Here are all the deleted scenes from Disney's Frozen II. The home media release of Frozen 2 includes a plethora of bonus content, including outtakes, a sing-along version of the film, and deleted scenes that were written and story-boarded but ultimately left out of the film's final cut. The wildly popular film is now streaming on Disney+ and it's available on Blu-Ray, DVD, and 4K UHD.
Frozen II catches up with sisters Queen Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Princess Anna (Kristen Bell) of the Kingdom of Arendelle three years after the events of Frozen. They have been living peacefully with the gates wide open, but things change when Elsa starts to hear a mysterious voice and sees visions of an Enchanted Forest. Believing that this place will uncover the mystery of where got her powers, Elsa, Anna, and company journey there.
Frozen 2 is a magical adventure filled with self discovery, the power of familial bonds, and, of course, music as Elsa and Anna fight to right past wrongs. The following deleted scenes show the evolution of some of the narrative beats that were kept in the movie, even though the scenes themselves were cut or rewritten.
Alternate Prologue
According to co-directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, they had done many different versions of the film's prologue. Lee, who is also screenwriter of Frozen 2, stated that they were reworking the prologue up until August of the year the film premiered, meaning only three months prior to audiences seeing it in theaters for the first time. Lee states that they chose to include this alternate version of the prologue because it inspired many of the story beats that were kept and it set the tone for the rest of the film.
This alternate prologue is a flashback of a young Iduna (Delany Rose Stein), long before she was Queen of Arendelle. She's in the forest frantically searching for her mother amidst a battle between the people of Arendelle and the Northuldra of the Enchanted Forest. In this sequence, it's unclear who started the conflict or why, something that Lee alludes was purposeful since a large part of the film's narrative is driven by Elsa's search for the truth of what happened between Arendelle and Northuldra. The deleted scene shows Iduna saving a young Agnarr (Jackson Stein), Anna and Elsa's father, from falling down a cliff. Finally, Lieutenant Mattias (Sterling K. Brown), tasked with protecting Agnarr, takes both Iduna and Agnarr to a horse drawn cart that presumably carries them back to Arendelle and to safety. Much of this deleted scene is included in Frozen 2 as moments in time crafted out of Elsa's ice magic, and provide clues to the truth Elsa and Anna seek.
The prologue the filmmakers decided to stick with was one in which both Iduna and Agnar are adults, voiced by Evan Rachel Wood and Alfred Molina, and Anna and Elsa are still very young. King Agnarr tells the story of how his grandfather, King Reunard, established peaceful relations with the Northuldrans before a conflict broke out, enraging the Elemental Spirits and trapping the Northuldrans in the Enchanted Forest. This prologue sets up everything audiences need to know going forward and maintains Queen Iduna's secret past for a little while longer than the alternate version allows.
The Secret Room
Speaking of Queen Iduna's secret past, in this deleted scene Olaf (Josh Gad) takes Elsa and Anna to a secret room that he discovered. In this room there are tomes about magic and a journal filled with notes. There are even notes on Elsa and her magic. The sisters initially think the room belonged to their father, but Anna recognizes the handwriting in the journal as that of her mother's. Upon further inspection of the journal, the sister are shocked to discover that their mother spoke Northuldran, a forbidden language. The scene ends with the sisters reading a few lines from their mother's journal: "Whatever evil my people did... Whatever darkness still roams our forest... I can no longer turn my back to the past."
Iduna's use of Northuldran, the reference to "our forest" and "my people," and, of course, the magenta shawl Anna finds in the secret room, the same one she wears for most of Frozen 2, are all hints to the truth of Iduna's past and heritage.
Elsa's Dream
This scene takes place during what became Elsa's "Into the Unknown" sequence in the theatrical cut of Frozen 2. Anna and Elsa fall asleep beside each other, but in the deleted scene it's Anna who wakes up. She discovers that Elsa's dreams are manifesting and playing out in snow flurries above her head and around the room. What Anna witnesses are visions of their young mother and the Enchanted Forrest, as well as moments that call back to the alternate prologue and the conflict between Arendelle and the Northuldrans. Like in the film, the scene ends with Elsa creating ice crystals that fill the air. It was this moment that gave songwriter Kristen Anderson-Lopez the idea to use that scene in a song, which inspired "Into the Unknown."
The Water Nokk and Kristoff
The Water Nokk is a shapeshifting water spirit from Scandinavian folklore that was said to frequently take on the appearance of a horse. Elsa encounters and tames a Water Nokk in Frozen 2, which ended up being some of the film's best visual effects work. In this deleted scene, the Water Nokk is presented as a more playful being and Olaf is seen riding it when it then offers Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) a ride. When he hesitates, Olaf accuses Kristoff of being scared that the Nokk would drown him, as Nokks are said to do, because he doesn't have truth in his heart, forcing Kristoff to admit that he doesn't like his life in Arendelle. This leads Anna to express doubts about marrying Kristoff. This scene was cut because Jennifer Lee felt the Water Nokk should be treated as more mythical and less comedic.
"Her Love Could Hold Up The World"
In this touching sequence, Elsa uses her powers so that Anna could see and hear a conversation between their parents. In it, King Agnarr and Queen Iduna decide that they need to tell Anna the truth about Elsa, because if anyone can find a way to help Elsa, it's her sister, as "her love could hold up the world." Anna has always wondered why her parents didn't trust her with the truth about Elsa, and this one conversation gives her the closure she needed. It also validates Anna as the ordinary hero, as Lee calls her. The writers of Frozen 2 didn't want Anna sidelined just because she doesn't have magical powers like Elsa, and this is story beat is handled very well with Anna's pivotal role in the film's resolution and her ascension to Queen of Arendelle.
Deleted Song: "Unmeltable Me"
In the directors' commentary, Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee describe the technical difficulty of animating Olaf and the flurry Elsa gives him at the end of the first Frozen. Going into Frozen II, they decided they needed to write their way around this issue, and that's how Olaf got his permafrost body in the sequel. That's what the song "Unmeltable Me" is all about; it's Olaf celebrating his new, un-meltable body, while simultaneously entertaining guests of the castle. Olaf actually explains in song form that he no longer needs his flurry because Elsa's powers grew and he has "self-refrigeration." It's fun, silly, and 100% Olaf.
Deleted Song: "Home"
As the song title implies, this song by Anna is all about Arendelle, and it wonderfully establishes Anna's love and warmth for her homeland. According to the directors' commentary, it was also setting up Anna to become Queen of Arendelle. At one point, the song alludes to Anna's greatest fear as she sings, "If I lost them, I'd lose me," referring, of course, to Elsa, Olaf, Kristoff, and Sven, her new family. The song was eventually cut because it doesn't touch upon where the rest of the characters are at this point in their lives, and "Home" was ultimately replaced with "Some Things Never Change" on Frozen 2's soundtrack.
Deleted Song: "Get This Right"
Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee explain that this song came out of a desire to make sure Kristoff and his voice actor Jonathan Groff have more than just a ditty to sing in Frozen 2. In this sequence, Kristoff struggles to propose to Anna, a story beat that is stretched out into the entire film rather than relegated to just a single song. It's the perfect blend of romantic, sweet, and funny that gets to the core of the kind of wholesome couple Anna and Kristoff are.