DVDizzy Forum

Disney's Divinity wrote:so thank you for the defense, DisneyFan09.

DisneyFan97 wrote:I am really angry about the spoiler

Sotiris wrote:I get that. She doesn't have that larger-than-life quality to her, but at least she's likeable and good-natured. To me, that's a welcomed change of pace from the usual obnoxious co-leads we get like Flynn, Maui, Nick Wilde or Vanellope.

Sotiris wrote:

DisneyFan97 wrote:YOU SPOILED IT!

The fact she's an antagonist is present in the trailer. Whether or not she'll be redeemed is merely speculation on our part. It's not information that has been leaked or anything like that.

All her life, young Raya was preparing to become the Keeper of the Dragon Stone, like her father. And then the solemn day has come. But the girl does not yet know that even more difficult tests await her ahead. After all, except for her, no one else can find Sisu - the last dragon left on earth, stop the darkness, unite the war-torn country and save the world ... and at the same time her father!

Disney's Divinity wrote:So her father should be revived at the end of the film then.

DisneyFan09 wrote:To be honest, I've always found Maui the most annoying of the four of them. Even though I could tolerate him, he was an most off-putting sidekick and clearly a pale Genie-wannabe. I could tolerate Flynn, but I was never gaga for him. Naveen was a superior character to him.

D82 wrote:Here's another image, which I guess is from a coloring book, but I haven't been able to find the original source.

D82 wrote:I suspected that would be the case, since he's turned into stone at the beginning of the film and not killed in a more definitive way. Personally, I'm glad about that. There are already too many Disney protagonists who are orphan.

Sotiris wrote:Agreed. Maui was the most obnoxious of them all and had a horrible design to boot, so there's very little redeeming about him. Here's how I'd rank the co-leads of the Revival (from most to least favorite):

Naveen
Kristoff
Flynn (I warmed up to him more because of the TV show)
Mittens
Vanellope
Nick Wilde
Baymax
Maui

Sotiris wrote:

unprincess wrote:I've been looking forward to finally seeing Sisu and..she's so UNDERWHELMING! Was expecting her to be more majestic, sure... funny, but more awe inspiring.

I get that. She doesn't have that larger-than-life quality to her, but at least she's likeable and good-natured. To me, that's a welcomed change of pace from the usual obnoxious co-leads we get like Flynn, Maui, Nick Wilde or Vanellope.

Sotiris wrote:Most people commented they didn't like the butt/digestion joke, not the school project one. Personally, I didn't have a problem with the latter.

Sotiris wrote:When Carlos López Estrada said the digital sculptors modeled Sisu after Awkwafina, did he mean her dragon or human form?

Sotiris wrote:The design of her human form doesn't match her dragon form anymore. When you see her as a dragon, you expect her human form to be more impressive and dignified than what we got. She has a more humble and caricatured appearance as a human than what one would expect from a multi-colored, majestic dragon. I understand she's a supporting, comedic character which requires a different type of design than that of a lead, but regardless of that, they should have made her two forms resemble each other more closely.

Sotiris wrote:It's interesting that Namaari also loves and believes in dragons like Raya. It looks like she was fashioned to mirror Raya and show us how she could have turned out if it weren't for her loving relationship with her father or what could she become if she doesn't learn to trust again. This implies that Namaari will have a dysfunctional or emotionally abusive relationship with her mom.

Anggun plays the character of Virana, someone who is somewhat authoritarian but is a leader with a big heart.

Sotiris wrote:

unprincess wrote:I kinda wish they gave Namari one as a sidekick.

Maybe she will have one. It would make an additional parallel to Raya.

Sotiris wrote:It was obvious the stone people would come back to life at the end, but it's good we have confirmation. I'm glad too. Raya can have her happily ever after and finally let go of her guilt for what happened to him. Besides, from the little we've seen him, Benja seems like cool character that I'd like to see more of in the inevitable sequel TV series for Disney Plus.

D82 wrote:My ranking would be quite different from the ones posted. I'm not completely sure about the order, but I think it would be something like this:

Flynn
Maui
Nick Wilde
Naveen
Baymax
Mittens
Kristoff
Vanellope

Though I put her last, I don't hate Vanellope. And I really like Maui. Like his voice actor, I find him quite charismatic. He also has an interesting backstory and character arc. And personally, I like his design too. He's not the handsomest, but in my opinion, the body completely covered in tattoos and his long curly hair make his design quite unique.

I also hope Sisu ends up near the top of my ranking. We'll see. I've liked Awkwafina in everything I've seen her in, so I think that's quite likely.

farerb wrote:As for Maui, I agree with you, I don't see them able to play with the tattoos on a slimmer design like Flynn, so he needed to be wide, but I also find it unique that they didn't go with their usual handsome design for their male heroes (Maui is not a romantic lead so it might have been easier for them to go this way because of that).

In illustrated books, comics and animated films, Maui often resembles a lithe teenager on the verge of manhood...then there are those, including a New Zealand member of Parliament and a professional rugby player from Samoa, who say the depiction perpetuates offensive images of Polynesians as overweight...“In early versions of the film, he was smaller,” said David Pimentel, the film’s head of story. “He was shorter and bald. He wasn’t the most beautiful person.”...These experts formed the film’s Oceanic Story Trust, and it was members of this group who pushed the filmmakers for a bigger Maui. “They were telling us that he needs to be a hero, almost like Superman,” Mr. Pimentel said...“Even in the myths where he’s small, he’s larger than life,” Osnat Shurer, the film’s producer, said. “And in animation, we’re not literal. You’re trying to find the essence of the character. We always felt that the audience needed to know right away, visually, that this guy is stronger than anybody else.”...Maui has taken flak for his weight gain. “I totally get it,” said David Derrick, a “Moana” story artist who is of Samoan descent. “But I think a lot of those things come from people being very nervous and scared that a big company is portraying this beloved cultural character. I believe that when they see the whole thing, they’ll be won over by how we treated him.”..."

From the beginning of story development, directors Ron Clements and John Musker knew they wanted the heroine of their original folktale adventure to cross paths with a character who was already legendary throughout all of the Pacific Islands - Maui. Maui is a demigod known as a strong man, a trickster, a shapeshifter, and a champion of man. "Maui is like an Oceanic superhero." says co-director Don Hall. In the film, he explains, "Maui has a lot cockiness and brashness, but he is also very charming to offset that."

"He's a fun character because we can play him really bold and over the top and get away with it," says co-director Chris Williams. "It's perfect casting for Dwayne The Rock Johnson, who is nothing if not confident and charming."

Moana and Maui meet when Moana washes up on Maui's island, directed there by her friend, the ocean. While he is necessary to achieving her goal of restoring the heart of the mother island, Te Fiti. Moana and Maui initially butt heads. Musker explains, "Maui generally has a more domineering approach when facing problems, and Moana has a compassion that he lacks. Because he's a trickster, it's hard to know when you can trust him."Nonetheless," adds Clements, "he becomes a mentor to Moana as she's thrust into a world where she's out of her element. But ultimately, she teaches him what being a hero is all about."

Designing the demigod was no small feat. "Initially, we had an idea to design Maui as being smaller than Moana, and she was going to be underwhelmed and disappointed when she met him." says production designer lan Gooding. "Then, we asked people from the islands what their impression was of Maui, and all of them said he has to be huge. He's got all this mana, this power. So it was clear we truly had to make this guy larger than life."

Designing Maui's shape and anatomy proved to be both a design and a technological challenge. First off, as head of effects Marlon West explains. "In most of our other films, our characters have clothes on but in Moana, we have characters like Maui with a lot of skin showing That was a new test for both character and tech animation. New software had to be written in order to figure out how skin slides believably over muscle.

Then, the team had to figure out how to design Maui's body in a ay that was powerful, believable, and appealingly caricatured all il the same time. "An enormous amount of thought went into the ylization of Maui's anatomy," says Gooding. "Maui is basically a Square, and his legs are less than half the length if he were a normally proportioned person. But the team worked hard to cram all those muscle groups into the design so he looks powerful. Now, when he eres, he looks spectacular."

Before reaching his final design, Maui also underwent several hairstyle evolutions. "Early on, we fell in love with a few drawings that [visual development artist] Sue Nichols did of Maui without hair, recalls Musker."So for a while, Maui didn't have hair. It made him distinctive, but- Clements interjects, "When we asked some of our consultants from Mo'orea, they told us that they envisioned Maui with a mane of Sampson-like hair. His hair is his mana, they explained. And we really like that."

Each land in Kumandra is incredibly different, which meant that they needed to do five times as much worldbuilding as the team explained during an early press event.

"We have a world made up of five different lands," explains producer Osnat Shurer."That's like designing five movies. They have five different natural environments, materials they build with, different colors the locals wear, different shape languages that are meaningful to them. For example, in the land of Heart, they are connected to the dragon, and the dragon is connected to water, so buildings, rooms, etc. look more like a drop—they're round. Whereas in the land of Fang, they're all about power, so the structures are powerful and over-scale. Everyone of these things have been thought through by our incredible visual development and production design team members and then carried through into the film."

There is a large river that connects all five of the lands that are shaped like a dragon, so the theme of water and how these five kingdoms used to be united before everything fell apart. However, as different as they all are, each land is reverent to the dragons that saved the world the last time around, and that is something that all of the kingdoms have in common, "For us, the main unifying elements ofKumandra have always been the water and the dragon. In our movie, we have the river that links everybody together, and throughout the movie, we see them traveling along this river to visit each of the different lands. So there's a water element that really ties it together physically. Wherever we could, we wanted to keep the water elements in the sets as much as possible. Then beyond that, there is a universal reverence for the dragon. There are motifs in the film that are dragon inspired but interpreted in each land's particular way," production designer Helen Chen explained.

Sotiris wrote:

DisneyFan97 wrote:YOU SPOILED IT!

The fact she's an antagonist is present in the trailer. Whether or not she'll be redeemed is merely speculation on our part. It's not information that has been leaked or anything like that.

D82 wrote:Yes, I think so. I suspected that would be the case, since he's turned into stone at the beginning of the film and not killed in a more definitive way. Personally, I'm glad about that. There are already too many Disney protagonists who are orphan.