A thread for Disney's MOANA staring Auli'i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson, songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda

I thought this was really good! I was also interested to read about the cultural trust of Pacific Islander scholars and activists that helped shape the move and this thoughtful reaction from another Polynesian commentator.

The Rock's big number is on YouTube in its entirety, and the songs are delightful in general (if you like contemporary musicals/L-MM, anyway):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79DijItQXMM

I just got back from seeing this, it was pretty good. The Rock's song was definitely a highlight. I may have snoozed out a bit somewhere during the middle.

Interesting that Disney made a "princess" movie that had absolutely no interest in romance of any sort.

I was surprised the Jemaine Clement song wasn't written by him, because it was very Flight of the Conchords in Bowie mode

This movie was great, looked great, loved how slow it was. My kids love the songs (or at least the two or so really good songs).

this was good and deserves more critical attention. art design / animation were stellar, especially the luminous effects of the stone, the manta, the ghosts. and the mad mad coconuts. also, every time moana and maui spoke about te ka, i heard them say thit kho which made me hungry and confused.

The main song clearly borrows the melody from the original Tron theme..

Liked this but that crab song was terrible. Good action sequences.

Just watched this on Netflix, and I'm surprised this thread is only 7 posts so far!

A lot of bits throughout the whole movie had me choking up, like all of the scenes with Moana and her Grandma/manta ray, and the resolution itself was well wrought.

But I'm sure there's been talk about the ending: after Moana's restored the island, it looks like their whole village is leaving the island, which was kind of weird.

Also, I expected that Moana would get a tattoo after beating the finale boss.

Did we even talk about it on the road movies nominations thread?

I feel like this is a good movie but not a great one, the songs are all just okay (jemaine's villain number in Rio is better, iirc) and I did appreciate the epic journey not feeling rushed quality of it, but at other times I feel like this was just a really amazing hair & water demo. Live action movies, shot on film, of people with long curly hair that gets wet don't have this much detail in them.

I do like how both Maui and Moana put up their hair in the biggest battles. People in most action movies typically don't think to do that.

It was fine but not particularly remarkable imo

it was remarkable beautiful to look at

I kept thinking the chicken was going to turn out to be magic

The villagers aren't leaving the island for good at the end, they're voyaging out to discover new islands as their ancestors used to do.

"Good not great" is where I am with it too. It was fun, and beautiful to look at, but not quite as rich or thoughtful as Zootopia. I appreciated that they didn't even bother with a love interest.

i have now seen this twice and as a moana expert it is a good movie that people should view or perhaps review

I've seen it about 20 times, my daughter loves it so much

my son is a fan, he was singing "you're welcome" this weekend at grammas house

People in Hawaii generally v stoked about this movie. It does its best to make Hawaiian and Polynesian culture look really good. Seems like Disney was trying to make amends for Pocahontas. I just saw it a couple weeks back and was wondering if there's some good scholarly work on the movie from the Hawaiian Studies department at the university here, but I've been too busy to look into it

Yeah I've probably seen it at least 75 times. Thanks 3 year old. It's the fucking worst when you hear You're Welcome right before you walk out the door though. In your head all day.

O hey I just saw the links in the first post, heh. Good stuff.

Weird thing to say re: pocahantas since Hawaiians don't consider themselves native americans

Mid-Pacific Ocean is a long way from either American continent, so 'native American' would be a huge stretch (of open water) for Hawaiians (or any other Polynesians). We 'Americans' just happened to swallow them up during our colonial expansion.

Hawaii also an actual kingdom/functional state w a government, head of state, laws, defined borders, diplomatic recognition by other countries, etc.

Davey knows all this i assume, Disney may just have seen the situations as analogous ie "hmm maybe we should do better w this 'ethnic studies' sorta stuff"

I learned more about polynesian folklore (esp. Maui, obv) because my daughter likes this movie than I ever would have otherwise, so they did a good job in that regard

I liked the idea of this film when I first heard about it but I probably wasn't going to pay full ticket price for a musical starring The Rock
then I remembered I am a dad and also it's more appropriate to get choked up at these moves with the nuclear fam than when I'm by myself on a long airplane ride

xpost to Jeff you didn't have a 3 yr old during the Age of Frozen, obsession was higher and way worse movie/songs

no way dude Frozen has much better music if we're grading the musical aspec

Free agent guard Derrick Rose will meet with the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday, league sources tell ESPN.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 5, 2017

Blegh wrong thread, mods delete?

woj is welcome here

You're wojcome

Disney may just have seen the situations as analogous ie "hmm maybe we should do better w this 'ethnic studies' sorta stuff"

Yah, this is what I was getting at. Disney deserves credit for all the hard work to set up the cultural trust (and actually listen to what they had to say) for Moana. Also, it's true for obvious reasons that Hawaiians generally identify with Pacific Islanders more than Native Americans (because they are actually Pacific Islanders), but many do feel a kinship with the latter as 'first nations' peoples. I know that for my girlfriend at least (who is part Hawaiian), the events her college organized to bring out Native American groups and facilitate cultural exchange had profound significance for her. So, these aspects of cultural identity are fluid, and that's part of what makes Moana interesting and complicated.

This is generically ok but jemaines song is all time

The music in Frozen is NOT better than the music in Moana, what the hell

Don't really think either matches up to tangled-musically and otherwise.

the music in Frozen IS better than this and I can only remember one song from Tangled

jesus god what has happened to me

Yeah wtf those are both nuts opinions

Jeff OTM, worth watching just for the animated hair.

I was late to the game and finally watched Moana, Tangled, Brave, and Frozen recently. I would rank them Moana (by a lot), Brave, Frozen, Tangled in that order.

I liked Brave a lot. I liked Frozen a lot too but mostly in spite of the music; there’s literally one memorable song in the whole movie.

My friend Dana as Moana for Halloween: https://www.instagram.com/p/BayCKxWhDQz/?taken-by=dananotdana

<3

Idgi

I think Brave was a gorgeous muddle, Tangled tons of fun, Frozen I never need to see again (maybe confirmed by the horrid Coco short) and Moana pretty good.

i watched this with my 4 year old nephew over the holidays and cried. it is great.

this definitely passed the finding dory test, in that my daughter has watched it a zillion times and i still like it

baby Moana is the cutest and I want to snatch her

I’ll listen to you’re welcome a million times before the dumb crab song.

Hmm my approach saves a lot of time

.......best animated Disney song nom/poll ever been done?

I mean it's the opener from beauty and the beast but still

i like the Jemaine song a lot too

SHIIINAAAY

that'd be a cool ballot poll! maybe open out to songs from animated films or kids' films generally, just to dodge disney exceptionalism and otherwise yknow "somewhere out there" and "pure imagination" are never gonna get polled. otoh i'd need a long-ass ballot for a poll where wizard of oz is dueling with moana so maybe just animated. i guess the one upshot to all-disney is space to throw a vote to eccentric personal faves like "ichabod crane" or some b.s. song no one remembers from the sword in the stone...

I thought about it but all animated seems very wide, all kids impossible to do so, all movies then it's just the tonight quintet

Including live with disney-style animated just for the sake of 'somewhere' and you can't keep a god dog down (bow wow wow wow) but can't see that not causing a scrap tbh

We have threads barring Disney so I'd be all for some exceptionalism just for the sake of a clean poll, essentially

Would nearly consider it a good candidate for one of the write-up ballots

i mean having done all the disney movie polls i can't really try to bash the exceptionalist tendency now. but i did try to (sometimes) mention the other non-disney movies from the same period, just to try and get them back situated in the general history. iiiiii dunno....

Let's see what it looks like in the morning

^ rejected hunchback opener fyi

You’re my best friend, my best friend
And we are family

The greatest Disney song is the first few seconds of the Mulan song that goes "let's get down to business/to defeat the Huns" no need to go thru the motions of polling

I just rewatched Lilo and Stitch. Ugh, so good too. DIsney should just make hawaiian girl movies forever.

The conclusion to the poll is v. deservedly going to be something from Jungle Book, methinks.

Oodelally song from Robin Hood

Shit the jungle book yeah that's gonna be up there

Don't really know songs from robin hood!

is disney’s robin hood the ground zero of the furry movement y/n

Poll

This thread is fecund

Aladdin btw has fantastic songs

otm

this movie really passes the "kid has watched it 15X times and I still like it" test

Can't unhear

"See the line where the sky meets the sea? It calls me"

as

"It's a tragedy for me to see the dream is over..." from Milli Vanilli's "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You"

A thread for Disney's MOANA staring Auli'i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson, songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda

best songs are by Opetaia Foa'i/Te Vaka imho:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60BQFGoMWd4

Love every second of this gorgeous movie and I cry like a drip every single time and just thinking about it or actually hearing the music now that I'm playing Albert's link /sob/

co-sign <3

I was looking for other performances from TeVaka/the Foa'i's and this was the only one I could find of this other great (also non-LMM) song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpKm-aYjMgc

... but with a little more research I learned that the above song (known on the Moana OST as "An Innocent Warrior" that plays during the scene when toddler Moana protects the baby sea turtle to the ocean and the ocean goddess plays with her and offers her the heart of Te Fiti) was written recorded by Te Vaka in 2000 as "Loimata E Maligi" (falling tears) about a tragic fire that killed 19 teenage girls in a dormitory in Tuvalu, and if you look that song up there is quite a bit of live footage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkBsaVMQ9m8

My point for my latest revives stems from a discussion with my wife (who is LMM superfan #1, ie saw In The Heights like a dozen times) on our last road trip and we were listening to the Moana OST and she's all LMM this and LMM that, and I'm like look, I'm not trying to paint LMM as a Paul Simon or anything, but there were quite a bit of other folks who played and sang on this soundtrack and they have been largely ignored for their contributions which I'd rate equal to much higher than LMM's.

Agree to some general extent, but I mean, LMM did "How Far You'll Go," "You're Welcome" and "Shiny," which are all pretty memorable and either the linchpin, or, in the case of the latter two, the showstoppers of the movie. I say this as the parent of two (growing) girls who sing these songs all the time. Regardless, I like that this movie has legs and is seemingly just shy of "Frozen" in terms of current Disney (musical) impact.

this movie really passes the "kid has watched it 15X times and I still like it" test

― bhad and bhabie (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, February 5, 2018 10:30 AM (five months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My kid watched it twice in a row last night.

LMM did "How Far You'll Go," "You're Welcome" and "Shiny," which are all pretty memorable

Aye, the latter two memorable for their sheer nails-on-chalkboard annoyance lol!

I say this as the parent of two (growing) girls who sing these songs all the time.

Yeah, I didn't mention the kids, my only hope is that when their journey with Moana is over, that their takeaway is the beautiful Pacific Islander culture/music and not LMM's shlocky cornball showtunes...

(haha I'm truly glad I can vent these normally unsaid opinions to you guys and not the family).

you seem to be implying that shlocky cornball showtunes are a bad thing

and I'm not done! I will admit "How Far I Go" is not awful, and that I actually enjoy most of "Where You Are" which I think Te Vaka do the music & the non-lead vox on.

I don't like cornball showtimes, particularly, but for those who do - which include most kids and pretty much anyone that likes showtimes, period - these cornball showtimes are quality. It definitely beats the schlocky bullshit neo-Christian rock stylings of Greatest Showman or Dear Evan Hanson or whatever.

Gone from Netflix, fuck!

;_;

For those who like Te Vaka / Opetaia Foa'i / Olivia Foa'i as much as I do, I found this rare gem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mu5XnpdCgY

It's an extended version of the opening prayer/song which Opetaia extended for another part (reprise?) of the movie but was not included in the final cut. The first minute should sound fairly familiar to those of us who've watched a million times, but around the minute mark is where it turns into something amazing.

John Lassetter asked for me to write a piece to go with the Disney castle logo at the beginning of the movie, and that’s when I wrote “Tulou Tagaloa”. Later on, the directors were playing around with an idea which involved Moana finding the ‘heart of te fiti’, and as they liked ‘Tulou Tagaloa’, they asked me to write an extended piece for it. This piece is the ocean telling Moana, in a nurturing sympathetic tone, of the task that awaits her. ​And once again, my daughter Olivia adds her magic touch to it.

-Opetaia Foa'i

I guess this is my Te Vaka thread now (sorry, not sorry):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3cszd49

rewatching this movie under the influence of pregnancy hormones is...a lot

My daughter's award-winning theater program at her middle school performed a preview of a semi-secret pilot version of a live musical version of this at the Junior Theater Festival in Atlanta last year, which was pretty much the last thing she did before lockdown.

man this movie rules. there are just a couple jokes/moves i could do without but overall one hell of a story, several amazing songs, and that water is gorgeous.

love it so much! baby moana is such a cutie

Because I have to do it, here's my daughter's theatre program (public school!) at work doing bits of Moana:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uee08PkdX5E

They killed it, but their Maui in particular was great.

That's awesome.

You should send this to Opetaia Foa'i. The language for most of the PI songs is sung in Tokelauan which wiki says there are only 4,260 speakers globally, he would get a kick that people are celebrating his language/culture.

i've been looking for a place to post this animated short... this must be the place

it's "based on the long-hidden history of four healing stones on Waikiki Beach placed there as a tribute to four legendary mahu who first brought the healing arts to Hawaii." insightful into Hawaiian concepts of gender and healing, beautifully rendered.

https://www.kapaemahu.com/

Wow... I'm an ignorant tourist who has passed by those stones many times without paying my respects. Will rectify that on my next visit. Thank you for posting davey.

you bet!

i'm a longtime resident and i didn't know the story either

I think it's currently on Criterion Channel, too, which is cool.

Man, Moana is great and still looks amazing.

Apparently they just surprised announced a sequel, supposedly out November, reportedly repurposed from a TV project? Sounds like a hail Mary/Moana move.