"Moana" (2016)
I've written many, many words over the course of this project. Probably too many words! But while I've been slow to pick up the pace on watching the movies during the past couple years (life is busy, OK?), I've almost always been quick to put digital pen to paper after I've actually taken the time to put them on. The process of retaining information and fresh thoughts typically works best that way.
"Moana," however, was an outlier. As I sit here now, it has been almost two months since we watched it. As always, part of the difficulty was finding time, but on this occasion, I had a little bit of writer's block. The reason? I love "Moana" so much that it's hard to adequately express it. I like plenty of movies, but it's unusual for me to have such an overwhelmingly strong and positive reaction. I might be brief, but I am going to try.
"Moana" doesn't waste any time. It grabs you mere seconds after the Disney production card ends, with a striking sequence explaining the backstory of Te Fiti, Maui, and Te Kā, concluding with the introduction of the island and our main characters. It does a remarkably efficient job of setting up, well, just about everything in this movie, and it instantly draws you to Tala, the narrator of this prologue as well as Moana's grandmother.
This is a brilliant setup considering how important Tala is to kicking off the plot of "Moana" itself. Our title character, of course, has her song about "wanting adventure in the great wide somewhere," as Belle would say, and make no mistake: "How Far I'll Go" is an A+. It's not hard to understand why Moana is so driven to explore while still wanting to live up to expectations as the heir-in-waiting to lead the village one day. Further, it's not hard to understand why she has such a strong bond with her grandma. John Musker and Ron Clements of "Beauty and the Beast," "Little Mermaid," and "Aladdin" fame directed "Moana" and it shows.
The relationship is obviously special within the movie, and I'm also not going to act like I'm an unbiased observer here. Tala is very different from my own grandmothers in her own way, but that kind of pure connection of love and trust across generations? Naturally, I relate to that. I would not be who I am today without Grandma Mearns, whose love of singing and cooking was dwarfed only by her only love of family, and Grandma Robinson (Grandmar), who lived just a town over and was there for just about everything that my sister and I did. She stepped up in a truly immeasurable way as we grew up without my dad, and she never gave a second thought to any of it. In short, grandma stories have a very high probability of getting to me, hence the difficulty in putting all my "Moana" thoughts all into words!
"Moana" has even more going for it. The Lin-Manuel Miranda/Opetaia Foa'i/Mark Mancina soundtrack is full of hits, it's really cool to see the stories of Te Fiti and Te Kā develop over the course of the movie, and I don't think I could have imagined liking The Rock as Maui as much as I do. On Maui in particular, it's a great role that allows The Rock to act as the wild card who can generously be described as skeptical of a mortal, and yet soon grow to consider her a friend. And Maui is far from a flawless character in his own right, with his arrogance gradually skewered until he can be worthy of his hook's full powers again.
I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that my love for "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker" plays a significant role in my fondness for "Moana." I don't play video games even remotely as much as I did when I was a teenager. As I got more and more into baseball, that left less time for solo gaming, aside from multiplayer ones like the ones in the "Smash Bros." and "Mario Kart" franchises. I think "Wind Waker" might have been the last video game that brought me all the way down the rabbit hole. The adventure was as great as any Zelda title, and I'll never forget the incredible feeling of sailing around the islands of flooded Hyrule on the King of Red Lions or its moving conclusion. The parallels are obvious to Moana and Maui's journey around these Polynesian islands, and the story even includes an underwater realm to briefly explore, too. The endings are all tied up in embracing the role of explorers as well!
I think I've gushed enough. "Moana" forever. It is one of the best Disney films that I will ever see.
Best song: "How Far I'll Go"
Updated ranking
1. “Beauty and the Beast” (review) 2. "Moana" 3. “The Lion King” (review) 4. “The Little Mermaid” (review) 5. “Cinderella” (review) 6. “Mulan” (review) 7. “Tangled” (review) 8. “Wreck-It Ralph” (review) 9. “Frozen” (review) 10. “Sleeping Beauty” (review) 11. "Big Hero 6" (review) 12. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (review) 13. “Aladdin” (review) 14. “The Emperor’s New Groove” (review) 15. “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” (review) 16. “The Jungle Book” (review) 17. “Lilo & Stitch” (review) 18. “The Great Mouse Detective” (review) 19. “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (review) 20. “Fantasia” (review) 21. “The Rescuers Down Under” (review) 22. “Tarzan” (review) 23. “The Princess and the Frog” (review) 24. “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” (review) 25. “Alice in Wonderland” (review) 26. “Lady and the Tramp” (review) 27. “Pinocchio” (review) 28. "Zootopia" (review) 29. “Robin Hood” (review) 30. “Oliver & Company” (review) 31. “Hercules” (review) 32. “Pocahontas” (review) 33. “The Rescuers” (review) 34. “The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad” (review) 35. “Bambi” (review) 36. “Peter Pan” (review) 37. “The Aristocats” (review) 38. “Fantasia 2000″ (review) 39. “Dumbo” (review) 40. “Bolt” (review) 41. “Meet the Robinsons” (review) 42. “Treasure Planet” (review) 43. “Chicken Little” (review) 44. “Fun and Fancy Free” (review) 45. “The Fox and the Hound” (review) 46. “The Sword in the Stone” (review) 47. “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” (review) 48. “The Three Caballeros” (review) 49. “Make Mine Music” (review) 50. “Brother Bear” (review) 51. “Winnie the Pooh” (review) 52. “Dinosaur” (review) 53. “The Black Cauldron” (review) 54. “Saludos Amigos” (review) 55. “Melody Time” (review) 56. “Home on the Range” (review)















