Tangled vs Frozen! Which is better storytelling?

[nostalgicroxas]

How is Tangled better than Frozen? Let's discuss!

TLDR: Acts 1 and 2 are surprisingly similar but the later half of Act 2 and Act 3 in Tangled is marketedly better written due to the set-up proposed in Act 1 and Act 2. Please discuss and keep things civil

(please pardon any weird phrasing as I wrote this when suuuper tired for a FUN comparison between two similar movies)

Numero uno, all of the songs serve a purpose. The best 'twist' is the villain gets two songs, as both a hero and an actual villain in her reprise- in Tangled. The movie understands very clearly who the main character is and time away from her does not diminish the flow of the overall movie. The worst song in the movie involving the bar singers is done in the first act of the movie, and while being cringey and annoying, it propels the plot gently forward and all of the characters featured in it return in the Final Act.

Frozen 1/2 combined because I can. Movie does not know who the main character is and strains really hard to be true to roots and remain focused on the girl who is on the adventure itself, Anna. In the second movie, it suffers from the large amount of fans that Elsa have and in turn the girls must share the screen with poor results, namely that nothing in their relationship from 1 to 2 is resolved or taken care of. Both movies feature a cringe song (olaf and trolls in first, and Kristoff in second), but these songs are spread across the movie. Olaf's song and Kristoff's do nothing to help the overall plot of the story and weigh it down dramatically. The troll song, while sexist and rude, could pass as a more acceptable cringe song if it did not happen in late Act 2/start of Act 3, and instead took place earlier in the film (and we'd axe Olaf's song who the fuck needs that).

While both movies are made for girls, Rapunzel is shown to be curious about the outside world but able to defend herself in multiple ways including to but not limited to assessing her environment (the cliff and water fight). And she has actual hobbies for being a cooped up girl (the entire opening movie montage, most famous of which is her painting skills). Anna and Elsa have no hobbies or skills present in the first movie, or the second, while Elsa is shown to be overall smarter and better equipped. Anna is a bumbling moron who thinks she needs to prove how smart she is by climbing a mountain cliff, doesn't listen to instruction and jumps off a cliff to her death, and set's a man's cart on fire. Elsa meanwhile knew exactly how far away to get, and gets there very quickly in both movies and is shown to know how to defend herself. But again, neither girl has an ounce of personality. What does Rapunzel do? Artist. Tiana? Baker. Ariel? Antiques collector. Anna or Elsa? Nothing. Very akin to Jasmine oddly enough, a woman made for a "boys movie". What can Meg do? Master negotiator and queen of sass.

It's subtle but both Anna and Elsa do not rank any better than a damsel in distress character like Jasmine. Anna is only protected by plot armor in the second movie, and in the first she suffers from the Disney 'cannot kill someone' trope thanks to Lady & The Tramp scarring children.
Tangled is not a great movie either, but it continued the story acts presented by movies before it like Tiana's being amazing. How is Moana better than Frozen? The entire movie is literally about her desire to sail, learning how to, and being able to. Hobby and desire, done and done.

Act 1 of Frozen is heavy set up and dragging your feet waiting for action to happen. The time it takes for something to happen in Frozen, Rapunzel's already hit Flynn in the face with a frying pan. The difference with Rapunzel's opening, while about the same length, has constant knowing what's about to happen whereas Disney shoves in "so this happened, then this, this death, then this, THEN the upbeat song!" - telling vs showing. Frozen argueably doesn't start until the second song, about opening up the gates, is finished. Which by that point again, we've already sat through Mother Knows Best, and Flynn's frying pan bruise. We're on our way. In Frozen, we still have a coronation and party to sit through, then another song, THEN finally Anna leaves the castle to go look for her. I'd love to time it, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't leave the castle until 35min in.
Act 2 in both movies both feature the cringe song - Olaf and bar scene. But the real changes happen in Act 2 and Act 3. Songs in Tangled are basically done after the bar scene, with 1 small reprise of the healing song, and the start of Act 3 is kicked off with the reprise of Mother Knows Best. The action constantly happens. Act 2 in Frozen is choking to death on Olaf, sisters fight (best song), and the action of being thrown off a mountain, but then we get the second cringe song. Interestingly could be argued that the trolls are villains. In that same time, Elsa is attacked and taken to jail (man those boys sure moved fast didn't they).
Act 3 for both movies start off with a character in jail and breaking out. How it happens is different. Flynn is saved and energy happens like crazy as he rushes back to the tower. Elsa just like... does... something? We don't see it. We see the results, but they were too busy with the "omg let's make this guy in white a villain instead of the short evil keebler elf!" The only momentum we get in Act 3 is really only started when Elsa starts a storm and Kristoff sees. What's Anna doing during this? Becoming a popsicle and learning what the magic of love is - which is still wrong.

In conclusion, Disney should've taken the entire focus of Frozen and put it onto a single girl and the movie would be better for it. Anna's the more boring story, but they could have improved that. It suffers from the same issue as Wreck it Ralph 2- it does not have a focus nor know what it wants. Please bring back writers of Moana and Treasure Planet, ect. I only have seen Frozen 2 once and it's horribly disjointed. and sad that I immediately knew "that dam's gonna go" and the entire movie I kept asking myself "so when do the characters realize that?" It's painfully obvious that people in dev team were arguing about how much screen time Anna should get compared to Elsa. Do you go with your initial main character of Anna and make her interesting (lol no), do you include Kristoff and Olaf who are there just to say HEY IM HERE I EXIST, do you do the more interesting story about Elsa? No one wins.

[LostSpirit]

Honest? I love Tangled as a story. It's one of Disney's more complete stories since the golden age of Lion King, Bambi, and Aladdin.

But I'll always give the edge to Frozen, because as a child, I had a huge crush on Elsa growing up. I give the vote to Frozen on pure bias.

This, despite agreeing to most of your points.

[nostalgicroxas]

A friend on my FB actually commented to me that Frozen likely only "wins" any argument because of the sheer large use of magic (aka environmental constant obvious magic) that hasn't been seen in a Disney movie, in basically ever. And that this is why kids like it.
The Sword and the Stone is the first, and pretty much only one, that comes to mind that rivals that same kind of magic and constant usage of it. Other movies that use magic are of course, Aladdin (genie), Black Cauldron (pig, cauldron, princess's bubble, the harp, the sword, ect), Princess & The Frog (although magic in this is SO downplayed and could've been more central and obvious). Other uses of magic in Disney films are integrated as story elements or characters and do not directly impact the story in the same way as a character literally turning a fountain's spraying water to a sculpture of ice within 5 seconds of touching something near it.

[Iris-Grimoire]

I'll disrespect the first post a lot by being too brief but honestly, Frozen relied too much on gotcha moments, and that also applies to 2(which honestly pulls a few out of its ass plus a song when the regular ones aren't enough). Tangled just felt a lot more genuine with its twists, though you could see them coming from a mile, because the journey is better than the destination.

[Kiweevil]

I'm gonna be blunt. I dislike both of the movies. But it seems pretty clear to me that at least Tangled's plot and character motivation makes sense. You can literally tell that Frozen was rewritten multiple times just from how full of plot holes and wonky character motivation it is. I was hoping they'd fix it in the second one, but they just made things muddier with a nonsensical lore.

[LostSpirit]

That's certainly a good point. Part of the reason I was drawn to Elsa was because of her strong internal conflict, her struggle with keeping appearances while battling away in loneliness. The way she finds herself in isolation and how she plummets again when faced with external conflict. Elsa is easily one of the more human characters to come from Disney.

[nostalgicroxas]

coughs the ending song in Tangled is also amazing and not a horrible remix (of a song done previously in the movie) done by a Disney pop-girl artist they'd been working with for the last few years.
I rather miss that the ending credit roll song is not a song played during the actual film, so it stands apart as something new. But this is because I sit in the theatre to listen to the entire credit roll / avoid the rush of cars/ I mean I paid to see it right, might as well.

[nostalgicroxas]

Which is why it's painfully obvious in the second movie someone on the team was demanding they make her the central character and drop Anna off a cliff (which they did basically in attempting to kill her a few times xD)

[LostSpirit]

I've not seen Frozen 2. I'll be honest. Did that actually happen?

[nostalgicroxas]

Well I recall vaguely that she gets attacked by rock giants in a river on a stupid little raft with Olaf and they fall into a dark cave or something and she gets stuck and is about to die in there until plot armor "motivation!!!!" appears. heavy eye rolling Which is a shame cause she gets a good song there.
To be fair, in the first movie, they drop her off a cliff too XD

[LostSpirit]

Anna is a very forgettable character. I watched Frozen a long time ago and I still remember more Elsa than Anna. Also, Olaf, is it just me or does he sound like a pervert? Just his voice.

[nostalgicroxas]

I think Olaf's actor signed a contract where he was stuck doing 2 or 3 movies for them for a lump sum. Pretty sure he's the same actor who's in the live action Beauty and the Beast as Gaston's little minion. And like, I feel like part of his contract was he was allowed to pump up the "I'm gay" vibe to theatre levels of dramatic. It borders between silly and creepy lanes (akin to Rocky Horror Picture Show vibes for me, honestly) but that's another discussion.
That does remind me that the "supporting" minions in Frozen include 1 talking and 1 mute, while both in Tangled are mute (Max and Pascal have no lines but are EXTREMELY expressive).
I do wonder if Disney was like "Hey so Pixar did that one character in WALL-E where they turned the cute factor up kind of high and it worked super well for them, let's try doing that." "But we aren't Pixar" "LET'S DO THAT" //facepalms

[azzy-m]

I say Tangled. It has a stronger story overall. Frozen really suffered from the major rewrite of having Elsa as a deuteroganist instead of having a villain, and other than that, it kickstarted the Disney trend of having horrible twist villains.

Frozen 2 could've been great if it didn't try to have such a big story crammed into two hours. Also the whole "Elsa is the fifth spirit" and "the siren was Elsa's mother the whooole time" still doesn't make sense to me.

[nostalgicroxas]

I recall something about Disney's reasoning to rewrite Elsa was after they heard the VA do her song and were like "well now she can't be the villain" and I'm like, that song has serious villain feelings, no matter how cool it sounds. She's basically like "I'm totally okay with a perma-blizzard around me lolz"

SPOILERS

Summary

I'm of the belief that elsa's mother has some voodoo magic to do some weird time travel shit considering it's implied she and the king never reach the glacier so WTF. The imagery of Elsa being her own inspiration is great but they did it wrong. Also "fifth spirit ELSA DOESN'T HAVE TO LIVE WITH ANNA ANYMORE SO SHE GETS HER WISH LOLZZZ" Like, I like Elsa, but she basically went "screw everything I've been raised for to be a queen". Pretty sure that Anna wasn't given the same classes growing up to run the kingdom that Elsa was since monarchy's don't usually double down on that kind of stuff until it's an o-shit moment.

[NickRowler]

I think Tangled win when it comes to storytelling. I think it get generally flows better. Also the fact that Tangled was a bit in a production hell for a bit and the animation had to be reworked several time. I think they were able to take the time to develop it to work well.

Frozen story however is a bit sloppy. I think it became more popular because the songs were catchier and Olaf is more iconic than the sidekicks in Tangled. Similarly, the story was rewritten several times with the final one being written around the song "Let it Go".

My personal fixes in Frozen...
-I really wish Elsa running away happened after her parent's died and have the story of her living in the mountains for several years. Instead of the freezing being instant, it is instead something that happens over several years. And when Anna leaves to investigate, she is shocked that it is her sister that she hasn't seen for years.

-Don't make Hans a surprise villain. I think Hans would have been far more interesting if he was someone who thought his bias against Elsa was for the greater good. He doesn't care about being the ruler, he just wants to protect everyone. I think Anna and Hans falling out should have been on them disagreeing on how to handle Elsa. Hans would make Anna seem like the bad guy because her plan could end up hurting many people. And when Hans tries to do things his way, it eventually leads to him dying. Anna is seen as the hero in the end because she choose compassion over fear.

[nostalgicroxas]

I agree.

That does remind me that the actual retellings and fables regarding The Snow Queen do involve a more developed story. The movie I watched as a kid doesn't have a straight up love story (they gunna get married) but instead was a sister saving her brother from the Snow Queen (namely the mirror killing him iirc). The "creation" notes of Frozen does tell about how they were trying to reimagine those elements of the story (ie Elsa's gloves) but I think a lot of stuff got chopped, like you said, when they struggled to rework things.

One of the scenes in Frozen that stands out to me the most as out of place is the scene when Hans is about to stab Elsa in the back or behead her? I dunno. His pose is so weird in that scene. Like as a practiced swordsman as he should be, wouldn't lift the sword high above his head like that to just stab her through the center, or to behead her. The entire swing of his arm is off.

[MegaRay]

Tangled story is better than Frozen 1 (I didn't watch Frozen 2.) The setups, the payoffs. All done better in Tangled. Frozen's issue was not knowing who's the villain is until probably the last minute, have they ditched Hans betrayal subplot and focus on making moral dilemma with Elsa's action and her taking responsibilities and such, it would have been a better story.

[LostSpirit]

LOL. That's all I can add to this.

[IndigoShirtProd]

Never really liked Frozen. I saw the movie once in 2014, and the only interesting thing about it was the twist end where Anna saved herself. I'm biased towards Tangled because it's one of my two favorite Disney movies. It's mainly because of the characters dynamics and the fact there's not one song I really dislike, yes, even the bar scene song. Everything the the story is more focused than in Frozen. I do have to agree that since the movie lacked a main character, it was a slog to get through. I think if they focused on Elsa and not Anna it would've been a more impactful tale. Like the story begins after the land is frozen, and we find out about the sisters through flashback. Frozen is just not goal oriented like Tangled or Moana, and it only has on remarkable song.

[Iris-Grimoire]

Frozen 2 suffers just as heavily from rewrite saturation. Here's the five elements! Water, Earth,Fire, Wind and....Ice. Ice is totally the quintessence guys. It's not the aether or the lifestream or another character we totally didn't transplant Elsa into once we couldn't find a way to make her character work with this plot.

As someone with Ice and Water separate in my works' element charts, it's because it's the manipulation of cooling and the debunked concept of caloric theory turned into a magic thing. It's not the do-everything power.

edit: also, it started the problem that reared its head in the new star wars with information starvation. Did you know Hans was abused when he was younger and this is why he can't see the good in anyone else? No? Well I hope you read the book to get this essential character justification, even though it should've been in the movie.