Resolved: Frozen is better than the Lion King

Overview: While I found Frozen to be quite endearing and enjoyed the movie, it does not rise to the masterpiece status that the Lion King has achieved. Frozen may be a very good movie, but many aspects of the movie are lacking. The Lion King is a visual masterpiece with an emotionally and thematically rich story. 1. Lion King has more complex characters, Frozen tends to be shallow Shallow characters are not inherently bad, but Frozen tries to create “deep” characters- its general failure to do so is an artistic flaw. A central theme in Frozen is that the superficial appearance of people and situations are rarely the whole story. This goal relies on creating depth of character and motivation. The Lion King is far more successful in this respect. Pro concedes this point right away by admitting that Scar is a more complex character than Prince Hans. Mufasa is clearly more complex than the royalty in Frozen. The parents in Frozen don’t have any personality. Mufasa is a fleshed out individual with strengths like honor, courage, and fatherly tenderness and weaknesses like brashness. The parents in Frozen are killed off as a minor plot point, where the death of Mufasa was an emotional milestone for many people. While almost every Disney movie has dead parents, The Lion King is one of the few movies that actually explores the subject with the gravity and respect it deserves. Frozen is just another clichéd data point of dead parents in kid’s movies. The arguments in my 2) further support this point. 2. The themes, plot, and character motivation of the Lion King are better integrated. Frozen tends to rely on artificial plot point and unneeded deus ex machina. a) Compare Simba’s decision to return to his kingdom to Elsa’s return to her kingdom. Elsa flees her kingdom because she is unable to control her powers. She is returned to her kingdom by force and imprisoned. She then escapes from prison, is saved by Anna, and somehow discovers she can control her powers with love. Elsa’s return is characterized by general passivity- events happen to her until things change enough that she can return. The resolution of her problems happen almost haphazardly at the end of the film when she discovers how to control her powers. Simba attempts to run from his past by fleeing the Pride Lands. Eventually he is confronted by Nala and the news that his kingdom is nearly destroyed. The cliché would be for Simba to realize he must save his kingdom, but instead Simba again turns his back on his responsibility. Simba is then enticed to follow Rafiki and is shown a vision of his father. This critical moment of character development is cinematic poetry layered with meaning. Simba realizes that he can never run from his past because his identity is constituted by the experiences that make up his life. Simba concludes that the only way to be true to himself is to own responsibility for the “murder” of his father, he finds that he must honor his father by living up to his father’s values. This scene is incredibly rich- all the preceding events of the film come develop into a major character development. Simba’s decision to return to Pride Rock is organic yet radical and momentous. b) Compare how leadership and governance are portrayed. In Frozen, the princesses lock themselves away, bar the public from entering their castle, and allow economic stagnation (the diplomats frequently describe how Arendelle doesn’t trade with anyone). Yet the public for some reason still love them. In real life the public would be in revolt against their parasitic absentee rulers. To underscore this point, at the end of the film Elsa capriciously proclaims that they will never trade with the countries that wronged her- embracing a vindictive isolationist policy at the expense of her country based on her ONLY interaction with foreign diplomats. Leadership and power are blasé shortcuts to getting the audience to care about the events of the movie. The villain of Frozen is actually a better leader than the protagonists. Hans actually engages with the populace and organizes the town during the threat of winter. An argument could be made that Hans was justified in seizing power for the good of Arendelle. In contrast, Lion King actually engages with ideas of responsibility and governance. These themes flow from the arc of the story and feed into character development. Mufasa and Simba are motivated to rule by a sense of justice and love of the balance of the kingdom. Scar wants only power and operates by cronyism. Bad governance by Scar results in mismanagement of resources and suffering in his kingdom, while good governance by Mufasa and Simba results in prosperity. 3. The Lion King is generally aesthetically superior a) Frozen’s visually climactic scene is both conceptually and visually similar to Dr. Manhattan’s exile to Mars. While I believe that great artists often imitate and reuse ideas, Frozen adds very little to the idea and the execution left much to be desired. The ice castle felt visually flat- the building was unnecessarily planar and failed to explore the possibilities of 3D crystals and sculpture. http://www.youtube.com... b) The Lion King has multiple scenes which have become embedded in Western culture’s visual language. The opening scene is visually engaging, using multiple camera angles to explore the moving landscape of animals. The framing of Rafiki holding Simba up at the top of Pride Rock is probably the most recognizable scene in the Disney catalog. The above-mentioned vision of Mufasa as a face in the clouds is similarly iconic and has made appearances on the Simpsons. c) The Lion King’s dialogue is more memorable and poetic. Mufasa’s explanation of the “circle of life,” Rafiki’s lesson about the pain of the past, and Simba and Pumbaa’s explanation of stars are all striking pieces of dialogue. Con’s Points are Bogus: 1) a) Pro offers no reason why bad guys who are “likeable” are worse than “real” bad guys or why it is inherently better for antagonists to be revealed in a surprise twist. There are many ways to develop antagonistic characters and none are inherently better or worse- the execution and the how well these artistic choices serve the film are all that are relevant. b) Scar is a far more believable bad guy than Prince Hans- Scar murdered for political power then successfully deceived everyone. Pro is wrong that everyone could spot Scar as the bad guy from a mile away. The audience knows he is evil, but the characters in the film do not. A central plot point in the Lion King is that NO ONE KNOWS SCAR MURDERED MUFASA. Prince Hans messed up his plan with a movie villain monologue. He TOLD Ana he wanted her dead then gave her time to escape. This is a classic trope that has been parodied to death as being stupid and unrealistic. A real bad guy would have reassured Ana while allowing her to die. Prince Hans’ reveal was done incredibly poorly. 2) Pro measures the quality of songs by YouTube views. This is prima facie retarded; I guess Pro thinks Justin Bieber’s “Baby “ is the greatest song of all time since it has over 1 billion YouTube views. It’s dumb to use arbitrary commercial stats to prove a song’s quality, but the Lion King has sold over 10 million copies of its soundtrack. The Broadway musical version is the fourth longest running Broadway musical and won several Tony awards, including “Best Musical.” The Lion King also steam-rolls Frozen in terms of box office revenue- The Lion King ranks 18, while Frozen is 109 [1]. [1] http://boxofficemojo.com... 3) This is an argument FOR the Lion King a) Its only weird if you make it weird. b) Lions have sex, get over it. c) Don’t act like you didn’t have a crush on Nala when you were 5. d) The scene teaches kids a valuable lesson about the power of Elton John. 4) Crappy sequels are irrelevant. This debate isn’t “Frozen is better than the Lion King and its sequels.” The Lion King rears up on its hind legs and roars on its own merit.