Take A Look at Disney

12/14/14

Christmas: Winter's Gift (Sofia The First Episode Review)

Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney as we continue  our  Christmas celebration and today, we head back to Enchancia to celebrate  Wassailla with Princess Sofia with Winter's Gift. With that out of the way, let's begin


Episode Title


Winter's Gift


Thankfully, the episode title this year is a lot easier  to spell  out  and    I also like the title as it  feels like  it ties more into the plot of the episode.


The Plot


The plot of this episode reminded me of a certain multi-million dollar movie from Disney.  















No, not that one.  THIS ONE.





















Yeah,  this episode's plot wasn't too dissimilar to that of Frozen but while I can't say for certain,  I think that it may have borrowed more from   the original Snow Queen fairy tale than  that of the cinematic phenomena that was Frozen.    Is  that a  bad  thing?  Well,  I'm  not going to say yes or no on that but I will say that   it was a different enough for me to look past the similarities.  It's  Wassailla  Day  at the castle  and  Clover has given Sofia the perfect gift, himself.   Sofia  shows off a special gift,  a case for his wand that she made herself for Mr. Cedric.   She goes to take it to him but soon fears that it isn't special enough as  she overhears  Cedric ranting on and on about how  he has never gotten  a truly special gift. So, she figures that  she needs to get Cedric another gift but what.  Sofia  stumbles upon an idea, when   she  sees Baileywick decorating the castle and mentions  how he misses having ice lilies in  the castle as he loved using them for decoration but the steward tells the young princess but the  princesses'  bunny pal,  Clover happens to know someone that can help them.  His old friend, Whiskers  the Fox, who has a lot of connections  in the forest that can come  to their  aid.  This is where we get our  first  taste of what I called the Frozen experience as  they come across a young faun  playing music on a piccolo and we  learn from her that one year ago,  she went to see an ice witch that granted her special ice powers after  collecting wood crystals but now she wants to rid herself of said power after we  see her accidentally use  her power to freeze a tree.

















 Okay,    as I said  it was hard not to think of Frozen while watching this episode.   And to be honest,  any story like this from now on will most likely be compared to Frozen.  Is that fair?  Well, I'm not sure because it's tough to say.   On the one hand,   our young fawn, Winter wasn't born with her powers a la Elsa but instead asked for them but  came to view them as a hindrance to her livelihood but  unlike Elsa, who learns to embrace her powers through the course of the movie and that they are a part of who she is,  Winter's powers are taken away at the end of the episode.  Now  yes,  they were not  a part of Winter her whole life like Elsa but also like Elsa, Winter had isolated herself from her family in the fear of hurting them,  which  we see come to fruition as she accidentally freezes  Clover  and  if the spell isn't undone, he will remain frozen forever.  Again,  this  isn't too dissimilar to   how  Elsa  hurt  Anna but there was more at stake  there.  I know, I know.  I shouldn't be comparing this to a movie but it's  hard, when  it seems quite similar.  Clover freezing happens  after the girls  had collected ice lilies  to give to the ice witch but when taken to her,  she is unimpressed as she  already has hundreds  of  these flowers and refuses to remove the powers or unfreeze  Clover.  This upsets  Winter  and causes  her to run off.  Sofia  is at a loss  as  to what to do and just then,  Sofia's amulet glows  and Clover recognizes this as meaning that  a princess  will show up. And indeed, one does as  Tiana  shows up to  help the young princess.

















And  compared to Aurora from last season, this was  a much better use of a princess as Tiana actually did something  to help Sofia  and actually gave her advice instead of Aurora, who just said turn to your animal friends.   Tiana told the young princess that the best present,  you could give someone is that it should be from the heart.  And this  convinces Sofia  that   the best  present  that her faun  friend could give the ice witch is her music.  And this works, after playing, the ice witch agrees  to remove the ice powers  and unfreeze Clover and thanks to Whiskers'  connections,  he gets a reindeer driven sled to take them back to the castle and   there, Sofia  give Cedric the case she made for his wand and he appreciates it as a special gift  and the episode ends.   All in all, this was a cute episode and a rather  good  Christmas episode, that  was most certainly better than the season one Christmas episode.




Characters 


Main Characters


Sofia  voiced by Ariel Winter














All in all,  Sofia was a great support  in the episode and it was interesting to see her play support as it's not a role that she has often taken.  But when she does, she is good in these roles.


Winter voiced by Alyson Hannigan













Okay,   this character wasn't bad  but I still  think that  the conflict  with her  ice powers  could've been handled better.  I mean, it worked well  for what the show was attempting to show in that gifts are not always what we want but it was frustrating to see, the way it was executed as it could have been handled better.



Supporting Characters


Clover voiced by Wayne Brady

















I felt bad for Clover after what happened and pile that on top  of  him being mocked by Whiskers for living as a castle rabbit.



Whiskers  voiced by Nick Offerman

















Whiskers'  entire  role in this special seemed to be to make life miserable for Clover and mock him for the life that he lives.  But it was all a ruse because apparently,  Clover and Whiskers used to be friends and Whiskers felt lonely after Clover moved away from the forest.




Tiana voiced by Anika Nani Rose















As  I said above, Tiana was a great support for  Sofia  and gave  her the perfect message that she needed to hear and it worked rather well for the young princess.



Music


From The Heart







This is a rather sweet song with a good message for young children  and everyone alike.   Sure, it's a bit cheesy but I hold to the belief that  what this song is saying is very true. So long as your gift comes from the heart,  that should be what counts.




Villain



Glacia The Ice Witch voiced by Phylicia Rashad
















This character could've done more.  She didn't do that much other than just sit on her throne  and remain unimpressed by the gifts that were brought to her.



My Final Thoughts


This was a rather good Christmas episode and one that I enjoyed very much and one that  I won't mind returning to again in the future. Join me tomorrow as we head to the North Pole to look at...






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