Series: The True Story of Animated Films - 15th installment. Moana.

        ^{Moana is an animated Disney film released in 2016. The word Moana in the Maori language means deep ocean, and the story unfolds in French Polynesia, a group of paradisaical islands on the Oceania continent.}

        ^{The funny thing about the film is that it was written so that its main character would be masculine, specifically the demigod Maui, the inspiration for writing this fascinating story was the legends of Polynesian culture that spoke about Maui. The character of Moana would be a character of lesser relevance, explaining how a secondary character became the main character is that the marketing of the Disney princesses promised the success it actually had.}

        ^{According to the legend Maui is the son of a god and a human, when giving birth, his mother leaves him in a river to his fate, the god of water took care of him giving him the wisdom of his ancestors including the secrets of the gods, thus acquiring the powers of a god without being completed. In the film, this origin is distorted by the story that his human parents abandoned him at sea and he was rescued by the gods who gave him his power.}

        ^{Another very serious change that Disney made to this character was his physical appearance in the Maui myths were a young, slim and handsome man, for the animation they designed a robust character that was similar to the actor Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) who lends his voice to interpret it.}

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        ^{Very attached to the Polynesian myth are the exploits attributed to the demigod Maui that we can hear in the song "You're Welcome" where he narrates how he got the islands out of the sea and how he managed to tame the sun. The myth tells that one day while fishing, he threw his hook into the water and was anchored in a rock, believing that he had caught a big fish, he threw it so hard that he pulled the islands out of the ocean. As for the sun, he tied it to make it do the shortest days in winter and the longest in summer, until the sun did not obey him and did not let go of its moorings.}

        ^{The goddess Te Fiti in the film is in charge of giving life to all the islands of plants and flowers calling two Polynesian deities Madame Pele and Mauica, both of them are related to earth, fire, wind and fertility.}

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        ^{Maui`s Legend says that men have lost their fire and that the goddess Mauica knows how to do it from her powers so she decides to steal it, this awakened the great fury of mice who threw fireballs at her, but Maui manages to escape turned into a hawk, in the film, we can see a scene just like this story, with the difference that the myth the angry goddess sets fire to the earth and the sea, to repair it Maui asks the gods to fall rain.}

        ^{Many of Maui's history are bloody reason why they were omitted by Disney, including her violent death which is said to have happened as the demigod decided one day to get inside the goddess of darkness, she suddenly woke up, Maui wanted to escape but she took a bite with her obsidian teeth killing him instantly.}

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        ^{The character of grandmother Tala, who in life is Moana's life advisor but after her death becomes her spiritual master, is based on an ancient legend of the Taotao Mona who tells that once dead, the ancestors appear on the island in the form of animals.}

        ^{The context of the story unfolds at a time when Polynesians really stopped sailing to seek other lands, for 2000 years they abandoned their boats in a period called the long pause. The reasons that made them embark after so long are speculated to be for climatic, astronomical reasons and for the poisoning of local algae, which is very similar to the facts of the film.}

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^{Disney did an excellent job of compiling and adapting these legends of Polynesian culture that are surprising to those of us who did not know them, transforming them into renewed fantasies that refresh mythology.}

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Source of external resources

Images courtesy of kisspng.com.
Cover, Spiral, Maui 1, Maui 2, Tattoo, Turtle, Palms.

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All Ideas of the gods go back to the early stages of human history.

^{- Chapman Cohen.}

If you liked this story you can also read the first installments:

First installment The little Mermaid.

Second installment The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Third installment Frozen.

Fourth installment The Lion King.

Fifth installment Mulán.

Sixth installment Pocahontas.

Seventh installment Balto.

Eighth installment Anastasia.

Ninth installment Aladdin.

Tenth installment Up.

11th installment Princess and the Frog.

12th installment Big Hero 6.

13th installment Hercules.

14th installment Thumbelina.

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