Frozen II (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee)

[TGM]

I saw the film last night and I still have no idea what your'e talking about. So no, it's not firmly established at all. Seems very opposite of firmly established.

I should note with this point, a lot of the stuff I'm describing wasn't immediately apparent to me as well. But that's one of the things I love about the movie, is how it gives you a lot to ponder over, and then when you revisit it, you start to see those pieces fitting together that didn't quite make sense before. It treats its audience's intelligence with a level of respect that is just unheard of in a movie like this nowadays, where it gives you all the answers, presents a bit of a puzzle, and trusts that you'll be able to fit it all together. And sure enough, yeah, it all fits, it all makes sense, and literally every single "plot hole" I've heard someone bring up is something that actually does have an answer somewhere in the film. It's just not always through dialogue or explicit exposition. There's tons of lyrical clues, visual clues, off-handed clues. Like, there's so much detail in this movie, and it's so well thought out, there's no way this can be described as a cash grab.

Hell...

Watched this again today, and I can't help but feel like the poetic way in which the sisters' stories are told in the last third of this movie is seriously master class stuff, especially since it's all done without ever really drawing attention to itself and what it's doing. But the movie makes the claim that they're both two sides of the same bridge, and that's certainly shown in the ways in which their journeys play out and parallel one another, working in opposite manners towards the same endgoal:

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Anna consoles Elsa, who's crying tears of sadness, and hugs her. Then they part.

Anna is sent against her will into a body of water, a river, where she's met by one of the elemental spirits (the earth giants), but she avoids confrontation, leading her into a cavern, where she starts from the bottom and has to climb her way back out out.

Elsa purposefully makes her way into a body of water, an ocean, where she's met by one of the elemental spirits (the water nokk), and she directly confronts it, riding it to Ahtohallan, and enters into a cavern where she starts at the top and gradually makes her way further and further down.

Elsa sings a song of pure joy in a scene that's filled with magic and spectacle, and undergoes a critical transformation.

Elsa hops down to the deepest depths of Ahtohallan and finds the answer she's looking for, sacrificing her life in the process, giving up everything to deliver the message to Anna.

Anna receives the message, and in turn loses everything with the death of her sister, and Olaf dying in her arms.

Anna sings a song of pure grief in a scene that's grim and grounded, and undergoes a critical transformation, as she climbs out of the cavern into the sunlight, standing tall enough to see the entire enchanted forest beneath her.

Anna engages with the spirits she encountered earlier, using them to destroy the dam and break the curse. This causes a tidal wave barreling straight for Arendelle.

Newly revived, Elsa is aided by the spirit she encountered earlier, who helps her back to Arendelle, where she creates a dam of ice to stop the tidal wave from destroying Arendelle.

Elsa and Anna reunite, and Elsa consoles Anna, who's crying tears of happiness, as they embrace once more in a hug.

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Yeah, way too much heart and effort went into this level of storytelling for it to in any way be described as a soulless cash grab of a film. And that's just a breakdown of the last act, this level of poetic storytelling is strung all throughout this thing.