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Disney’s MOANA Promises A Beautiful Story Of Oceanic And Self-Exploration

Disney Animation can already call 2016 a huge success thanks to the brilliant reviews and billion-dollar box office 

earned back in March. The year is far from over, however, and an even bigger hit may be on the horizon. Disney’s 

, the story of a girl who embraces exploratory adventure over isolationist fear to save and restore the traditions of her people, looks like it could be Disney Animation’s biggest box office smash since 

was part of a select group of press invited to an advanced press day for the film just over a month ago. During the event, we were given new information about the story and themes of 

. We were also shown some new clips from the film. Visually, I’m hard-pressed to think of any animated film that has impressed me more in terms of beauty and scale than 

It is going to be as easy for the audience to fall in love with 

as it was for the title character to fall in love the ocean. We saw a more complete version of the sequence shown at D23 EXPO last year in which a very young Moana meets the ocean for the first time and discovers it is every bit as alive as she is. There is so much beauty and warmth in the scene as the ocean shows Moana all of the life inside it.

Young Moana interacting with the Ocean. | Source: Disney

That moment has a lasting effect on Moana (Auli‘i Cravalho), as she finds herself being naturally pulled in a direction that has become counterintuitive to her people on the island of Motunui. Oceanic exploration is not the way of her people, but as she’ll discover, it was long before Moana was born. Moana’s journey is a fantastical take on the very real history of Pacific Islanders and the islands of the South Pacific.

One of the essential elements Disney Animation (and Pixar) boss John Lasseter requires in storytelling is research. With that in mind, producer Osnat Shurer joked how she and the creative team were “forced to go to the South Pacific,” but came way from the trip with new ideas about the story and themselves based on the people they met.

They not only changed the story we wanted to tell. They changed us.

Directors John Musker and Ron Clements, whom you should know from their work on Disney classics like 

, shared what they learned on their trip and how it became the basis for 

Musker: On our research trips when we went to the South Pacific, we learned firsthand the importance of navigation to this culture. So really, we built the whole story around the true fact of Pacific Islanders being the greatest navigators the world have ever seen. 3,000 years ago, they found their way across the Pacific starting in Taiwan and going through New Guinea and working their way from west to east. One of the greatest feats of nautical exploration [was that] they used dead reckoning. They had no instruments whatsoever. Based on their knowledge of the stars and the current, they found their way across the ocean. A great feat that we wanted to celebrate.

Clements: According to the experts that we spoke with, about 3,000 years ago, everything stopped. All voyaging stopped. For a thousand years, everyone just stayed put and they didn’t migrate. And then about 2,000 years ago, it started up again and then they proceeded to populate the eastern Pacific including Tahiti and Hawaii and New Zealand. And because it was a an oral culture, nothing was written down. To this day, no one actually knows why the voyaging stopped or how it started again. It’s a mystery. There are a lot of theories. And we came up with a theory, actually, which is the basis of our movie. The idea here, and there’s a fantasy aspect to it, but what if there happened to be one young girl that was responsible for things starting up again?

That girl, of course, is Moana whom the directors went on to describe.

Musker: Her name means “Ocean” in several of the Pacific languages. The movie is built around her love of the ocean. She’s sixteen, she’s the daughter of a chief, she’s fearless, she’s high-spirited, she’s very smart, she’s nimble, athletic, may I use the word ‘badass?’

Moana’s love of the ocean is not the only thing that has inspired her to explore. While many on the island, including her father, Chief Tui (Temuera Morrison), have come to fear the ocean, it is Moana’s grandmother, Tala (Rachel House), who still remembers the history of their ancient ancestors as explorers and passes that on to Moana.

Clements: The Chief has one rule on the island of Motunui where they live and that is that no one ever goes beyond the reef. He just believes it’s too dangerous. Anyone who’s ever tried has never returned and he is protective of his people and particularly of his daughter, so he insists that she must never go in the water. But on the other hand, Moana’s grandmother, Tala, has a really different point of view. She’s very connected to their legacy of voyaging and she really, really wants to see it return and kind of inspires Moana. Tala also is a storyteller and she tells all these amazing stories including stories of the legendary demigod known as Maui. And in fact, our movie opens with Tala telling a story about Maui.

At that point, we were shown the opening three minutes of the film with Tala telling the story of how the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) stole the Heart of Tafiti, which (without spoiling anything) led to his own disappearance and left the ocean and the islands in a very vulnerable position until the Heart, which is a stone, is returned to the island of Tafiti.

As the story ends, we see that Gramma Tala has been telling this to the very young children of Motunui, all of whom are terrified, except Moana who smiles. Moana’s desire to explore, however, becomes complicated as she gets older and the pending responsibilities of adulthood begin to take shape.

Musker: As [Moana] grows up, her father keeps trying to pull her away from the ocean. It’s too dangerous out there. But he wants Moana to be the next chief so he’s really grooming her for that role, which puts her at odds because he feels the village needs her. She senses that responsibility and yet she is still drawn to the ocean and she does not understand quite why.

Clements: She has the inner conflict. She’s sixteen-years-old. She doesn’t know who she is. She goes to her grandmother, who she is very, very close to, even closer than her parents and confides her problems. And Gramma decides that on this specific, special day that it’s time to tell Moana the biggest secret that has been kept from her. The secret on the island and she takes Moana to this hidden cave where Moana will kind of finally understand why she has been drawn to the ocean her whole life.

Clements was setting up the next clip, which was a gorgeous scene in which Moana discovers all of the ships that her ancestors once used to sail across the seas. Drums start pounding and the music gets louder and louder as Moana connects with the spirit of her ancestry. The song, “We Know the Way,” was co-written and performed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tevaka and you can hear it on the first 

This is the moment where everything becomes clear for Moana, according to Musker.

She finally understands her purpose that she should be a voyager like her ancestors.

, aims to succeed by telling a story that is every bit as beautiful as the characters and environments it animates. The story quickly evolves into one of identity, both for Moana as an individual and the villagers of Motunui as a collective people. It is about people fighting through their fear to not only be who they are now, but also the best version of who they can be in the future.

is in theaters November 23 and we will have more stories from the advanced press day in the coming days and weeks. We will explore how the movie was made and, now that Moana has discovered her true identity, what she must do to save her people.

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Sean Gerber is the founder and editor-in-chief of Modern Myth Media. When he\'s not writing here, you can catch him as the host of Popular Opinion Podcast, Batman News, and Marvel News!