Moana is a movie based on a girl who has inspired audiences, particularly young kids, to follow their own path, embrace uniqueness, and find the courage to pursue what they think is important despite it being challenging. It is also about courage, perseverance, and cultural values. The movie is consistently among the top 10 most streamed movies. It is in Disney’s top-watched movies of all time history featuring the star voice talents of Dwayne Johnson and Auli’i Cravalho.
According to Disney, the original movie released in 2016 sold 59 million tickets in the US alone, and estimated around 150 million tickets sold globally.
With such high expectations from Moana 1, movie spectators rushed to the theaters over Thanksgiving break to watch the current release. Moana 2 was better than the first one because the visuals/ animations were better and the music was catchy. It also had an epic adventure, good family ties, and the storyline was very put together. As with any movie, opinions vary on how good or bad Moana 2 was, and of course, our Gator community is no different.
Olivia Jankowska, a student at Green level, states, ¨In my opinion I loved Moana 2, I even thought that it was better than the first one because it had a very good storyline, made me emotional from the plot, and I overall just loved the culture that was being spread. If a 3rd Moana came out I would absolutely go and watch it and pass this movie on to feature generations.¨
Diya Patel, who is also a student at Green Level, also stated, ¨In my opinion after watching Moana 2, I thought it was for sure a good movie but it was just not as good as the first one because the plot confused me a little bit because I had forgotten what happened at the end of Moana 1. One significant part of Moana is the music, in Moana 2 I just didn’t enjoy the music as much as the first one. But I would go watch Moana 3 if it gets released in the feature to compare it to the other 2 that have been released.
Even though opinions vary, Moana fans stay hopeful that Disney will announce a 3rd movie so that we can keep the themes of following your own path, embracing your uniqueness, and being courageous alive for generations to come.
