Moana (2016)

Moana is a great movie and which was very important for Disney to make for representation. Representation is an extremely important subject in our modern world and I think Disney did a great job in showing this in Moana. I think they were very careful in what they put in this Movie and weren’t ignorant about Polynesian traditions. However, I do find it a bit unrealistic that an island nation would stop using the sea just because of one single crash. I think maybe it should’ve been a more severe reason for this, e.g. they islanders see the water turning black without the presences of Te Fiti.

I think the music in Moana is absolutely amazing! The man in charge of the music, Lin Manuel Miranda, may get your attention as he is the creator of the hit musical Hamilton. This took the theatre world by storm and changed the way hip hop is used in theatre to this day (he also worked on musicals like In The Heights). Because of his hip hop background I think he was able to put both rap and singing in to song (e.g. 'Your Welcome') and it works wonderfully. The songs he sings, 'We Know The Way', is my personal favourite with up beat music and animation.

I think Moana does a good job at using the five stages of Todorov, as you can clearly see the Equilibrium (Moana on her island, with no one going beyond the reef), the Disruption (The coconuts turning black, the fish disappearing ect.), the Recognition (Moana finding out from her Grandma to fix the problems she needs to go find Maui and restore the Heart of Te Fiti), the Repair (Moana going to get Maui, getting his hook back, encouraging herself to keep going after a failed attempt to restore the heart, and her brave act of successfully restoring the heart), and the New Equilibrium (Moana going back to her home at the Island, but now sailing past the reef is allowed and encouraged). However, Propp's theory on character types isn't so good in Moana, as the pig and Hay-Hay have no clear character type, and are really just there for Disney to make money off of cute merchandise.

Overall, I think Moana is a great movie with good songs, voice actors, and representation, but can be unrealistic at types and has replaced character quality for money off of lousy merchandise. I would like to add that Disney often sacrifices good quality for money, and this is sadly not the first time.