spoilers are present

I got to watch Moana this weekend gone and it is, for sure, one of my favourite Disney Princess movies.

I love how this movie fully embraced Polynesian culture and immersed us, the audience, in it.

I’m not going to pretend like I know a lot about Polynesian culture, I don’t. I first started learning about their culture when I was researching Hawai’i for a book. I wanted most of my characters to be Polynesian so I started researching. However I just looked into Hawai’i, as that’s where my book is based. This film took me further than just Hawai’i and I loved it.

The art, the colours, the sea and the story, it was all beautiful and very well done. I love how they incorporated the music, dance and tattoos of the culture and also nature and mythology and community.

I can’t say a bad thing about this movie.

About the plot though, there was no love story, I found that interesting. I was saying to my friend if they did a Moana 2 and incorporated a love story wouldn’t it be nice if she got with someone unexpected? In Disney movies it’s always this guy that comes from nowhere and whisks her off her feet or sometimes he’s a straight up stranger. I’d like it if we had a story where the female lead fell for a guy who’s already in her life. It’d be cute.

I also wanted to talk about what I learnt from the movie. I feel each Disney Princess teaches you something. Mulan (she’s a Princess in my heart) taught me to not be afraid of being a strong and independent boss ass woman. Jasmine taught me to trust my gut and to stand up for what I believe in. Tiana taught me it’s good to work hard but don’t let life pass you by. Anna taught me optimism and pure joy and  love. Rapunzel taught me to live and to enjoy life.

Moana taught me about me. I mean her whole journey is about herself and finding out who she is, whilst restoring the heart of Te Fiti. But even when restoring the heart “who you are” is the theme.

Do I know who I am?

That was a question I found I was asking myself. In these times where I’m in my early 20’s I thought I knew who I was but it turns out I still have some digging to do. I can’t wait till I’m 30 *sigh*

Anyway that is what I thought. It was a beautiful movie, I lowkey shed tears. If you haven’t already seen it go right now and see it… GO!

Adios 🙂

Ps: I liked how the film poked fun out of itself and Disney Princess films. Like with the whole you’re a Princess you even have a pet sidekick thing and the joke about the singing. It was cute.