Once Upon a Snowman is a midquel short film released on October 23, 2020 on Disney+.[2] It takes place during the events of Frozen. The series is served as an origin story for Olaf.
Once Upon a Snowman is the untold story of how Olaf came to life and set out to find his destiny.
Plot[]
During Elsa's song "Let It Go", Olaf the snowman is brought to life. Before he can do anything, however, she releases her cape, which flies and knocks him down the mountain side until he crashes into a tree. Not knowing who he is, or why he is alive, he decides to find an identity for himself. He comes upon Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna (where Kristoff can audibly be heard singing "Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People" from the barn) and gets flattened by the front door by Anna, who exits not noticing him and carrying a bag of carrots (which she will eventually give to Kristoff and Sven as payment).
Olaf enters the Post and meets Oaken, who does not seem all that surprised by the appearance of a talking snowman. Olaf asks for a nose, possibly a carrot, for his face, but Oaken explains that he sold the last batch and decides to help him out by trying a variety of other objects. One of the objects is a stereoscope that features images of "summer". Olaf is immediately taken by it and wants to experience it before settling on a sausage for his nose.
As Olaf happily leaves with his new nose, a pack of wolves suddenly appear and begin to chase him through the snowy tundra, during which Anna and Kristoff can be heard arguing with each other over the concept of love. Olaf passes by them, again unnoticed, which gets the wolves to suddenly shift their attention to them. Olaf continues to slide and witnesses Anna, Kristoff, and Sven making a leap across the gorge while ditching their sleigh. Olaf makes it to the bottom, where he spots one of the carrots that gets dropped, but it gets crushed by the sleigh.
Olaf's sausage nose breaks, which saddens him. Upon seeing one of the wolves whimpering pitifully at his nose, he gives it to him, believing that he needs it more than him. The wolf happily licks and snuggles with him before leaving. Olaf comments that it felt like a warm hug, which suddenly causes him to remember Anna and Elsa's time playing together as children. Finally realizing who he is, he comments "I'm Olaf and I like warm hugs."
During the credits, Olaf is seen coming across Anna, Kristoff and Sven who will eventually give him his iconic carrot nose.
This is the first Frozen film not to feature an original song or the word Frozen in the title.
This short has a handful of inconsistencies.
Kristoff's sled explodes near Olaf, but he was not near the sled in the original film.
When Kristoff argues to Anna about Hans, the sled moves fast in the film, while it goes slow in the short.
In the film when Anna says "I never knew winter could be so beautiful." Olaf replies to her right by her while the short shows he isn't anywhere near her also there is no hill background.
When Olaf jumps into the air, the short shows the sky is clear blue, while the movie showed that it was dark and Olaf was nowhere to be seen.
When Olaf lead the wolves to Anna and the others, the sky is not dark enough, and when the wolves turn their attention, they go down a hill, unlike the film. Additionally, Anna, Kristoff, and Sven react immediately rather than after a few seconds.
Anna's model is taken from Frozen II and given the first film's clothes, rather than reused from the first film.
When Elsa's cape flies into the air, the short shows that it hit Olaf at high speed, which is impossible.
This is the first time Anna's winter dress is shown in a short, making her the final main character to have their first film's outfit featured. Elsa wore hers in Frozen Fever while Kristoff donned his in Olaf's Frozen Adventure.
Some of the images from Oaken's stereoscope are pulled from scenes in Tangled and Moana.
This short reveals the anagram of Wandering Oaken's as "Naked Norwegians."
This is the first Frozen media where Elsa is not shown with her French braid hair style.
The same animation from Frozen is used several times, except from different angles. For example, the start is taken directly from "Let It Go", but with pans to Olaf when Elsa makes him and throws her cape away.
It possible that after a camera pan to olaf, elsa model might be taken from frozen 2 and make her wear first film clothes.
