'Moana 2' Review
The full-circle Marvel-ization of Disney animation
Mild spoilers follow
The first Moana was the mark of a high period for recent Disney animation, specifically the era under the leadership of Pixar co-founder John Lasseter. It was a project originated by The Little Mermaid directors John Musker and Ron Clements to be their next project after The Princess and the Frog, and was inspired by Musker’s interest in Polynesian mythology. The initial pitch was basically sold as a Disney version of True Grit, with Dwayne Johnson’s Maui taking the place of the wizened “Rooster” character. While I personally enjoyed and still enjoy Moana upon rewatch, diving into a bit of the different iterations of the project before its release provides an interesting window into how Disney has become increasingly female empowerment-focused in the past decade or so.
Musker and Clements initially tapped New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi to write the screenplay for the film, and the original story was to feature Moana as the only daughter in a family of five or six brothers- specifically one of her older brothers was to be her main initial mentor instead of her grandmother.1 At some point however his screenplay was scrapped by Lasseter’s “Disney Story Trust” and they began anew with Zootopia screenwriter Jared Bush- who incidentally is now the Chief Creative Officer at Disney Animation. At one point, Moana’s father was supposed to be the one in the village who wanted to see them resume voyaging, and his getting lost on an attempted voyage would have been the inciting incident.
As co-director Musker lamented in an interview from this past May:
Moana was a very difficult project. It was our idea, but with Pixar and John Lasseter, our story kept changing hands. In the ‘90s, we had Jeffrey [Katzenberg]. He was an emperor, you know. But there weren’t 10 Jeffreys. Now, you have too many people to satisfy, before we didn’t have 15 directors telling you how to make the movie.
All this is not to say that Moana doesn’t teach great lessons about perseverance and courage to both young girls and boys, but it is interesting when reading about the development of the film how all positive role models for young men gradually got sanded off in favor of increased self-agency for Moana. When a studio that maintains such massive pull with young children at Disney chooses to completely eradicate any form of positive, heroic male figures in their films, I see that as a grave sin of omission on their part. 2007’s Meet the Robinsons is probably the last Disney animated movie I can think of that not only had an uplifting message for young boys and also had a positive portrayal of a father (although who the father ends up being is a bit complicated as far as the film’s time-travel hijinks go).
Fast forward almost an entire decade after the release of Moana and Disney animation is now at another turning point. The combined failure of Strange World and Wish resulted in former Chief Creative Officer Jennifer Lee stepping down, but the future of the company may now be in a similar place to where it was in the early 2000s, and the success of Moana 2 will certainly shape the future of the animation department.
And it is sensible that Moana 2 is doing well: it is a fun, diverting retread of the original with beautiful animation (although visibly less money was spent on it than the first, especially with attention to the detail of the water effects), fun songs, and amiable new characters.
But why does it feel so hollow?
The story follows Moana (once again voiced by Auli’i Cravalho) three years after the events of the first film, and life is thriving on her island; in fact her family is also thriving, as she has a new baby sister, Simea (Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda). The legacy of the events of prior loom large as Moana is now considered a hero among her peers for helping restore the “heart of Te Fiti”, and even the demigod Maui has new cultural significance within their village. Moana is continuing her goal of returning her people to their ancient seafaring ways, exploring nearby islands with the hope of connecting with other peoples. The answer to her lack of success in this is more complicated than she had initially imagined: the evil storm god Nalo has essentially made contact with the other nearby nations impossible (although the reasons aren’t especially clear as to how this benefits him) by sinking the island of Motufetu, which was a crucial connecting point back in the ancient days.
This is the point at which the film starts to feel like an especially tired retread of the movie: instead of an interesting story of Moana encountering other peoples and nations in her area, that storyline is derailed for yet another wacky fetch quest that oddly hit a lot of similar beats to the terrible recent Marvel film Thor: Love and Thunder. In fact, the post-credits scene in this film is almost beat for beat identical with the post-credits scene in the other one.2 Post-credits scenes in general are something relatively new to Disney animated films (The Hunchback of Notre Dame notwithstanding) and have generally been more of a Pixar thing, but usually just feature extra gags or silly moments. Even Moana featured a bonus stinger, but it was really just an excuse to feature Jemaine Clement’s Tamatoa for a final gag.
The post-credits scene in Moana 2 is designed primarily to set up Moana 3, because, in addition to the live-action Moana coming in 2026, Moana is a franchise now. In fact, next to Frozen and the Marvel movies, it may actually be Disney’s biggest franchise overall. This film was rushed into existence and only announced at the outset of this year, and hastily cobbled together from the scripts for the canceled Moana series for Disney+ that began development in 2020. One can tell as one watches this film where the “episodes” would have been, leading to odd structure and pacing that feels both rushed and way too drawn-out in sections. I will say, it is impressive that, as rushed as this film was, how competent and relatively entertaining it is, but at what cost?
Looking to the future, the only announced Disney films are next year’s Zootopia 2 and Frozen III (2027) and IV (likely 2028 or 2029, which is crazy to even think about), with an additional unannounced film set to release in 2026. Could it be Wreck-it Ralph 3? A secret follow-up to Bolt? If Iger is following his post-2010 Pixar strategy, he may be reverting to the “sequel/original/sequel…” pattern of that time, meaning (hopefully) 2026 will give us a true original animated film unencumbered by the woke politics of Jennifer Lee’s terrible rein over the studio.3 But does Moana 2 signify that even the original films released by Disney Animation will be forced to be more “franchise-friendly” and to leave threads for potential sequels in the future? Will all the films be required to hit $1 billion lest they be deemed a failure? How long until we get a live-action remake of Meet the Robinsons? (soon, this writer hopes).
Overall, Moana 2 is a safe, play-the-hits installment that is enjoyable but ultimately more likely to play in the background during an extended family get-together on Disney+ than it is to be studied with the same rewarding scrutiny one can apply to Snow White, The Lion King, or even Tangled.
Disney movies used to be literal miracles of craft and ingenuity: ink and paper transformed into a fantastic dream that no other studio could ever match. Without a Walt Disney, John Lasseter, or heck, even Michael Eisner, can true art ever be produced by the mega-conglomerate that Disney has become again? Only time will tell.
https://www.slashfilm.com/547864/moana-john-musker-and-ron-clements-interview/
My conspiracy brain wonders: did Taika Waititi recycle parts of his unused ‘Moana’ script for Thor: Love and Thunder, subbing Moana out for Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster? And did ‘Moana 2’ also borrow from this unused script? I think it’s very possible.
For more on how Jennifer Lee and the woke mob almost completely destroyed Disney Animation, check out the “D-Files”: https://filmthreat.com/features/the-d-files-part-1-disney-and-the-downfall-of-john-lasseter/