In the years since its release, Moana has become a Disney classic. Its sequel, originally conceived as a TV series, does justice to the original film.
“There’s just no telling how far I’ll go,” Moana (Auli‘i Cravalho) sings in the namesake 2016 Disney animated feature. Moana has gone far indeed — as of the end of 2024, the movie is the most-streamed movie on any streaming platform over the last five years, with more than a billion hours watched. Audiences, young and old alike, can’t get enough of the spirited girl with a connection to the ocean. Naturally, a sequel has arrived ashore.
Three years after the first movie’s events, Moana seeks out other island-dwelling communities for the people of Motunui to connect to. The spirit of Tautai Vasa (Gerald Ramsey), one of Moana’s wayfinding ancestors, reaches out to her with a mission: Moana must find the hidden island of Motufetū, which is under a curse by the god Nalo. Breaking this curse will help the communities separated by the ocean to find each other again.
Moana reunites with the mischievous, shapeshifting demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) to find Motufetū. She assembles a crew to assist her, comprising the mechanic Loto (Rose Matafeo), cantankerous farmer Kele (David Fane), and Maui fanboy Moni (Hualālai Chung). Along with Heihei (Alan Tudyk) the chicken and Pua the pig, Moana and her crew embark on a treacherous journey, encountering the coconut-like pirates called the Kakamora and the wily underworld goddess Matangi (Awhimai Fraser). Moana must make it home safely to reunite with her father, Tui (Temuera Morrison), her mother, Sina (Nicole Scherzinger), and her little sister, Simea (Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda).
Cravalho, who was reportedly the last out of hundreds to audition for the original movie, returns to her signature role. The success of Moana has opened doors for her; she has booked roles in film, TV, and live theatre since the movie’s release.
Cravalho literally grew up alongside Moana — the star was 16 when the movie opened in cinemas and is now 24. She tells ABC about the sequel: “[Moana is] a little bit older, she’s a little bit wiser. She is taking her people in a direction that her parents could have never imagined.”
Also returning to the recording booth is Dwayne Johnson, who uses his outsized star persona to bring the demigod Maui to life. “What people like to do — especially to young girls — is kind of constrain them and pretzel them into, ‘You can only be so much,’” Johnson tells People. “But in Moana 2, you can actually be anything you want.”
His daughters Jasmine and Tiana have vocal cameos in the movie as the ‘Moana-Bes’, young girls who idolise Moana — a sort of stand-in for young audiences, many of whom view the character as a role model.
But not everyone from Moana returned for Moana 2. Ron Clements and John Musker, legendary Disney animators who helmed much-loved classics like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules, and The Princess and the Frog, directed the first movie but did not come back for the sequel. So, the new directors — David Derrick Jr, Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller — had big shoes to fill.
“It’s about connecting to something bigger than you are and a chain that you are also continuing,” Derrick Jr, who is of Samoan descent, says of the movie’s themes. He adds: “The character Simea, that name is actually one of the names of my ancestors and also almost the name of my daughter. The relationship you see on film with Moana and Simea is actually the relationship I saw with my siblings.”
The movie was originally developed as a Disney+ series. Disney Animation’s former Chief Creative Officer and Moana 2 executive producer Jennifer Lee tells Entertainment Weekly: “It was getting bigger and bigger and more epic, and we really wanted to see it on the big screen. It creatively evolved, and it felt like an organic thing … You could really put it anywhere, but these artists create stories that they want to see on the big screen and that we want the world to see on the big screen.”
While Moana 2 compromises on the development of its newly introduced characters, who would have otherwise had more screen time in a series format, the movie’s visuals unfold on a grand(er) scale. “Every element of the adventure that we were already building in the series is now 10 times bigger, 10 times more exciting,” Derrick Jr says.
The decision paid off handsomely: Moana 2 made US$1.03 billion at the global box office, becoming one of the top ten highest-grossing animated films ever at the time of writing. Moana’s spirit of adventure and the rich Polynesian mythology that the story draws from continue to resonate with audiences of every background, which can only mean one thing: the heroine has even further yet to go. Moana 3, we’ll see you in a few years.
Walt Disney Animation Studios’ epic animated musical “Moana 2” reunites Moana (voice of Auli‘i Cravalho) and Maui (voice of Dwayne Johnson) three years later for an expansive new voyage…
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