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It's Disney. It's good. The Rock does a great job as Maui, the demigod. I liked his song 'Thank you' so much I had to listen to it again. I have probably inadvertently released an ear worm into my head.
It's a great story of empowerment for young girls, I'm thinking. And it shows the drift of the Disney Princess icon. Before they had to be saved, now they are taking charge of their own lives.
The story was fine. The animation was good. I also enjoyed Flight of the Concords, Jemaine Clement as the Crab singing 'Shiny'
Lots of Easter Eggs of other Disney films that I kept spotting, too.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm
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Goddamn ear worm Disney songs. I've got 'Stranded on this island' running through my head infinitum.
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06-25-2017, 09:57 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-26-2017, 06:19 AM by Drunk Monk.)
Oddly I wasn't as taken by this as Greg. Maybe it was because I'm sick and my Netflix kept crashed every 15 minutes or so then I'd have to reboot, fast fwd past the crash point, and the. Re-engage. The animation was lush and gorgeous. The plot was typical Disney, perhaps even a little flatter than usual. Needed more obstacles. The music was too broadway but then it seemed to crash most during the songs so maybe I'm not giving it a fair viewing (I do feel Hamilton is overrated even though I haven't seen it yet). The Polynesian culture felt a little too tiki room. Tara and my mom saw it previously and liked it. Needed a sword fight.
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It had three really good songs, that stayed with me. That hasn't happened in a while.
I keep trying to like Hamilton, but it's not sticking although I do like the Congressional rap battle.
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Was not that impressed. It looked great (of course) but I wonder why they made Maui so ugly. Couldn't they have made him look more like the Rock? And I wasn't grabbed by the songs. In particular the crab's song could have been cut. That whole sequence could have been shorter. It was a bit too video-gamey. And the idea that the islanders used to be voyagers but just gave it up was pretty silly. I did like the rooster.
On the other hand, the stuff Maui tells Moana about wayfinding was accurate - see the book Wayfinders by Wade Davis for a thorough and very interesting discussion. (Never reviewed it here because I only read that one section of it.)
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Shadow boxing the apocalypse
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03-16-2025, 10:29 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-16-2025, 10:30 PM by Drunk Monk.)
Moana 2 was ok. Honestly, I’ve forgotten what Moana was about so it took me a bit to catch up on the characters and their quirks. The songs were ok. The animation had some moments that were probably gorgeous on the big screen. I was amused when Maui’s own tattoo yanked his own nipple as punishment. Mostly it felt like more of the same so if you liked the first one, here’s some more. Ultimately I wasn’t overly impressed, perhaps because I had hoped it would be more distracting than it was. But it wasn’t. And that’s likely on me more than the movie.
Seen on Disney+ (the cheap version with ads).
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
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I just realized that Moana 2 totally poached something from ...
... Ne Zha!
In Moana 2, there's a giant blobfish that secretes neurotoxin - the antidote is blobfish snot. In Ne Zha (the original from 2019), the water demon secretes a paralysis venom - the antidote is water demon snot. The blobfish and the water demon are very different characters, but the paralysis venom snot cure is way too close to be coincidence.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
