Moana: Proof of the 2nd Disney Renaissance

Rating: 9/10 (30 November 2016)

Disney has been on quite a roll lately with it's films. Over the past few years we have seen instant classics like Frozen and Wreck- it Ralph get released to instant acclaim and this year they delivered two films which are already among their best work, Zootopia and Moana. But while Zootopia was was notable for taking on major themes like racism, Moana is instead more interested with changing or removing elements that are usually found within Disney movies.
Moana is the name of the film's protagonist, the daughter of the island chief who longs to explore the ocean against her father's wishes. She discovers that the Ocean has chosen her to sail across the sea to free the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) and return a stone known as the heart of Te Fiti to its home. Maui had removed the stone centuries earlier and unknowingly cursed the world to an ever- growing darkness which is starting to consume Moana's home.
The film is one of Disney's most beautiful with the images of the sea and sky looking absolutely astonishing. The film also managed to seamlessly blend 3D animation with traditional hand drawn animation to achieve the effect of Maui's magical/moving tattoos, a feat that has to be seen to believe. The soundtrack is one of the best ones that Disney has made since probably Mulan with the songs "How Far I'll Go" and "You're Welcome" being particularly fun and entertaining. (I'd like to point out that while "Let It Go" is a great song, I found the rest of Frozen's songs to be pretty lame.)
Despite all of this, I think Moana's greatest strength lies in the way it subverts typical Disney conventions by discarding the use of a love interest and a main villain. While Moana technically isn't the first Disney princess without a love interest (that honor belongs to Brave's Merida), she is the first one I can think of where her lack of one isn't treated like a big deal. Remember that a key plot point of Brave was the fact that Merida's parents wanted to force her to get married against her wishes. Here though, it's never brought up as a concern. Moana never has to justify her singleness to her parents and her relationship with Maui remains platonic throughout the adventure. There is just too much on the line for her to worry about falling in love and the directors wisely choose to not force a romance into the plot (unlike the makers of Mulan who forced one in to that films detriment).
The other notable change made with this film is its lack of a true antagonist. While there are villainous characters in the movie, they mostly serve as obstacles in Moana and Maui's path to return the heart of Te Fiti back to its home. At first the lack of a primary antagonist is a little jarring especially since they tend to be some of Disney's most memorable characters but here I think it was a wise choice to not include one. The stakes are already high enough without adding another layer of needless complexity. Amazingly, the lack of a true antagonist is another point of comparison with Brave which also did not feature a true villain in the classical sense. The big difference between the two of them there though is that Moana tells a simpler and more compelling story that benefits from not having a villain whereas Brave is an uneven mess that falls apart in the second act and might have improved a bit if it at least had a memorable villain.
In the end Moana is a welcome addition to the Disney canon. The story is well written, it has beautiful animation, catchy songs, strong performances, and changes up a significant amount of Disney clichÃ©s to make it feel fresh and unique. I think we can definitely say at this point that Disney is experiencing a second renaissance.