zelon's biggest hater

“Sometimes our strengths lie beneath the surface … Far beneath, in some cases.” MOANA (2016)

MOANA + PUA Moana (2016) dir. Ron Clements

You know who you are. Who you truly are.

Coco and Moana both teach kids the rare-but-important lesson that sometimes parents who love you, but who have been through traumatic things in the past, can make bad decisions for you out of fear.

This is an important distinction from the usual varieties of parents where either they are evil and do bad things to their children, or are good and it turns out that their actions were right all along, even if the child didn’t understand at the time.

Loving parents, families who genuinely care about their kids, can still end up stifling them in an effort to keep them safe. It’s hard to shoulder the responsibility of protecting and guiding another human, and so it’s easy to mess it up from time to time, even when you don’t mean to. Chief Tui didn’t want Moana to drown in the ocean. Mama Imelda didn’t want Miguel to abandon everything else in pursuit of music. 

Their fears came from understandable places. From genuine trauma, and bad things that had happened to them.

But they were also both wrong. If Moana hadn’t sailed off to find Maui and restore things, she would have died on the ‘safe’ island along with everyone else. If Miguel had been forced to give up his music, he would have only continued to resent his family, and would have lost the closeness they had through another, different kind of tragedy.

It was important that they learn where their loved ones were coming from. But in the end, they were right to change things, too.

Whats up with Hei Hei in some of the Moana promo art and posters? Like

And like 

And even???? 

He’s so angry and ready to Throw Down 

But then in actuality he’s just 

Disney explain

I went to the “Behind the Scenes” panel for Moana at CTN expo this year and the explanation is as follows:

In development, HeiHei used to be a character meant to be Moana’s watchdog. He stands to the side making sure she stays out of trouble (and away from the sea) and judges her (sort of like Flint the hummingbird from Pocahontas) but the directors were worried that it made him too unlikeable. John Lasseter gave the crew about 48 hours to think of a way to figure out how to save his character or else he’d be cut from the film. So instead HeiHei’s IQ was lowered waaaay down, making him more lovable and funny. During a story pitch in which Moana had to retrieve the Heart of Te Fiti from the Kakamora, she originally only retrieved the stone. The artists reboarded it exactly the same except HeiHei swallowed it and the Kakamora was lugging around a chicken instead and it instantly made everything more hilarious. To which Lasseter exclaimed at that moment: “THE CHICKEN LIVES!” an inside joke that was kept at the end of the film when the ocean spat HeiHei onto the shore and Maui remarks “the chicken lives!”  

best thing about this movie was the perfectly marketed/polished commercial animal side kick just waiting to be the new olaf and then its in the movie for like 3 mins tops and instead a chicken that eats rocks gets to be the disney animal companion™

IT GETS BETTER.

Once they rewrote the character they were in a panic. Who could voice such a role?

None other than Alan Tudyk, known as “Walt Disney Studios’ lucky charm” due to his roles as Duke in Frozen, King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph and KTSO in Rogue One, who made the front freaking page of the Wall Street Journal due to his performance.

Tudyk says: “The character you’re playing, even though he’s a rooster and is really stupid, you approach it in the same way you would approach Hamlet, which is exactly how I approached it. But they give you the circumstances. “You’re on the boat. You didn’t expect to be here. You just climbed in a boat to maybe sleep. You don’t even know why you climbed in the boat. You’re really that dumb. Every three minutes is a new world to you, so you see that you’re trapped on this boat, and you freak out. Go.” 

Note: Tudyk went to Julliard.

Also: Alan Tudyk is the only non-Pasifika/Maori person in the voice cast. He plays the chicken.

I have crossed the horizon to find you

Moana (2016) dir. Ron Clements, John Musker

You’re welcome

oh my god, lin’s semi-conducting is the cutest thing i have ever seen

How cool is this?!

Here’s a link to a news article and some videos about production (posted before the film was released)

Their Moana is very talented, and their Maui is a local newscaster whose daughters made him audition!

Rachel House still voices Grandma Tala, Temuera Morrison still voices the Chief, and Jemaine Clement still voices Tamatoa.

Rob Ruha and Jemaine Clement translated and rearranged the music so that the songs still worked while sung in a different language, which is super impressive.

Also: Air New Zealand will feature the Maori version on their in flight entertainment starting in November!

this news is from earlier this year, you can now actually listen/watch the te reo version in clips on youtube now. this one is pretty exemplary of the original and new voice actors together! <3

drew this for a friend! she rly likes emperor’s new groove

I am Moana of Motunui. Aboard my boat, I will sail across the sea, and restore the heart of Te Fiti.

John Musker: This particular voice is the voice of Auli’i Cravalho’s mother, Puanani. She’s actually doing the voice here. John Lasseter was big on, “Let’s give her a cameo in the movie if we can somewhere.” And we had her in a few different spots. Ultimately, we wound up on this spot, so when she says, “She’s doing great!” which she’s about to say, there’s a meta-aspect to that. Yeah, see, she’s talking about her own daughter.

Ron Clements: Yeah, “My daughter, I’m very proud of her.”

Moana pencil animation vs. Moana final animation

“I will carry you here in my heart to remind me, that come what may…I know the way.”

I will have Moana prints available at Anime Boston!

Moana (2016)

I still think Moana deserved an Oscar for this part