I still think they did Anna pretty well for an animated princess movie under 2 hours where she is one of two main females. She is complex, she isn't just spunky, she doesn't listen and sees things her way, she makes rash decisions, she causes problems by being so quick and sure. For a Disney movie that's pretty good.
That's a very interesting take on the character, I have to say!
Anna didn't strike me as any of those things when I saw
Frozen. But thinking back on it, I suppose she was intriguing in her rashness and quick decision making. It does give her more depth when thinking of it that way.
I realize I didn't say anything that positive about her in my last post, so I'll add another of her virtues to the pot -- I think her desperate hunger for love (the reason she was so quick to accept Hans's proposal) is
very interesting. I say that because, as is obvious in the movie, her desire for love stems from a different place than the princesses of yesteryear. Unlike them, it's not because she depends on men too much (after all, she goes after Elsa on her own rather than needing to be rescued like Snow or Aurora), it's because she's been so starved for it all her life, due in large part to her estranged relationship with her sister. I think the psychology of that was very cool and it also gives Anna a bit more depth and realism.
Like you said, considering the movie's length and the fact that it's a CGI princess movie at its core, I do think that Anna's development was pretty good. Certainly when compared to other Disney princesses, like Snow White, Cinderella, and yes, Aurora, Anna's incredibly complex and dimensional. I still would've loved it if they devoted a bit more time to giving her layers like they did with Elsa, though, and if they had made her character type a bit less cliché.
I love Tangled but I think all these characters are better than Rapunzel. She was very shallow to me. But shallow isn't necessarily bad with a kids movie!
Intriguing take once again!
I personally liked Rapunzel, even though I realized she wasn't very developed or even all that interesting. I enjoyed the fact that she was smart and naïve all at once, bossy at times yet passive at others (like during her interactions with Mother Gothel), obedient with moments of headstrong eagerness, etc. Her personality repeatedly contradicted itself and evolved throughout the course of the film, while Anna's remained the same.
I said earlier that I appreciated the consistency of the characters in
Frozen, and I meant it. But one of the things that made Rapunzel interesting was that her layers came out in such a way that it was almost contradictory, yet it didn't feel like that. It didn't come off as inconstant, but like she was growing as a character. Same is true with Flynn. This is something many movies try for, but don't fully achieve; it usually comes off more like inconsistency than actual growth.
Still, she wasn't all that developed and didn't have too many character traits, which was a bit disappointing. Anna is arguably much more developed, and I know that... but I still like Rapunzel more, for whatever reason.
Hans! He was great. A nice guy, when leading in Anna's absence, a good guy (because he loves being in power) but greedy and selfish in the end.
Hmm. That's another very interesting take! I would, however, respectfully disagree.
The moment they revealed Hans was evil, they undid most of his past character development. Because all of his interaction with Anna was revealed to be a sham, as he was playing her, we really don't know who he is. Even the character traits he showed during his time "wooing" Anna were limp at best.
He was shown as being:
*Sweet...
very sweet ("nice" falls into this category as well)
*Hungry for love (that's the vibe he gave with his whole brothers story, and the fact that he proposed to Anna so quickly... and even the title of their love song pointed toward this)
*Romantic?
*Funny?
The last two are me grasping at straws, because I honestly can't remember any other character traits he displayed.
The scene where he was helping the people of Arendelle by giving out supplies also seemed fake to me. It could've been because he liked being in charge/being in a position of power, but I'm more inclined to believe that he did it solely so that no one would be suspicious of his intentions or anything like that, and so that his future subjects would already like him when he took over because of how kind he was to them during those rough times. Or something like that.
I don't think we can explain those actions away by simply being power hungry and enjoying being in command.
I could be wrong and Hans might be deeper than all this... but I honestly think he was just putting on a front.
And what does that mean? It means Hans is left with only:
*Deceptiveness/manipulativeness
*Evilness/power-hunger/greed
Wonderful! We have no explanation for
why he's like this, just that he wants power and he's evil. Which isn't a cliché at all.
Also, why the heck did they have to make him evil?! I'll admit that I thought the plot twist was pretty cool, but it also was such a cheap move! Many people who saw
Frozen thought it was ridiculous that they had to go and solve the Anna-Kristoff-Hans love triangle by making Hans the villain, and I have to kind of agree. It did come off just like a quick and easy way to solve Anna's love woes, and also, a cheap way to give the film a villain (which was weird because the movie had made a big deal about having "no villain" since Elsa wasn't actually evil). It would've been nice if they
hadn't given us a villain, considering pretty much
every Disney movie in existence has one.
And you know what else? Instead of giving us a great villain with real depth and characterization, they give us Hans.
Hans. He's like the biggest ripoff from the Cliché Movie Villain Handbook out there. The only thing that made him original was that in the beginning of the movie, they make us think he's one of the "good guys." But that was just him being a power-hungry, manipulative, evil...
Eh, you get my point.
Also, since this thread was originally about
Maleficent before I came along and ruined it, I feel I should note that everything I just said about Hans could also be applied to Stefan. The only real difference between the two is that Stefan spiraled into madness and showed at least something resembling love (maybe obsession? a territorial devotion?) for his daughter Aurora. Stefan is more complex than Hans, to be sure, but he definitely shares some of Hans's clichés and flaws as a character.
What a great twist as a bad guy! Kristoff was great too! Nice, and helpful, but not a whimp. Great relationship between the two. When did a animated kids movie do such good characters? Timon and Pumba?!
Okay, let me quote once again what you said about Kristoff, this time in bold:
Nice, and helpful, but not a whimp.
Those three traits would indeed be interesting if those were just the beginning of Kristoff's development. The problem is, Kristoff's development and traits begin and end at "nice," "helpful," and "not a wimp." If that is all Kristoff is as a character, he's pretty dull.
Yes, Kristoff was very helpful to Anna. He was also pretty sweet to her. He was also not a wimp in the slightest. But
that's it. Seriously, in a movie that has a character as complex and dimensional as Elsa, how can there possibly be a character as weak as Kristoff?!
Normally, I would say that they had time constraints to deal with, and it's a kids movie so we shouldn't be expecting too much, blah blah blah... but I'm not even going to say that here, because Kristoff's lack of characterization is just inexcusable to me.
The older princess movies, like
Snow White or
Cinderella, show a notable lack of characterization. I still love them, and you can pardon these sins as being a flaw of the era in which they came out rather than a flaw of the writers. Back then, women were still expected to be somewhat submissive and pretty passive, so it only makes sense movies would reflect that. Sad, yes, but understandable.
Nowadays, people have a much higher standard for the characterization in Disney movies. We've been spoiled with films like
Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and
Mulan (just to name a few). Yet Kristoff, who's really a pretty lackluster character, particularly when compared to Elsa or even Anna, slips through the cracks somehow. No one even notices that Anna's main love interest has all of three character traits and not much else. It was one of my biggest pet peeves about
Frozen... and I
liked Kristoff. I did. I just thought he was so completely underdeveloped, which wouldn't have been too bad if, you know, he was a minor character... but he wasn't.
I will give him props for being somehow likable despite that, though.
That said, I found myself hoping Anna would end up with Hans (who, of course, isn't that developed either, but compared to Kristoff...). I was pretty disappointed when she ended up with Kristoff, honestly. Even though they'd known each other for a shorter span of time, Anna had actually learned more about Hans and his personality than she did about Kristoff during the whole time they spent together. (Not that she learned that much about Hans, and yes, of course it was all lies... but if it weren't, at least she had an idea of who he was. With Kristoff, the deepest thing she knew about him was that he was raised by trolls.)
To me, Kristoff is only a small step up from the princes of the old Disney films, whom we knew next to nothing about but were still supposed to want the princess to end up with (Prince Charming, Prince Philip, the prince from Snow White, etc.). Kristoff has more depth than they do, of course, but he's still pretty bland on the scale of things. Yet somehow, we're supposed to want Anna to choose him over Hans -- who, up to the whole evil plot twist thing, had seemed like a much better and more reliable pick.
I tend to be the opposite of a nitpicker. When I love a story for a main part (In Frozen and Maleficent I love the main morals and twists very much) Then I tend to be very forgiving and can overlook much. As with anyone, we wear colored glasses according to our likes, dislikes, etc.. Mine may be darker glasses than some.
That's a wonderful point, and very true. For example, you mentioned Timon and Pumba above and I very nearly went into quipping about their lack of development as characters (yes, they're both pretty original characters and Pumba shows a bit of unexplained dimension, but as a whole they struck me as mostly there for comic relief and not much else), but the truth is, I couldn't because I love
The Lion King so much that it's hard to really criticize anything about it. Even Timon and Pumba.
I still love movies if they have good story lines or characters or whatever, but I'm also acutely aware of flaws. That's the reason I consider
Frozen to be an awesome movie, and
Maleficent to be really good, but still write long posts like these critiquing every single thing wrong with them.
(And this is just me criticizing
Frozen's character development. If I were to talk about its plot, originality, and other such major things -- which I wouldn't, as this thread's not even about
Frozen and that would be just plain topic-hijacking -- I could easily go on and on about its dead-parents cliché, Elsa's unexplained powers, those annoying trolls which were really just thinly-veiled
deus ex machina, the fact that it relied way too much on its admittedly amazing music, the cheesy and cliché "act of true love" thing, the predictability... et cetera, et cetera.
)
My kids think I'm completely nuts. 
Still, the movie is a virtual cornucopia of computer graphics. I would've preferred a stronger story, with richer characters and proper pacing, over the CGI craziness any day. 
, but since Frozen and Maleficent are constantly being compared in terms of their feministic messages (I personally didn't see Maleficent as female-empowering at all; Frozen, on the other hand...), it should be pointed out that they share similar flaws as well. 
