sucks. For an all ages film, clear motivations are good. Growth is good. Let's talk about how this film sets its kids up. Elsa is Queen. She seems fine. I was sad she...

...didn't end the last film giving Anna the crown and going off and living in her ice palace but w/e. Anna also seems fine and happy with things. Olaf is scared of change. Kristof plans to propose. Elsa and Anna's starting points are lacking in conflict, and that is a problem...

…because taking too much time to intro their character conflict plots means less time to work them out. Olaf has upfront the only interesting internal conflict. We get a bit of character work on the parents. But I'll come back to that later. At our early incident, Elsa...

...reveals she has some wanderlust and a voice is calling her, and whoops she woke some angry spirits. Time to go. This intros Elsa's conflict, which is a mess. She wants things to stay as they are (?) but she also has some wanderlust (?) and she's hearing a voice which is...

...an external driver that pulls action together. It's just...what? I suspect that this was a mess because the writers didn't want her conflict to be 'I want to be myself' because that would have been a repeat of her previous conflict...which she apparently worked through.

But clearly did not, she did not. This also intros Anna's conflict which is that she shapes her life around Elsa and is super dependent and needs to back the fuck off. Notice that Kristof's conflict does not put him in conflict with Elsa as a result of Anna's dependency...

...which would've been interesting, and would have provided a better stumbling block for his conflict than...being awkward. Kristof is done dirty by this movie but we'll get to that. The STORY set up is that there's some history between Arendelle and a forest up North where...

...for some reason shit went down after Arendelle was nice and built a huge dam for reasons? and the spirits sealed it off. And now they're mad again. So we have Elsa (messy but...save everyone? Be free?), Anna (be less dependent), Olaf (change is scary) and...

Kristoff (express your feelings?). We have a set up, which is mad spirits causing problems. The reason this all sucks is that, bar Anna, none of their initial conflicts connect to the story payoff, that the truth sets us free, & destroying the structures of colonialism is good.

BUT WAIT DON'T DESTROY ACTUAL COLONIALISM FOR REAL JUST IT'S MOST OBVIOUS SYMBOL, phew Disney had me thinking for a moment there you were gonna do something BIG.

Elsa's initial conflict, be free/save everyone changes to 'find the truth' which does connect to the story payoff, but this is like halfway through the film, so all her character work in the first half is waste. Olaf's conflict kiiiiind of connects but only in that it serves...

...Anna's conflict. In fact, Olaf's conflict is never really worked out, because the film gets scared of the colonialism vein it's going down and backs off. Kristof's conflict, express your feelings, is so far from the story payoff that he may as well not be in this film.

It feels like the writers had nfi what to do with him. He is done so dirty it hurts. It doesn't even serve Anna's conflict! Anna's conflict, be less dependent, serves the story in that she learns to act on her own, knowing the truth of what happened in the past and trusting...

...her judgement in how to fix it. So yay for Anna, it's actually a good connection. Unfortunately, Disney gets scared most of the way through of where their story is actually heading, which is colonialism is bad don't do your nature loving neighbours dirty, and backs off...

...saving Arendelle, the seat of colonial power. For a hot sec I actually thought they were going to destroy Arendelle and have the townspeople rebuild something with the Northuldra, which would have been amazing and would make a lot of sense. It would have connected with...

...Elsa's be free, Olaf's change is scary but ultimately via character growth can be good, Anna's be less dependent. Sorry Kristof your stuff still sucks.

Speaking of everyone. CHARACTER. I think Anna is the only character not let down by this film. Anna has an interesting arc. She starts the film as a stable if dependent person who seems to build her life around Elsa. This is a fine start - it's consistent with her history...

...and the strength of her relationship with Elsa. And through the film by experiencing the loss of Elsa/Olaf she grows as a person and sees that she can stand on her own. Cool. Notice how I didn't say she lost Kristof. Well that's because she just up and abandons him...

...without saying bye to go into the unknown and potentially death. Not having Kristof is clearly not a real problem. Kristof is done the DIRTIEST. Backtrack. Kristof starts the film planning to propose to Anna. He makes a few fumbling attempts along the way in interactions...

...that are weird. They're funny, but don't mesh with the relationship. Anna thinks he's going to leave her? Mess. When they get to the forest Kristof immediately meets a cute himbo guy and they bond over talking to Reindeer and because the plot needs Kristof to go away...

...so Anna won't have him for support they leave to set up a grand proposal plan. There's something here about how you can't walk into another culture and adopt their ways but that's a bigger thing for the colonialism discussion. Anyway it's dumb, gives Kristof an excuse to sing

Power ballad feels out of place in the film but A+ for giving Kristof actual emotions and letting him be visibly vulnerable, that's quite nice. But why does this moment reaffirm that he wants to marry Anna? This is weird and doesn't work. So far A&K's relationship on screen...

...has sucked. Anna doesn't interact with him vocally in the early song about change and being there for each other. They just have awkward moments. Kristof is supportive. She seems disinterested at best. I don't intend this as a criticism of Anna, her arc is all about her...

...dependency and it's just that the dependency is on Elsa, not Kristof. But it's bizarre that these don't interact at all. And he just takes it? No frustration? It's weird.

We all know Disney ain't gonna give us good queer rep, but Himbo Reindeer herder is right there dude. Anyway whatever. The timing of this is bad and misses a great opportunity for character growth. Which, there's none he doesn't get any.

Here he could have decided he didn't want to be taken for granted anymore. Like, he's risked his life a number of times in these quests and never really been given any credit for that selflessness. Proposing at the end isn't growth cause he planned to do that at the start.

The proposal was meh and awkwardly shoehorned in and they both would have been done better if it hadn't happened. Kristof deserved to take some time and re-evaluate their relationship, and Anna could have learned to be a Queen with his support without a proposal.

They could both have grown as people but...eh. Anyway you deserved better Kristof. I mean, they could have connected his express your feelings as he and Anna working it out even? Whatever Kristof I feel bad for you son.

Elsa gets done dirty, in that her character arc ending, be cool and powerful and free, could have easily been achieved at the end of the last film and doesn't connect with her internal conflict and the start of this film. Her Big Gay vibe was at it's peak in Let It Go.

Her realisation that she's what she's been looking for in Show Yourself is clunky? And doesn't connect with this story well at all. Olaf's arc doesn't go anywhere. Like, it's connected and services Anna's arc, but it's about it. Which is sad, because we could have had...

...something cool where he helps rebuild a new beginning and sees change can be good. The Northuldra were also done a big dirty in that they were basically meaningless. None of them have an impact on the story. And this connects to my discomfort with the film's colonialism vibes

And boy are there vibes. So, the big reveal of the story is that grandaddy was a sneaky liar and built the dam to fuck up the Northuldrans and then surprise attacked them, which is why the spirits were like nah bro fuck off and sealed the forest...

...letting dad and mum go I assume so that Elsa the fifth element I mean spirit will be born. And the core story becomes that the truth is important and the dam has to go. But if the dam goes, Arendelle will be destroyed.

Because for some reason they can't just let the water slowly out of the dam, then dismantle it, they have to Let It Go. Anyway.

This would have been a good opportunity to pair Elsa with one of the Northuldrans to help solve the conflict? BUT NO LOL.

Turns out their mum was a Northuldran and that means they're half Northuldran so I guess that solves the question of having to involve these quasi native people stand ins in their own destiny.

Also Anna and Elsa are half Northuldran but have no connection to culture because apparently their mother like, NEVER told them anything. Except a lullaby. This is also weird. Aside from having no Northuldran involvement in the story payoff they're also not involved in...

...coming up with the solution to the Problem, or destroying the dam, or...anything. They're just...there. This made me really uncomfortable to start with but it got even WORSE when like... Elsa as Arwen charges in out of nowhere and saves Arendelle?

Like, we'd finally hit a point where Anna, at that stage the last surviving head of state of the colonial power decided that she has to sacrifice Arendelle so they can all move forward. Which, IS GOOD ACTUALLY.

When a colonial nation sees that they're built on lies & shitty things their ancestors did to another people in the interest of control & fear, a good move is to acknowledge, dismantle the structures based on that past & progress together.

Thor Ragnarok kinda did this a bit? But Frozen 2 is like NOPE we get to keep all this. The existing power structures gotta stay, and you Northuldrans, I guess you just...stay where you are. Keep being unimportant way up there thanks.

Don't be mad that we fucked things up for a long time. Don't expect anything from us. You can sort of keep the magic person with no connection to your culture other than some blood I guess.

And I'm not saying that the Northuldrans should have become Arendellians or whatever. My point is there should have been something NEW. There should have been a move FORWARD.

Because what we have at the end, at best, is a step way back to before the Arendellians fucked everything up. Like it never happened. There are no consequences.

I'm coming at this from a white Australian lense. That might be why this is so uncomfortable for me. I am of a colonial heritage. If you weren't aware white people fucked shit up for indigenous people in Australia and continue to do so, at an individual & structural level.

One of the big unspoken fears besides gays in boats in white Australian power structures seems to be a fear of acknowledging (in any meaningful) way our colonial past. Part of this is white fragility but a bigpart of it is cause if we do that, what happens from...

a legal/reparations perspective? No one in white politics in Australia will touch it. Keep quiet, accept the huge structural issues that indigenous people face, enjoy what white people built (it's more complex but this is twitter and there are better people to learn it from).

So seeing this very colonial narrative end in let's all be happy that we basically reversed time and there are no consequences...it's not fine.
It's cowardly. Imagine what this could have been. Imagine a joined future of cooperation and respect and shared understanding.

But Frozen 2 didn't give me that and I just spent three hours trying to parse it and here we are. Thank you for your patience, again, this is just my thought stream. I am not an authority. Go study history. Listen to indigenous people & not just for traditional burning methods.

Also please please link me to good fanfic where Kristoff and the cute himbo start adopting reindeer and live their lives. And sorry to everyone whose feed I just destroyed, I hope twitter hid most of it in the thread.

AND ANOTHER THING it was sneaky to make the whole bad colonialists all on one character. That's some dumb scapegoating and I notice no one else stopped him from being a dumb asshole who basically doomed everyone if not for his fifth element grandbabby, who didn't exist yet.