Did anyone read the book? - A short "review" of Disney's Frozen

"Frozen" is the new Disney Princess movie ostensibly based upon Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen.

In The Snow Queen, young Kay gets a piece of cursed glass in his eye and another in his heart, turning him from gallant boyscout to snarky brat. On a seemingly unrelated note, the titular Snow Queen picks him up in her sleigh and to two make tracks for parts unknown, she erasing his memories and making him inured to the cold. Though everyone else thinks him dead, Kay's playmate, Gerda, vows to find her lost friend.

After getting swept away by a mischievous river, Gerda is taken in by a kindly witch, who also erases her memories into the bargain. Yet after an interview with talking flowers, Gerda's memories are restored and she continues on her quest, whereupon she meets a talking crow, who thinks he knows of master Kay, who is now a prince. Of course, the young man in question is not Kay (and is apparently much older on account of his princess bride), but the royal couple are decent folk and get Gerda kitted out for the next leg of her journey, which ends unfortunately with her magnificent escorts slain on a road and herself in a robbers' den. But she apparently wins over the robber lady's daughter, who gifts her a talking reindeer to ride into Lapland and Finmark as she works her way towards the Snow Queen's lair ("summer palace").

Upon arrival she is greeted by a host of bestial snowflakes, but just as suddenly Gerda's frozen breath turns into a superior host of angels that clear to way for her to enter the snow palace. Sitting on the floor is young Kay, crouched over an array of ice chunks with which he hopes to spell "eternity," the magic word that earns his freedom (though Andersen makes it clear that he yet remembers none of his past life and takes interest in trivial things like mathematics - I mean, that's in the story!) Fortunately for him, Gerda's tears melt away the glass shard in his heart and cause him to cry out the shard in his eye, while the sympathetic Ice chunks helpfully spell out the desired word, allowing the children to escape the palace before the Queen returns from her Italian holiday.

The crisis thus concluded, the children return home via reindeer to find the robber girl having adventures on her own, the helpful crow inexplicably passed away, and themselves full-grown, yet still children at heart - as explained by a perfectly random quote from Matt. 18:3

By contrast, Disney's "Frozen" (which you may recall is BASED upon the events detailed above) has as the main character a princess named Anna, as well as several young men, none of whom are named "Kay." There is also a (mute) reindeer and a snow queen with matching palace - for that matter, there is plenty of snow. But Disney also introduces trolls, snowmen, 8 songs, several blizzards, and Archduke Franz Ferdinand. That said, it was still a great way to spend Thanksgiving evening!