:warning: WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED BIG HERO 6, ZOOTOPIA, OR FROZEN, DO NOT CONTINUE :warning:

Hey everyone! It's Sarah here and today we will be discussing trends. Well, we'll be talking about how a certain animated movie broke a trend and how it influenced movies afterwards. Yes, we will be talking about how "Frozen" broke a trend Disney has been using for almost 80 years.

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The Trend:

If you've ever watched a Disney movie (namely Disney Princess movies) you'll notice the common formula: There is a princess, there is a handsome prince/love interest, there is an obvious villain (keep the villain one in your mind). No matter when the movie was released this has been the structure. Sure, in recent years the "damsel in distress" has been changed to a stronger, independent woman, but it's still the common basis.

So how did Frozen break this trend? Well, first of all the "true love" part was morphed into more of a sisterly love part. And the most obvious one was that their are two royal females instead of just one.

But there is one more thing that Frozen changed. Something that not a lot of people think about. That is, the obvious villain.

Let me explain, you see there has always been an obvious villain. In Snow White there was an evil queen who we were introduced to as the villain. For a Modern Era example, in Tangled, Mother Gothel was easily identified as the antagonist. In Frozen the main villain isn't clearly shown in the beginning of the movie. The antagonist, in fact, was hiding behind a façade. Parading as the love interest and concealing his ulterior motives. If you've watched the movie you know I'm talking about the prince who everyone loves to hate, Prince Hans.

That's the trend that Frozen and movies released after followed. The villain was not clearly introduced and instead has a secret identity of some kind. Let's take a look at some of those movies shall we?

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Big Hero 6

I love talking about this movie. Luckily, it followed Frozen's "villain trend" so I get to talk about it some more. So in this movie we see the story of Hiro Hamada who's brother, Tadashi Hamada, died in a fire trying to save his professor, Professor Robert Callaghan. Hiro realizes that someone is stole his invention and is using them to their own advantage. This person is known as Yokai.

Yokai seems to have no actual motive for stealing Hiro's micro bots (his invention) until they find out his true identity. He turns out to be Robert Callaghan who is trying to get revenge on a rich CEO, Alistiar Krei, for killing his daughter.

It's probably pretty obvious now how this fits into the Frozen trend. We had no clue who the villain was going to be, when we did see the villain we had no idea who he was, and when we did see who he was behind the mask, it was completely unexpected. Now let's move on to another favorite of mine, Zootopia.

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Zootopia

Zootopia's basic plot is about Judy Hopps, a bunny recently turned police officer and Nick Wilde, a con-man fox who is dragged into Judy's case. They have to figure out why all the predators in Zootopia are turning savage.

It turns out to be a certain plant, called Night Howlers that have this effect on animals. The entire operation was run by the totally out of character sheep, Mayor Bellweather.

How does this fit with the villain trope we have been discussing? Well, literally NO ONE watching the movie guessed that sweet little Bellweather had committed a crime. She seemed innocent on the outside but was cold-hearted on the inside. That my friends, was the second example of how Frozen's villain trope has influenced movies that were released after Frozen.

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Final Thoughts

I think we all knew how influential Frozen really was. It was the biggest animated money-maker EVER, it brought a whole new meaning on the "true love" troupe, and now, as we've discussed the up and coming "villain-behind-the-mask" cliche. Now don't get me wrong, this troupe has been used in different animated movies from different production companies but this is new to Disney.

I am excited for the future of Disney animation with this brand new cliche. It is really interesting when someone who seemed really, genuinely innocent would turn out to be the antagonist.

Well, I guess I'm done here. Thanks bunches and I'll see you in the next post!

#DiscussWithSnuggles