YMMV / Rise of the Guardians

• Adaptation Displacement: While most of the movie's fanbase knows that it's based on a book series, some people outside of it think that DreamWorks created the characters from scratch.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Everyone. Some people think the characters are the same as in the books the movie is based on, while others prefer to keep them divided. Even the writer and some artists working in DreamWorks have different opinions about this.
  • Tooth and Jack's relationship. Some people see her as a mother figure for Jack. Others view her as a possible love interest.
  • Pitch. Is he a lying selfish bastard or a complex Tragic Villain? Or some mix of those?
    • Does he want to create a world filled with fear and darkness for his own selfish pleasure or is he a lonely being who just wants to be believed in and loved?
    • Is he only manipulating Jack in the Antarctica scene, or is his compassion genuine, and Pitch truly wants him as a friend? According to the DVD's audio commentary and the movie's script, Pitch is definitely genuine in his opening up to Jack, and truly Hates Being Alone but in the movie itself, it is hard to tell which interpretation is right.
    • Why does he initially refrain from attacking children or Jack? Is this a case of Even Evil Has Standards, or is it just counter-productive to make extra enemies and attack your potential believers? Similarly, is his affection towards nightmares genuine, or does he play a Benevolent Boss to keep himself on their good side?
• Angst? What Angst?: When Jack gets back the memories of his human life, he is absolutely delighted: he had a family once and even saved his younger sister! The facts that he died saving her and that, by now, all of the said family is long gone isn't shown to bother him at all.
• Award Snub: The movie was edged out of a nomination for the Oscars' Best Animated Feature by the surprise choice of The Pirates! Band of Misfits.
• Awesome Music: Alexandre Desplat's entire score.
• Crossover Ship:
  • In Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons fandom, you Gotta Ship 'Em All. The most popular pairings are Jack/Rapunzel, Jack/Merida, and Jack/Hiccup.
  • After the release of Frozen, Jack is very often shipped with Elsa, not just because they're both ice people protective of their younger sisters, but also because Jack's playfulness contrasts interestingly with Elsa's seriousness. The ship's name is "Jelsa" though some people prefer them as siblings and call them "Frost Family". The ship has inspired many fanworks to the point of attracting backlash from those irritated by its popularity.
  • A small portion of viewers ships Elsa with Pitch instead, because his life's work is fear and her whole problem in the first Frozen is letting fear control her, and/or because both are viewed as loners wanting someone to accept them and their strange power.
  • There's also a small following for Wendy Darling/Jack Frost, or "Frosting," as Jack's personality is similar to Peter's.
  • After the release of Over the Moon, there's a small following for Chang'e/North.
• Cult Classic: It unfortunately bombed in theaters and isn't quite a household name like Shrek or Kung Fu Panda, but it quickly developed a sizable, dedicated internet fanbase that persists to this day.
• Die for Our Ship: Shipping Jack with Elsa from Frozen is an odd case of a non-canon Crossover Ship inspiring this treatment. The pairing grew very popular, frequently featured everywhere from fanfiction to cosplay, so some perceive Jack as getting in the way of whatever other Elsa ship they prefer. To let her hook up with someone else, quite a few fanworks humiliate, demonize, or outright kill Jack.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Pitch has as many fangirls as Jack. Some even say, without a trace of sarcasm, that he's a complete woobie who should be forgiven for all his misdeeds (which includes his attempts to murder the Guardians and a child) or has done nothing wrong in the first place. This adoration can be attributed to the books on which the film is loosely based on, where he was once a human and had a daughter whom he lost making him more tragic. Or, the adoration can be attributed simply to his good looks.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Despite only a few seconds of screentime, the little mouse is beloved in Latin America. The Latin-American dub has the Tooth Fairy say that the mouse is from the "Latina division" because, in Latin America, it's a little mouse named Perez who leaves children money when they lose a tooth.
  • The fans are very fond of Jack's sister who only appears once and isn't even named.
• Escapist Character: Jack is a boy who dies young, becomes immortal, is free to travel the world without responsibilities, and has magic powers while dressed in a hoodie. No wonder he's popular with teenagers and fan artists.
• Estrogen Brigade: Being a Pretty Boy, Jack Frost has attracted a huge female fanbase, with most fanart and fanfics for the film being focused on him. His attractiveness is further solidified when Tooth Fairy swoons over his snow-white teeth while her baby fairies make heart shapes around him and faint whenever he smiles. This is lampshaded rather nicely in a comic drawn by one of the film's story artists.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Frozen fans and Rise of the Guardians fans often accuse Disney or DreamWorks Animation of stealing the idea of a movie focusing on An Ice Person. Neither invented the concept: in fact, each studio has been very open about both Elsa and Jack Frost being based on pre-existing characters that predate both films, Elsa being inspired by a nineteenth-century tale written by Hans Christian Andersen and Jack Frost originating in folklore. Disney had been working on a film based on the Snow Queen on and off for decades, since the days of Walt himself, and leaked pre-production art was already online by 2008, the year DreamWorks purchased the film rights to William Joyce's The Guardians of Childhood book series, which united the variety of folkloric characters seen in the film, including not just Jack Frost, but other well-known childhood staples such as the Sandman and the Easter Bunny.
  • There is a small-scale rivalry with The Loud House fandom, particularly fans of Lincoln Loud due to their physical similarities, as well as both being Launcher of a Thousand Ships within their fandom. Any complaints about Lincoln's ships often end up with fans complaining about the fans' Sacred Cow treatment of Jack and his many crossover ships.
• Fanfic Fuel: Tooth's line that the Guardians were all someone before they were chosen gives rise to fics about their origins that may incorporate or disregard their backstories from the books.
• Fan Nickname: North is Heavy Weapons Santa, especially among the Team Fortress 2 fandom, due to his resemblance in size, mannerism, and nationality to a certain, well, Heavy Weapons Guy.
• Fanon: Jack's sister is never given a name, but the most popular name in the fandom is Emma.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Pitch gets paired with every Guardian, most commonly with Jack, Sandy, and Tooth.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Fans of Rise of the Guardians tend to be fans of Epic (2013), given that both are an Urban Fantasy with characters who are Hidden in Plain Sight. The fact that they're both inspired by the works of William Joyce helps.
  • For... reasons, people who like The Lorax (2012) also tend to like this movie: both feature an iconic character, reimagined as a Pretty Boy Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life who gives up on everything he worked for, becoming a lonely soul in the process. Jack/The Once-ler is a rather popular Crossover Ship.
  • Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons is fans of Rise of the Guardians, Tangled, How to Train Your Dragon, and Brave taking Friendly Fandoms to extreme and becoming a fandom itself. Then, Frozen (2013) was released and added to the mix: both movies give a lot of focus and development to a Tragic Ice Character and have fear as the antagonistic force, and in fanworks, Jack is often paired up with Elsa. At the same time, there is a rivalry with parts of Frozen fandom, for exactly the same reasons.
  • With Klaus (2019), due to both featuring a reinterpretation of a classic holiday character. Some speculate that Klaus was actually North before he died.
• Genius Bonus: The magic sleigh, heavy furs, reindeer, and going up and down chimneys are all straight from Siberia, where Saint Nicholas was interpreted as a kind of super-shaman, who flew out the smoke-hole of his medicine tent and traveled the spirit world in a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Now consider that Santa's accent isn't just Russian, but eastern Russian.
• Girl-Show Ghetto: While Rise of the Guardians is not a girly film, some people disregard it on account of Jack's popularity with female viewers and shippers.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In this movie, Jude Law voices the Big Bad Pitch a.k.a. the Bogeyman who knows people's greatest fears. In Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Jude Law plays the Big Good Dumbledore as he asks children what they fear and teaches them to fight Boggarts who take on the appearance of the victim's deepest, darkest fear.
  • This wouldn't be the only time that Chris Pine voiced a male character with silvery hair who also wields a magical staff. The only difference is that as a polar opposite to Jude Law mentioned above, he voiced the Big Good in this movie and voiced the Big Bad in the other movie.
• Ho Yay: Some fans take Pitch's words and actions in the Antarctica scene as him having a Villainous Crush on Jack.
  • Making his We Can Rule Together offer, Pitch stresses that he and Jack are not so different, empathizes with his loneliness and says he longs for a family. Then, this follows:
    Pitch: We don't have to be alone, Jack. I believe in you. . . . Look at what we can do! (points at a sculpture made of ice and black sand) What goes together better than cold and dark?
  • When Jack refuses the offer, Pitch looks heartbroken and then, has an If I Can't Have You… reaction. He demands Jack's staff in exchange for Baby Tooth, only to refuse to let her go, break the staff, and blast Jack into a crevasse.
    Pitch: You said you wanted to be alone... so BE ALONE!!
  • The OST for the We Can Rule Together part is even called Seduction. Word of God says Pitch is sincere about not wanting to be alone, makes himself vulnerable for Jack, and is genuinely hurt by his rejection. The DVD commentary also says, "[Pitch] is spurned; Jack turned him down."
• Hype Backlash: The massive popularity of the Jack/Elsa Crossover Ship and the heated arguments for and against it have gained a backlash not only against the movie but also its fans and even William Joyce, the original creator of the Guardians. Most of the backlash against the film is caused by it, as there was no such hate until after the ship took off.
  • During an Instagram Q/A, William Joyce was asked about the ship to which he replied that "It would be delightful if they could be together", while also acknowledging the impossibility of it as the two are owned by rival studios. While met with approval, he was also on the receiving end of some not-so-favorable comments and he hasn't touched the subject ever since, at least on a public forum.
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: Ship names include:
  • Sweet Tooth for Bunny/Tooth.
  • Rainbow Snow Cone or Frostbite for Jack/Tooth.
  • Snow Bunny or Jack Rabbit for Jack/Bunny.
  • Black Ice for Jack/Pitch.
  • Black Sand for Sandman/Pitch.
  • Braces or Sweet Dreams for Sandman/Tooth.
  • Dust Bunny for Sandman/Bunnymund.
  • Black Belief for Pitch/Jamie.
  • Dark Chocolate or Rotten Eggs for Pitch/Bunnymund.
  • Black Christmas and White Christmas for Pitch/North and Jack/North, respectively.
  • Eggnog for Bunnymund/North.
  • Cavity for Pitch/Tooth.
  • The Black Ice ship has been expanded to include Golden Frost for Kozmotis/Jack.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A major complaint against Jack Frost is that despite his interesting character and origin, he still acts like a typical DreamWorks male lead: cocky, smug, and a smartass, yet still an outsider we are supposed to identify with and feel sorry for. Not helping is him being voiced by an A-lister, rather than a more proper voice for his supposed age.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Quite a lot of people went to see the movie just because of Jack Frost.
  • Some wanted to see it not because of the plot or characters, but because of the incredible animation.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Jack Frost. He's paired with the other Guardians, Pitch, and Jamie, with original characters, with Rapunzel, Merida, Hiccup, and Elsa or Anna. Some fans like to speculate that Elsa and Anna are somehow Jack and Rapunzel's daughters.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Early on in the fandom, someone pointed out that without audio for Jack's "and the Easter Kangaroo" line, it looked like he was saying "You're an asshole." Double points for him pointing towards the camera. Needless to say, it caught wind with the other fans.
  • As a snarky response to the fans' preference for Jack's spirit form over his human appearance, many say that Jack is a "Hollywood white-washing" that everyone is okay with.
• Moral Event Horizon: Pitch killing Sandman is when we know he's willing to do anything to be believed in, no matter how horrible. Then, during the climax, he is ready to either kill Jamie or turn him into a fearling. That's when he makes it clear he Would Hurt a Child.
• Narm Charm: It's a movie about legendary holiday figures whose source of power is children's belief in them. It sounds so overdramatic and pretentious, yet it still works.
• No Yay: Some feel this way about the idea of pairing any of the movie characters with each other.
  • Ship Tease between Tooth and Jack is squicky for those who view her as a mother figure to him and/or because she's an anthropomorphic hummingbird.
  • Pitch's interactions with Jamie and the other children can come across as molester-ish, especially the tone of voice with which he taunts and threatens them. In the scene where he turns Cupcake's unicorn dream into a nightmare, he voices just how much he's getting off on her fear.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Word of God mentions in the official DVD commentary that people accused Guardians of ripping off The Avengers, though they claim Guardians was in production long before Avengers was even announced, due to animation taking longer to create than live-action. (And that's not even getting into the books, which are older than the movie.) However, The Avengers as well as the MCU as a whole, was years in development (the first Iron Man movie was released in 2008) and it was based on a long-running series of comics that were around decades before William Joyce began work on his books. Outside of the superhero team, there are barely any similarities story-wise. The film and books as a whole owe a lot more to the Rankin Bass Christmas specials than to the superhero genre.
  • Many fans think of this movie as the first film featuring Jack Frost as a young protagonist. That honor actually belongs to the stop-motion Rankin Bass Jack Frost film.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • The spirits in this movie are invisible to anyone who doesn't believe in them. One of them can easily watch you from the window or stand right next to you as they have the means to get into your house, and you will never know. They can even access your dreams and memories.
  • The Monster Under The Bed is real. He can corrupt your dreams and give you endless nightmares about things you fear the most or, if you have children, he will prey on them. As a sensible person who doesn't believe in the Bogeyman, you'll never know what hit you, and you are an ordinary muggle against this supernatural menace.
• Questionable Casting: For some, the Australian Hugh Jackman as the Easter Bunny. Australia doesn't have the Easter Bunny since rabbits are an invasive species there, and some think Jackman's signature baritone is unfitting for the character and makes him hard to take seriously.
  • Some viewers felt that Chris Pine was an odd choice to do the voice of Jack Frost, as his voice doesn't sound anything like what you'd expect from a carefree 18-year-old. It's just too deep and weirdly raspy at times.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • In some fanfics intending to sink the Jack/Elsa ship, Jack turns into an insolent egotistic jerkass or an outright villain, a far cry from the All-Loving Hero he is in the movie.
  • When Pitch gets put into the leather pants, the Guardians (sans Jack) sometimes get the matching set of Death Eater masks. Why, all they do is torture the poor, innocent Pitch for the lulz!
  • Pitch gets this treatment as much as a villain can. In the movie, he's a bad guy all right, but he is somewhat morally ambiguous. In some fanfics, he turns into a Voldemort with a nose.
• Rooting for the Empire: Some fans feel that Jack should have joined Pitch just for the sake of making the movie more interesting.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: A rather odd crossover example, but fans who ship Jack with Rapunzel sometimes get into disputes against those who prefer to ship him with Elsa, while the latter group of shippers is also frequently at war with fans of Hans/Elsa.
• Signature Scene:
  • The scene where Jack's life before Jack Frost was shown, especially since it shows him genuinely caring for his little sister and saving her from drowning, only to end up drowning himself.
  • The scene where Jamie finally gets to see Jack. The emotional payoff and atmosphere of that scene are perfect.
• Theme Pairing: Elsa from Frozen is shipped with Jack Frost because they share having ice powers.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Some fans of the original books criticize the drastic Adaptation Personality Changes for most characters. In particular, Bunny and Tooth are nothing like in the books, and Pitch's backstory isn't even hinted at.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A major driving force for Jack was his desire to know about his past and his reason for being. However, when he actually regains his memories, the revelation of his having a family and a sister seems to have no lasting impact on him after the reveal. While it's true that 300 years have passed since he became a mythical spirit so his family would be long dead, the story doesn't show him having any desire to explore his past life. (It's possible they were planning on exploring this in future sequels that never launched due to this movie being an Acclaimed Flop.)
• Vindicated by History: The movie bombed in cinemas but quickly developed a sizable, dedicated internet fanbase. Then, thanks to the superhero genre's popularity (especially to The Avengers coming out that same year), and the perceived similarities between Jack Frost and Elsa, many people who missed Rise of the Guardians in theaters checked it out and came to appreciate its merits. Sadly, like The Road to El Dorado, DreamWorks Animation continues to treat the movie as an Old Shame.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Everything is detailed to the last hair. Jack's design of the ice and snowflakes perfectly captures Guillermo Del Toro's art style.
• The Woobie:
  • Jack Frost. He never sees his little sister again after saving her, then spends 300 years all alone with nobody knowing he exists.
  • Bunny becomes this after Pitch's nightmares destroy his eggs, causing the children to lose their belief in him.
  • Tooth. In the film, children stop believing in her, causing her palace to disintegrate and her wings to stop working. Not to mention her fairy helpers (e.g., Baby Tooth) are put in danger, and if you factor in her backstory from the books...
  • Jamie Bennett, when all the kids start losing their belief in the Guardians.
  • Jack's sister witnesses his death and didn't even know he has become a spirit.
• Woolseyism: When the Tooth Fairy and Baby Tooth accidentally encounter the Tooth Mouse (Tooth Fairy's equivalent in many Latin American and European countries), the Tooth Fairy refers to him as part of the European Division. The Latin American Spanish dub instead refers to him as part of the Latina Division, with Tooth's "Ça va?" being replaced by a "¿Qué tal?".

---