The Motunui Villagers are background characters from the 2016 Disney animated feature film Moana. They are a group of villagers who live in the isle of Motunui.
Background[]
The Motunui villagers consist of many villagers who live with Chief Tui in the island of Motunui. Years ago before the ancient chiefs banned their routines in sailing on the ocean, the villagers were once voyagers who sail across the ocean and then follow the stars in the sky for their way to return home. After Maui took the Heart of Te Fiti and Te Fiti became Te Kā, monsters emerged from the ocean and the villagers became fearful when the sea monsters attacked them and the villagers stopped using boats to travel across the ocean and the ancient chiefs forbid voyaging, causing the villagers to forget who they were.
In the present, the villagers continued their duty staying on the island to collect resources for their village to keep their community growing. However, when the villagers notice the diseased trees resulting in scarcity of resources on the island, Moana receives advice from Gramma Tala who tells her to go on a voyage to seek Maui and restore the Heart of Te Fiti and restore the village of Motunui before everything the island perishes which Moana goes on a sailboat to go on a voyage across the reef. After the Heart of Te Fiti is restored and returned to Te Fiti, Motunui is restored, resulting in Chief Tui to lift the ban on sailboats just as the villagers remember who they were, as Tui allows the sailboats to voyage across the ocean once again.
Appearances[]
Moana[]
After Gramma Tala tells the legend of Maui the Heart of Te Fiti to Moana and a group of children, Chief Tui approaches his mother telling Moana that no one goes beyond the reef, saying that they will be safe as long as they stay on the island of Motunui due to no monsters lurking around the island only for Moana to arrive at the beach where she defends a baby sea turtle from frigatebirds and then brings it back to the Ocean. However, Tui finds his daughter who is on the beach approaching Moana, telling her to stay home.
The villagers appear during the musical number "Where You Are" where Chief Tui tells her daughter to know where she is meant to be. Throughout the musical number, Moana passes by the villagers collecting resources as they sing along with Tui who sings about the home where Moana exactly lives during the song. Moana continues to stay in the village where her parents, Tui, Sina, and the other villagers sing to help her find happiness of where she lives just before she approaches Tala at the shore. Moana, now a teenager, approaches her father, who shows her a sacred place for chiefs, telling his daughter that there will come a time that she will stand on this peak and place a stone on this mountain like what Tui's father and every other chief did to raise the whole island higher as Tui tells Moana that she is the one who contributes to the future of their island. Later, Moana passes by more villagers harvesting coconuts singing their part just as Moana sings that she will stay with the other villagers, planning to build the future of their village just as the villagers continue to sing along with Moana.
After the song, a villager complains to Tui and Sina that every storm, his roof leaks no matter how many fronds he adds to fix his roof; however, Moana replies to her that it's not the fronds she adds, telling the villager that the wind shifted the post just before Moana exits the villager's house. Moana encounters another villager who is receiving a tattoo from another villager which Moana sees his tattoo which has hardly started just before Moana dances with four children together. She then approaches another villager who tells her that he is curious of her pet chicken Heihei eating a rock which he plans to cook her chicken, which Moana denies, telling him that there is more than Heihei meets the eye. Moana then approaches another villager telling her that she was husking the coconuts and shows the inside containing diseased parts, followed by other villagers showing Moana more diseased coconuts, just as she suggests to the villagers to clear away the diseased trees and start a new coconut grove on the other side of the village. A fisherman approaches Tui and tells him that the traps he is using in the east lagoons are capturing less fish, as Moana suggests to rotate the fishing grounds by finding other sides with more fish just as the fisherman tells him that there are no fish in the whole lagoon. As Tui engages in a private conversation with the fisherman, he tells him that he will talk to the council about the problems for the villagers' resources. Moana interrupts, suggesting the fishermen to fish beyond the reef, which Tui tells his daughter to not go beyond the reef and instead stay in his family's village as part of his strict rule just before Moana goes into a discussion with her mother. Sina then tells her a story that down by the shore, Tui crossed the reef and found an unforgiving sea throughout a stormy night and after Tui's friend died during the storm, he enforced a rule to the villagers that no one goes beyond the reef just before Moana sings the musical number "How Far I'll Go".
During the musical number "How Far I'll Go", Moana passes by various villagers doing their routine as Moana sings that everybody seems so happy on the island and that every villager has a role on the island, which Moana thinks that she can roll with hers just before Moana continues singing about her desire on going beyond the reef. After the song, Moana encounters Gramma Tala on the beach, who shows Moana something that she wants to hear, showing her a secret chamber telling a story of how their ancestors stayed within the reef. Moana enters the secret chamber to see herself to know who she was meant to be just as she bangs on a drum to know who her ancestors really are.
The sequence shifts to a flashback sequence of Matai Vasa and a group of voyagers sailing on their boats during the musical number "We Know the Way" just as they sing about their voyages throughout their lives, singing that they are explorers who found Motunui and how they use stars to find their way across the ocean just as Moana realizes that her ancestors were voyagers, which Moana asks her grandmother of why her ancestors stopped sailing across the ocean. Tala tells her a story of the demigod Maui who stole the Heart of Te Fiti, causing monsters to emerge on the ocean and the villagers stopped using boats for transportation. As a result, the ancient chiefs forbid voyaging, causing the villagers to forget who they are before Maui took the Heart of Te Fiti as the darkness continued to spread, causing a negative effect to the resources on the island, just as Tala tells Moana that only restoring the Heart of Te Fiti will save the day.
As Moana returns to the council, the villagers are discussing with Chief Tui about the disadvantages of what happened to their resources which as Moana enters, she tells her father that she will stop the darkness to save the island by restoring the Heart of Te Fiti, telling the villagers to know who they are; Tui denies, planning to burn the boats like he was supposed to do a long time ago. However, before Tui can burn the boats, a villager warns him about his mother Tala is dying from an illness. As Moana's grandmother dies, the villagers mourn her death, which Moana plans to seek Maui throughout her voyage just as Moana leaves the village to save the day while Tala reincarnates into a giant manta ray.
Later when Moana is losing faith in herself, she reunites with her grandmother who is now a spirit since just as she sings to Moana saying that she must keep her faith within her heart so she can save her people, just as Moana recognizes who she really is. During the musical number "I Am Moana (Song of the Ancestors)", Moana recognizes that her people were descended from voyagers just as she sees a flashback of Matai Vasa and a group of voyagers sailing on their boats as Moana becomes resilient to know who she is, just as she gains the Heart of Te Fiti in a plan to save the day.
After Moana restores the Heart of Te Fiti by returning it to Te Kā, which causes her to become Te Fiti, the island of Motunui is restored when Te Fiti restored all life on the island; Moana reunites with her parents and the other villagers who are happy to see her home. Tui then lifts the ban on sailboats, causing the villagers to remember their duties as voyagers. Moana then places a conch shell on the pile of stones at the top of the mountain where Chief Tui showed to her in the past for her job well done just before sailing with the other voyagers on the ocean. During the reprise of "We Know the Way", Moana sails with her parents, her chicken Heihei, and her pig Pua along with other villagers sailing across the ocean just as Gramma Tala in the form of a giant manta ray swims past by and later Maui in the form of a hawk flying past by just as Moana and the other voyagers use boats as transportation across the ocean once again.
Disney Parks[]
Moana: A Homecoming Celebration[]
In the Hong Kong Disneyland attraction, actors representing villagers take part during the live show which retells the story of Moana and her adventures across the sea and how she saved the day.
Magic Happens[]
Dancers representing the villagers of Motunui appear in the Moana-themed unit where they are seen using Kakamora puppets. Other performers include a villager pulling the Kakamora boat and another villager serving as a drummer, followed by the Maui float passing by and later the Coco-themed unit.
Trivia[]
- Some of the incidental villagers were voiced by credited actors:
- The villager who was complaining about the leaks on his roof, was voiced by Troy Polymalu, a professional football player.
- The female villager who tells Moana about the coconut problem, was voiced by Puanani Cravalho, mother of Auli'i Cravalho. Coincidentally, the villager voiced by Puanani has a striking resemblance to Moana.
- Alan Tudyk, who voiced Heihei in the film, voiced a villager who tried to cook Heihei. Ironically, unlike Heihei who has no spoken dialogues in the film, the villager who tried to cook Heihei had dialogues.
- One of the fishermen who talking to Tui was voiced by Oscar Kightley, which is Kightley's first Disney role.
