Moana

For thirty years, Disney directors Ron Clements and John Musker have given us animated movies that have changed the world. They gave us two of the crown jewels of the Disney Renaissance as they took us "under the sea" and to a magical Arabian kingdom. They have also transported us to 1897 London, ancient Greece and 19th Century space. Finally, they once again began a resurgence in Disney animation with a film taking place "down in New Orleans". For their first computer-animated film, Clements and Musker take us to a magical Polynesian world in "Moana". To best judge this new film, I revisited their past movies and while "Aladdin" is still their best work followed by "The Princess and the Frog", the rest of their films are in a near five-way tie including this film. "Frozen" is a little better than "Moana" but that is far from saying that the latter didn't deliver what we have come to expect from Walt Disney Animated Studios. I enjoyed the characters and the central plotline. The animation and design of the film was quite beautiful, especially in 3D. Disney constantly looks to its past for inspiration and that is apparent in "Moana".

Depicting the people of the Pacific Islands as voyagers was quite sentimental for me because that is how I have always viewed them. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Moana as a toddler meets the Ocean. This scene started out as just a test for the water effects in the movie but it became so beautiful from every aspect that the story of the movie was changed so the scene could begin the film. The story pattern used for "Moana" is the typical Hero's Journey, a pattern that can be very entertaining and dramatic if infused with enough freshness. All the characters in this show were well crafted to play out this kind of story and were well cast. Disney has given us so many heroines over nearly 80 years and while Moana's ancestry automatically creates some originality, it wasn't like she had the same aspirations as Belle or Pocahontas. Moana appears to have the reverse affection as Ariel in that Moana has been chosen by the Ocean to sail Maui to Te Fiti. She is hearing the call of her voyager blood. She has a mentor in her grandmother but must leave her known world in order to achieve a hero's status. The story of how Auli'i Cravalho was cast as Moana is quite touching in that this is her first Hollywood role. She was actually the last person to audition for the role out of hundreds. Another comparison with "The Little Mermaid" is that Chief Tui Waialiki, Moana's father, can be liked unto Triton. Many movies which follow the narrative of "The Hero's Journey" have appealing protagonists that are sometimes outshined by a Han Solo or Gollum. Such is the case with "Moana" as well. Maui is in the mythology of every Polynesian land from New Zealand to Hawaii, with each version a little different from the other. The film has him as a demigod and he brings to my recollection a few other famous characters such as Kuzco and Thor but mostly Genie. Maui has the same story purpose as Genie in that both characters are magical and help the protagonist achieve their goals. The connections between Maui and Genie go deeper than that because Eric Goldberg, the animator behind Genie, created all the 2D animation for Maui's tattoos. Some are even saying that Goldberg's work on "Moana" stole the show. Heihei is following in the bird tracks of such Pixar characters as Kevin and Becky. Just as Gilbert Gottfried was the "opening act" for Robin Williams in "Aladdin", Alan Tudyk and others behind creating Heihei provided great humor leading up to Dwayne Johnson. This is Tudyk's fifth consecutive Disney animated film. With the character of Tamatoa, the filmmakers were probably looking to King Louie from "The Jungle Book" for inspiration. I don't think it worked because Tamatoa felt a little out of place but I did like the use of glow-in-the-dark algae. In the end credit scene by the way, he makes reference to another famous Disney character. Jemaine Clement plays Tamatoa and I have seen him in a few films before. I was quite happy to find out that Jango Fett plays Chief Tui. As a side note, the Kakamora scene is a reference to "Mad Max: Fury Road" and the filmmakers give a nod to "Raiders of the Lost Ark" when Moana escapes from Maui's cave.

Clements and Musker have their traditional cameo at the very start of the song "Where You Are". Other filmmakers on this movie should be made mention of though because of their good work. When "Moana" ran into story problems late in production, Disney brought in the directors of "Big Hero 6", Don Hall and Chris Williams, to act as co-directors. Composer Mark Mancina has written the musical scores for "Tarzan" and "Brother Bear" for Disney previous to this and he was a great choice in my opinion for this particular movie. Songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda was hired to work on this movie before his musical "Hamilton" took Broadway by storm. Another musician who worked on this movie, Opetaia Foa'i, is a superstar in the Pacific Islands. While the songs in "Moana" did not have as big of a first impact that some of the songs from "Frozen" had on me, they were still good. They seem to get better over time. "How Far I'll Go" received an Oscar nomination, which led to Cravalho singing the song at the Academy Awards. "Moana" was obviously up for Best Animated Feature but the creativity and theme of "Zootopia" was hard to compete with. I had suspicions that just as we saw a "Frozen Fever" (meaning the phenomenom as opposed to the short film), a "Moana Mania" might be in store. In hindsight, children still had Queen Elsa and Princess Anna to obsess over and there wasn't the same need for another female heroine to obsess over when "Moana" was released. All this didn't stop audiences from enjoying this movie. It may not have achieved the billion-dollar financial success that was enjoyed previously by both "Frozen" and "Zootopia" but "Moana" did out-gross "Sing" (both films went head-to-head it seemed that season). The story of "Moana" was good and the characters were quite special. "Moana" also looks pretty beautiful from a design standpoint. It is hard to know if this film as a whole will grow on me like "Tangled" did but I am hopefully it will.

4 out of 5 Stars