Published: November 23rd 2024, 6:23:07 am
As someone who was surprised by how much they loved the first Moana back in 2016, the utterly deafening silence for Moana 2 is… kinda depressing. Like, is anybody hyped for this? Do people even know it’s coming out… maybe before this video even goes public?
Disney hasn’t exactly had a very positive public perception the last few years, so having a seemingly unnecessary sequel to a relatively beloved film - especially one that’s already getting a live-action adaptation despite its young age - doesn’t exactly inspire excitement. Especially when it’s the plot to an animated series that’s been, from all appearances, haphazardly transformed into a feature-length movie.
Granted, I enjoyed the Tangled animated series, flaws and all, but my issue with Moana 2 is less with it being made into a movie, and more… the marketing. Cuz from all we’ve seen, I am deeply underwhelmed. The songs aren’t gripping me, I don’t feel this need for Moana to go on another adventure, and the story? Gurl, I can barely even tell what the story’s supposed to be.
It really feels like Disney is phoning in the marketing for this one. Which is odd. You’d think they’d be putting in the work to get more people hyped to fork over their wallets, since the assumption is that a movie would make a bigger, quicker return than a series.
Then again, Disney’s no stranger to arrogance. Perhaps they think their brand name, and Moana’s, is strong enough to carry them to success without trying. Which is, uh… a bold choice given their recent track record.
I don’t think Moana 2 will be terrible, but truth be told, I’m mostly apathetic towards its existence. I don’t have a strong desire to go see it; not even a morbid curiosity. No, my interest lies with Disney’s problem with being as vague as possible about the movie’s story and characters in all their marketing material, and so today, I wanna explore that.
Marketing is its own form of storytelling. You gotta find the right hook, the right pitch to boil down your story and make it something people wanna know more about, and it’s a real skill - one admittedly I am trash at. I’m a writer, what do you want from me?
But like anybody knows when a dish is good or bad, you know what good and bad marketing look like. If you’re not giving us anything captivating in the bite-sized pieces you choose to show us, what could that say about the work as a whole?
So… what’s the plot of Moana 2? The first was pretty simple: Moana lives on a tropical island, and when that island is threatened by an ancient curse, she chooses to sail out to break said curse by restoring the heart of a mother goddess, all with the help of celebrity cameo Dwayne the Rock Johnson, and a chicken I feel resonates with me a disturbing amount. (me on election night)
A very simple, straightforward story that deviates enough from the usual chosen-one story to keep your interest. The vibe is great, love the music, and for the most part, I’m a Moana stan. She’s taking fate into her own hands, and doing what she can for her family and people. You bet your ass I cry whenever I rewatch the “I Am Moana” scene.
Now at first glance, there doesn’t really seem like a need for a sequel. Moana’s saved the islands, she’s happy, her people are happy. Life is good. But there are always new stories to tell, especially as characters get older and face new challenges, usually to reflect the audience getting older. Say what you want about Frozen 2, but it did make an effort to grow with its audience in the subjects it tried tackling… to debatable success.
The issue here with all of Moana 2… is that there’s no clear hook for what kind of new story Moana is in for. We get the vague goal of uniting the people of the ocean, which… okay? It could be directly after the first movie, with Moana’s people having just rediscovered their voyager culture, but the way characters speak and behave - and the addition of a younger sister for Moana - makes it clear there’s been a jump in time.
So, in all that time, they’ve just… never found another island with people? Perhaps that’ll be addressed in the film, but the vagueness here in the trailer leaves this conflict feeling very flimsy. It doesn’t make you go, “Oh shit, we gotta get in gear and fix this!”
Especially because the trailers don’t even give you a strong idea of the antagonists. Like, one line from some random guy mentions an island hidden in a storm that can break “the curse” if you reach it. To which I ask… what curse? Is there another curse in addition to the one Te Fiti was under? Is this curse why they’ve been having issues finding other inhabited islands? Would be great to know!
Not only do they not specify what this curse is in the first place, they don’t even mention who cast it. I had to go digging in Wiki pages that it was the work of the storm god Nalo. I kinda got that vibe from the big purple tornado with the face trying to be scary, but you kinda need to do more than vaguely gesturing at a bad thing if you wanna establish your central antagonist.
This is such a wasted opportunity, especially given people have been giving Disney grievances for years about the lack of antagonists in their films, or their twist villains. The closest we’ve gotten to a classic Disney Villain is Magnifico in Wish, and uh… the less said about that loser the better.
If they properly hyped up Nalo, or the secondary antagonist Matangi - and trust me, we will get to her cuz she is being robbed before our eyes - that’s basically a marketing hack to get butts in seats. Imagine, people rushing to the theaters to see a proper return to Disney Villainy. But nah, we can’t even be bothered to give people that hook in our trailers. Gotta keep it vague.
The trailers just give you the general vibe of some epic seafaring adventure without actually telling you why we’re going on one. It’s very head-empty coded. There’s no emotional investment in Moana’s new journey, no clear villains that will challenge her and force her to grow as a character, and no clear goal or stakes in place. Like, if she fails at this… so what? Her people’s life seems perfect right now, so what exactly is the problem here?
It really does feel like the pitch for a direct-to-video Disney sequel, usually one that was a pilot for a TV series that got scrapped and haphazardly sewn into an excuse for a movie. And quite frankly, Moana deserves better.
Yeah, so… I’m not a big fan of “Beyond.” It’s fine enough, but it’s nowhere near the level of any of the first movie’s soundtrack, especially “How Far I’ll Go.” I recommend Astor Rhymemaster’s video breaking down “Beyond” lyric-wise, but I pretty much agree with their analysis on why it’s aggressively mid.
Now, I know the internet is… very, very tired of Lin-Manuel Miranda, but he does at least have a distinct style. I’m no musical expert, but uh… you can kinda tell from what we’ve got that a different team is at the helm this time, and I don’t think it’s for the better.
Well, that’s not very fair. Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foa’i both worked on the original movie’s soundtrack with Miranda, and both have returned for the sequel. But the vibe I’m getting, especially from this promotional video specifically about the music, is that Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear - the new additions - are if not exclusively, then primarily in charge of the vocal tracks this time around.
I’m also gonna plug Sin Squad’s video about the Frozen 2 Soundtrack. Don’t worry, she doesn’t come for the vocal tracks, but rather the score, and in turn talks about the unfortunate issue where most films wind up with forgettable, generic scores that are serviceable, but don’t really try to establish a unique identity.
But what she also discusses is the… pop-ification of Disney music. Where the songs in Disney films once were Broadway-inspired, heavily rooted in their specific characters’ perspectives and experiences, there have been recent efforts to switch to a more pop-oriented sound that can theoretically be divorced from the movies where it features. Ya know, cuz Disney thinks that’ll make for an easier radio hit. Cuz obviously scrubbing art of all its unique identities and eccentricities for the common denominator will make it more appealing to the masses.
The soundtrack dropped a few days ahead of the movie, and uh… well, the pop-ification isn’t as strong as I anticipated. The instrumentation is still very similar to the first movie, but the songs just do not leave the same impact. They’re largely forgettable, and the ones the movie clearly wants to be the big hits… they do not hit.
The tracks featuring Samoan singing, like “Tolou Tagaloa,” were done by Olivia Foa’i, and her work is gorgeous. It’s - as far as my white self is aware - authentic to Moana’s polynesian setting and culture, and musically unique, helping it to stand out in the media landscape. Also, I think it just sounds pretty.
But… them vocal tracks. “Beyond” we’ve already said is very mid, very basic. “We’re Back” doesn’t fare much better, “What Could Be Better Than This?” is… genuinely awful. I hate listening to this one so much. I can’t bring myself to even care for the “Moana gets a crew” angle, mostly because if I don’t even sense a personal journey for your main character, why would I then care about the side characters?
“Can I Get A Chee Hoo?” Jail. Straight to jail. This is the poor man’s “You’re Welcome.” The melody is far weaker, far less memorable, and the lyrics are just… no. I know Maui is a too-cool-for-school dork, but like, this makes me wanna shove him into a locker along with Magnifico.
As far as I can tell, Nalo gets no musical number. So… great. You got a villain and gave them no song. Well, at least Matangi got one, but uh… I don’t like it either. By far and away, this is the poppiest number of the soundtrack, and in that regard it at least has an easier time getting stuck in my head. But it just doesn’t viscerally feel sinister and impressive like older Disney villain numbers, like “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” or “Mother Knows Best.”
In a musical, you communicate your story… well, through music. How well the songs succeed at this can only be judged by watching the movie itself, but they at least have to stand on their own, but these just don’t. Outside Foa’i’s numbers, they by and large fall flat. It adds to this underwhelming feeling where Moana 2 is dead on arrival, with absolutely no energy.
And uh… speaking of Matangi…
Okay… her I am most upset about. We know nothing about this woman, and I only know about her name - again - from Wiki diving, because the trailers refuse to share it. In fact, they refuse to share any information about this character, aside from silhouetted glimpses, bats, and only one line they routinely edit poorly. Seriously, this is the only line they’ll share from her, to the point I’m wondering if she even has that many lines to begin with.
Truth be told, with the sum total of nothing we’ve seen of Nalo, I wish Matangi got to be our main villain, cuz at least then it’d be more of an actual character. Te Ka worked well enough as a force-of-nature-kinda twist villain, but I can’t take a lazy retread of that if that’s the route they’re going for Nalo.
I’m getting the sinking feeling, especially from her song, that Matangi’s basically just gonna be a repeat of Tamatoa. A memetic icon, but ultimately, a minor roadblock antagonist we only have for one scene, and then it’s back to the actual plot. Really not helping the feeling of this just being the first movie, but less, and worse.
From my scouring, Matangi is some kinda underworld goddess who, according to her song, is stuck in a clam. Like, this giant thing we keep seeing in the trailer? Pretty sure that’s her clam lair. She gives the vibe of a trickster goddess, which cool, but if she’s no more than a roadblock villain, I’m gonna throw hands. Cuz what do you mean an underworld goddess doesn’t get to be our main antagonist who has an actually interesting dynamic with Moana?!
By far and away, Matangi is the only reason I’ve even kept tabs on this project, cuz I was hoping she’d be a true return to Disney Villains. That she’d echo her malefic foremothers, like Maleficent, Ursula, or even Gothel. But I’m getting that sinking feeling the movie’s just not gonna care about her enough to give her the time to ascend to that status, because the promtoional material barely even gives her the time of day.
Like, is she in league with Nalo? What’s her goal? Where does she fit into all of this? Cuz the trailers don’t even say who the hell she is, they barely show her off, and the first time they said her name, it was Moana’s actress offhandedly saying her name as if we already knew who the hell Matangi was, and then being cut off before she can elaborate on why she’s so dangerous.
It’s like, Auli’i Cravalho was trying to tell the story of Matangi - give us the pitch to make us care - and the editor was held at gunpoint by Disney to cut her off before she could get into detail because we must keep it vibes only. It is so FRUSTRATING.
I really hope I’m wrong, and that she turns out to have a bigger role in the film, because it would be such a travesty of storytelling not to do more with this idea for a villain… because yeah, she really is just an idea, rather than a character as far as the trailers are concerned.
If you want a crash course on how to sabotage a project that should by all means be a deafening success, study Moana 2’s marketing campaign. Because wow, I’ve never been so underwhelmed by an upcoming sequel to something I held so dear before.
Maybe I’m being overdramatic. Maybe Moana 2 will blow me away and turn out to be a smashing success; maybe it’ll even be good. But it won’t be because of the marketing, because it really feels as if Disney is going out of its way to bury this thing with just how unenaging and redundant all of these trailers have been.