One of the most popular parts of Frozen II was the scene in which Olaf the Snowman, voiced by Josh Gad, gave a bunch of new characters a quick recap of the first Frozen movie. Olaf's particular storytelling style was fun and unique, and one could easily see Olaf telling other, non-Frozen, stories with the same flair. And now it's happening as Josh Gad has begun to summarize the entire Skywalker Saga, as Olaf.
The idea began only about a day ago when Josh Gad posted a tweet urging people to go out and vote. He promised that, if the tweet was retweeted 10,000 times, he would recap all of Star Wars, in the voice of Olaf. Whether it was people's civic responsibility to promote voting (because, seriously, vote) or simply the desire to see Star Wars as done by Olaf, the tweet broke that threshold in remarkably short order. And Josh Gad has already begun to keep his promise. Because recapping all of Star Wars is a tall order, he'll be doing it in sections, and first we have the entire prequel trilogy. Check it out.
There's something about fights over trade negotiations that's just more exciting when Olaf talks about them. This is basically everything you could hope for from an Olaf recap of Star Wars. What's perhaps most noticeable about the prequels from this recap is that nearly half the video's total run time is dedicated to The Phantom Menace. There's certainly a lot that happens in that movie and while this might just be an artifact of Josh Gad's script, that he started out a little long-winded and then ended up cutting the other two films a bit short to keep the video from getting too long, it does feel like maybe there isn't as much of consequence that takes place in the latter two movies.
One element thrown into Josh Gad's recap here that we didn't see in Frozen II, but that certainly adds some humor to the mix, is a bunch of fourth wall breaking jokes. We get references to the other films in the franchise, Star Tours, the fact that Keira Knightly makes an appearance, and more than one reference to the forthcoming Disney+ series starring Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan. Also, an admission that some of the alien characters in The Phantom Menace are perhaps racially insensitive.
And if you liked this, you can get ready for, one assumes, at least two more. We should get a video giving us the recap of the original trilogy next, followed by one about the sequel trilogy. I can only imagine how Olaf is going to handle the Luke/Leia kiss or the whole "Rey is a Palpatine" thing. Perhaps we'll get bits of Solo and Rogue One thrown in for good measure. It should keep us entertained. Maybe we can get a recap of The Mandalorian Season 1 real quick before Season 2 debuts this Friday.
