Moana is a 2016 movie co-directed by Ron Clements and John Musker that, upon the time of its release, became Disney’s 56th animated feature film. Starring Dwayne Johnson and Auliʻi Cravalho in her cinematic debut, this production follows the story of Moana, the daughter of Motunui’s Chief, who is meant to follow her father’s footsteps and lead their community, but after the island is struck by a blight, she is chosen by the ocean for a challenging mission: to sail off on a quest to find Maui, the demi-god who stole Te Fiti’s heart, and escort him back to restore the natural order.

Inspired by Polynesian cultures and attempting to explain some phenomena experienced by voyagers in the area, Moana introduced several interesting elements that made it one of Disney’s most innovative films, not only for the implementation of new animation techniques, but also for introducing characters far removed from the prototypical design that had previously been leading this company’s productions. Such artistic decisions paid off, as Moana became a box-office hit, acclaimed by both audiences and critics, eventually garnering several major awards.

Capitalizing on the magnificent reception of this film, Disney announced that a Moana animated series extending the story of this young Polynesian princess is currently in production. While the premiere date announced by the company was for 2023, it has since, per Collider, been delayed to 2024. Very little is known yet about this series and the cast, but it was recently announced that its director will be David Derrick Jr, who incidentally joined Disney Animation for the 2016 film and was a major collaborator on it, so big things are expected for this spin-off. Until the series premieres, here’s a look at what made Moana a groundbreaking film for Disney.

Moana, a Heroine Like No Other

A feature that set Moana apart from previous Disney productions was its character design. Moana shattered quite a few structures within the company, from all perspectives. For starters, she is the first Disney princess with a realistic body type, in contrast to the thin, model-like figures that most princesses tended to have. Moreover, she is also the first Polynesian princess, which introduces this culture to the company’s animated films. To top it all off, Moana is also the first to not have a love interest or a romantic relationship developing over the course of the film. Instead, the story is centered on her mission — to help her village — and in order to fulfill it, she does not depend on any male figure. This young daughter of the Motunui Chief is not afraid to face the ocean, to be miles away from her island, or to confront some of the worst kinds of monsters, as she has a goal in mind and the belief that she will accomplish it on her own. And although there is not a romantic story of love in this movie, there are plenty of love manifestations, such as Moana’s affection for her community and her own family’s love for her. All of these things have made this princess an empowering role model for audiences all over the world.


Related: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About the Cast of Moana

A Story of Self-Discovery

Moana honors Disney’s princess movies at its best, but it introduces certain features that turned this production, upon its release, into something refreshing. There are some aspects that stick to the company’s formula: there is a princess who has to carry out a role that she doesn’t quite like and there are even some animal sidekicks. Indeed, the movie features two of the funniest animal sidekicks in animated films, Heihei and Pua. Still, Moana differs from every other Disney production in many ways. For starters, the movie focuses entirely on Moana’s journey of self-discovery as she tries her best to save her community. In order to do so, she relies on the support of Maui, a role whose characteristics would normally make him the main character of a feature film rather than a supporting character. As a matter of fact, per Cinema Blend, Maui was initially thought to be the main character of the movie, but luckily the team changed its mind and focused the production on Moana, enabling the demigod to fit in very well with his supporting role. Another distinctive aspect of Moana is its ending: while she does achieve happiness, Moana’s life is not simply wrapped in a happy ending. Instead, the princess’ return to Motunui is just the beginning of her journey as a community leader and voyager, something that is quite different from other Disney films featuring a princess who gets married and lives happily ever after.

An Open Door to Polynesian Culture

Disney has been criticized in the past for not representing certain cultures accurately in their movies. Therefore, when creating Moana, they approached the project in a very serious and intentional way. Their initial idea for this production emerged in 2011, when the filmmakers started reading about Polynesian mythology and discovered Maui, the demigod. Armed with all this, they sketched out some ideas for an animated feature, and quickly began traveling. Musker and Clements took a team to Fiji, Tahiti, and Samoa to scout the place, learn more about their culture, and speak with local experts. Not only did they go on several trips, but over the years of Moana‘s production, they established the Oceanic Story Trust, a group of experts from many fields with a mission to support the crew and make sure the movie would be culturally accurate, even if that meant modifying characters and entire scenes. Along with the support of this team of specialists, the crew also brought the culture into the cast, which features almost all actors of Polynesian heritage, amongst them Auliʻi Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, and Temuera Morrison.


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Bringing Inanimate Elements to Life

Moana is among Disney’s most computer-animated movies, which was something quite new for the team of directors Clements and Musker. Behind this decision was the complexity of the Polynesian scenery and, most importantly, the fact that the ocean plays such a big role throughout the film. It is already tricky to do an animated shot of the ocean, so this is greatly magnified in this production, where most of the story takes place in the water. Therefore, when choosing a specific technology, animators decided to use CGI to animate the ocean by using a new program called Splash for more complex motions, an important feature considering that this mass of water becomes a character in the story. The same thing happens with other elements, such as Maui’s tattoos, particularly with Mini Maui. The crew also had to take special care when handling the main characters’ hair, partiular when its curly nature comes into contact with elements like water, air, and sand over the course of the film. For this, they brought people with the same curl pattern as Moana and Maui to visit their studio and performed some tests, which later served as a reference to animate the hair in the movie.

A Music Partnership That Paid Off Tremendously

The soundtrack of every Disney movie is known to be a very important part of each production, which is why it was essential that, in Moana, the songs reflected not only the Polynesian culture, but also the characters’ background stories. As such, the studio had a brilliant artist in mind to do this task: composer, actor, singer, and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda. He was in charge of producing the soundtrack, on which he worked alongside Opetaia Foa’i and Mark Mancina, and he even lent his voice to a few of the songs. All the original songs are in English, Samoan, and the Tokelauan language. A lesser known fact about this production is that, upon receiving the offer to work on Moana, Miranda still had not released his hit musical Hamilton. In fact, he spent several years working on both projects simultaneously while rejecting others so that he would not be distracted from his goal. All that hard work paid off: his songs were critically acclaimed, sung by millions of devoted fans, and rewarded with nominations for the Oscar, Golden Globe, Grammy and Critics’ Choice Awards. This first partnership was pivotal for both Miranda and Disney and paved the way for them to work together again in 2021 on the movie Encanto, whose soundtrack shattered many records and broke into every international music chart.