Raya and the Last Dragon

### Story By

Paul Briggs, Don Hall, Adele Lim, Carlos López Estrada, Kiel Murray, Qui Nguyen, John Ripa and Dean Wellins

### Production Companies

Walt Disney Pictures
 Walt Disney Animation Studios

### Release Date

March 5, 2021

**Raya and the Last Dragon** is a 2021 American animated film directed by Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada. The film was released on March 5, 2021, simultaneously in theatres and through Disney+.

The story focuses on titular warrior princess, Raya, as she seeks out the fabled last dragon to save her father and the land of Kumandra from evil spirits Druun.

## Plot

Long ago, the prosperous land of Kumandra, where the people lived alongside dragons, was ravaged by the Druun, mindless spirits that turn every living thing in their path to stone. Sisu, the last surviving dragon, concentrates her magic into a gem and blasts the Druun away, reviving Kumandra's people but not its dragons. A power struggle for the gem divides Kumandra's people into five separate chiefdoms called Fang, Heart, Spine, Talon, and Tail, corresponding to their placement along a gigantic dragon-shaped river.

500 years later, Chief Benja of the Heart tribe retains possession of the gem and trains his young daughter, the warrior princess Raya, to protect it. Believing Kumandra can be reunited, Benja holds a feast for all five tribes. During the feast, Raya befriends Namaari, the princess of the Fang tribe, who gives her a dragon pendant. Trusting Namaari, Raya shows her the gem's chamber, but Namaari betrays her as part of a plot to help Fang steal the gem. After being alerted to the attack, Benja and the other tribes arrive and start fighting over the gem, breaking it into five pieces in the scuffle. The gem's destruction creates a fissure that releases the Druun, who quickly overtake the Land of Heart. As the tribe leaders each steal a piece of the gem and flee, Benja notices that water repels the Druun and saves Raya's life by throwing her in the river before being turned to stone.

Six years later, Raya treks across Kumandra, searching for Sisu to have her create another gem and banish the Druun once more. She manages to summon her in Tail, where Sisu admits she did not create the gem but wielded it on behalf of her four siblings, who all contributed their magic to the gem. Raya and Sisu resolve to take back the four pieces of the gem, reassemble it, and use it to banish the Druun and restore those who were turned to stone.

Raya and Sisu travel across the realm, reclaiming pieces of the gem and making new friends: the young restaurateur Boun from Tail, the baby con artist Little Noi and her three ongis from Talon, and the warrior Tong from Spine, all of whom have lost loved ones to the Druun. Namaari pursues Raya, hoping to gain the gem shards for the Fang tribe. Each gem shard they acquire blesses Sisu with one of her siblings' magical powers. Raya, not fully trusting their new companions, insists Sisu remain disguised as a human, but she reveals herself to save Raya from Namaari at Spine. At Fang, Sisu persuades Raya to propose an alliance with Namaari rather than steal the final shard. As a gesture of trust, Raya returns the pendant Namaari gave her years ago. Namaari, torn between her responsibility to Fang and her wish to help defeat the Druun, threatens them with a crossbow. Sisu tries to calm Namaari, but Raya attacks with her whip sword after seeing Namaari's finger on the trigger, causing the crossbow to fire and kill Sisu; her death drains all the water away, allowing the Druun to overrun the realm.

Furious by Namaari's actions, Raya pursues her and finds her grieving the petrification of her mother, and they fight while Raya's companions use the gem pieces to evacuate the people of Fang. Raya angrily prepares to kill Namaari but stops when Namaari reminds her of her role in Sisu's death due to her inability to trust others, and they go to aid the others. As the Druun gain on her group, Raya remembers how trust allowed Sisu to save the world. She urges the others to unite and reassemble the gem, showing her faith in Namaari by handing over her gem piece and allowing the Druun to turn her into stone. Boun, Tong, Noi, and the ongis follow suit, and Namaari reassembles the gem before being petrified as well. This unleashes a shockwave that spreads through Kumandra, vanquishing all the Druun and conjuring up a magical rainstorm that revives everyone, including the dragons who later revive Sisu. After the group reunites with their loved ones, the tribes and dragons gather at Heart to unify as Kumandra once again.

## Cast and Characters

* Kelly Marie Tran as Raya
* Awkwafina as Sisu
* Izaac Wong as Boun
* Gemma Chan as Namaari
	+ Jona Xiao as Young Namaari
* Daniel Dae Kim as Chief Benja
* Benedict Wong as Tong
* Sandra Oh as Virana
* Thalia Tran as Little Noi
* Lucille Soong as Dang Hu
* Alan Tudyk as Tuk Tuk
* Dichen Lachman as General Atitaya of Fang / Spine Warrior
* Patti Harrison as Chief of Tail
* Dumbfoundead as Chai
* Sung Kang as Dang Hai
* Sierra Katow as Talon Merchant / Fang Officer
* Ross Butler as Chief of Spine
* François Chau as Wahn
* Gordon Ip as Talon Merchant
* Paul Yen as Talon Merchant

## Music

See Also: Raya and the Last Dragon (Soundtrack)

James Newton Howard composed the score for Raya and the Last Dragon. Jhené Aiko wrote and performed a song entitled "Lead the Way" in the end credits. The score was released on February 26, 2021. Filipino singer KZ Tandingan was hired as the performer of "Gabay" (Guide), Disney's first-ever Filipino-language song, in March 2021. The track, the Filipino version of "Lead the Way", was released as part of the film's soundtrack for the Filipino dub of the film. Allie Benedicto, studio marketing head of Disney Philippines, said that the song "demonstrates [their] commitment to work with local creative talents".

## Production

In October 2018, Deadline Hollywood reported Disney was developing a fantasy animated film produced by Osnat Shurer from a screenplay by Adele Lim, with additional directorial debuts by Paul Briggs and Dean Wellins. Most of them had previously been involved in other Disney films including Frozen (2013), Zootopia (2016), and Moana (2016). In August 2019, Disney announced the film during its D23 Expo Walt Disney Animation Studios' presentation, casting Cassie Steele as Raya and of Awkwafina as Sisu.

In August 2020, Disney announced the replacement of several cast and crew members. Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada replaced Briggs and Wellins as directors, and the latter two were demoted to co-directors. Story writer John Ripa later also replaced Wellins as a co-director, and Wellins was credited as a contributing writer in the credits. Qui Nguyen joined Lim as co-writer and Peter Del Vecho joined Shurer as producer. Kelly Marie Tran replaced Steele to conform to changes in characters and plot; Shurer said the cast must embody the same spirit as the character and that Tran was better suited for the role.

According to Hall, Disney recast the role because Raya was originally conceived as a "stoic loner", but the team began to infuse her with "levity" and "swagger" characteristics similar to those of Guardians of the Galaxy's (2014) Star-Lord. Tran had unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Raya. However, in January 2020, when Tran replaced Steele as Raya, she assumed that Disney had already rejected her before but was now hiring her to replace the lead actress. Disney hired each cast members separately and had them record their lines individually, keeping a secret from each of them until they accidentally discovered one another's involvement in the film before Disney revealed it to them. Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the film industry, they worked and successfully completed the project from home. Overall, the budget was $100 million at minimum.

### Development and Design

Raya and the Last Dragon is inspired by traditional Southeast Asian cultures. The production team consulted with Southeast Asia Story Trust experts to ensure an accurate cultural representation in the film, and they emphasized the importance of avoiding stereotypical portrayals of Asian characters. To conduct background research, they travelled to Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia; there they were inspired by the local sense of acceptance, unity, and trust which they adopted as themes for the film. The production team explored various ways to express Kumandra's characteristics. They designed its five fractured lands with unique climates and characteristics to reflect the diverse beliefs and culture of their people, and each land and its people representing a mandala icon revolving around Kumandra. This is inspired by the local religious teaching that everything is centred around a common belief system or cosmology. To convey Kumandra's expression of fantasy, they used unconventional shapes, experimented with scale and colour, and placed various objects in unexpected locations. Kumandra's Dragon River is inspired by the Mekong, and its dynamic colours in each land serve to indicate Raya's location in the film.

The production team focused the film on Raya and Sisu, and their conflicting characteristics of trust issues and over-trusting acted as the basis for the film's humor and emotion. They initially designed the characters separately, drawing various designs of Raya and Sisu. However, they felt that something was lacking and incomplete in their designs. This prompted them to design the characters together, which helped them better understand how they complemented each other both visually and thematically.

Raya was conceived as a serious swordswoman focusing on her goal to find Sisu, and Sisu was conceived as a dragon trapped in her human form who refused to help Raya. However, as the writing progressed, Raya softened and Sisu became more helpful; the writers approached Raya as a character who acts flawlessly and Sisu who does everything sideways. The production team ensured that Raya's observed quality would be culturally authentic, functional for her role as a swordswoman, and reflective of her emotional journey throughout the film. Her costume is based on a traditional sabai top and dhoti pants with cultural dragon references, and her high-collar cape and large hat act as protective layers that the team intends to remove as she emotionally evolves with the film. The team designed her with a feminine nose and strong, prominent cheekbones qualities. They aimed to make her exceptionally expressive and emotionally diverse but mainly focused on her playful and comedic aspects.

Sisu and the fellow dragons are inspired by the naga, mythical beings who can manifest as serpents or humans and are associated with water. They explored many silhouettes and attitudes of Sisu, ranging from ethereal and magical to ferocious and sceptical. Specific design elements in her dragon form were intentionally retained in her human attire to create a cohesive and recognizable character design.

The poses of the dragon statues represent the production team's efforts to convey the same sense of grandeur presence that dragons have in Southeast Asian culture. The production team drew inspiration from the naga's cultural influence and powerful presence in Southeast Asia, seeking to evoke the same feeling of them existing in an "invisible world" beyond their own. As a result, all the dragons except Sisu were revered and similarly reflected this effect. They infused the dragons' footsteps with colourful, refracted ripples of light to emphasize their cultural association with water, amongst other design elements including glowing characteristics, fluid grooms and textures, scales, and translucent fins.

Water is a central element in the story; it is used to illustrate Raya's emotional growth, where coloured bodies of water represent moments in which Raya feels close to those around her while high contrast, dark-coloured ones represent her distrust and insecurity. The Druun were approached as embodiments of hopelessness and dread with a dynamic, cloudy form that is difficult to be perceived as one continuous form; their concepts include aquatic life, water boiling in reverse, dough folding in on itself, black holes, and parasitic behaviours.

Dragons also influenced Heart's design, with them appearing in sacred fortresses and palaces and serving as cultural symbols. The production team aimed to make Heart's Pond a magical and sacred place because it represents an important character moment between Raya and her father, incorporating elements of flowers that only bloom at night. While researching these flowers, they came across an art installation involving lamps that would grow stronger and dimmer. This inspired them to create Kumandra flowers, which similarly light up when the Dragon Gem is near.

Tail was intended as the wild west of Kumandra, drawing elements from fantasy plateaus and sand waterfalls. Talon is inspired by Southeast Asia floating markets and night markets. The designers approached Talon's as a pier that had five different levels, envisioning the pier starting at the top level, and as the waterline lowered due to the drought, new platforms would be constructed underneath. Spine's design was influenced by bamboo and focused on natural forms and textures. Its design includes a black bamboo frame and a colossal woolly mammoth-like tusked roofline with large stone foundations from the surrounding rocky mountain. The production team also experimented with shadows and lighting to create a sense of mystery and drama for Spine's design.

Fang's design reflects its commitment to strict principles such as the use of brutalism and strong, monolithic, and rigid geometric shapes. The production team explored stretching Fang buildings and incorporating repeated rooflines to evoke the ominous sensation of a large creature peering down. In the Fang Palace, tall, vertical banners and giant gold fang-like sculptures similarly hang ominously from sky-high ceilings. Their rectangular sharp edges and cold, sterile feel designs were meant to contrast the floral motifs and round, organic shapes of Heart.

To express the character Namaari's strength and power, the designers experimented with facial expressions and physicality including her aggressive nature and fierce stare. They adorned her with a hard-edge outfit with a predominantly off-white colour palette to express her tough personality, similar to Fang's geometric shapes of silhouette and patterning. Young Namaari's costume is also designed to contrast her with young Raya; her stark white and gold elements represent Fang's harsh lifestyle as opposed to Raya's draped, soft, and blue designs with an overall serene feel.

### Animation and Cinematography

Approximately 800 artists worked on the film; they used various software applications such as Autodesk Maya, Houdini, and Nuke. The animation team mixed traditional with 3D animation to create a unique style of warmth, imperfection, and distinctiveness that resembled shadow puppets used in Chinese storytelling. The characters' costumes were constructed by skilfully folding long pieces of fabric, and the overall structure of the clothing didn't heavily rely on seams. This departs from the traditional method of creating clothing which used predetermined patterns as a guide.

The animation team used intricate lighting techniques to create Kumandra's diverse and atmospheric environments ranging from desert landscapes to tropical forests. To depict the diversity of the crowd within each tribe, they used many new techniques including reusing and remixing interchangeable parts to efficiently create diverse characters. In the process, they used a system to keep track of and manage the assets they were designing. This helped them confirm that these elements looked correct and consistent throughout the film. It also ensured that the data could be used effectively in the later stages of production. Animating Talon and Tail was also particularly complex. Talon's complexities stem from its intricate and diverse elements and assets that needed to be moved around water. Despite Tail's minimalist landscape, the perspective needed to be very close to capturing the desert floor, with added complexities from the manual modelling of cracks and the scattering of rocks and vegetation elements.

The animation team significantly expanded their crowd system (which was used to generate groups of characters or objects) to meet the demands of the film's diverse and complex scenes. They modified their existing workflows and pipeline (the sequence of tools and software used in the production process) to handle the challenges presented by the diverse characters and scenes. Other solutions the team explored include art-directed (creatively controlled), simulated (computer-generated simulations), and procedural (algorithmic) approaches. The in-house Skeleton Library, based on the Houdini software, also helped to manage the complexity of these diverse elements.

Anisotropic distances (unequal distances in different directions) in Position-based Dynamics (PBD) and Boids simulation techniques were used to create intricate scenes including animating beetles crawling on top of one another, simulating massive schools of fish, and choreographing the movements of dragons. PBD is used to simulate the behaviour of objects, whereas Boid simulations involve modelling the flocking or herding behaviour of creatures. Procedural animation layers were applied to simulate the movements of fish and dragons, which were generated automatically using algorithms. Additionally, a technique called "distance integral invariant" was used to detect contacts between the dragons' feet and the ground, ensuring realistic interaction with the environment.

Cinematography focuses on emphasizing Raya's characterization and her distrust of the world. The animation team created contrasts from various camera and lighting styles to illustrate trust and distrust, applying them sequence-to-sequence and shot-to-shot based on her story arc. For example, the distrustful Raya was shot with a wide lens, deep focus, and a narrow colour palette, while the trusting Sisu was shot with a long lens, shallow focus, and a broader colour palette. To highlight the abrupt transition when Raya was thrown into the blue waters of the Dragon River in Heart to the scene six years later in Tail's harsh desert, the cinematographers employed light distortion techniques. These techniques were used to create a mirage effect, a shimmering illusion typical of hot environments, accentuating the dramatic shift in lighting, colour, climate, and water in the film.

## Release

### Marketing

When Disney released the trailers on January 26, 2021, viewers expressed concerns about the limited Southeast Asian representation in the film's primarily East Asian-based cast and advocated for a more culturally accurate and diverse representation. Disney collaborated with various brands ranging from toys to merchandise such as McDonald's, LG, and Procter & Gamble to help market Raya and the Last Dragon. They also partnered with Southeast Asian brands like Omsum and Sanzo to pay tribute to the Southeast Asia cultures that inspired the film, and they supported and promoted many local, emerging advertisers there in their marketing efforts. When choosing promotional partners, they accounted for the film's target audience and the increasing number of people returning to theatres despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 107-minute film Raya and the Last Dragon was initially scheduled for release on November 25, 2020, but was postponed to March 12, 2021, before moving up a week. These shifts were reportedly made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Its eventual shift enabled the film to be simultaneously released in theatres and on Disney+ Premier Access, which was available for purchase until June 4, 2021, before making it free for all subscribers from that date. In theatres, Raya and the Last Dragon was accompanied by a short film, Us Again (2021).

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released Raya and the Last Dragon for digital download on April 2, 2021, and on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on May 18. The digital release also included Us Again. Bonus features bundled with its Blu-ray release include "An Introduction to Us Again", a behind-the-scenes look of the short Us Again; "Taste of Raya", a virtual Southeast Asian dining experience; "Raya: Bringing It Home", an inside look on how the animators worked at home; "Martial Artists", a lesson on the martial art forms and weapons used in the film; "We are Kumandra", the cultural influences of the film from the Southeast Asia Story Trust; outtakes from the film; facts and Easter eggs; Ripa's experience of working on the storyboard; and deleted scenes.

## Reception

### Box Office

Raya and the Last Dragon grossed $54.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $75.7 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $130.4 million.

During its opening weekend in the U.S. and Canada, Raya and the Last Dragon grossed $2.5 million on its first day and went on to debut to $8.5 million across 2,045 theatres, topping the box office. Theater chains Cinemark and Harkins in the U.S., and Cineplex in Canada, did not initially run the film after declining Disney's rental terms, which led to Raya and the Last Dragon failing to match the opening-weekend grosses of family-centred The Croods: A New Age (2020) and Tom & Jerry (2021). Raya and the Last Dragon's performance, however, improved in the following weeks, matching and eventually surpassing Tom & Jerry's box office numbers. The film grossed $5.5 million in its second weekend and $5.2 million in its third, remaining atop the box office.

Worldwide, Raya and the Last Dragon debuted in 32 markets, grossing $26.2 million in its opening weekend; the top countries were China ($8.6 million) and Russia ($2.8 million). The film earned $11.5 million in its second weekend and $8 million in its third from 29 markets.

### Critical Response

Raya and the Last Dragon has an approval rating of 93% based on 304 professional reviews on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 7.7 out of 10. The consensus reads; "Another gorgeously animated, skilfully voiced entry in the Disney canon, Raya and the Last Dragon continues the studio's increased representation while reaffirming that its classic formula is just as reliable as ever." Metacritic (which uses a weighted average) assigned Raya and the Last Dragon a score of 74 out of 100 based on 48 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported 92% of those gave it a positive score, with 78% said that they would recommend it.

Commentaries of The Atlantic and the Observer praised the imagery and themes. The San Francisco Chronicle, among others, said that the film expertly balances emotion, humor, and social politics against a backdrop of beautiful animation and engaging storyline. Rolling Stone and RogerEbert.com praised its blend of imagery and cultural mythologies, finding it beautiful and emotionally engaging narrative reminiscent of classic Disney animated repertoires. Similarly, Vanity Fair and Vulture said that it expertly conveys the emotional depth and themes of the story through beautiful animation and compelling characters. In addition, praise was also directed to the strong cast choice and diverse characters.

The story and limited Southeast Asian representation were criticized. The Atlantic criticized Raya's lack of depth, describing her as lacking cultural specificity and behaving more like a tourist rather than a genuine representation of Southeast Asia cultures. The New York Times said the film fell short of the conventional Disney princess narratives in delivering a correct cultural representation and corporate strategy. Variety criticized the story and world-building executions, which they found lacked an elegant and smooth narrative flow. Reviewers for The Irish Times and Vox cited the perceived unwieldy central conceit and indistinct and insensitive cultural representation, respectively.

### Audience Viewership

In its first three days in the week of March 1, Raya And The Last Dragon was watched for 355 million minutes and placed fourth for the week among films. The film was released on Disney+ without any additional cost on June 4, 2021, worldwide; it was the second-most-viewed streaming title after Netflix's Lucifer. It was viewed for approximately 1.1 billion minutes from May 31 to June 6, a significant increase for the film and any streaming title, which previously had 115 million viewing minutes a week when it was only available as a premium title for $30.

According to the official list of the most watched streaming titles of 2021 released on January 21, 2022, by Deadline Hollywood and Nielsen Holdings, Raya and the Last Dragon was ranked the third-most-streamed film of 2021 with 8.34 billion minutes watched, behind Luca (2021) and Moana with 10.5 billion and 8.9 billion minutes watched respectively. In January 2022, tech firm Akamai reported that the film was the ninth-most-pirated film of 2021.