What Can I Say Except 'You're Welcome?' (Disney's Moana, SPOILERS WITHIN)

I've never watched the movie but I saw a picture of Maui's huge eagle form and it's a Haast's Eagle, or poukai!
(Those are the same thing but different names-it's an extinct New Zealand eagle that ate moa.)

 

OH MY GOD THOSE THINGS
THOSE WERE HUGE
ALSO IF Y'ALL WANNA GO ON A TRIP GO LOOK UP THE MOA
THEY'RE LIKE KEVIN FROM UP ONLY SHORTER BEAK AND LESS EYE-SEARINGLY CHEERFUL COLOR (I love kevin so much)
(they actually kinda make me think of a kiwi on hulk mode)
(or Ridiculous Emus)

 

Aaaaa this movie
I will admit I partially wanted to see it because I am embarrassingly in love with Lin-Manuel Miranda and his music but holy wow everything was amazing
(Moirail and I both audibly gasped when Tamatoa turned out the lights and went bioluminescent, it was so neat)

 

honestly, same

 

By the way I really love how this movie puts Moana's love for her home and Moana's wanderlust as BOTH key parts as her character. It's important that she can go following the horizon, but she also has a home that she can return to (we keep our island in our mind, and when it's time to find home, we know the way).

I'm also happy how Moana's going on a journey isn't her leaving behind her responsibility or anything - she's GOOD at being a leader and fixing problems, and when she leaves the island it's not that she got scared of responsibility or wanted a fun journey before becoming leader, but because she has to take care of her people and this is the way to fix their problems. People being responsible and competent!!

(and, aligned with that, I'm glad that the reason for 'why did we stop sailing' is 'because the ocean became full of monsters and we actually couldn't anymore' and the dad's reason for 'why can't i go on the ocean' is 'because i nearly died and my best friend DID, this is Bad' rather than just being Tradition and This Is How We've Always Done It and Because I Said So. There's reasons! Reasons like actual people have for doing things!)

 

We've been listening to the soundtrack on repeat for weeks now, because goddamn that movie was good. And "Shiny" is so very, very fitting for some of my OCs that I am tearing up with joy over having something to point to if I need mood music.

(Also we had a theory that the ocean's been trying for generations to get someone to leave the island-- Moana's grandmother had a deep connection to the sea, her father had the same desperate wanderlust until his best friend died and got crippling trauma instead, and now Moana striving to set things right. Which was really nice; it wasn't just that Moana was The Chosen One, she was the chosen one in a line of people who heard the Calling and couldn't fulfill it for one reason or another.)

ALSO the fucking. Te Ka reveal. It made me cry almost as hard as when Tala died and then came back. I cried so many fucking times during this movie. It was so good and it's tempting to pay the highway robbery prices to see it in theatres again.

 

Also:

 

#my brain after moana

 

If you think Maui in Moana is ugly...that's because the animation team actually set out to make him look somewhat ugly because that's how the Maori versions of the myths describe him.

 

oooh!

i guess that explains why his face always looks squished to me.

Spoiler: especially squished maui face

 

Yeah, the squished look is almost certainly intentional.

 

IT'S FINALLY OUT IN SWEDEN SO I GOT TO SEE IT FOR REAL YESTERDAY
it's so pretty?? i mean I've heard people say it would be and I haven't exactly not-believed them, but. so very pretty holy shit that water I'm

also when I first saw it I did not catch that her mom helps her pack for the trip
that fucking broke me, guys, i am Gone

good movie worth getting tickets and struggling w 3d glasses on top of normal glasses for

 

what if i think hes hot what then

(edit: to be fair i think hes hot because he essentially looks like a really bara polynesian @Trashbiter but STILL)

 

he. i don't think they succeeded? like. he looks big and friendly. he looks like he gives good hugs.

 

Maui is shaped like a friend

Yes, even when he's shaped like a shark

 

especially when he's shaped like a shark

 

It means you're gay

 

FUCK!!!!!!

 

Knowing LMM wrote a lot of the music, this doesn't surprise me at all. He has a serious thing for writing about conflicts of identity. Like In The Heights has a big theme of identity tied to home, and that conflicting with goals/dreams/etc.

 

Apparently it's possible to look hot and ugly at the same time? I do not know, I am ace.

Most of Maui is aesthetically pleasing but then his face looks like...it's the human equivalent of a pug face, except squashed vertically instead of horizontally.

(Pugs look awful to me-they're all squashed and it looks kinda like someone somehow bloodlessly hammered their face in?)