EW: Elsa and Anna's Small Screen Adventure (July 17, 2014)

[obisgirl]

When Once Upon a Time producers asked their parent company, Disney, for permission to use characters from its 2013 animated megahit Frozen on their ABC fairy-tale mash-up this fall, they expected a chilly response. But Disney let the characters go (let it goooo!), and now fans of both the film and the show are excited – and maybe a tad nervous. Reimagining dusty Disney icons such Prince Charming is one thing, but Frozen is red-hot – the highest – grossing animated film of all time, with a possible sequel in the works.

What is Once planning to do with Disney’s newly crowned royalty, Queen Elsa and Princess Anna?

Showrunners Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz insist that capturing a faithful live – action version of Frozen’s heroines is their top priority. And relax: There’s no big character twist (like when the series turned Peter Pan into a villain). “We want to do our best to honor what fans loved about that movie”, Horowitz says. (“The Frozen story line will be introduced in this fall’s season 4 premiere and will conclude midway through the season – so these toys are “going back on the shelf”, the producers say, once this are is over.)

The arc will not include a love interest for Elsa, a character praised for giving young fans a Disney Princess with an independent streak. Nor are the producers going to try palling off a live-action incarnation of chatty snowman Olaf. “His story in the movie is so beautiful, the story we want to tell doesn’t involve trying to expand upon that, nor do we think it should”, Horowitz says. And there won’t be any musical elements from the film. So what are the producers planning? Newcomer Elizabeth Lail was cast as adorable Anna, Greek vet Scott Michael Foster as her love interest Kristoff, Fringe alum Georgina Haig as Anna’s ice-wielding sister , Elsa, and Lost veteran Elizabeth Mitchell as, well, Mitchell’s role is a mystery, but the producers say one of the top two fan theories is correct. (She’s either the original Snow Queen or Anna and Elsa’s mother, who was presumed dead in the film.)

Like Frozen, the show will focus on the relationship between Elsa and Anna, and explore the idea that you never give up on the people you love.

“At the end of the day,” Kitsis says, “this is really expensive fan fiction.”

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[RumplesGirl]

The arc will not include a love interest for Elsa, a character praised for giving young fans a Disney Princess with an independent streak

I have torn feelings about this. They could have really been innovative with an LGBT storyline to acknowledge the presence Elsa has in the community. On the other hand, at least it’s a different method for introducing new characters; I’m tired of ones that are spurned by love and turn to darkness.

Nor are the producers going to try palling off a live-action incarnation of chatty snowman Olaf. “His story in the movie is so beautiful, the story we want to tell doesn’t involve trying to expand upon that, nor do we think it should”, Horowitz says

*resists urge to curse A and E into oblivion*

She’s either the original Snow Queen or Anna and Elsa’s mother, who was presumed dead in the film.)

*sigh* She’s Elsa’s mother because of course.

“At the end of the day,” Kitsis says, “this is really expensive fan fiction.”

Okay then

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[Bo-Peeps]

I actually agree all around with A&E on this STATED theory. What shows up may be different but…

Staying true to the seriously beloved characters as introduced is smart. Though this whole thing is a calculated risk, they are juggling some potential mind field explosions if they aren’t extremely careful. Elsa most definitely should NOT have a romantic love interest. She is just learning to love herself and hopefully her stint in Storybrooke will help her come to better grips with that once we find out who put her in that urn and reconnect her with her beloved sister.

Good, no talking snowman. Thank-you. Some things should stay permanently in animation!

I am holding out for the Snow Queen as her original “Curser” that would give some ummmppph to all the others banding together to help Elsa and could also set up the premise for their own spin-off down the road. Of course they could morph her mother into the Snow Queen somehow. Little Roland could get the attention of the Snow Queen and THAT would certainly put an interesting twist on getting all the others~ good, newly triangled and almost evil to band against her. (ala Pan style adventure)

Most of dramatic television (that isn’t a warped “reality” mess of humanity~ which should fall under the label of nauseous farce) is *expensive fan fiction* and when the fans of a concept are very productive and creative writers, we all can win. Most script writers start out as huge fans of a genre, a character or a story that they want to re-tell.

 

***Always in search of a good flock***

[kpercyman]

Why would Elsa’s mother be a villain in this case?

I see her as the original Snow Queen because the parents had good hearts in the movie and were just afraid for their daughters.

Now, if the mom was the one who trapped Elsa to begin with, then I could see her being a villain. I am just tired of all the parents being villains.

[TheWatcher]

She’s either the original Snow Queen or Anna and Elsa’s mother, who was presumed dead in the film.)

"I could have the giant duck as my steed!" --Daniel Radcliffe
Keeper Of Tamara's Taser , Jafar's Staff, Kitsis’s Glasses , Ariel’s Tail, Dopey's Hat , Peter Pan’s Shadow, Outfit, & Pied Cloak,Red Queen's Castle, White Rabbit's Power To World Hop, Zelena's BroomStick, & ALL MAGIC

[RumplesGirl]

obisgirl wrote:

She’s either the original Snow Queen or Anna and Elsa’s mother, who was presumed dead in the film.)

Yup.

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[angiebelle]

I love that A&E have referred to OuaT as fanfic- because that’s exactly what it is and exactly why I love it so much!  It’s playing with existing, beloved characters, and putting them into new situations on a professional budget- that’s awesome!

I think having Elizabeth’s character as the original Snow Queen would be perfect because the story of Frozen is completely different from the original Snow Queen story- Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff are unique to the Disney film.  So far, all other characters we’ve seen on the show are the classic stories come to life with nods to the Disney versions.  Frozen isn’t a version of the Hans Christian Anderson story.  It’s vaguely inspired by it, but really, the narrative is completely original to the Disney film.  Having another Snow Queen could be a nod to the real story.

And I agree that while I love the character, Olaf does not belong on OuaT.  If you’ve noticed, they *always* leave out the magical talking sidekicks (with the exception of Jiminy who was made human).  There are no enchanted objects (except an interesting take on Lumiere) and no talking animals (besides the cricket.)

[RumplesGirl]

And I agree that while I love the character, Olaf does not belong on OuaT. If you’ve noticed, they *always* leave out the magical talking sidekicks (with the exception of Jiminy who was made human). There are no enchanted objects (except an interesting take on Lumiere) and no talking animals (besides the cricket.)

I understand your point, but Wonderland disagrees with you. And the CGI for the animals was far and away better than the set CGI.

The loss of Olaf makes sense. His purpose in the story is sidekick. *shrug* Would have been fun but he’s not necessary.

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[Corbin]

Full article below:

After a brutal hike up icy peaks to the Once Upon a Time set in Arendelle, we cornered the showrunners of ABC’s fantasy hit and demanded answers about season four’s much-buzzed-about Frozen storyline. Is Olaf going to be on the show? Are they going to give Elsa a love interest? How big a part of the show will Frozen be? And who is Elizabeth Mitchell playing, exactly? After a brief chase involving reindeers, sleighs and trolls, writer-producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz finally agreed to take our questions about their live-action take on the biggest animated movie of all time:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Disney has been really accommodating to you in the past. But studios have historically been reluctant to let TV shows mine a current film franchise. Frozen was so huge, and there’s a possible sequel in the works. How did you convince them to let Once into this world?

Edward Kitsis: We really felt the characters would be a great fit for our show to incorporate into our universe. We really just asked, we took a shot, and we were pleasantly surprised when Disney said yes.
Adam Horowitz: There was a lot of support from within the company and we were very grateful. They trusted us with something and we take that very seriously, because it’s not just important to the company—it’s important to millions of fans of Frozen, and we want to do our best to honor what they loved about that movie, and more particularly, about those characters.

What’s your biggest concern taking this on creatively?

Horowitz: To do it justice. We would never want to re-do the movie. But we want this to feel like a part of [the movie] and feel a part of our show. We want it to walk that line of being part of the Once Upon a Time universe, but also feel like part of the Frozen world.

What was Disney’s biggest concern in terms of protecting the Frozen brand?

Kitsis: In the past, like, we made Peter Pan villainous, we’ve taken liberties with certain characters. This is a situation where everybody was on the same page. Adam and I were looking to bring the spirit of Elsa [Georgina Haig] and Anna [Elizabeth Lail] into our show. We’re not looking to do a sequel, we’re just looking to bring them into our world for a fun story arc. So character and storywise, we just wanted to honor the characters. And with how recent the movie is, that was important to Disney as well.
Horowitz: In Once Upon a Time, we’ve approached these stories in different ways. Sometimes it’s like the Peter Pan way, where there’s a complete flip on the character and that’s our twist on it. And other times it’s about how these characters that we know fit in this world on this show—and that’s more what we’re doing with Frozen. We want to be true to the characters, we don’t want to change what they were in the movie, we want to be true to what we love about them and what everybody loves about them. Instead, we want the twist to be how they fit into our universe.
Kitsis: The entire writing staff was so inspired by this film. And thematically it’s very much within what we do—the [Frozen] curse was broken with true love’s kiss, but between sisters. And if you remember, [in] season one, we did [the curse breaking with the love] between a mother and a son. And the idea of a villain who is not actually a villain—one of the things we loved about Elsa is she went away not because she was a villain, but because she didn’t want to hurt anyone and felt different. All those themes are very related to some of our characters like Emma, and Regina and Rumpelstiltskin. It was like seeing two toys on a shelf we wanted to take off and play with.
Horowitz: From the start of Once Upon a Time we always talked about how one of the franchises on the show was love, and not just romantic love. And that was one of the things about Frozen. It was about love, but an act of true love as opposed to the traditional romantic love. We’ve tried to tell stories like that on Once, and this is what we’d like to continue with those characters—explore those ideas in that movie that we’ve already explored on Once and find a way to meet them up.

I hadn’t thought of that but you’re right—Frozen‘s twist on fairy tales is very much like what you’ve always done on this show. So were you sitting in the theater thinking, “Heeeeey, they ripped us off”?

Kitsis: No, not at all. Frozen has probably been in the works as long as our show has. We were sitting in there and just felt very inspired. The stories they were telling were ones we really respond to. We felt there was a way to do this in a fun way in our show, but not doing anything that might harm a sequel or anything they might do in the future. So fans can have fun, but rest assured we’re not trying to do anything that might harm the franchise.
Horowitz: We sometimes like to think of our show as a Disney cul de sac. You can come in, and have some fun with the characters, leave, and the characters are what you loved before.

You described Frozen as a “a fun story arc,” which suggests to me you might be thinking of this—perhaps by necessity—as more of a limited storyline within your show as opposed to the more open-ended character additions you’ve added along the way in the past. Is that an accurate read?

Kitsis: That is absolutely accurate. It’s similar to the way we did Neverland last year and the Wicked Witch arc.
Horowitz: We’re planning an arc involving the characters from Frozen and it also obviously involves the characters that already exist on Once, but it’s a close-ended story.

Right, but you did Neverland, yet Captain Hook is still on the show. But it sounds like in this case, the characters will have a limited appearance and not be on the show in season five.

Kitsis: Yes, exactly.

Elsa didn’t have a love story in the movie, and that was part of what some really liked about her. Will you give her one here?

Kitsis: What’s interesting to us about Elsa is not who she falls in love with. Our show has always been about family. Love is our franchise but most of our love has been about families coming together. What we love about Elsa is that she is uncomfortable with her power, she’s lonely but wasn’t quite sure how to break that loneliness — it took the love of her sister. So we’re not interested in Elsa meeting someone, we’re interested in exploring her as a person, like we have with Regina the past few years.
Horowitz: We’re not planning to put Elsa on match.com. We’re more interested in what the movie explored, the relationship between sisters, and that relationship will be central to the story.

It’s a pretty comedic movie so I’m assuming your version will be a bit more dramatic?

Horowitz: We make room for some levity on the show and the tone of our show can go back and forth. Comedy was a big part of the movie Frozen and one of the fun things about the movie is how fun the characters are and we’re going to do our best to capture that spirit.
Kitsis: The humor and emotion of the “I Want to Build a Snowman” theme makes me cry every time I watch it, and that deep emotion is something we’d love to do on the show. If we can make you cry we always try to. And Once when it’s at its best is emotional and fun.

Speaking of comedy, Olaf is a character fans really want to see. But from a drama series production standpoint, it seems like one of those things where you’d be like, “Uh, how can we ever actually pull that off in a live action show?” What are your thoughts?

Kitsis: We’re not going to. We won’t be seeing Olaf.
Horowitz: It wouldn’t fit and it’s so beautiful, his story in the movie. The story we want to tell doesn’t involve trying to expand upon that, nor do we think it should.

Any other characters from storyline that are going to be as well?

Horowitz: We did cast Sven, but that hasn’t been announced.
Kitsis: That was an actual reindeer. That was an adventure. You don’t want to be in that casting session.

Are you doing anything different with music this season given that Frozen is so associated with that soundtrack?

Horowitz: The soundtrack to that movie is amazing and it’s essentially on a loop in my house with my daughters and me. I don’t think we would attempt to write our own music like that, nor do we think we could. We’ve never done a musical episode and I don’t think the way we want to tell this story is suddenly turn Once Upon a Time into a musical.

You already touched on this but to make it official: What assumption should fans make about a Frozen 2? Will this narrative have any impact on those plans?

Horowitz: Anything going on with the franchise in terms of future movies is happening within those places within the Disney corporation. We’re doing our own thing in a way to not preclude anything from happening down the line.

Though not a sequel, your arc does take place after the events in the film, right?

Kitsis: Yeah, simply because what happened in the film was so beautiful, we’re picking up these characters after the movie.

I’ve avoided asking you specific plot questions because I know that’s the area you don’t want to get into. But is there anything you’re comfortable to tease overall about how the Frozen storyline works into the rest of the show?

Kitsis: Thematically we can say the first half of the season is about how you never give up on the people you love.

So Frozen will be introduced in the premiere and be the first half of the season roughly?

Horowitz: Yup.

There’s been a lot of guesses for Elizabeth Mitchell’s character, whether Elsa and Anna’s mom survived that sea voyage, or perhaps that she’s playing the original Snow Queen. Anything you can tell us?

Kitsis: It’s one of the two things you mentioned!
Horowitz: We’ll find Elizabeth Mitchell’s character is connected both to the world of Arendelle and the world of Storybrooke.

Since both their shows were canceled, people were hoping for the casting of both Lost alum Mitchell and Josh Holloway, which seemed like a pipe dream — but then you cast one of them! So I should ask: Any chance of Josh joining too?

Horowitz: He’s not in mind for this particular arc, but someday if the time were right and he were willing and we had the right thing — we’d have to have absolutely the perfect thing and he’d have to be willing together. Josh has no bigger fans than us, we had so much fun writing for him.

What does Arendelle look like in the show?

Horowitz: Were in the process right now. We plan to show you Arendelle and plan to show a hopefully redefinition of it that feels faithful to the movie but also feels not animated but real. That’s going to be a challenge, but one we’re really excited to try and meet.
Kitsis: This is really expensive fan fiction at the end of the day. We both have children, we love Frozen, we were so inspired by the film and we were lucky enough that Disney let us bring to life the fan-fic we would normally write on the web secretly.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/07/17/once-upon-a-time-showrunners-frozen/

Keeper of Thor’s Hammer, Will Scarlet’s Genie Bottle, Emma’s Gun, Emma and Henry’s Moment at the Castle, Cora, and the infamous Family Tree!

[ready_to_rumbelle]

Like Frozen, the show will focus on the relationship between Elsa and Anna, and explore the idea that you never give up on the people you love. 

Hasn’t “never giving up on the people you love” been a continuing theme on Once?! We have Snowing’s “I will always find you” and Rumbelle’s “I learnt a long time ago that when you find something that’s worth fighting for you never give up”/”I will never stop fighting for him” and Rumple worked 300 years on a way to find Bae.

So nothing terribly new or surprising but Elsa and Anna’s (and perhaps Mommy’s) relationship might be a parallel to Rumbelle’s since Belle will be faced with the question of working through hers and Rumple’s problems or giving up – which they probably won’t.

[Author]

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