‘Frozen’ Director Debunks Major Disney Conspiracy Theory

We knew Anna and Elsa’s parents died at sea, but last year “Frozen” co-director Chris Buck completely blew our minds when he revealed they didn’t die on that boat. During a Reddit AMA, the director said the king and queen of Arendell, and their newborn “baby boy,” washed up on the shore of a jungle and built “a treehouse” before getting “eaten by a leopard.”

Sound familiar? That’s the emotionally scarring opening of Buck’s other Disney animated flick, “Tarzan.” This would make Tarzan the long-lost brother of Anna and Elsa. (Is your mind blown yet?)

So was Buck actually telling the truth? Could all of our favorite Disney movies secretly be connected, or was it all just one giant ruse? As it turns out, it was a little bit of both.

“When you’re working on a feature, you have a lot of time to think about stuff because it takes four years to make one,” Buck, who’s read all of your fan theories, told MTV News at a special screening of the Walt Disney Animation Studios Shorts Collection on Sunday (August 9). “I think Jen [Lee] and I were walking to a meeting, and I just start to tell her the entire story.”

“I said, ’Of course Anna and Elsa’s parents didn’t die,’” he added. “Yes, there was a shipwreck, but they were at sea a little bit longer than we think they were because the mother was pregnant, and she gave birth on the boat, to a little boy. They get shipwrecked, and somehow they really washed way far away from the Scandinavian waters, and they end up in the jungle. They end up building a tree house and a leopard kills them, so their baby boy is raised by gorillas. So in my little head, Anna and Elsa’s brother is Tarzan — but on the other side of that island are surfing penguins, to tie in a non-Disney movie, ’Surf’s Up.’ That’s my fun little world.”

So there you have it, Disney fans. Though “Frozen” and “Tarzan” aren’t officially connected — and definitely not with “The Little Mermaid” — the two heartfelt stories are very much interwoven in the animator’s heart. Along with those adorable surfing penguins, of course.