14 Comments

Ugh I used to agree with you but then I had daughters and now I can tell you there is absolutely a reason for sequels such as these to exist. Little kids don’t care overmuch about the exigency of a story. They just want to spend more time with their favorite characters.

So while *I* might find FROZEN II’s storytelling truly bad and its ham-handed Native-Americans-In-Scandinavia messaging embarrassing, but they’re all over it! And so we’ve got our Moana 2 tickets and I am prepared to be mildly entertained

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you're right, but "my seven year old is happy to sit in front of it for hours" doesn't make it a good use of Disney's animators. You could have that outsourced for direct-to-video. er, streaming

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Well, yes it does Magpie. My five year olds, and millions of other five year olds and six year olds and seven year olds and thirty year olds, want to see this movie. It's going to make a fortune this weekend because everyone wants to see MOANA 2.

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One year ago, during the exact same weekend, Disney premiered WISH. It grossed 64 million in its entire run. Moana 2 will make twice that this weekend. And if you want to scold people for being too afraid of original movies, that's your prerogative. But my five year olds are super excited and it's strange to me that you think that's a poor use of the animators of a corporation which has spent 100 years making movies for children

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This is one of the worst defenses of mediocre corporate art I've ever seen.

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...that people want to experience it? Oh God what a horrible defense.

Please explain to me, as patiently as you can, why it is a bad thing that Disney provided a movie that everyone wanted to see. It has already equaled the gross of the original movie, it has a 7.1 on IMDB and an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. And it was my daughters' first movie in theaters, a movie for which they were very excited! Along with, it seems, half the nation.

Are you actually stating Disney was wrong for making this movie, and should have made another STRANGE WORLD to be artistically pure?

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I'm not here to defend Frozen 2, but I will just note that the indigenous Scandinavian tribe is based on the real Sámi people, who consulted on the film: https://arctic-council.org/news/behind-the-scenes-of-frozen-2-how-saami-representatives-cooperated-with-disney/

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And did they actually get stuck behind a magical force-field due to the scheming machinations of the Arendellian leadership????

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I first learned of the Sami through chapter 6 (?) of THE WORST PERSON OF THE WORLD (where Elvind breaks up with his girlfriend after she discovers her partial Sami heritage and becomes an annoying activist as a result)

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oooof!

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Sounds like my time would be better spent catching up with the first one.

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Moana is my favorite Disney animated musical since The Little Mermaid, which hasn't lost any shine from having two sequels and a TV series (and live action remake), none of which I've seen (though I hear the show is actually pretty good). So Moana should survive as well.

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Me just saw interview with Cravalho where she talks about how life-changing role in Moana was, and how she bought house for her mother, who went from struggling to being comfortably retired.

But in light of sequel, it read far more like Michael Caine's famous assessment of Jaws 4.

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My 5 year old daughter also thought it sucked. Big fan of the first one, saw her disappointment slowly sink in. It just didnt make any sense. We walked out.

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