The Break of the Fourth Wall

I’ll address the latter first since it’s small and easy to get out of the way- it’s cute when Disney can point and laugh about itself and the perceived stereotypes it has, but doing it in dialogue can have a nasty effect. It breaks me out of the story and severely dates the tale for future audiences.

The first strike was when Maui toted the ‘tweeting’ joke. Aha ha. Very funny, but also leaves me wondering where the hell can he pick up this sort of knowledge. Our protagonists are in ancient Polynesia, no recent technology anywhere, and Maui has been stuck on that rock of an island for one thousand years. There is no logical way he could have the knowledge to make a joke like that, and now that I’ve realized that, POOF, I no longer have a good suspense of disbelief. Not to mention this joke will place the story squarely in the “Millennial Era” where Twitter has a strong foothold. It would be ridiculous to believe that future audiences will still be using Twitter- the interface of the internet is changing all the time and to anchor a joke on such a fleeting thing is lazy in the setting of the story. I might have accepted it from the genie in Aladdin- he says crazy references all the time and has an excuse (magic and cartoon physics)- or in a more modern tale like Zootopia, where they have technology references everywhere. The joke just doesn’t fit the context.

The second one is the “you have a dress and a small animal sidekick, you’re a princess” line. Again, from Maui. Again, makes no sense contextually. And has the added bonus of me wondering why such a thing matters to him. Again damaging my suspense of disbelief. Yay. Once was fine. Twice has now ruined my enjoyment of a story I now can’t get engaged in. Why do the characters care about this distinction? If the ancient Polynesian cultures in this movie have no princesses, how do these characters know such definitions? How many so called ‘princesses’ has Maui been around to know this trope, much less recognize Moana for what she is with no other signifiers like tattoos, a crown or jewelry besides her necklace? Why does Moana care? This issue literally has not been brought up earlier in the exposition and it has no bearing to the plot but for a ‘heartwarming call-back’ later on. It does not matter, and now just has me comparing Moana to other Disney princesses in my head and not paying attention to the plot. Maui just as easily could have said some insult comparable to ‘feeble mortal’ or ‘wandering idiot’ and it would have had the same desired effect.

I know a lot of this point seems like nit-picking, but for my personal experience of the movie, it has a heavy bearing on whether I’m engaged. I was forcibly disengaged. Not good.

 I could not connect to Moana as a Main Character

Sort of addressed in the point above, what with the fourth wall break, but it’s such a large issue for my experience of the movie, it gets its own point. A large part of what makes characters likable and why we want to follow their adventures is because they are relatable. They have some flaw, or some series of unfortunate events that makes their experiences, in some small way, comparable to our own.

For Moana, in the rising action, I perceive several things- she is a leader, she loves her people, she is inexplicably drawn to the sea, she has loving parents that she wants to make proud, she is headstrong, and she believes herself duty-bound. Cool. Not really seeing any weaknesses. Don’t get me wrong- while I personally may not have any experiences with being a future chieftain, If she had showed uncertainty in the aspects of being a leader itself, like worrying that she may get things wrong or feeling as if people don’t respect her, I might have connected. I may not have any experiences with being drawn to the sea, but if it was showed that she had raw talent for sailing, and that’s why she was drawn, I might have connected. I have experiences being connected to and caring for an entire community, but when Moana is only shown having deep connections with her parents and grandmother- I don’t see her having conversations or meaningful gestures (a wave, a hello, how’re you) with peers or even people her parents age (I don’t even remember seeing someone her age on the island, besides the toddlers in the opening), it’s hard to believe that she’s much connected to them at all, and therefore hard to understand her want to serve them. There’s a small aside to her parents (“she’s doing great!”) that has me believe that they’re connected to the community, but not so for her. I mean, come on- you do the bait-and-switch for the pig and rooster when you could have easily replaced the pig with a mischievous human friend. And still had the rooster be the small animal sidekick.

Besides that, I am shown glimpses of her headstrong nature, which I can connect with, but it’s not in the spotlight for the exposition and isn’t treated as a flaw until near the end of the movie, in which it’s too late for me to consider it a flaw to be embraced or overcome. Bringing me to my second perception for her character and character arc- Moana is also very confident in everything in the exposition, and the sudden appearance of her “self-worth arc” in the second half of the movie is a bit confusing. I was not shown that she had this issue in the rising action- yes, she was nervous about leaving home and confronting Maui (who wouldn’t be?) but this doesn’t tie to “self-worth” as it could. She’s in a new environment and facing a stranger who is a demigod- it’s understandable for even the most braggadocios person to be nervous.

In her “I want” song, she sings the line “I wish I could be the perfect daughter” buuuuuuuuuut, I see nothing else on “self-worth”- her conflict of the land vs the sea is a conflict of duty vs want. Not of “self-worth”. And a single line in a song is an egregious cross of the “show don’t tell” rule o’ thumb. And it’s mostly because of this apparent absence of the starting point for her “self-worth” arc that I find it hard to believe the supposed-to-be-poignant scene of “choose someone else” and Ghost Grandma has any place in the plot at all. It still confuses the heck out of me the third time I watch it and ask myself, “where is this coming from?” You could say it’s because Maui is an influence that put that doubt into her head, but most of her interactions with him are spent clearly taking his word for nothing and disrespecting him to such a degree that I can’t believe that reason either. And we aren’t shown an introspective moment where she gives us an expression to clue us in that maybe his words are hurting her before that climax where he leaves. I can just as easily imaging her character thus far giving his fleeing figure a salty expression and then deciding to continue on for herself and her people (that she claims to love so much but now has so much self-worth issues she’s just gonna give up and kinda seal them to a fate of death and destruction without giving it so much of a second try) without a thought to her “self-worth” and definitely without the Ghost Reprise.

In fact, the “self-worth” character arc is more of Maui’s than Moana’s. That annoying crab even sings about insecurities that relate more to Maui than Moana. From the beginning of the plot to the final minutes before Maui leaving, Moana is a rather self-assured character. And despite the dramatic change in Maui leaving-Ghost Reprise, she still is the same character at the end. A headstrong leader who loves her people, the ocean, duty-bound, that wants to make her parents proud. I see no character change. That’s a terrible mistake.

And it’s a problem because Moana’s character arc is so clearly meant to be “The Heroes Journey”. She is forced to leave home to a fantastical adventure to save her friends, and comes back the better for it. Except she doesn’t and that’s frustrating because it doesn’t help the routine nature of the story to where I can predict the exact moment Maui shows back up, or that Te Ka was really Te Fiti in my first viewing. And the fact that Maui shows up for literally no reason at all.

No, no, hear me out. In every instance that they were in danger, did Maui once care for Moana’s well-being at all? Nooooooo. With the Kakamora, he doesn’t begrudgingly pursue her and the chicken. When they enter Lalotai, and she gets flung away, he doesn’t go after her with huff-and-puff. Or even at least debate with himself about it. The Mini-Maui doesn’t count- he acts as his own character. He uses her a bait for pete’s sake. Yes, this is before we get the heart-warming speech and the cute montage about learning to Wayfind, but it almost comes too little too late for me in the overall narrative. Here’s Maui, severely doubting himself thanks to his hook being broken, pretty much thinking that he could die should he go back, and too hurt to listen to a mortal who isn’t even sure in her own ‘chosen-ness’. How am I supposed to believe that he has a “I better go after her” epiphany when he hasn’t shown such inclination before? A small nitpick, yes, but that was also something that took me out of my suspense of disbelief.

But all this diatribe about character ties into the third point:

I could not perceive one strong underlying message

Mostly, this comes from Moana developing the “self-worth” issue out of nowhere, the conflicting nature of the duty vs wants thread and the ‘self-worth’ thread, and the fact that we still don’t get a concrete answer on why the ocean chose her in the first place. WHHHHHYYYYYYYYYY?

I’ve seen someone argue that the ocean chose her because Moana shows compassion and an understanding of people, but I don’t see that in the exposition or the rising action until she comforts Maui. Too little, too late for me to believe that’s why the ocean chose her. You could say it’s because she’s drawn to the sea, but so was her father, and he didn’t get picked. So could any of the fishermen, and none of them got picked. So could the kid that pulled out the weird dance moves and winked at her (they are all descended from voyagers, after all) but he didn’t get picked. You could argue that her helping the baby sea turtle was a demonstration of this compassion, but it’s still forgetting the understanding of people, and she is a baby who has yet to grow into her own. Not buying it.

So this leaves the “the ocean chose me for a reason” declaration rather….. empty-feeling. I still have no idea as to why it choose to do so. You could argue it’s because she had the headstrongness to contend with Maui’s personality, but like I said- baby. Not buying it. Why does the water have to keep itself secret from her parents anyway? You’d think it’d be easier to find someone willing to go if they knew there was an element of truth to the old legends.

So we don’t have “Be ____ and you will succeed” sort of story. Which leaves us with the “self-worth” plot that could have honestly been so much more well done if Moana had been established as the sort of character to have that flaw in the beginning. But because that’s half-baked, it leaves me leaving the theater thinking “what’s the message?” And not in a good way. Every story needs a message, a theme, a warning, or a central idea, because that’s why we seek out stories- to gain information about how to deal with certain feelings or situations should they arise. Moana gives me nothing. Even after sitting down to think about it, I’m left with two half-baked ideas that can’t become that message in its own right. Therefore they compete in the worst way and have me think that perhaps that there is no message. And you could perhaps pull that off with flash fiction or a short film, but for a fairytale- which has it’s very genesis on cautionary tales and messages- that’s bad.

After writing all of this, what irks me the most is that it didn’t have to be this way. If there was better writing, we could have had something new and fresh while still sticking to the heroes journey and “self-worth” arcs that try to make themselves present.

There’s no need to continue, but I have some ideas to modify the plot so these issues might get a little resolution. Not a ‘be all, end all’ certainly, and i can’t claim to be a story-writing genius, so take this next section with a grain of salt

How I would re-write Moana:

I would latch onto the line describing Wayfinding from Maui- “You find out where you’re going, by knowing where you’ve been.” In my opinion, the theme of Wayfinding was underused.  Or rather, wasn’t set up in well in the beginning.

Act 1:

Pua is no longer a pig- since HeiHei was the true animal sidekick all along, I’ve changed them to Moana’s contemporary. Boy, girl, I don’t care, but they need to be Moana’s age and her close friend that may or may not be related. We begin in the same place- Grandmother telling the tale of Te Fiti and Maui to a group of toddlers. Nothing much changes except for a new sequence- when baby Moana reaches the fronds before the shore, she grows into Small Child Moana, who is now playing on the shore with her friends.

They are having a ball, playing in the sand, running in and out of the ocean. Moana is shown to have more of a connection to the sea than her peers- she’s peaceful, completely in the water. A piece of driftwood comes by, and gets on it, now drifting away from the caretaker (or one of her parents) mostly concerned with the other children. We have the “choosing” scene, but now it’s in contrast to other peers that stay mostly on land, and they don’t have a spirit that makes they push in the face of adversity (hence a subtle hint to why the ocean chose the kid). Her parents find her- far from her original spot- and launch into “Find Happiness Right Where You Are”

With this song, here’s where the species switch with Pua starts to come about- Moana is shown, during the length of the song, to have a friend that she repeatedly engages in shenanigans with, but Pua doesn’t gravitate towards the ocean as she does. In fact, in comparison to Pua, Moana is shown to be a little less assured- little falters in her movements here and there. Not enough to catch it on the first go around, but definitely evident on the second. The segment following is when a grown Moana and her father are training her leadership skills, and Pua happens to follow along. Moana is doing the physical, headstrong work to solve the problems, but it’s Pua that interacts with people just a hair faster than Moana, creating a dichotomy of two friends who perhaps both equally able to lead. Moana does mind it quite a bit (as we see through body language), but doesn’t say anything because Pua is her friend. (There is still the aside with Coconut lady saying “she’s doing great!”) Insecurity comes in with the hula scene- Moana is good, but she’s alternating between watching the children dance and watching Pua dance slightly better alongside them.

Then we get to the issue about the fish, and once the problem is presented to be quite serious the two friends take different approaches- Pua immediately begins to talk different ways they could find new fishing venues in the lagoon with that adults, but Moana hops up on a boat and asks that question- “what if we fished beyond the reef?”

The argument with her father goes the same until the end, where I propose adding a new line- “Why can’t you be more like Pua- not entertaining fancies of the ocean?” (or something like that) Pua looks uncomfortable, along with the fisher dudes, and then the final line- “Every time I think you’re past this.” As her father stalks off, Pua comes up to talk, but Moana shuts them off by turning away, shrugging off the hand they try to put on her shoulder. Now the line “I wish I could be the perfect daughter,” in “How Far I’ll Go” has more weight to it.

I’ve always wished they explained why Moana was so good fighting the Kakamora, so in the next scene with her mother, Moana is hitting airborne coconuts, rather than throwing wood into the sand.

Act 2:

Everything is pretty much the same (a little bit more emphasis on her uncertainty to leave, and her headstrong believe in the fact that someone has to return the Heart, and cutting out the ‘twitter’ and ‘princess’ lines) until we get to the Kakamora. Here Moana is shown to be very competent getting HeiHei back- but he’s already spit up the Heart of Te Fiti on the Kakamora ship, and she doesn’t notice until they’ve already sailed a good distance away and the leader of the Kakamora is holding up the stone in victory. She argues with Maui to get it back, but he says to go after it would be death, so they strike the deal to get his hook back.

Wayfinding has its introduction, and we cut out the nightmare sequence.

In Lalotai, when Moana bounces away, Maui looks over the precipice, and instead of saying “weeeell, she’s dead,” He gives a begrudging sigh. We cut away to Moana’s misfortune until Maui saves her from an additional creature, after she outwits a couple others. Besides that, the scene continues much the same, only while Tamatoa preys on Maui’s insecurities rather harshly, he also indirectly touches on Moana’s insecurity on the sea’s decision of her. (I rather like the emotional weight of ‘Shark head’)

After Lalotai, Maui begins to teach Moana Wayfinding in earnest, and they begin the journey to the home islands of the Kakamora. Maui and Moana have that talk about Maui’s own personal journey, and each gain a little more respect in each other’s eyes. Once they come to the Kakamora island, they hash out a plan to retrieve the Heart- Maui believes Moana should stay behind, and we get the first argument to show that Moana is still a headstrong girl with leadership capabilities. Her plan ultimately is the best, and they move forward into it- Maui distracts the Kakamora while Moana goes clandestine and finds the Heart. In fighting off the Kakamora who notice her, Moana comes upon a ceremony where it is revealed that the Kakamora are trying (and failing) to use the Heart to revive their island from the darkness that has come to claim it. It is much worse and devastating than the decay on her island, and she stares up at it in horror, asking herself- “is this what will happen to my island?” The pause gives the Kakamora an upper hand in the battle- Maui now must come and save Moana. They retrieve the heart and battle their way back out of there, but now Maui is not completely sure of Moana’s ability to lead- and subtly, neither is she. They set course towards Te Fiti, and there’s more of an emphasis on character building in Wayfinding and conversation between Moana and Maui- Moana grows more confident in her skills and we get the sweet speech before we head into the battle.

Act 3:

The battle goes down the same, (there’s a base for Maui to disbelieve Moana’s headstrong leadership in the heat of battle now) and Maui leaves after an additional line about how he’s not following Moana to their doom. Last blow to Moana’s confidence before he takes off and we get to the Ghost Reprise scene. Moana doesn’t give the Heart back to the sea (she has too many people depending on her, not to) but she does sobbingly question whether she should seek out someone else to take the task. Ghost Grandma comes onto the scene and we get the confidence builder- only now it’s reinforced by another line- “Afterall, look at where you’ve been-“ and Ghost Grandma gestures towards the adventures she’s had coming towards the island- the Kakamora home Island is seeable in the distance, and the other islands- The Gate to Lalotai, the Broken Kakamora ship, Motunui, are represented by stars. And as the ghost ships of Wayfinders flit past, Moana realized the experiences she’s gone through and her desires make her who she is, and leader or not, it is she who has to continue on to Te Fiti for the people who depend on her journey and her goal.

That’s pretty much it for the rewrite- to be honest, I was disappointed in the reveal that there was no final boss, but the message to take confidence in where you’ve been and where you’ve got to go takes much more weight when Moana demonstrates her mastery of understanding the concept in reaching out to Te Ka. She then returns to Motunui confident in what she’s learned (she and Pua share a hug, but now we see their relationship in a different light) and we get that sweet Ending Reprise. Only know it has more meaning because the philosophy behind Wayfinding- “Knowing who you are by knowing where you’ve been” is much stronger and is the main message.