Hi! Spoilers! If you want to go into the movie unspoiled, don’t read this!
We took the kids to watch this last week as a reward for doing a good job in their Christmas concert. I’m going to start off by saying 2 things: I enjoyed the movie but I thought the first one was better. I’m going to spend a lot of this article talking about what I think this movie could have done better, so I do want to say up front I enjoyed it. I felt like it took more time to explore the culture and traditions of Moana’s people, the visuals were gorgeous, and the story was good. And I’m willing to concede that I may have been too tired to enjoy it that evening.
Some moments I loved: Callback to “Boat snack!” that also helped Maui realize Moana was there and in trouble. Seeing the way people have grown and changed, like Pua’s itty tusks and the race to shore with her dad. I feel like this one had more ties to Polynesian culture in it. The little kakamora was pretty delightful- wish we’d seen more of him. I like the changing, growing relationship of Maui and Moana and the way they both show character growth from the first movie. Not having people go through the same growth arc in a sequel is great.
But I think its biggest sin is one common to sequels. “The second one always has to be bigger” and yet they don’t want to let go of what gave the first one its magic. So much like the Spiderman movies adding more villains until it got so top-heavy it toppled, this movie wanted to take the character work that made the first one so good, the music that made it so memorable, and the funny quips that kept people laughing, and both re-do them all and also do more. Which didn’t work for me.
The first one was self-contained. Moana wants to find who she is and why she’s so driven to the ocean. Maui wants to escape and prove himself and needs to discover how he needs other people. Moana saves her people and the ocean by seeing beyond the monster and to the heartache.
But in this one, we have Moana wanting to find other people, Moana turning into a demigod (told you spoilers), Maui turning human (?) or at least losing his powers temporarily, another god-of-the-ocean threat, 4 new characters on the boat with them, Moana’s ties to home and her sister and her exploring, the ancestors becoming a bigger part of the story, the bat-woman who’s trapped and has the hots for Maui maybe, helping the kakamora, Maui trying to figure things out on his own to save Moana, and a few other threads. Seriously, I keep coming back to this paragraph to add more bits. Not to mention the songs. I felt like the movie just didn’t have the time to make most of these and impactful as they could have been.
To look deeper into a few of those:
I didn’t feel the urgency in Moana needing to find more people. Sure there was a vision saying “your island becomes desolate if you don’t find more people” but honestly I didn’t follow that. It was just…an absence of her people, not a desolate island, and the connecting thread between “don’t be alone” and “everyone disappears” just wasn’t there for me.
Then there’s the crew. Introducing new characters quickly is a skill and still requires time for character development, both internal and interpersonal. I thought the other crew members were charming but honestly the movie would have been tighter without losing much plot without them. There was the hyper canoe scientist who contributed 1 sail change (that I don’t find ultra convincing) in the conclusion, the old cranky planter who…why did they bring him? You can’t grow enough to sustain people on a boat and they weren’t going to be staying on any island long enough to farm. And then there was the Maui fanboy- “I need someone who knows all the legends” is fine, but his knowledge of lore didn’t actually help much in the plot, though his seemingly infinite supply of story tapestries made an appearance. All of them would have been fine if the movie had the time to delve into what they contributed. But it didn’t. We got a song showing them coming together but mostly they each contributed a few jokes and one line. Even when Moana hits her low point and then decides to step up and inspire them- they didn’t need it, they were already on board, which just felt a little like it was cutting the feet out from under her moment.
There were also several points that felt like they were set up by maybe a line or two beforehand. “That mast can’t take these turns!” curly-girl said, once, when they proceeded to then make those turns, but it was to foreshadow the mast breaking in the climax. “I was a human like you once” Maui said in an almost-miss-able line before Moana gets to be magic too at the end. And so on.
But! We’re not just here to criticize. This is a place of improvement and analysis! So- what would I change here? How would I make this story better?
Let’s start by assuming that making the movie 15 to 20 minutes longer isn’t an option. It’s a Disney kid’s movie and probably on the long end for those already. Well, I’m axing the extra characters. Look, I liked them. I did. The grumpy guy saying “I’m an elder!” and giving Maui the perfect layup for “But I’m 3000 years old so I’m elder-er” was wonderful. But they don’t add enough without further fleshing out to justify them being there. If I really wanted to expand the crew, maybe I’d combine the younger two into one. If I really wanted to keep the transportation of saplings, I’d let the farmer explain it to her, but that feels like a cool bit of Polynesian culture, not an essential plot thread. Then I’d take the time we were no longer spending here and allocate it elsewhere.
The first place I’d put it is at the very beginning. Give me more heartache from Moana at the beginning for not knowing whether there were other people. Show that there used to be others in their histories and they were gone now. Show the cultural impact of being alone. That’s the whole “why” of the journey and I just think it could use more of a punch.
The next thing I think could be amped up is Moana and her little sis. Their relationship is adorable but I don’t think it comes up enough in the rest of the movie. Give her more longing to go home. She gets one nightmare in the clam and one moment where the starfish her sister gave her sinks. I’d put in a few moments of her just stroking the starfish and looking at the sky. Not big, not huge amounts of time, but enough to keep that thread alive.
Then I think I’d actually spend more time, or change the way the time is spent, with Bat-Woman. I want to understand her more. They tried the “she looks like a villain but actually she’s got good intentions” thing that, honestly, I don’t think Disney does a great job of pulling off. They’re much better at “they look like a hero but secretly…” Mostly this is because I don’t get enough explanation of why she acted the way she did at the beginning. Why did she tie up Maui and dangle him over a bunch of mudskippers? Why did she think that would work? If it hadn’t been foggy, they wouldn’t have gotten fooled by the giant clam and all her work would’ve been for nothing. Moana had no reason to know Maui was in danger and therefore no reason to come find him. It was sheer coincidence they met up again. So maybe I’d have had her send her bats to an island to drop Maui’s necklace and some new scrap of pottery or fabric leading her to the island except really to the clam. Then, when she says “I want you to succeed because I’m trapped here the same way so I led you to Maui,” I’d believe her more.
The other thing I have a slight complaint with is her take on “get lost” as sung by Bat-Woman. (I really should look up her name.) (Turns out she’s Matangi! Good to know.) Diving straight into the ocean to an island on the sea floor isn’t exactly what I’d call a “get lost” choice- it feels straightforward. Maybe a backup plan but certainly not a completely different way. I’d maybe do something about letting her boat surrender to the storm to get carried in what seems like the wrong direction but actually loops her around to the right place? Yeah, I don’t have this one pinned down, but I also am brainstorming off the cuff here and I could figure it out later. (I’d also point her canines just a bit more. I think that would enhance her look.)
One other minor tweak is, while Maui making jokes about the ancestors butt-dialing her and so on was funny, it pulled me out of the story- made me remember these were characters interpreted and/or invented by people of the 21st century. Enjoyable but not helpful so again, I’d get rid of those.
So in essence: Simplify, clarify. With the time given, I’d have chosen fewer things to focus on and made the plot threads tie back better to the themes and goals. Enjoyable movie, good songs (if not quite as memorable as the first movie’s), worth the time and probably worth coming back to, but I still wish it had pulled back on the story lines just a little bit.
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