What movie is this? Looks amazing!
It’s the 1957 Snow Queen movie animated in Russia, and my favourite Snow Queen adaptation of all time. You can easily find the full movie with subs on youtube.
If I could say one thing about this movie that sets it apart from the rest, it’s the portrayal of the Snow Queen herself. (It’s slightly spoilery from here on, so watch the movie first, if you want to see it for yourself.)
It’s established very early on in the book that the Queen is a personification of a force of nature, a fey, maybe. She’s not a person, she has no emotions, no way of understanding love, and no real motive for her actions. She basically kidnaps Kay because, well, she felt like it. This is important. A lot of other adaptations (like the Hallmark channel one, and the 1995 UK-animated one) make her rationalize her actions - she’s evil because she needs her mirror fixed, she wants eternal winter, yadda yadda. Basically, they make her have a reason for her villainy. Here? Nah, they don’t ever explain why she does what she does - the writers are fully aware that they’re dealing with winter itself - winter makes no distinction between right and wrong, it freezes to death innocent people and horrible ones without distinction. This woman is not human, and she shouldn’t, by right, act like one.
That sense that you couldn’t reason with her, topped off by her sheer unpredictability was TERRIFYING to watch as a kid. No other Snow Queen has been this menacing.
Secondly, the Snow Queen in the climax was incredible! She appears as a giant in front of Gerda, several stories tall with a blank emotionless mask for a face. Gerda, our heroine, has grown into an independent woman by now - she’s walked across the earth BAREFOOT for her best friend Kay and now she’s found him and isn’t about to let him go - she screams to the Snow Queen to leave them alone, that Kay is no longer her’s to control. The tension builds, the standstill continues, and just as the climax gets unbearable, the Snow Queen on her throne… slowly vanishes.
She disappears. The strangest western standoff you’ll ever see has come to it’s anticlimactic end. It’s important to remember Gerda didn’t defeat her, she didn’t vanquish her, the Snow Queen is still out there. The Queen disappears and in her place is a sunny warm landscape - she’s conceded to Gerda “You’ve won this battle, have your warmth, but you can never defeat me,” I think that’s the perfect way for her to go. There are PLENTY of adaptations that strive to give us a traditional happy ending, some have the Snow Queen ‘cured’ and turned into a human being (I’m looking at you, Egmont’s Fairytaler and Hallmark!) but that defeats the purpose of the original story. The Snow Queen is winter itself, and no one man (or girl!) can truly defeat winter, no matter how much magic you have on your hands. Nature itself is greater than any human power.
The Snow Queen is a story of the power of faith and love, and how those will help you succeed. And by ‘succeed’, I don’t mean ‘defeat the personification of all that is wintry and cold and merciless’. It’s not about the triumph of humankind over the elements, it’s just a simple story about keeping love and innocent faith in your heart until you reach your goals, and and no movie has ever stuck more true to that than this one.
(Source: russian-and-soviet-cinema)
The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” is one of my favorite fairy tales, and this is one of my favorite adaptations. Joan D. Vinge did a marvelous job of recreating the old story using a science fiction setting on another world.
READ THIS BOOK. YES. READ IT. IT’S FANTASTIC.
If you ever get a chance to watch the Faerie Tale Theater version of “The Snow Queen,” you absolutely should.
(Although I do remember Kay’s actor being kind of awful and hammy in a way that didn’t fit.)
Elsa sketch.
I try to catch her haughty side ;)
Disney’s ‘Frozen’: Animated feature reveals icy concept art—FIRST LOOK
In this variation on the classic children’s tale The Snow Queen, kind-hearted Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) and her cliffhanging friend Kristoff (whose voice hasn’t been revealed yet) venture into the mountains to find her older sister Elsa (Idina Menzel) — who has the power to control wind and ice.The perpetual winter their region is suffering through … Yeah, big sister is causing that.
Oh, there we go.
Well, I know I’ve said it a million times, but I’m still displeased that we can’t have a “boy rescued girl” story and instead it has to be “boy and girl rescue…girl from herself?” or something. But what it is sounds interesting, anyway. I guess.
And everything about Kristoff still sounds XTREEEME and boring. But maybe I’ll be wrong and he’ll have a neat, non-cliche personality. I like that they’re described as “friends” here, for some reason.
Still, an even slightly loyal adaptation of the Snow Queen-even one as loyal to the story as Tangled was to Rapunzel-could have been SO AMAZING.
P.S. If you like science fiction, you should read Joan D. Vinge’s science fiction take on The Snow Queen. If someone ever adapted THAT version, I’d weep with joy.
First official pictures from Frozen!
I am going to echo a bunch of other posters in saying NOT LOVING THAT SNOWMAN DESIGN, DISNEY. It just looks obnoxious. Then again, I was pretty skeptical at “expressive horse” in Tangled, and Maximus was a badass, so what do I know.
Still, it just looks obnoxious somehow.
Is that Elsa or Anna up at the top? With some princely guy. (The aforementioned Hans?) Honestly, I wanted to see more of the human characters, not the comic relief.
Cover art by Michael Whelan for Joan D. Vinge’s Snow Queen (1980) and Summer Queen (1991)
The more I hear, the less impressed I am. :/ But I should give it a fair chance, I know. It just seems like every synopsis feels more and more generic. A rugged, thrill-seeking outdoorsman? Really?
Also since Disney tends to make the animal sidekicks male, I couldn’t help but read this as “female character is joined by male love interest, male character, and male character to oppose female character.”
But again, shouldn’t judge, should wait to hear more, I guess…
With Disney’s up and coming film “Frozen” aka “The Snow Queen” I decided to do my own concept art of how I imagined her. She’d have white hair and be dressed all in blue or grey
