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Amphibians in Movies
 
Frozen II (2019)
 
Spoiler Alert !

Some of these pictures and descriptions may give away plot details that you might not want to know before watching the film.
 
This is a sequel to Disney's Oscar-winning animated musical "Frozen." It has the largest role of any salamander in any movie I've seen, so far, which isn't saying much since most of them are on screen for less than a minute. This salamander doesn't speak, it only makes squeaks and chittering noises, and nobody really talks to it either, but it's a full character nonetheless. It's not named in the movie, and the subtitles only call it "the creature" but according to online sources the salamander's name is Bruni.

Salamanders are cold and sticky and often covered with toxic chemicals, some of which can kill you, but Bruni was designed as a cute and cuddly creature, no doubt to make it easier to sell merchandise to children. (What animated Disney character isn't?) When I searched online my suspicions were confirmed. You can buy stuffed Bruni dolls in purple or blue, and there's even one that walks and lights up. You can also buy a Lego Bruni "with big eyes and an opening mouth, plus a small fire with a flame, 2 sticks with marshmallows and a snowflake that balances on the salamander’s tongue." I'm not makin' this up.
Somebody let me know when they make a Bruni butane fire starter to get the grill going. I'd buy that.

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The story is actually fairly complex for a children's movie musical, but all you need to know here about the salamander is that Queen Elsa and her gang enter a forbidden enchanted forest to find the source of a strange musical voice Elsa keeps hearing. Elsa thinks it might be the Fifth Spirit, which might exist along with the spirits of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. We see the Air Spirit (and later we see the Earth and Water Spirits) and after that Elsa and the others in the forest are attacked by the Fire Spirit. It moves rapidly, spreading fire all over the forest. It seems that the forest and everyone in it might be burned, but as we learned in the first movie, Elsa can shoot ice from her hands and freeze everything around her, including fire. (She would also be great to have around next fire season.) She quickly unholsters her magic ice guns and shoots out all the fire until she corners the dangerous spirit against a rock. She's about to ice it to death, but she sees that it's just a little flaming purple salamander.

There's a brief stare down, then the salamander seems to realize Elsa is not a threat, and it moves toward her hand which is outstretched in goodwill. When the salamander climbs onto her hand, it seems to enjoy that her hands are cold and can put out its fire, and we see its color turn to blue. Then the salamander licks its eyeball. (Salamanders don't do that, geckos do that. Geckos are lizards. This was probably done in a desperate attempt to make a salamander seem cute. And we see this eye-licking again later on.) Elsa feeds the salamander snowflakes, and the two are good friends. Then Elsa hears the musical voice again, and she realizes that the salamander hears it, too. The salamander convinces her that she needs to go north and Elsa's search continues.

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We see the salamander a few more times during the rest of the movie, but only in the background as it follows Elsa and her gang.

In a comic scene, we see Olaf the snowman try to pick up the salamander but it starts to flame up. Ofaf tries to blow it out, but that doesn't work. Then the flaming salamander jumps into his hands which sets fire to Olaf's wooden arms.

In another scene we see the salamander playing with the Air Spirit, and we also see the salamander sitting on Elsa's shoulder, and then her arm, as she reads a letter.

And we also see it running through snow while on fire then it jumps into a pile of snow Elsa makes for it, and once again it turns blue.
In the end, Elsa decides to live in the forest with her salamander buddy. I like a movie with a happy ending.

Why did they make the Fire Spirit a salamander? Salamanders have long been (mistakenly) associated with fire. There's even a European species of salamander called the Fire Salamander. One reason I've read that makes some sense, is that, since salamanders tend to hide under logs, a Fire Salamander could have been hiding inside a piece of wood or in a pile of fire wood that was thrown into a fire. When the salamander ran out of the fire to try to get to safety, since fire would kill it quickly, it was assumed that the salamdner came from the fire, and not the wood. This led to a belief that salamanders have the ability to live in fire. Fire salamanders are also black with bright yellow or orange markings, which resembler the color of fire.

Others believed that salamanders could extinguish fire with their cold bodies. You can read more about salamanders in folklore on Wickipedia.

You can read more about Bruni on the Bruni Disney Wiki