Yesterday, Disney premiered what was thought of to be the trailer for new princess flick Frozen. Loosely (the loosest I might say) based on the Hans Christian Anderson story The Ice Queen, many were anticipating the largely publicized first look at the newest entry in Disney's lineage of fairy tale films. The excitement builded, tensions were high, promotional pictures were flying everywhere, and the internet was buzzing..... but what was shown to the public on Weather.com (clever) was nothing that anyone expected. (Click to see the "trailer" here)

Now that you have watched that "thing", here is my overall reaction:

When I was a kid back in the 90's, the film industry was dominated by "teaser" trailers (ex: Jurassic Park, Star Wars Episode 1 or any huge blockbuster of that time) and even if the movie itself sucked, the teaser trailer more than helped make the budget and interest in the film prior to release very high! Now we are consumed with awfully cut trailers, with only a few decent ones coming out of studios here and there (ex: Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (US), The Social Network).

Disney has been in recent year on the good side of this debacle, putting out a lot of very creatively cut together pieces to advertise their family friendly flicks. High praise was rewarded to Oz The Great and Powerful's teaser, who was able to make some fun reference's to the original Oz film of the 30's (aspect/color change when landing in Oz). I myself also loved the Wreck It Ralph teaser, which tickled my vintage video game heart with glee. So with so many good cuts behind it, Disney was sure to give us at least a good decent 1 minute teaser for Frozen, one that could easily showcase the plot without giving too much away? I came to discover that such a simple request was too much to ask for.

Instead what we were given was a "first look" clip, which Disney is no stranger to doing, to give their audience a taste of the newest animated piece. But while in the past these clips have been phenomenal or at least interesting, this footage left many eager Disney fanatics in the dust (or snow, I should say.)


In this clip we meet an snowman with a carrot for a nose. He sneezes, loses his vegetable produced schnoz and grabs the attention of a reindeer. The snowman and reindeer then chase after said carrot nose and that's it.... That's the first look at this brand new Disney Princess Musical, doesn't it make you excited for the magic, the princess stuff, the singing or the beautiful visuals? Oh I'm sorry, you didn't know those aspects were in this movie? I bet you would have had no idea if I (or Tumblr) didn't tell you.

Instead what we were given was a piss poor attempt at delivering a humorous clip for children, the kind that would make even the Looney Tunes question their intelligence. This is in a similar vein to the way the Despicable Me trailers are cut, where they are just a silly clip from the film and get the little kids excited to see what stupid thing the Minions do next. But here in lies the issue: Frozen is not the same kind of film Despicable is! In fact, they are completely two different sides of the art form's spectrum. Sure they can share similar moments of giggles for the kids, but that doesn't mean they should be advertised the same way.

If I was at all the person responsible for these decisions, I would have cut a trailer like this:


The camera fades into a shot of the the ice castle. Anna (our lead princess) walks towards it, shot fades into title card, with only the sounds of a blizzard/wind being heard, the title card fades back into a shot of her walking up the stairs of this now ice covered palace, she calls out for her sisters name, and as the shots fade in and out as she walks up, she reaches the top of where her sister, Elsa (ice queen) stands but as the camera follows up to her face - BAM, title card reads: Frozen and then insert tag line.

Something like this, that features our leaders, would have been fantastic. It doesn't tell much of the plot, it doesn't even have to have the music from it, but this teases what the film is actually about. 


Listen, Disney, I get that you are still upset over how the results of Princess and the Frog were less than stellar in your billion dollar eyes - but, now you've seen that Tangled was a success, and the Cars franchise along with Avengers is making you money in the boy demographic, you need to stop getting so scared of what a movie geared towards girls would do to you. Kids will still go see it because there is nothing else for them to see, parents will still pay money for a film made by your company. Also it's in 3D and it will make its budget back in droves. Start taking risks and being adventurous again!

Frozen is probably going to be enjoyable, but with the advertisements like this being the first real taste of the movie, it makes my excitement very low, and this is coming from someone that will even watch the worst of the worst that comes from the Mouse House just because. So please, Disney, learn your lessons right now and put out some better footage ASAP. Because if the reception from this movie is cold now, just wait till it gets worse than frozen.