Moana [2016] (3 discs)

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• First musical film for Dwayne Johnson. Dwayne Johnson is a firm believer that voice-acting is the most difficult career in acting, and is personally annoyed by celebrities being cast in animated films despite their bad delivery in voicing their characters. When Johnson was cast for the film, he repeatedly asked the other voice-actors present if he was indeed giving a good performance.
• Lin-Manuel Miranda has stated the character of Tamatoa the Giant Crab was a tribute to musician David Bowie.
• Lin-Manuel Miranda has stated that The Little Mermaid had inspired him to become a songwriter for films like this. He named his son (born during production of this film) Sebastian, after the crab from that movie.
• Lin-Manuel Miranda was signed on to write the music for Moana before the Broadway stage musical Hamilton became a worldwide phenomenal hit. After it did, he would often chat with the rest of the crew through Skype from backstage, sometimes still in costume.
• With actors/actresses consisting of Dwayne Johnson, Auli'i Cravalho, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison, Jemaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger, Oscar Kightley, and Troy Polamalu, this marks the first time where Polynesians performers are the main focus of a Disney/Hollywood film.
• When he first gets his hook and is trying to shapeshift, Maui changes into various animals. For a split second, he turns into Sven the Reindeer from Frozen.
• The villager who suggests cooking Heihei is voiced by Alan Tudyk who also provides Heihei's vocal effects. This is the fifth consecutive Disney animated feature for Alan Tudyk following Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, and Zootopia.
• Heihei is voiced by Alan Tudyk, while Pua's vocalizations are sampled from real pigs, making this one of the few animated projects by Disney where neither Frank Welker nor Dee Bradley Baker supply the animal vocal effects.
• Originally HeiHei was a smart animal and Disney was going to delete him from the movie. They lowered his IQ to bring the movie a funny aspect.
• Dwayne Johnson had always wanted to work with directors John Musker and Ron Clements, having loved Aladdin when it came out in 1992 and his daughter loved both Aladdin and The Little Mermaid.
• When Maui transforms into shark head Maui, we can see that his stomach tattoo changes to him with his shark head holding his hook
• Villagers are seen beating a rug which resembles the magic carpet from Aladdin. Also, the genie's lamp from Aladdin can be seen on Tamatoa's shell.
• Samoan Holler: As Maui jumps into the Realm of Monsters, he shouts "cheehoo." This is an expression of excitement rooted in the Samoan origins, and is often said in Hawaii. This makes Moana the first time "cheehoo" is used in a Disney animated film. It can easily be mistaken for a Goofy Holler, one of the recurring sounds that's shown up in Disney Films over the years.
• Moana's father has a tattoo that is reminiscent of Dwayne Johnson's Samoan tribal tattoos on his left pectoral muscle and left arm. Many other characters have either tattoos similar to Johnson's tattoo or the actual tattoo.
• This is Jemaine Clement's fourth animated film. His first one was Despicable Me, where he voiced minion Jerry, and the other two times had been in Rio and its sequel Rio 2, where he voiced Nigel the Cockatoo.
• When Moana strikes the drum on the ancient ship in the cave on her home island, she has a vision of her ancestors roaming the seas. During this vision we see an example of navigating by the stars; the familiar constellation Orion is clearly seen in the sky. However it is near the horizon and appears rotated at an angle that could only be seen by an observer in the southern hemisphere. This is the film's only clue as to the geographic region of its events. To find Maui, Moana follows a star pattern that resembles Maui's hook. "Maui's Fishhook" is actually a real constellation in some Polynesian cultures. In Western cultures, this constellation is known as Scorpius, with the hook being likened to a scorpion tail. Although, the real Fishhook/Scorpius looks nothing like the star pattern shown in the movie.
• Due to copyright issues, this movie is called Vaiana in the Netherlands. This led to having the voice actors come back to record some of their lines again.
• Jemaine Clement and Nicole Scherzinger worked together in Men in Black 3.
• The curious polygonal pillars that Moana and Maui climb to reach the entrance to Lalotai are faithful renditions of so called basalt columns. Columnar basalt is formed when thick lava cools slowly and exist not only on Earth but has also been observed on Mars. So Moana and Maui are essentially jumping down into the middle of an old lava flow.
• Most characters in Moana's village have either variations of the tattoos Maui's voice actor Dwayne Johnson has in real life or the actual tattoos.