I don’t know if anyone could have predicted how huge Frozen was going to become. Around five years after its release, people are still talking about it and getting excited about it as if it were new. With a Broadway musical based on the film running now and a sequel in development, the film remains relevant with fans continuing their excitement. It’s understandable where the excitement comes from.
Frozen is a very unique and new concept, the best example of one to come out of Disney for a while. It’s a great story that appeals to everyone, with relatable and inspiring female characters, and a princess film that focuses on family and bravery, rather than the traditional romance plots! The songs, of course, make Frozen. Admit it, you’ve only been reading this for a minute or two, but you already have Let it Go stuck in your head!
But with immense popularity comes a price. The more a film gets watched, the more people begin to pick up on things. Maybe they flew over your head during your first viewing of the film, maybe you were too caught up in the magic or Arendelle.
But sooner or later, moments that were previously overlooked become glaringly obvious and thanks to the internet, people just can’t not let the whole world know. It doesn’t make the film any less good; if anything, it shows how much people care about it.
25 Why The Gloves?
This is probably the most glaringly obvious question that fans and hater’s alike love to bring up. Elsa’s ice magic can pass through a lot of things. She shuts herself away, so afraid that her powers are going to hurt someone because she can’t really control them. Everything she touches immediately turns to ice: the window, the crown jewels... sometimes it doesn’t even need to be a physical thing.
So with that in mind, why don’t the gloves turn to ice too? They are in direct contact with her hands. How do they stop the terrible ice power?
The obvious answer would be that they are some kind of magic gloves. Elsa’s powers must have come from somewhere, right? So maybe her father, who gives her the gloves, secretly has his own magical powers and manufactured the gloves from some kind of special magic material that he made with his magic. After all, unless I’m mistaken, Elsa always wears the same gloves, doesn’t she? The white ones when she is a little girl, but then the turquoise ones when she grows up. So maybe they’re the special gloves. Even so, it’s never explained in the canon, leaving fans to speculate.
24 Finally Built A Snowman
I’ve seen grown adults cry at Do You Want to Build a Snowman. From makeup designers to rugby players, apparently no one is safe from the heartbreaking sisterhood song of neglect and longing for days past.
The whole sequence does make me wonder why Anna’s memories are modified, and why she wasn’t allowed to know that Elsa had ice powers. Yes, it can be argued that the memories are removed by the trolls to fix her brain and unfreeze it. But then what would happen if they explained all this to Anna afterward? “Sorry little sister, I love you very much, but we can’t play anymore because I hurt you with my witch powers. I’d love to build a snowman with you, but I can’t risk hurting you. Why don’t you go out and find another friend to play with? We can’t be the only two children in all of Arendelle!”
But I digress. When climbing the mountain, escaping the prison of her home, and finally finding freedom alone, Elsa decides to celebrate by making a snowman. Without her sister. Who spent the last thirteen years knocking on her bedroom door asking if she wanted to build one with her. Not exactly a plot hole, but very mean on Elsa’s part.
23 Rushing Into Marriage
One of the things the really sets Frozen apart from other films is its cynicism of love at first sight. Disney has been criticised over the years for giving unrealistic expectations to young girls. Girls often play the damsel in Disney films, especially in Disney Princess films, where their happily ever after only takes place after they find a handsome prince and get married. Not only can this be a patronizing message that tells girls they need to be rescued and can’t take control of their own destiny, but Disney films often take place over a few days. Disney Princesses often get married to someone they’ve known for less than a week.
While on one hand, it was nice to see Disney breaking old habits and showing their progression as an animation studio, on the other hand, it felt like Disney was deliberately being self-deprecating. They were mocking a formula that they’ve been using for years.
So when Kristoff and Elsa tell Anna that she can’t marry someone she just met, Disney themselves were the main contradictors of this argument. Yes, it’s something that was also touched upon in Enchanted, but then it was at least compared to how romance really works in the real world.
22 The Power Of Sewing
Queen Elsa has the powers to make ice and snow appear out of thin air. The film is loosely based on the Hans Christian Andersen story The Snow Queen, about a witch who brings eternal winter on a kingdom. In the film, Elsa has similar powers and brings eternal winter on Arendelle.
Trouble is, she then makes a dress out of nothing. Is that dress made of ice? How is it able to move so freely and shimmer the way it does?
As any seamstress of any ability will tell you, you can’t make dresses out of ice. Superheroes can have very liberal powers at times. I, for one, have never understood why superheroes with the power of invisibility can make force fields. How does blocking yourself off or protecting something relate to invisibility? Granted, you can’t really break powers apart since they all seem to have their own rules.
Even so, after we’ve just seen this woman near destroy an entire city with her ice powers, how does that mean she can make a dress? How did she create the clothes out of thin air and where did her old ones go? Is her new dress made out of her old dress?
21 Typical Synchronization
This I suppose is another example of why those in a Disney movie can’t judge Anna too harshly for falling in love in an evening. We can, of course, just not the characters in the movie.
Disney characters are well known for bursting into song at any given moment. It’s one of the things we love about Disney. Even the most jaded, cynical, and pessimistic of us knows the words to at least one Disney song. Whether that song is from Frozen, Cinderella, or The Nightmare Before Christmas. Disney songs are known for being incredibly catchy and easy to sing along to. So when you live in a Disney universe, odds are you’ll be able to burst into random song with another person, regardless of how well you know each other. The song will, of course, be flawless.
This is probably one of the more pedantic points on this list, but the mental synchronization expressed in this song is probably no more amazing than that of other Disney characters. Such as the thugs in Tangled or Snow White and her Prince. So if you experience this same kind of mental synchronization, then odds are you’re in a Disney movie!
20 Where Is Safe?
This is one of the most questionable moments in the movie. When Anna and Kristoff climb the north mountain to find Elsa, they encounter a massive ice staircase, which is more like an ice wall along with a giant sentient abominable snowman guarding the ice palace, along with a smaller, cuter snowman who likes warm hugs.
When Anna finally finds Elsa, she declares that she wants to help her and be close to her, with Elsa saying that this isn’t safe. It’s a questionable choice of words, given that nothing that’s happened so far is safe.
Granted, this isn’t Elsa’s fault. She didn’t mean to ruin her coronation party by having a breakdown and turning everything into ice. And while she did mean to build that pretty super awesome ice castle and that little snowman (without her sister), she didn’t mean to make it snow everywhere or set a yeti on her sister. At least that’s what she claimed. We saw her make Olaf, so who’s to say she didn’t make the yeti after she finished her song. But the point of the matter is that’s it's clear Elsa has no real idea what “safe” means, and it’s even clearer that Anna doesn’t care. It’s not safe inside the ice castle, but it’s sure as heck not safe outside!
19 Non-Protective Footwear
I’m still not completely finished ranting about the gloves! Okay, so those dress shoes are clearly not the sort of clothes one wears in icy, snowy weather. Maybe if Elsa were wearing some big winter snow boots like Kristoff, the ice might not pass through so easily. Even so, these black dress shoes are a lot thicker and more protective than Elsa’s gloves, so why can Elsa cast spells with her shoes on?
We learn at the very beginning of the film that Elsa’s powers can penetrate a skull (for some context, it would take about 230 kg of force to crush a skull, which is twice as much force as the average human can muster). So that’s quite a strong ice force you’ve got going there, Elsa! It makes sense that she could use her powers through her shoes, but doesn’t explain why gloves would stop it when shoes don’t.
As I said earlier, we don’t know if the gloves are magic or not. They could well be and it’s just that we weren’t told. But since we weren’t told, since all we see is Elsa’s dad putting the gloves on her saying “the gloves will help,” we’re only left with her own speculation.
18 I’ll Go Back Later
Let it Go is probably the most iconic moment in the entire film. The film sometimes felt like a whole music video for that song. Whether you liked the film or not, you can’t deny it’s a very catchy song that Idina Menzel pulls off perfectly. It’s one of the moments that makes Elsa so relatable. Not all of us have been lucky enough to have that moment when we immediately stop caring about what everyone else thinks of us. After years of conforming to what “they” want us to be like and doing what “they” want us to do, we wish we could get to a point where we can let it all go. It’s a comforting and heartwarming moment.
Slightly spoiled by the fact that Elsa gives in and goes back, despite saying in the song that she’s never going back, just a few moments later.
Okay, she didn’t foresee Anna climbing the mountain after her and she certainly didn’t foresee freezing her sister’s heart. She has very good reasons for going back and does so to save her sister; if she hadn’t, Anna’s act of true love wouldn’t have thawed her heart. Even so, the fact that she does go back five minutes after Let it Go really dampens its impact.
17 What About The Song?
Here we are back at Anna and Hans' relationship. Disney songs, as we’ve already discussed, play an important role in Disney movies. They move the plot along, make things more interesting for your children, and make extra money for Disney as they can sell the soundtrack alongside the DVD purchase. Within Disney movies, particularly Disney Princess movies, there is often a song between the prince and the princess when they are falling in love.
During Snow White, Snow and the Prince sing I’m Wishing/One Love to one another after the Prince creeps up on her while Snow is singing into a well. Despite her running away like a crazy person when he speaks to her, this duet is enough for her to ride off into the sunset with him at the end. In Sleeping Beauty, Aurora and Philip sing Once Upon a Dream to one another, in Pocahontas, John Smith and Pocahontas sing Colours of the Wind together. In Cinderella, the Prince and Cinderella don’t sing to one another, they don’t even say two words to one another, they just dance together to So This Is Love. But the song is still enough to substitute months of dating.
So yes, Anna, in the Disney Universe, a musical number together is all you need to know about your relationship.
16 Magical Hair
It appears that alongside having the mysterious power to make a new dress out of nowhere, Elsa also has magical hair that can pass through the rest of her body.
Sometimes logic memes don’t come from plot holes or weird pedantic things people notice in films that aren’t fully explained or contradict something. Sometimes they just come from simple mistakes. On-screen errors are normal and occur in pretty much everything, no matter what the popularity or the budget. They don’t dull the experience of the film, in the same way that a typo in a celebrated dissertation doesn’t discredit the ideas put forward. But thanks to nerds and the internet, that typo will be made into a meme and sneered at by people who will never make anything as successful as Frozen in their meaningless little lives.
During the iconic number Let it Go, Elsa pulls her hair out of its neat crown so it flows down into a ponytail, before changing her dress and delivering the memorable lyrics one last time. When she does this, the end of her long ponytail appears to slip inside her body and disappear. It’s a small moment, but it probably wouldn’t have been spotted if the world wasn’t so obsessed with Frozen.
15 What’s Your Name Again?
Probably my biggest issue with Frozen is that all the character names seem to have been plucked out of a hat marked: “The Most Nordic Sounding Names We Could Think Of.” Sure, the names need to be Nordic sounding and at least vaguely familiar for American children, but when you actually live in a Nordic country, it’s very eye-rolling. Particularly in the moment where Anna mistakenly called Kristoff “Christopher,” like this was a name that would have been more familiar to her.
But I digress. Maybe this isn’t so much a logic problem with the film, but that shorter Nordic names are apparently more memorable. “Hans” feels like the default name for American TV. When a German or Swedish character comes to a show, they are often called Hans. Prove me wrong, please do.
A lot of Nordic-sounding names are short. Kari, Jens, Frans, or Ulla. So it’s not really a plot hole that all of the characters have short names except Kristoff, yet you do wonder why the creators did this. Was it intentional? Is there something special about Kristoff, making him the odd one out? Why not the reindeer or the snowman? The reindeer kind of looks like a Kristoff.
14 Dress Up Warm Kids
After her sister has her breakdown and runs off into the distance, Anna nobly decides to after her. It’s a really sweet and caring thing for Anna to do, showing the love she has for her sister, despite years of rejection alongside her reaction when Anna told her she wanted to marry Hans.
The moment is slightly ruined, however, when you realize that it’s really stupid.
Even though it is summer at the time, Anna undoubtedly has winter clothes. Frozen is set in Nordic Europe, an area of the world known for being cold and having unpredictable weather. Anna very definitely probably has a big fluffy winter coat and some winter boats in her closet, especially since she is the Princess and probably has tonnes of clothes. Even if she wanted to hurry right after Elsa and catch her up, she would have been a lot faster if she’d gotten winter clothes first and it’s cruel that no-one points this out to her. It’s almost as if she needed to run off unprepared, otherwise, she wouldn’t have run freezing into Oaken’s shop where she met Kristoff. There is only one thing more eye-roll worthy than a plot hole, and that’s plot convenience.
13 Frozen Memories
When Elsa locks herself away in her ice palace, she is implied to be blissfully unaware of all the problems that are going on down in Arendelle. She hopes that by locking herself up and keeping herself away from others she will keep her powers away from her sister, letting everyone frolic in the sunshine without her. It’s a very nice gesture on her part, but you can’t help but wonder how she got to that point without realizing what she’s done.
Elsa is very aware of her powers. That’s why she hides away from Anna all those years, because she hurt her and knows that she is capable of doing this again. Even if she doesn’t think about what she has done to Arendelle, her journey to the north mountain is completely covered in snow. Surely she can see the snow forming on her way to the mountain and can see all the snow from the top of the mountain. Despite this, when Anna finds her in her ice palace she seems completely unaware of what she’s done to Arendelle. How is that possible? She knows exactly how powerful she is and, more importantly, she can see all the snow!
12 Let’s Just Check First…
This bit is just so annoying! First of all, for a marriage to be legally binding, you need witnesses. You need witness signatures on your marriage contract and witnesses to your actual marriage ceremony. Without witnesses, there is no evidence that the marriage actually happened. You can say that you are married and exchanged vows, but there is no legal record of the marriage, and when it comes to controlling a Kingdom, legal records are pretty important.
Secondly, all it would have taken was for one of those guys to walk into the room and see Anna alive to know that Prince Hans has been lying to them. They could walk in, see Anna weak by the fire and she could explain to them what a jerk Hans has been to her and the final scenes of the film could have been prevented. Granted she might not have saved Elsa and thawed her heart, but logically it’s questionable. Thirdly, and this is very important, as a spouse of the heir, Hans has no right to the throne without the living spouse. Maybe if Anna had been crowned Queen while he was alive, he could make a case for himself, but rule of the Kingdom would not have been so willingly passed to him without proof, witnesses, evidence that there are no closer heirs, and a lot of paperwork!
11 Old And Twenty
This bit is just so cruel, but in the world of Disney, it’s a valid point. As much as I adore the “Give Elsa a Girlfriend” movement, since it is high time we had an LGBT Disney Princess, I can’t deny that I love Elsa on her own. True, not all Disney Girls need love interests anymore, after Brave and Moana, but that doesn’t mean that Elsa does. She’s an independent person and I’d be happy if she got a girlfriend, but also if she remained by herself. Mostly because of her age.
The Disney Princesses who are making fun of Elsa for being old and unmarried are all very young. Despite not being an official Disney Princess, Elsa is the eldest out of all of them, being canonically twenty-one. People don’t need to be pressured into marriage at the age of twenty-one! These Disney Princesses shouldn’t be married at all. They should be hanging out with their friends or trying on prom outfits! When Elsa tell her sister that she can’t marry a man she just met, you can practically hear these Disney girls in the background! No offense intended if you like these films, but they were way too young to get married.
10 Worst Parents In Arendelle
You know what, I really hope that Elsa’s dad was some kind of witch/wizarding/warlock kind of thing, because if he wasn’t, then he is a really terrible father who has no idea what he’s talking about. He seems to know a little bit about magic, telling Elsa that if she gets upset her powers will only get worse.
However, he then precedes to give his daughter an unlimited amount of anxiety issues and makes her afraid of herself.
The King knows that Elsa’s fear will elevate her powers, yet he makes her afraid of them. Is he just a bad parent? Not just a bad parent, but just someone with no idea how to calm people down or make them feel better about things they can’t control. He tells his daughter to “conceal” her powers “don’t feel it, don’t let it show.” But the older Elsa gets, the clearer it becomes that this is impossible. So why not try and teach her to control it rather than keep on telling her to repress it? I certainly don’t understand the parents' plan of action here. I’m not even going to courteously assume they had one. They clearly had no idea what they were doing when dealing with magic and raising their children.
9 Hans Hesitated
Okay, so let’s break this moment down. Anna can barely walk because she is so cold. We know this as Kristoff sees her struggling to make her way across the ice after she goes out to find her. She is very near her end and is trying her hardest to make it to him because she thinks he can save her. Note how far away she is from Elsa. Note again how slow she is moving. Hans is moving faster than she is towards Elsa, and is already raising his sword up to her when Anna spots them. Remember again how far away Anna is and how slowly she is moving.
The point of the matter is this: how on earth did Anna make it all the way over to Elsa in time to save her before the sword hit her?
You can’t blame this one on magic, you can’t blame this one on Disney. This is all Hans, presumably doing some sort of silent equivalent to monologuing. The only way Anna could possibly have made it to her sister would be if Hans was actually moving towards Elsa in slow motion. And if that’s true, you are literally the worst Disney villain ever, Hans!
8 Do You Wanna Find Some Orphans?
This is less an issue with the film and more of an issue with my personal love for this fandom. Prior to Frozen, I would argue that Count Olaf was the most notable Olaf in the land of the fandoms. This is made even more interesting with the Netflix TV series based on A Series of Unfortunate Events, which was first released in 2017, bringing the fandom back into the light. The trouble is that both Olafs are incredibly different. One is an anthropomorphic snowman who likes warm hugs and a limited knowledge of the water cycle, the other is a treacherous villain who hunts down orphans, steals fortunes and, if book eleven is to be believed, understands the water cycle to at least a basic degree.
So now the name Olaf, rather than pulling fear into our hearts, instead reminds people of a really, really annoying snowman. This is especially annoying when attempting to name a new thing Olaf, after the evil villain, Frozen fans assume I’m naming it after that stupid snowman! I suppose Jim Carrey’s performance just wasn’t memorable enough. Although Neil Patrick Harris seems to have nailed this villain. Hopefully, that’ll keep the snowmen at bay.
7 Ice And Flowers
Alright, so let’s pretend that Elsa’s dress is made out of ice. It’s a beautiful shimmering ice dress, that she can make comfortable and moveable because she is the queen of ice and she can control all things cold- combined with the fact that the cold never bothered her anyway.
Well, Disney threw all of that very, very farfetched logic out of the window when they decided to release Frozen Fever. This was a short film where Elsa attempts to give Anna the best birthday ever, despite having a cold.
After getting Anna out of bed, she begins a song by using her powers to take some flowers from a nearby flower pot and uses them to decorate her dress, then adding some details onto Anna’s dress. This makes no sense. If you have the powers to control ice, you cannot suddenly also have the power to control flowers and make things green or nature like. Ice powers in no way relate to being able to control plants, make things green, or add cute little details to your sister’s dress. The dress she is wearing in Frozen Fever doesn’t look anything like ice and there is no ice present when she decorates these dresses.
6 The Power Of Life
I know that Frank-N-Furter doesn’t explain how he found the secret to creating life in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t tipping a load of ice or snow into that glass coffin. In Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein uses electricity to bring his monster to life. Well, silly him, he should have been using ice!
If you freeze something, it doesn’t give it life. It preserves it, but if the thing was alive when it was frozen, it won’t be alive when you thaw it out.
I can’t think of any reason at all why Elsa’s powers would let her create life, whether that’s happy snowmen who want to chill out in summer, big scary snowmen who guard the entrance to ice palaces, or weird squidgy little snowmen who Elsa sneezed out of her face. (Does this mean that every time Elsa gets a cold she’s going to sneeze out a hundred of these things? Arendelle is screwed.) Maybe, given that in the world of Disney literally anything can come to life, all snowmen in Arendelle are sentient, no matter who makes them. But if that’s true, then what happened to the first Olaf Elsa makes?