RaNdOmNeSs...

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My screenwriting prof.

I felt like a lot of people needed to hear this. Including myself.

He said “I love the movie as much as someone who wrote 8 drafts of a movie before being fired from his own creation could possibly be.”

Aries: *is never late and NEVER misses a day

Taurus: too busy crying bc school is gross

Gemini: slept in till noon without realizing

Cancer: woke up hours early, and got distracted doing random shit

Leo: forgot to set their alarm clock the night before

Virgo: MAKEUP IS A PROCESS ok??

Libra: lol what is school ?

Scorpio: was having a existential crisis

Sagittarius: honestly just doesn’t give a shit

Capricorn: last minute cramming for a test that very morning

Aquarius: was too busy showering and self-grooming to notice the time..

“The only thing I learnt in high school is that people are very violent and territorial.”

There is no talk of finding Moana a husband. SHE is going to be chief of her village. No one can take that from her.

How Moana is a competent leader before she even sets out on her journey.

The village seems to have more or less a hereditary monarchy that disregards gender and the matriarchal influence is clear: Moana is mostly inspired by her grandmother and the major deity in this movie is a Mother Goddess.

“Crazy” does not mean worthy of ridicule.

The central questions: “Do you know who you are? How do you know who you are?” Those cut deep.

The sibling relationship between Moana and Maui.

The vision about the ancient wayfinders. And “Know the Way,” which makes the entire sequence a million times more emotional.

This might be a Disney Princess movie, but it is also solidly an action movie.

Moana doesn’t like being called “princess”.

The goddamn gold-plated glow-in-the-dark giant crab. Who sings well.

Forehead touches. Between a human girl and a goddess.

The fact that Heihei manages to do ONE USEFUL THING in the entire movie.

Moana is so sturdily built. She managed to clock Maui, of all people.

Nature has agency.

How Gramma Tala’s passing is quietly understated. Her last words to Moana are those of sincere encouragement and her death is not explicitly shown. But you see the huge luminous sting ray a couple minutes later and you just know.

The entire sequence at the beginning that depicts island life. And Chris Jackson’s singing. Everyone’s singing, really.

Moana gulping deep lungfuls of air the first time her canoe overturned is so realistic, I could feel myself choking on ocean water.

The coconut pirates. They are VICIOUS little fuckers.

Moana earning a place among Maui’s tattoos.

Gramma Tala’s spirit is solid enough to hug. No more “LOOK INSIDE YOURSELF SIMBA” from the clouds.

Disney smashing the fourth wall and throwing shade at their own Princess story formula.

Romance is never ever ever even hinted at. Because Moana is all of 14 years old and she has bigger things on her mind.

All the songs. ALL OF THEM. They hit just the right emotional cues.

How culturally rich Disney managed to make this movie.

- Moana and Maui tying their hair up (as a native Polynesian girl I can say with full certainty that putting our hair in a bun with one hand is a skill you are born with)

- Maui himself was such a huge part of my childhood I loved seeing him in a Disney Movie

- Seriously, during “You’re Welcome” I was practically screaming in the theater because I GREW UP WITH THAT

- The fact that the water is a character

- Her hair was constantly slapping her in the fact that was beautiful

- During a lot of Maui’s scenes I could see The Rock’s Samoan Culture peeking through (I’m Samoan, this made me cry)

- Maui’s size

- I have brothers his shape and build, with his hair, and with tons of tattoos, I saw them in him and it also made me cry

- Tamatoa

- The line where Moana sings “I’m a girl who loves my island” because that made my heart sing

- “I will carry you here in my heart!” Because yes, yes, yes, when someone we love dies they stay with us-we carry them forever

just think about it:

- she gives ginny a stick and poke in their fourth year, the first tattoo she’s ever given anyone - a tiny crescent moon on the inside of her forearm with magic color changing ink - it tells ginny the weather, and glows when the weather is perfect for quidditch

- hagrid gleefully gets a tattoo from luna sometime in the fifth year - on his inner ankle, a square of text tells him about the needs of the creatures around him - he starts sitting with his ankle on his knee to more easily check it

- she gives harry a tattoo the summer before his eighth year - a small horntail, but it moves from his chest to sit on his shoulder or cower in the crook of his elbow as it pleases - it wakes him up from his bad dreams, and keeps him warm in the middle of the night

- she gives neville a tattoo before she was stolen into the malfoy’s manor - it’s a ring encircling his middle finger - the magic of it is simple, transforming into whatever word he needs to see most when he asks it

- seamus gets one not long after neville - it’s a tiny bomb on his collar bone, ticking in time with dean’s heart

- hermione doesn’t want a tattoo at first, but as she grows closer with luna she asks for it very shyly in the middle of her eighth year - it gently pulses with her heart on her shoulder blade, an hourglass on it’s side - it will sometimes stand up and run sand, but only when hermione is very busy or stressed

- george asks for a tattoo that finishes his jokes, many years after the war, when he is an uncle and godfather - luna refuses and instead gives him a non-magical tattoo, a china cup mended with gold over his heart