Frozen II Home Video Release – First Impressions

Frozen II is available on home video in several formats ranging from DVD to 4K disc and digital versions.  This adventure picks up shortly after the original film’s conclusion.  Elsa, Anna, Kirstoff, Olaf and Sven embark on a new quest to discover what/whom is calling Elsa and why.  They learn about the origins of Elsa’s power and more of their family’s history.  The initial home video release includes a variety of bonus materials including several featurettes, deleted scenes, deleted songs, music videos and a sing along version.  For more details on this release here is the original press release for the offerings.

I had the opportunity to watch and explore the Blu-ray & Digital Version of the release and here my first impressions & some observations –

Meet the Lopezes  – This eight and half minute featurette is a digital exclusive that profiles the song writing team of Robert Lopez & Kristen Anderson-Lopez .  I thought this was an interesting piece giving you a brief window into their creative process and some stories behind their work.  Seeing some clips from their creative session and hearing first hand accounts of how a song came to be was great.  I would have liked to have seen more!

Outtakes – This featurette takes you to several recording sessions and shows the cast having some fun.  As with most outtakes there are hits and misses.  I would have preferred to have seen more on the recording sessions themselves and maybe some reflection from the voice talent on the process.

Deleted Scenes  & Songs- A handful of deleted scenes  and three deleted songs are shared in sketch form with scratch dialog/demo recordings for the most part.  Each is introduced by the two directors, Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, which I think adds to the pieces.   I am not a huge deleted sequences person but I do find it interesting hearing why a decision was made to cut something or go in a different direction, more so than seeing the scene/song usually.

Featurettes – There are traditional featurettes that explore the scoring of the film, the spirits of Frozen 2 and an early test for Gale where the team explored how to animate and give personality to the wind. I found it interesting to hear about the challenges and how they brought a force of nature to life.  I would have liked to have seen more on the animation process itself added to the featurette.   The Did you know? featurette shares some Easter eggs and other factoids from the film.  The presentation was a little annoying to me but the content was interesting, all be it short.   There is also a multi-language version of “Into the Unknown” which was interesting to see, I would like to see these multi-language versions a little more interactive where you could control the jumps in one mode from language to language.

I watched the blu-ray for the film and first pass through the bonus materials.  The disc is set up in a traditional format and easy to navigate.  There are a couple of trailers on the disc that do not make the digital cut.    The MoviesAnywhere digital version was terrible to navigate.  All but two of the bonus features are in one category so there is no clear categorization to navigate through.   I really wish they would spend a little more effort on the digital organization and menu system to make it easier to navigate and have some flow to the bonus features.

For an initial home video offering the quality and quantity of bonus features are above average.  They are not as exhaustive or well done as some of the documentaries Lucasfilm has released with the Star Wars films but they are beyond what most offer.  If you enjoy Disney animated films and traditional bonus features you will find this initial release of Frozen II a solid addition to your library of films.  If you are a fan of deleted scenes & songs you will really enjoy this offering.

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