Rise of the Guardians is movie, essentially, about Christmas. Eponymous Guardians are a group of supernatural beings tasked with protecting the children, their innocence and their dreams. They consist of well-known figures – Santa Claus, a jolly large Russian with tatoos and sabres; Easter Bunny, an Australian boomerang-wielding humanoid bunny; the Tooth Fairy, a fairy collecting teeth, and the Sandman, jolly rotund man responsible for dreams. Their task is to spread joy and wonder around the globe and stop the Pitch Black – dark figure who wants to stop them from doing so and spread misery and nightmares instead. All of them draw power from belief, and are only visible to those who believe in them.
Protagonist of the movie however is Jack Frost, a (technically) young man – a teenager, rather – who is really spirit of winter. He has been around for centuries, yet despite that, nobody believes in him and he is thus invisible, making him isolated and depressed. Yet one day, at the behest of the Man in the Moon, one choosing new Guardians, he is recruited as a Guardian to help stop the Pitch Black. In order to do so, Jack will have to find out who he really is deep in his heart – what is his core.
Rise of the Guardians is quintessential animated Christmas movie. Themes of the movie are ever-enduring: hope and friendship, faith and belief, identity and doubt. And everybody has his own inner demons to overcome, not just Pitch. Jack Frost has doubts in his purpose in life: nobody sees him, nobody talks to him, and so he doubts if he is even fit for his task. Eponymous Guardians however have been going through the motions for so long that they had forgotten the true core of what it is they are supposed to do. Everybody has their insecurities, and even Pitch, while clearly a villain, is relatable: he just wants to be believed in, yet he knows of no means through which to achieve it except by fear.
Pitch, in fact, is the dark Jack Frost. He is Jack Frost as Jack will become should he forget himself and the joy he brings to himself and the others; Pitch is Jack Frost who had given up on himself and let himself be consumed by bitterness. Time and again we see – through both subtle hints and direct parallels – that they are not really all that different. Pitch understands what Jack is going through, as he himself as gone through something similar, and plays on that to try and get Jack on his side or at least throw him off balance. Yet Pitch never manages to understand Jack himself – because even if their fears and insecurites may be similar, who they are as people is ultimately very different, and so are the choices and actions they take.
Fantasy View 