The trailer debuted for
Frozen, in house Disney's latest. Looks very
Ice Age-ish-- in fact, isn't the teaser essentially selling the same joke? Anyhow it's something upon the horizon on the heels of this weeks release of Pixar's latest
travesty, ahem-- fourteenth full length feature,
Monster's University, a prequel to the positively delightful 2001 stand alone film
Monsters, Inc. 2013 has been so far a fairly barren ground for animated features, with the box office sensation
The Croods and the more earthbound grosses of
Epic making up a largely artistically forgettable field for this years animated features Academy Award.
Much has been written of the current state of Pixar and the diminishing returns of the fabled studio house since 2011's
Cars 2 broke their longtime tradition of excellence-- last years
Brave was a decent movie (and the eventual winner of the Academy Award), but still left an impression as a minor achievement to say the least. With
Monsters University, the are continuing to further brand characters, and to say nothing of the film (I have not seen it yet), it strikes as an increasingly desperate undertaking for the house that prodded story as their most important asset. Further pillaging will take place as a
Finding Nemo sequel is in the works.
What's interesting about 2013's crop of animated features is just how few of them are original, and what impression that might leave at the end of the year-- on top of
Monsters University,
Despicable Me 2 opens in July and
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 opens this September. Looks like a potentially weak field at least on the onset-- GKids, this may well be your year to pounce.
Monsters, Inc. was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar in the first year of its inception and famously lost to
Shrek (the funny thing about legacies is that sometimes you just never know-- at the time that seemed like the right move), so could
Monsters University achieve what the first film failed to do? The cases for
Despicable and
Cloudy are much fuzzier because neither of the their originals were in contention in the first place, rendering them longshots at best.
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| Based on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson |
That may be where
Frozen comes in. Coming off an especially strong 2012, in house Disney seems poised and more confident than ever, even if the sheen and shine of the early '90s Renaissance is well behind them. With last years
Wreck-It-Ralph (considered by many much more of a "Pixar" film than
Brave) and
Frankenweenie, Disney had it's most artistically fruitful year in over a decade.
Still this year doesn't exactly look the most promising.
