Whats up with Hei Hei in some of the Moana promo art and posters? Like
And like
And even????
He’s so angry and ready to Throw Down
But then in actuality he’s just
Disney explain
I went to the “Behind the Scenes” panel for Moana at CTN expo this year and the explanation is as follows:
In development, HeiHei used to be a character meant to be Moana’s watchdog. He stands to the side making sure she stays out of trouble (and away from the sea) and judges her (sort of like Flint the hummingbird from Pocahontas) but the directors were worried that it made him too unlikeable. John Lasseter gave the crew about 48 hours to think of a way to figure out how to save his character or else he’d be cut from the film. So instead HeiHei’s IQ was lowered waaaay down, making him more lovable and funny. During a story pitch in which Moana had to retrieve the Heart of Te Fiti from the Kakamora, she originally only retrieved the stone. The artists reboarded it exactly the same except HeiHei swallowed it and the Kakamora was lugging around a chicken instead and it instantly made everything more hilarious. To which Lasseter exclaimed at that moment: “THE CHICKEN LIVES!” an inside joke that was kept at the end of the film when the ocean spat HeiHei onto the shore and Maui remarks “the chicken lives!”
best thing about this movie was the perfectly marketed/polished commercial animal side kick just waiting to be the new olaf and then its in the movie for like 3 mins tops and instead a chicken that eats rocks gets to be the disney animal companion™
IT GETS BETTER.
Once they rewrote the character they were in a panic. Who could voice such a role?
None other than Alan Tudyk, known as “Walt Disney Studios’ lucky charm” due to his roles as Duke in Frozen, King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph and KTSO in Rogue One, who made the front freaking page of the Wall Street Journal due to his performance.
Tudyk says: “The character you’re playing, even though he’s a rooster and is really stupid, you approach it in the same way you would approach Hamlet, which is exactly how I approached it. But they give you the circumstances. “You’re on the boat. You didn’t expect to be here. You just climbed in a boat to maybe sleep. You don’t even know why you climbed in the boat. You’re really that dumb. Every three minutes is a new world to you, so you see that you’re trapped on this boat, and you freak out. Go.”
Note: Tudyk went to Julliard.
Also: Alan Tudyk is the only non-Pasifika/Maori person in the voice cast. He plays the chicken.
