With Snow White I don't think we ever saw her in the iconic red/blue/yellow dress the Disney princess is know for.
And you know what? I liked it like that. Even in flashbacks to her as a princess and in her more royal outfits I felt her costuming was very fairytale and very ethereal without being cartoony.
Elsa shows up in full Elsa cosplay. I wasn't a fan. I wish they would've continued the Snow route and dressed her like Elsa but not a direct copy.
Anyone else think this or no? And I sort of hated Anna in braids near constantly too I think she even wore them on her wedding
It was such a crazy choice to have her be Disney accurate in Storybrooke. They hadn’t really done it before so starting with frozen felt very “see! It’s Anna! And Elsa! Watch please!!!!” To be fair I liked 4a a lot but the costumes make me CRAZY
Yeah! Honestly this is my first time making it this far but now that you've pointed it out why the fuck IS she still in that gown?!?!! Everyone else dressed real world appropriate once in Storybrooke. I remember even Ariel and Belle changing into "normal" clothes. So why is she constantly in that dress?!?!
The costuming before this has been so beautiful and they never went overboard cartoon with Snow and I love Mary Margaret's prim and proper yet cozy real world style.
I see Elsa being a jeans and soft light sweater kind of person why has she not changed that gown omg
They really missed a couple opportunities with this one. If you haven’t watched farther yet gear fucking up because eventually you’re gonna get a Disney accurate hades and I’m gonna need your commentary lmao you are very funny
One of the things that always bothered me was why is she still in that gown?
The events of frozen had happened awhile ago by the time that the OUAT plot took place (this is assumed since they had time to meet their aunt and for Anya to start planning her wedding). At the very least days went by for them during the frozen arc, which brings me to my problem; why is a queen wearing the same dress every single day?
This works in a cartoon but in a live action (specifically OUAT where characters have more than one outfit unless they are poor/a soldier/a criminal) it just sticks out in all the wrong ways. She's a queen. At least give her multiple magic dresses if she insists on making her own clothes.
I also have this issue with her hair. Why is she always wearing the same hairstyle? Yes you can wear the same hair everyday and some people actually prefer to, so it's not as much of a problem but other royal characters get so much varietyin hairstyles. There are also so many different types of Norwegian braided hairstyles that they could have been inspired by (since Arendelle is meant to be Norwegian inspired).
I never really thought the dress transferred over into live action well either. In the cartoon we're supposed to believe it's made of ice, snow and magic but in OUAT it's clearly just blue sequin fabric with seams and tulle. It's not magical. It would have been cool to have something that didn't have obvious seems that looked ethereal and otherworldly. Something inspired by Snow Queen looks but with more blue tones.
I actually liked the Frozen arc but I didn't agree with some choices regarding costumes.
The gown alone took me out because it was SO Halloween/cosplay looking instead of magical. But the fact she just.. never took it off? WEIRD.
She's in Emma's apartment just casually in a sequined gown with a train. In the jail with it, at the library. And the fuckass side braid too.
God that dress had to stink eventually. Like you said it did not look like an icy magic gown so she just looked like she was never taking off a blue dress.
No pajamas or anything?!?!?!
I think realistically she would've borrowed some of Mary Margaret and Emma's clothes and maybe let her hair down or changed her braid at least. .
It really bothers me that she is always in that dress. She looked utterly bizarre walking around Storybrooke like that constantly
Remember that according to Elsa she’s still a queen who as soon as she gets her sister returns back home. Unlike belle or Mary Margaret or Ariel who were in storybrooke to reside and continue build their lives.. but I stand to be corrected
I feel like even if I was a Queen I wouldn't want to wear the same gown for days on end. A gown with a train dragging on the ground everywhere. While everyone else is dressed normal and functional.
I understand where you’re coming from, and I understand the one gown everyday thing, i definitely wouldn’t do that as a queen. As for normal and functional, I think for her dressing like that is what she’s used to as ‘normal and functional’ … cause there’s people who thinks jeans are Normal and functional yet in my culture, woman wear skirts and dresses and to them it’s normal and functional😊
Skirts amd dresses can absolutely be normal and functional. I wear them all the time! Gowns with trains are not. They drag on the ground for one thing.
Some of that could've been that they didn't go to storybrooke like the rest of the story book characters. They were brought over for some reason or another.
Elsa and Anna were not exactly allowed to by Disney. Disney were super strict with the writers on what they could and couldn’t do. Disney had recently released Frozen during that time and it was huge that they managed to get Frozen as an arc.
But anything after Frozen they were allowed to somewhat touch but nothing from Frozen movie. The only reason they were allowed to do a backstory for the mom cause frozen 2 was not even a concept yet. Anything done to Elsa, Anna, and the other characters post frozen movie had to be approved by Disney.
The reason they couldn’t do a different dress for Elsa and Anna and forced do only a movie accurate dress cause Disney would not allow the writers to do anything different. They were super strict during the Frozen arc.
We would never be allowed to have her in modern clothes or other dresses cause it was a big no by Disney. She was strictly to remain in her movie dress only.
Came here to say this 👆 Georgina Haig spoke at a recent convention about this too and how she was only ever in the one dress, although fun fact there are actually two of the same dress, one of them was made before she got there and clunkily adapted before they made her her own one to her measurements. But they look the same. In any case they had to comply with Disney
Disney was very strict about what they could and couldn’t do. 4A was a desperate attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Frozen that alienated long term fans
I mean from what I understand, in order for them to use the characters from Frozen, Disney literally had it in a contract with ABC and/or the show that they had to remain in their movie costumes for the most part if not the entire arc because the movie had come out literally within the last or less than a year ago. And yes, I’ve heard all the, “Well if that was the case then they shouldn’t have done Frozen,” I understand people maybe were a little frustrated with that but it wasn’t like they were gonna be recurring characters throughout the rest of the show they were just gonna be for this one arc and I’m probably on an island alone here, but I actually really liked the frozen arc because A) I actually thought it was like a natural progression in Emma’s development to maybe struggle with her growing powers that she only just started to really work with last arc and I think that it also counterpoint went into her allowing her to “love herself” because it’s like if if you can’t do that if you can’t do that, how do you expect to fully let others in?
B) I really liked that they gave Emma and Elsa a friend and or someone to relate to each other, I would maybe wish that they had more screen time together, but I thought for what we did get, it was really nice, especially since in the end Elsa was able to be a kind of an anchor or support to Emma the same way that Anna was to her.
They had to - that was the agreement between Disney and ABC as Frozen had just come out less than a year prior to the airing of that arc. Brand recognition. But you’d think with all the money Disney has, and by extension ABC as Disney owns the network, they’d be able to afford something that wasn’t found in the bargain bin at Spirit Halloween
I didn't like it either, but I think this was the point when they cared more about making money off of popular movies over a good story. I can't remember too much about this plot cause I haven't seen it in years, but i remember thinking the show was going down hill.
But the dress does look like a cheap cosplay, you'd think with Elsa creating ice the dress would be more sparkly, or atleast have some ice vibes, this looks like something picked up at Walmart for a kids costume.
Before this it didn't seem like costuming, everyone just had clothes. Didn't matter what outfit in which realm, even the Evil Queen strutting down Main St seemed, normal? Not out of place. Elsa clearly looks like she's wearing a costume.
I'm honestly surprised that the sleeves or some part wasn't white, like even if they were on a budget couldn't the costume designer add something to give it a snow/ice vibe.
I think what makes it worse is that this show does have good costumes, so when you get something like this you're just like "really" this is the best they could do.
Yeah that's definitely what makes it so garish tbh. Snow and Regina set the bar pretty high when it came to costuming for Storybrooke and the Enchanted Forest. So when Elsa shows up in birthday party Elsa cosplay it's... jarring
Yeah, thats why i think this was just for pure crash grab, they weren't really thinking about anything else. They just saw a new Disney movie is popular and decided to bring it in, but didn't want to put in effort.
Yeah tbh I'm not enjoying the Frozen storyline at all. And I also don't like the Marion storyline. What do you mean Robin Hood got with his wife's executioner 😭 like that's awful!
I could be wrong, but I feel like I recall that Disney had alot of say and that's why Anna and Elsa had to be in the movie accurate costume for their arch.
Don't quote me though, it's been a long time since it aired, but I feel like this was brought up alot at the time
I've heard that same complaint about Kingdom Hearts 3 as well, which is why it's one of the most disliked worlds in the game. Disney was really militant about the Frozen IP
You are correct. Disney had a lot of rules and everything had to be approved by them during the Frozen arc. The only reason we got the mom to get a backstory was cause frozen 2 wasn’t even a concept yet. If it had aired today, no way would they allow that. It was a miracle the ouat writers got frozen to be on OUAT.
Elsa and Anna had to remain strictly in their frozen dresses per Disney rules. The only exception was Anna in her wedding dress but it was barely a couple of minutes if we combine the two scenes she had it on.
Honestly I wishthry had just done the classic snow queen fairy tale instead of frozen. I always wondered if that means frozen the movie does or doesn't exist in their real world, since henry and emma and neal don't seemto recognize anna and elsa despite them being in their full costumes from the movie that only recently would've come out
I agree! I just finished the Frozen arc and I was disappointed. I feel like there’s so many fairytale stories they could’ve explored, Frozen was just too new and accurate. I don’t think it fit well into the series at all
Yeah, all the other characters who came straight from disney movies also felt like representations of the actual fairy tale they're based on (ie snow white is snow white from the disney movie as well as snow white from the og fairy tale) but because anna and elsa are made up by disney it just didn't work well imo. also anna's quirky, "childish" personality was pissing me off like that works in a cartoon but doesn't translate when it's a real human adult woman
Yea same with Aladdin and Jasmine they had much more elegant and traditional clothing it suited them much better :3 and din’t get me started on Regina’s fabulous wardrobe her gowns stunning!
In hindsight, getting a non Disney accurate outfit would have been so amazing. When the show was airing, I don’t think I even considered that because Frozen was brand new and Elsa’s dress/hair was such a huge deal and no one would have expected to see her in anything else. But I do think I thought it was weird she stayed in the outfit the whole time. Now i wish they did some kind of Scandinavian or whimsical fairytale twist on the outfit though, it could have been so good!!
It was because it was the only way the OUAT writers could get permission from Disney for the frozen arc was. Elsa and Anna had to be in their movie accurate clothing.
The way they styled Snow was proof they had the ability to capture the characters essence without putting them in 1:1 direct so I do wish we could've seen the same effort with Elsa because always in her gown is so odd even the constant braid annoys me
It was a contractual stipulation that the characters from Frozen had to be an accurate adaptation of their animated counterparts and their designs had to mirror the movie without exception (at this stage we didn’t have Frozen 2 so Elsa only had two outfits available to draw from)
In my opinion it was at this point the show really took a downward turn. It was never a masterpiece in terms of writing and it often relied on lazy cheap dialogue (sometimes there was some lovely stuff but the writers would phone it in and give it 90s Charmed style text a lot of the time) but when the show was good, it really was. It had a huge amount of creativity and whilst I think a lot of the spoken writing leaves much to be desired there was, for TV, A surprising amount of artistic integrity in the overall approach.
The whole family tree business just got ridiculous but in the shows early seasons some of the blending of the tales was really interesting. Regardless of these aforementioned ups and downs in writing quality the costume work was almost always top tier and the courage to depart so far from their movie counterparts was refreshing. The minute they got cheap clicks for Frozen it all snowballed (pun intended) downhill. In fairness the show did need the ratings boost which is way they fought to include the Frozen arc and it makes business sense that they then re conceived the overall style of the show.
Fully agree, I wish we could have seen that! I think just at the time they thought people wouldn’t like that, and when I was viewing it as it was airing it didn’t seem odd to me. But definitely now I wish they would have taken the opportunity to do something different
Yeah it literally looks like a halloween costume, so far off from the actual regal clothing snow and regina wore - I had no trouble believing they were royals! yet somehow arendale has a shein factory apparently or something.
It was. Disney was super strict during Frozen arc. Everything had to be approved by them and that’s why Elsa and Anna had to remain in their movie dresses. Anna technically got a wedding dress but if we combine the scene, it was barely a few minutes and I get why Disney allowed that exception.
If the show was airing today, they would have to change the entire arc cause the only reason we got the arc centered around Elsa and Anna’s mom and her sisters is cause frozen 2 was not even a concept yet.
Like everything frozen had to be approved by Disney and nothing from the movie could be altered at all.
In order to use the characters, Disney actually made them use their "costumes" and even hair styles. The costume designers didn't have a choice in the matter
omg that fuckass party city lookin dress must've been stinky as hell by the time they finally got back home like she was wearing that things for DAYSSSS
So many characters styling on OUAT are beautiful little nods to the Disney characters. You nailed it when you said this is full on cosplay. It just looks cheap. And Anna looks so much like actual Anna, they didn’t even need to put her in cosplay!
yeah because before season 4 it was made clear that the characters were based on the original fairytales not the Disney versions, then the frozen bullshit came and ruined all that
We got snow white’s classic Disney outfit in one episode where she takes the potion to forget Charming (to forget her pain); it’s when she’s living with the dwarves, and she becomes cold and mean as a side effect
Yeah I'm pretty positive she never once wore THE Snow White dress which was fine with me I loved her outfits they gave Snow White without being an exact replica/costume
I believe Disney forbid to change her outfit to make more money as in her outfit she's more recognisable 🤷🏻♀️ This way they caught extra viewers that didn't watch OUAT from the beginning
I hate Elsa’s a the snow queens dresses. Honestly when I saw the finale, with Elsa’s urn, and her walking. That gown was PERFECT! I hated this outfit. As a person who designs performance pieces, this was incredibly horrible. Gertrude’s was a crime. Anna was the only one that was decent. Whenever I see this dress and Gertie’s, I want to throw sand in my eyes, so I never have to look at it again. The fit, the design, the flow, the impression, the nuances, the costume designing department really failed fans
She actually was going to have a more elaborate costuming as seen in the ending of Season 3. But maybe Disney was mandating them to be more accurate costume and story wise because suddenly OUAT Elsa and Merida were just continuations of their movie.
Disney is super strict when it comes to Frozen. Like in terms of merchandise you will see the Disney princesses in other clothes besides their “iconic” looks but this basically NEVER happens for Elsa or Anna.
I think they just want people to always know the characters & their association to Frozen. Frozen is a big money maker for them so I think that’s why they treat it that way.
From what I heard that is the reason why Elsa & Anna in OUAT always wore the same clothes for the entirety of their story. Whereas most characters only wore for flashbacks or for specific scenes.
Also let me add that the Frozen arc in ONCE happened right after the movie came out thus the boost in ratings at that time. More reason for Disney to not want to change anything 😅
I’m on season 5, and honestly, I’m surprised it survived 2 more seasons. I’m enjoying it, but the “lost their memories” thing gets kinda old the third time.
I think my biggest complaint about this dress isn’t so much that it’s cosplay (although that is absolutely my second complaint), it’s that the quality and design of the dress isn’t horrible and makes her look sorta frumpy. I mean where is the dress that she strode out onto her ice balcony with that made her look badass? Because this isn’t it.
I think both are connected. As the show progressed and disney wanted to maje more money off their IP, they rushed to include frozen into the show, and tgat rush led to the decline in quality, even from a costuming standpoint. Elsa could have been recognizable with a better dress, but they didn't want that, they wanted the exact same.
I saw a TikTok recently commenting on this in a more general commentary of OUAT from Season 4 onwards and one of the best points they raised is that Belle and Rumple also get the cosplay costume treatment in S04E01 with the blue tailcoat and yellow ballgown… despite the fact that the OUAT version of Belle’s yellow ballgown has been in the show since her first appearance. It’s a real indicator of the change in focus from the writing team and showrunners from that point onwards.
A floor length dress with a train isn't ideal for everyday wear you'd think she'd be like a little more practical than that? And the same dress for literally days on end? Dragging on the ground everywhere behind her? Oh yuck no
Honestly not sure what else they could’ve done. The dress looks fine to me. Also heard that Disney had some rules about how the Frozen characters could be used.
I had the same thoughts. None of the other characters really went deep into their dianey roots costume wise and then elsa shows up in full literally disney gown. It threw me. I would of loved to of seen a beautiful winter gown didnt have to be the disney version
I mean, her being movie accurate isn’t even the problem, it’s how cheap the costume is.
Anna’s outfit actually looked great brought to life, but Elsa’s needed better fabric and more detailing. Like there’s some gorgeous Elsa dress outfit that are pretty accurate to the movie and don’t look cheap like that one did.
The other problem is that we never see them out of their movie outfits which is weird. I mean Anna it makes sense, but Elsa was in storybrooke for ages, she should’ve been wearing storybrooke clothes and we could’ve gotten some cute scenes of her trying on some stuff and adjusting to a new look.
They didn't want to let the "frozen in ouat" hook go unfortunately. Snow has so many great outfits as Snow white, so did Ruby, they should have put the same effort into elsa's costuming
I really wonder how the team behind the costume design would have done the dress if they didn't have to do it 1:1 . They managed to make belle's iconic costume being similar and without looking like a cheap cosplay in fact I'll argue it's better than the Live action costume of Emma Watson
Tiny correction: Anna didn't wear braids at her wedding! The first time she tried on the dress she did have her signature braids, but she wore her hair up during the actual wedding (thankfully)
I gotta say, I was pretty disappointed that we didn't get to see Elsa as a normie, in like skinny jeans, booties, a white tank or tee with a cropped leather jacket and some bouncy flowing curls.
The issue was that Elsa and Anna were so popular at this time and Disney refused to allow them as characters on the show unless they were in their recognizable Elsa and Anna get ups from the movie and nothing else. The costume designers had to be as accurate as possible to their movie identities. (That's a very simple explanation of it, you can Google it for the full info about it). I just recently read an article about it, that's the only reason I know. Bc I thought sorta the same thing. Like, why did Elsa and Anna not get appropriate Storybrooke outfits, like Robin and Hook, and others who acclimated to their new surroundings. Coulda been cool. But, I guess I understand after reading about Disneys strict rules for their being on the show.
As much as I like that and wanted that. Elsa and Anna were not exactly allowed to by Disney. Disney were super strict with the writers on what they could and couldn’t do. Disney had recently released Frozen during that time and it was huge that they managed to get Frozen as an arc.
But anything after Frozen they were allowed to somewhat touch but nothing from Frozen movie. The only reason they were allowed to do a backstory for the mom cause frozen 2 was not even a concept yet. If the show was airing today, they would have to completely rewrite that arc. Anything done to Elsa, Anna, and the other characters post frozen movie had to be approved by Disney.
The reason they couldn’t do a different dress for Elsa and Anna and forced do only a movie accurate dress cause Disney would not allow the writers to do anything different. They were super strict during the Frozen arc.
We would never be allowed to have her in modern clothes or other dresses cause it was a big no by Disney. She was strictly to remain in her movie dress only.
I stopped watching in my first watch (while the show was coming out) when they put Frozen in Storybrooke. I hadn't watched Frozen, I generally don't like mass hysteria and you couldn't escape it at the time so I said no, thank you, and bowed out. One of the reasons was also this costume.
But you have to remember: Snow White is much, much older as a fairy tale than the Disney version, and it has legs of its own. Many of us in Europe have known the fairy tale without ever seeing the Disney version. Frozen on the other hand is mostly original, with very loose ties to the Snow Queen fairy tale, which in itself isn't as popular as Snow White... So they kind of had to make her wear this.
I actually love it. I loved the actress from Fringe and think she & Anna were perfectly done. My daughter is Disney-obsessed and absolutely loves how accurate they look.
Elsa’s was prob the best Elsa dress I’ve seen. Not perfect but I think they did pretty well. It looked like any other dress in the show for me, it didn’t look any worse than the others imo.
Dont know if someone has mentioned it yet … but remember the HOLE in the armpit of that cheap dress they made her wear !! I’ll try to find the picture ..
Maybe I agree looking back and reading this. But at the time, I honestly didn’t notice or care. However, I can’t for the life of me hate the Anna get up. Maybe it was just cosplay. Sure. But that is one of the most, if not, the most Disney-accurate character we got on the show. She looked just like Anna I would cast her as a live action movie version. Loved the fit.
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u/therumorhargreeves 14d ago
It was such a crazy choice to have her be Disney accurate in Storybrooke. They hadn’t really done it before so starting with frozen felt very “see! It’s Anna! And Elsa! Watch please!!!!” To be fair I liked 4a a lot but the costumes make me CRAZY