Frozen 2 Trailer 2

The Frozen 2 hype comes to a crescendo today with with the second full-length trailer that gives us more information about this upcoming sequel than ever. Other sources reveal names for several new characters from the movie, including Honeymaren, a young woman who was in the first teaser, and her brother Ryder, who is similar to Kristoff in both appearance and personality. This trailer also reveals footage of Anna and Elsa's parents, who were reported to be part of a flashback sequence at this year's D23 Expo. Couple that with some adorable Anna dialogue and more epic footage of the Nokk, and we have the best trailer Disney has released for this movie so far!

It starts out with a traditional narration that foreshadows the Enchanted Forest that Anna and Elsa would travel to later on. The narrator is then revealed as their father, King Agnarr, who tells them a bedtime story in a flashback from when they are children. We also briefly see their mother, Queen Iduna, even though she has no spoken dialogue. By changing her name from Gerda to Iduna, this movie negates the events of the fourth season of Once Upon a Time, which tied Disney's Frozen to "The Snow Queen" fairy tale. Then we hear present-day Elsa telling Anna about a "voice" that is drawing her to the Enchanted Forest. The rock trolls send Elsa on a quest, and Anna insists on coming with her after a brief recounting of her accomplishments the original movie. If it wasn't clear by now already, the first Frozen was Anna's journey, and this one will be Elsa's.

There are lot of new looks for Elsa in this trailer in that are very different from what we would expect to see her in. While her signature color is normally light blue, here she wears even more pink than Anna! She has a satin magenta dress on in the nighttime scenes, and there is a daytime scene of her looking over a balcony in a soft pink winter dress. Just after that clip, Anna asks Kristoff if he noticed anything weird about Elsa, and I wonder if the sudden change in fashion is meant to be a reflection of that. Frozen's fashions use a technique called rosemaling to reflect the characters' environments in their clothing, so the pink Elsa wears in this film could be symbolic of the eerie pink flames that she finds in the Enchanted Forest which she later chastises Anna for following her into.

Another uncharacteristic look for Elsa is when she lets her hair down while running across an ice obstacle course that she creates for herself. I believe this is the first time we've seen her without her hair braided or tied back. She wears the same ice blue body suit in this scene that she had on in the original teaser, but her hair was in a ponytail there. Perhaps the ponytail came undone after she encountered the Nokk. For a brief moment in the end of the trailer, we see Elsa succeed in taming the Nokk and riding it across the ocean using reigns of ice that she formed around its muzzle. Taming the Nokk appears to be a pivotal moment in the film, implying that it might be the source of the voices she heard calling her to the Enchanted Forest. Whether the mystical water spirit is good or evil remains to be seen.

From the quality of the animation and music in this trailer, it's clear that this sequel is no direct-to-video budget fare. Disney has pulled all the stops to give the many Frozen fans something to look forward to after six years. It's a shame that we didn't hear any dialogue from newcomer Honeymaren or her brother Ryder in this trailer even though they seem to be major players in the film. We do, however, get a close-up of Elsa's new animal companion, Bruni, a blue and white salamander who gives off major Pascal vibes. The Northuldra tribe shows up briefly when they ask Elsa how she found the forest, and we get one line from an old woman who is likely their leader, Yelana. A lot more will be revealed when Frozen 2 comes out on November 22nd. It's nice to have some context of what to expect in the meantime.