Moana (film)

"The ocean is calling."

- Tagline

Moana is a 2016 computer animated, musical adventure film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 56th film in the Disney animated feature canon. Originally described as a "mythic adventure set around 2000 years ago and across a series of islands in the South Pacific." , the film follows the journey of a spirited teenager named Moana as she embarks on a quest across the Pacific Ocean to save her people.

The film is to be directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, renowned for their directorial work on The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and The Princess and the Frog among other projects.

The film was released on November 23, 2016. The short film, Inner Workings, accompanied the film, theatrically.

Plot
Three thousand years ago, the greatest sailors in the world voyaged across the vast South Pacific, discovering the many islands of Oceania. But then, for a millennium, their voyages stopped — and no one today knows why. From Walt Disney Animation Studios comes Moana, a sweeping, CG-animated adventure about a spirited teenager who sails out on a daring mission to prove herself a master wayfinder and fulfill her ancestors’ unfinished quest. During her journey, she meets the once-mighty demi-god Maui (voice of Dwayne Johnson), and together, they traverse the open ocean on an action-packed voyage, encountering enormous fiery creatures and impossible odds.

Cast

 * Auli'i Cravalho as Moana Waialiki
 * Dwayne Johnson as Maui
 * Phillipa Soo as a villager
 * Alan Tudyk as Heihei
 * Temuera Morrison as Tui
 * Nicole Scherzinger as Sina
 * Rachel House as Gramma Tala
 * Jemaine Clement as Tamatoa

Development
After directing The Princess and the Frog, Musker and Clements started working on an adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Mort, but rights problems prevented them from continuing with that project. To avoid similar problems, they pitched three new ideas, and in 2011 started developing the film based on an original idea.

Moana is Musker and Clement's first fully computer-animated film. Moana Waialiki is Disney's first Polynesian princess. Although initially rumoured to be made in hand-drawn/computer-animated technique introduced with Disney's short film Paperman, Musker said that it is "far too early to apply the Paperman hybrid technique to a feature. The Meander digital in-betweening interface still has a host of production issues (including color) that need to be perfected." According to Musker, the idea of an animated film set in the South Pacific was both intriguing to him, and John Lasseter. After pitching the idea, a team was sent to the South Pacific for a two-week research trip. In during which, they met with chiefs, navigators, experts, and natives to garner understanding of the culture. The following research trip involved the animation and music teams. To ensure cultural accuracy, the studio created what was dubbed the "Oceanic Story Trust". The group consisted of anthropologists, cultural practitioners, historians, linguists, and choreographers from islands including Samoa, Tahiti, Mo’orea, and Fiji. The trust served as consultants for the filmmakers, and played a major role in developing every aspect of the movie.

During their research, the filmmakers learned that voyages across the South Pacific ceased for a thousand years. About 2,000 years in the past, they started once more, but the reason for the lull period had never been definitively confirmed, given the oral state of the culture. Moana is meant to act as Disney's interpretation of an explanation.

On October 20, 2014, Disney announced that Moana ' s release date would be late 2016.

In November 2014, Dwayne Johnson (also known as The Rock) was announced to voice the demigod Maui and join Moana on her action packed voyage

As revealed at the 2015 Disney D23 expo, the film is to be scored by Mark Mancina, Opetaia Foa’i, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. According to John Musker, the music will be a fusion of the three collaboraters, with the Pacific roots of Opetaia, the sense of narrative from Miranda, and Macina's sense of "world music".

On October 7, 2015, Walt Disney Animation Studios released a video announcing the casting of 14-year-old Hawaiian native, Auli'i Cravalho, who will officially portray Moana.

Dialogue recording for the film was completed on July 16, 2016.

Trivia

 * 700 drafts of the movie were written by the time of Jared Bush's first year on the project.
 * The film features the first major traditionally-animated character in a computer-animated Disney animated canon film, in the form of Mini Maui (animated by Eric Goldberg and Mark Henn).
 * By the time of Auli'i Cravalho's casting, Moana's design had already been finalized.
 * Heihei was initially portrayed as a hot-tempered bully, but his character was drastically changed and became "very, very stupid".
 * Some of the locations visited during the research trip to have influenced the film include Fiji, Samoa, and Tahiti.
 * Moana does not have a love interest in the film.
 * Moana is the first film in history to be translated into Tahitian.