The original Frozen opens the same way many animated Disney films do, with dead parents. The King and Queen of Arendelle don't survive very long in the first movie, but that's not stopping them from coming back for the sequel. At Disney's D23 Expo over the weekend, Even Rachel Wood was officially announced to be voicing Queen Iduna for Frozen II.
If you were hoping for the discovery that the king and queen had actually survived the shipwreck seen in the first film, it seems that's not the case. Wood confirmed to Yahoo that the queen will be seen by revisiting the past, which seems to confirm that flashbacks will be part of the movie. According to the actress...
I play Queen Iduna, Anna and Elsa's mother, who we lost in the first film in the Disney tradition. But we get to see a bit more of her in the second one and revisit the past [via flashbacks] and uncover some mysteries that we didn't know before.
We know that the focus of Frozen II will be a quest to understand the origins of Elsa's powers. While the journey will take her far from home, it seems that it will start much closer. It seems that there's a lot that Anna and Elsa don't know about their parents, but they will discover the truth, and that will send them on their quest.
Those answers may come from the character played by Sterling K. Brown. He will play a retired soldier in the Arendelle army who actually worked for Anna and Elsa's grandparents, and knows things about the family Elsa and Anna never learned. According to Brown...
I play General Mattias, who was a soldier in the Arendelle army, He's sort of a figure from Elsa and Anna's past because he worked for their grandfather when he was the king. And they get a chance to learn some things from their past they did not know. And they kind of help pull him into the present as well.
It seems the flashbacks may go much deeper than we expected. We've received a glimpse of characters we're not familiar with in the trailers for Frozen II. One theory has been that this could be Elsa's mother when she was young. However, it seems we might also meet Anna and Elsa's grandparents in the flashbacks that we see.
Exactly what we learn about Elsa's powers is anybody's guess. Clearly, this wasn't just a random genetic mutation that led to Elsa having ice powers, but discovering the cause, and discovering the reason, might be two very different things. We'll find out the truth this Thanksgiving.
