On Monday, Nov. 17, Disney released the first trailer for the new live-action Moana movie. The trailer shows a remake of the original animated movie, released back in Nov. of 2023, but this time including actors such as Catherine Laga’aiga as Moana and John Tui as Chief Tui. The cast also noticeably includes Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson as Maui, who also played Maui in both Moana and Moana 2. The release of the trailer seems to want to replicate the success of the previous films, Moana, making roughly $680 million and Moana 2, making over a billion in revenue worldwide. Despite the trailer giving us a new look at the original Moana, I feel that the trailer is disappointing, not only for the original but for Disney as a whole.
The live-action remake is expected to mirror the plot of the 2016 original film. The original movie follows Moana, the daughter of the chief of the island, Chief Tui. Moana sets off on a journey after she learns about how the demigod Maui stole the heart of the goddess Te Fiti, causing her island to suffer. To fix these troubles, Moana goes on a pursuit for Maui, and tries to convince him to return the heart of Te Fiti. On the way, facing challenges such as a giant shiny crab and an army of coconuts.
The biggest issue I have with the trailer is that it’s an announcement of a remake that seems way too soon. The original animated film was released in 2016, less than a decade ago, and yet Disney has decided to announce the production of a remake. A large part of what makes a remake successful is that they bank on audience nostalgia, but the relative recency of Moana compared to other Disney films makes the announcement feel off.
Another complaint I have is how the trailer just seems like a rebranded Moana and nothing more. Before I watched the trailer, I was optimistic that Disney would add more and help redevelop the original Moana in a new light, reflecting on what made the original so great. But after watching the trailer, nothing stood out, every scene felt too textbook and dry. I didn’t feel excited.
Live-action remakes have been seen time and time again by Disney in the past couple of years. Previous live-action remakes such as The Little Mermaid and Aladdin made more money than the original animated films. This shows how Disney is using these franchises more as money makers than actual creative pieces. While live-action remakes add a new and unique introspective, just the pure number of them that Disney has produced has given me a distaste for them. I thought that after the box office flop of the Snow White remake, Disney would slow down on the live-action remakes and turn more towards creative and original films. But last May, the live-action Lilo & Stitch movie was released which had a crazy box office success. I fear that because of this, Disney might subject other original movies to remakes, shifting the focus of the entire company.
Beyond just Disney’s reputation for live-action remakes, the movie trailer itself just looks a little disappointing. The CGI isn’t anything terrible, in fact it feels a little overdone. The amount of CGI the trailer displayed made it feel very digital and somewhat unrealistic. While this lack of realism is a bit unexpected, the scenes we see of wide shots of Moana’s home island or the boats sailing across the sea seem incredibly vivid and beautiful. I’m interested to see how well the entire movie will tackle the visuals.
Overall, the trailer is underwhelming as it doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from the original movie the way a live-action movie should. In so many ways it struggles with being an acceptable remake in my eyes, which feels dishonorable to the original Moana. In a way, I feel that creating this remake is arguably worse than not remaking it at all. The movie still has potential to be better than expected. But if the movie comes out lacking luster, I feel that it wouldn’t just be a wrong step for the Moana franchise, but a wrong step for Disney as a whole.