Blank Check with Griffin & David - Moana with Lenika Cruz

Episode Date: March 21, 2021

Griffin and David are finally doing it! They are CONSIDERING THE COCONUT! In addition to the coconut they also have an in-depth conversation about Musker and Clements’ final (and best?) film together, 2016's Moana. A departure from their typical 2D animation style, and a shift from Disney’s typical Princess / Prince structure, their first fully CG film delves into a Polynesian mythology AND makes everyone cry.  They are joined this week by Lenika Cruz (The Atlantic) and discuss heavy topics like parental relationships and leaving home, as well as topics on the lighter side such as; what is the best use of The Rock, and will we be over Lin Manuel Miranda again this coming year.  Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

consider the coconuts what The pods and the casts. Ha! Did I do it right? Yeah, I think that works. Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you. Wow, good job by me. Perfect.

I was going to, they're the three times, they're two times they say. Because I always used to mess up the line, of course. I would say, consider the coconut, consider its leaves. And then people would correct me.

I think this was my fault. I think I am the one who transposed the line in my head somehow. And then I would I would say it. And I think I planted it in your head. I think it's some weird way. But what is it really? OK, so the first time it's consider the coconut, the what consider its tree. And then the second time, it's consider the coconuts, the trunks, and the leaves. So we were mashing the second lines together. Consider its leaves. We took every part of what we were saying was correct. And you do have to consider it.

We weren't wrong. You should consider its leaves. It's that thing where I got a little disappointed to remember the real line because I thought it was funnier that he goes right to the leaves. Like because it seems like a sort of weird thing to be like, consider it's leaves, man. Like, you know, that's the thing. I think that's why we transpose it, because it was funnier to us.

But obviously it's great no matter what. And you do have to consider the coconut, obviously. You know what? I mean, the considered coconut, I feel like has been a key bit on this show for so long, for the majority of its run, that when we decided to do Musker Clements, it didn't even register for me. Oh, we're finally going to consider the coconut. I wasn't even thinking about how much this is the realization of a long held promise to our listeners that someday we would, in fact, consider the coconut long form on this podcast and what is this podcast is blank check wow i'm saying the name with with whom griffin and david and what's it about uh wait i have to do the spiel let's see if you can uh okay um wow it is crazy that i am freezing up right now not remembering what what the spiel of our podcast is

Oh, so suddenly it doesn't look so easy to be Griffin, does it? No, it doesn't Okay, it's a podcast about filmographies Correct Directors who get a series of blank checks Ha! For crazy passion projects See, I'm already messing up

Go on, you're correct. Go on. Okay, okay, okay. And sometimes they clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. Great. And this is a maesters on the films of Musker Clements. You were not quite word perfect,

but I'll accept it. I'll give you a 97. Ron Musker, Ron Clements and John Musker, another pair that I transpose the names of a lot of the time. I was going to say, I'm sure you've noticed, I just don't even say their first names anymore in the intro because I'm convinced I'm going to McQuarrie McQuarrie it up every single time. But it is the films of Musker and Clements.

Ron Musker, John Clements. Ron Clements, John Musker. See, I can't. I don't even. I resent trying. Yes. I regret and resent myself. And I recuse myself from this podcast.

It is a miniseries called The Pottle Murcast. That's right. This is the final episode. And today we're talking about their final film. They have now retired from Disney, at least. Rumors abound that perhaps one of them is working independently on his own project outside of the studio system. But it sounds like a little thing, right?

We were talking about that the other day. He's apparently, let me triple check this. I think it's John Musgrave is hand drawing a short film by himself. That seems like, it's like when your dad retires and then he like works on a car engine or something. You know what I mean? Like it sounds like just kind of like a fun retirement project. So anyway, it feels like him doing what George Lucas has always promised to do. Yeah. Where he's like, oh, yeah, I'll just make weird short movies about cars. Yeah. No, no, no, no. Right. And maybe I won't even show him to people. Yeah. Right. Well, maybe he is doing that.

But that's not what this is about, okay? We're talking Moana. We're considering The Coconut, their final film. Maybe their best? Wow. You think it's their best film? I was debating it while watching it. I was debating it while watching it.

Because I feel like... It's pretty good. Look, this is rarely a claim we get to make on this podcast. And rarely a claim we get even close to considering on this podcast. Right? We have covered very few complete filmographies. Yeah, only a couple. Right.

And by and large, the last film is not their best. By and large, as a rule, filmmakers do not make their best movies at the end of their career. Right. In general, even outside of this podcast. Yes. And if this is not their best film, it is at least arguable. It's at least in the conversation. Sure. Okay.

Right? They made The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, but yes, I know what you're saying. Yes. I just don't think it's an absurd thing for me to suggest. I don't either. I like it. As opposed to arguing that Ricky and the Flash is better than Silence of the Lambs. This is at least a conversation you could have.

Our guest is being so respectful, so polite, but she doesn't understand that on this show, chaos reigns. I know, but I'm letting you do i know but i'm letting you do your thing i'm letting you do your thing until i can erupt okay all right that's fair enough okay like uh from the atlantic lenica cruz first time on the show my co-worker my longtime colleague uh your co-worker but i'm also realizing for the intro i should have asked what your official title is within the bts army these days do you have a rank i am just just a one of many one of many millions yes a mere foot soldier thank you so much for being on the show thank you i'm so excited and when david asked me at the end of last year to be on

this, I was like, oh, finally, I have something to look forward to in 2021. Like I had nothing. I was like, I just need something to pull me over the edge of this this year and into the next one. So here we are. I hear that loud and clear. I feel like so much of things to look forward to for me now are just like, oh, I'm going to withhold. I'm going to not watch Moana for four months so that when I watch it, when it's time for the episode, it will feel really good. It'll hit different.

Did you watch it tonight? I did, yeah. But this is a movie I throw on a lot. Like this is, David, you were talking about how you'll just kind of throw on Princess and the Frog as a bomb. It's one you'll like flip on a lot. This is a movie where even if I'm just like tired, I'm like, let me watch just like 20 minutes of Moana until I fall asleep. Let me just watch these sequences.

Let me watch the whole thing. Right. I watch a lot of the songs. I do do that. I haven't watched the movie in total in a couple years. I do both. I jump around. I watch specific scenes.

I'll watch just the beginning. I'll watch the whole thing. I listen to the soundtrack. It's a movie I find very relaxing and soothing. How's the pain over here? I'll jump around. I feel like I trust your claim then that it's maybe the best of their filmography if you've seen it

so many times. I don't think it's a movie I don't think it's a perfect film. There are minor issues I have with it, but I also think it's like, I mean, I guess jumping into the deep end here, but I got a DM. I've been poorly managing the social media channels

for Whitejack while we- You've been doing all right. I'm enjoying it. I resent every time i have to log on to any form of social media it stresses me out i i'm trying to push away from all of it uh and then to whoever uh ultimately we we hired to do the job we'd much better at it than i am but um uh someone dm'd us and said like so let me get this straight griffin likes tenant because the rules don't make any sense and doesn'tiffin likes tenant because the rules don't make any sense

and doesn't like wonder woman 1984 because the rules don't make any sense and i wanted to just respond yes correct oh okay wait this is just okay okay right someone some listener right who i i we never interacted with i i don't believe i've ever interacted with before online sent that dm and i didn't respond but in my head i was like yes I do defend that because I think part of at least what we try to do on this show and not I certainly think I feel sometimes I get caught in traps of shit. But like you want to judge a movie by what it's trying to be right. Movies exist. You know, they can be judged on different criteria based on the relative terms of what type of film they're trying to be and how well they work in that regard. There's no overall rules of all good movies need to be this.

This is a central tenet of film criticism, in my opinion. You don't want to be like, I have an objective formula that I can plug any movie into. And if it fails, you know, then my tests, then that's silly. Yeah, it's right. And sometimes I get, you know, I fall prey to like, oh, man, I'm really into this idea of what the movie could be instead. But I feel like very often when I throw out alternative ideas, they were like, this feels like a cleaner execution of what they're trying to do.

That having said, I realize after we recorded our flight episode, oh, every complaint I made about flight is just that it's not Sully. Right. Well, truly, every complaint was just this isn't Sully, which is not fair because there's only one movie in history that's Sully. But this is a film for me where I like everything it's trying to do so goddamn much that it's failings for me, which are very slight. I am more willing to forgive because I think they come so close to executing something

that feels a lot more narratively ambitious than most films of itself. Lenica, I know you like this movie a lot because you used to tweet about it a lot. Did I? Or maybe you still do. Well, I remember you tweeting about it or maybe you were talking to me. I cannot remember why. I feel like I tweeted about it a lot when it came out because I watched it a bunch. And it was just like, I don't know, had a lot of personal meaning for me that year and just seeing like I don't know Polynesian culture

and just all of that stuff um and so I worried that I was blinded but like literally the first time I saw the movie I was like crying for the first 10 to 15 minutes and I was like I don't even know what happened like there are two songs that are happening already so i needed to go back um but re-watching it like all the all the emotional beats that hit so hard the first time i watched it had the same power yeah like every time i'm just like tears are being squeezed from my eyes this movie just hits for me like i just think the highs of it are so goddamn high and when it's when it's really trucking it's like it feels just like a static you know and it's emotions yeah it does yeah it has true transcendent moments what were you about to say david well i was i mean i feel like we've talked about this on the show and we have as as people of fans have noted we've talked about this

month in movies a weird amount yeah not for any intentional reason but we've talked about this month in movies a weird amount yeah not for any intentional reason but we've talked about movies that came out in november 2016 uh allied dr strange i think what was another one um griff the l the uh the verhoeven movie was was billy lynn 16 or was that 17 wasn't billy lynn a summer movie no you're right. No, Billy Lynn. That's another one. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Billy Lynn, November 20th, November 18th, 2016.

This month was just and as you've talked about many times, like it's hard to really accurately judge your or or or stick with your first blush opinions of movies you saw in November 2016 right after the election. Right. That's, you know, this is what we've talked about. This is a movie I saw a day or two after the 2016 election. And I remember just not being in the mood for a Disney movie, which is rude of me. I think, actually, I don't know why I was being such a big baby. I know why. I don't think I like ever put my thoughts down on paper about it,

but I remember my takeaway being like, oh, it's good. Yeah. It peaks early, I think. The best two songs are at the start, but my take being like, yeah, it's good. I liked it. Yeah, you were like, it's nice.

It's cute. It's not great, but it's good. And then I. You know? Yeah. You were like, it's nice. It's cute. It's not like great, but it's good. And then I remember like a year or two later, like a lot of my friends who have kids really like this movie. Yeah. I think because it is free of Disney princess fraught things that they worry about. And, you know,

the new parents, I guess, are like, Oh, I'm going to, what should I be showing my kid first? Like, you know,

so maybe I think that's a part of it, but also it's just a very enchanting and pretty movie that their kids really respond to so i just remember talking to someone who's like you know what's really good is moana like moana is great and i was like oh yeah moana was good and i like and then i went back to it and i was like this is like way better than i remember this is way yeah uh and that's probably the first time that i considered that ron clements and john musker had made it you know more serious right where i was like oh well these guys kind of are the master of the the modern disney musical like so maybe like that's that's part of what i'm liking about it but anyway that's just it's a

boring art but and then like i watched it tonight and I was just like sobbing. Just just a mess. Yeah, I do. I do think that's a thing, too, of just like friends who have become parents who have kids. This movie kind of with that age group is almost on equal footing with Frozen. Even if Frozen feels like more of a cultural juggernaut, you talk to young parents with young kids and they're like, it's just Moana and Frozen.

Like those are the two. And they're the two that are in constant rotation. They're the two where the songs are being sung constantly. And those parents are also like, Moana's a lot better than Frozen. Like from the people who have had to watch this movie 40 times. That was exactly it. They were like, look, I'm in the trenches right now. My kids want

to watch five movies total. And Moana is the one that holds up the best. That's the one that is the most rewarding on repeat viewing. And in a lot of ways feels the most sophisticated and nuanced for me in how it avoids a lot of those trappings that you're talking about and still creates a story that is able to hit the same sort of dramatic highs, build to the same comedy, the same tension, the same emotion without relying on a lot of those old tricks. And a part of it is for me, it's the thing I really like about this movie above all else. And David, you were talking about this in the Princess and the Frog episode, how they've been

like working so hard to try to redefine the disney princess right right and make these films a romantic and make the characters more sort of empowered strong-headed and what have you uh to sort of redefine the the young you know to make the reward not marriage of you know is sort of the big thing yeah but also you look at like reviews of when Aladdin came out and when Beauty and the Beast came out and they're like, finally, like a strong minded, independent female character at one of these Disney movies. She's not wishy washy. She's not like Cinderella, you know, and then you watch those films and they feel very retrograde in a lot of ways. And, you know, there's this constant

thing we've talked about where Disney is constantly trying to be like, no, no, we're woke, we're woke, we're woke. Like we're constantly trying to be better than we were the last movie. And part of that is just because these movies hold so much cultural weight. They do like shape young minds that I think they're constantly being judged more and more harshly as to what those stereotypes and archetypes are that they're perpetuating. This one for me is like such an interesting arc because it really is just about she's right the whole movie, right? Like she doesn't have a giant character flaw. There's not a lesson she needs to learn. The conflict of this movie is her understanding how to be a person.

It's not ideologically she has the wrong approach. You know, it's not that she has a belief that is wrongly held that she needs to be disabused of. It is that like she understands the weight of the fact that she's going to have to be a leader someday, which is something the princess movies never really take into account. Right. Right. Anything less than that sort of being a ceremonial title that grants them a bunch of nice dresses and shit that she's like i there are a people that i am responsible for taking care of and she views i think in the way a lot of us uh do uh ben was just talking about this right before we record it but you get to a certain age and you start to reckon with your parents and you're like what did did they do wrong? And what did they do right? And how do I want to

be better than them? Right. And she's starting to become conscious of the fact that someday this is going to be hers. It's not her dad's. And she has to make the decisions. He disagrees. And she's like, I'm going to break the rules because I think this is right. It's not for selfish reasons. I think this needs to be done. And the movie is her dealing with how difficult it is to be an adult it's just her like trial and error figuring out how to do the things she wants to do and how to shoulder that responsibility that's a like a pretty heavy thing to make a children's film about yeah and to add to that i mean griffin i feel like this has come up on the podcast before you grew up in new york city i did yes i grew up in new york city yes yeah so i has come up on the podcast before. You grew up in New York City. I did, yes.

I grew up in New York City, yes. So I grew up on an island, yes. Yeah, exactly. So you have a lot of experience with this movie and what we're talking about. I got island time running through my blood at all times. Yeah, I get this movie. It speaks to me.

It calls me, yeah. But it made me think of also sort of like leaving behind your hometown and striking out on your own to forge your like your own self right and see this is why you like kiki's delivery service too ben you like any movie about like trying to you know get out right and go and make it somewhere and like you know it's hard and all that this is like a true coming of age movie but wrapped up in an adventure film and i was watching it i was, what other movies have a lead character arc like this? And it really kind of is like Luke

Skywalker. You know, Luke Skywalker doesn't have character flaws. Sure. Oh, sure. Yes. Yes. Luke doesn't. It's true. It's the flip. His dad is also a ruler, but he's the bad ruler. Right. But it's this idea of like, who do I want to be in relation to my parents or what's out there for me? I want to leave the space I'm in. I want to learn more about the world. He ends up on an island, ironically. He does.

And he fundamentally, I want to do good. Their moral compass is intact the entire time. Literally from the time she's a baby, like the first thing she does is protect a turtle like that. And then right after that, that's when the ocean's like, yes come here you are the chosen one you're right because like when i'm watching this movie the first scene is there's a cute little chubby toddler who's like walking around on the beach i'm like this is so cute but like you're there is actual thematic meaning threaded into this like that right the ocean is like, here's someone worthy.

Right. She's choosing between this shiny shell in the water. That's attracting her. It's her, you know, it's the appeal that the ocean has. And then the people back at home that she's trying to look out for. And like those two things kind of come together.

But I feel like the first, maybe like 15, 20 minutes of this movie before she heads out from motunui is like it's so dense which is why when i re-watched it tonight i had issues when i first watched this like with i felt like the pacing of the the first 15 20 minutes was just so you know there was just so much happening um and i really like as i was watching it slowly i realized in the first sequence where um uh not we know the way um where you are where we where you are what what we'd like to call consider the coconut yes yeah consider consider the thank you consider the

coconut um i i didn't realize that her you know the little little mona character keeps on like making little sailboats and like i didn't see that because there was so much else going on with the villagers and um and and just like i tried to slow down the first chunk of that movie. But like it's they get everything in there. Like you don't need to pay attention to all those little details to know she wants to go into the to the ocean. But like it sets up all these conflicts with her. Like even within that song, she's growing up. She's gone from toddler to teenager.

She's being told like you're going to be ruling this island. You're going to be responsible for these people's lives. And even within that song she's like she's so ambivalent she you see her at one point seeing her grandmother like by the beach and she she runs to her at first and then the second time she's her grandmother she turns away from her and goes to where the people are so it's like she she goes through the the you know the coming of age like cycle in the first 15 minutes of the movie and then she has another one like cycle in the first 15 minutes of the movie and then she has another one she's helping the dumb chicken what's the dumb chicken's name hey hey right who we stand but right yeah but yes it's like she is constantly pulled to the ocean

they're always pulling her back but also we're seeing the whole uh ecology of the like we're seeing them farm and we're seeing them make things and we're seeing like how everything works and like it's it's that classic early disney song of like the work song they love it you know to kick things off with a good work song that kind of like uh establishes a status quo that then can be broken but it's funny then you know it's impressive to mix that in with like there's all this little detail about moana yeah and there's like a thing you know i think that there's the prologue in tangled where you see her as a little girl uh and they sold so much fucking merchandise of toddler rapunzel that i i think they've said as much that it was like a decree like every one of these movies needs to open with a prologue where the main

character is a toddler. They just, they double merchandise sales. If they do that. Frozen does that right. Moana does that. Wait, there's another,

of course, of course, finding Dory. We remember when Dory is a little, a little fish. We stand. But yes, as you said,

I mean, it's, it's those three, but it's the three modern princess movies have all done that. And even Tiana does that. Princess and the Frog does that. Tiana is a little baby. Yep.

Talking to her dad. I still feel like I'm forgetting an obvious one. Well, Zootopia, the little rabbit is a little kid. She's a little bunny. Yeah. And then she's like, I want to be a cop. I wonder how Zootopia would little rabbit is a little kid she's a little bunny and then she's like I want to be a cop I wonder how Zootopia would go right now I haven't watched Zootopia in a few years

I rewatched it like maybe six months ago at a time when it felt like it would be the most problematic because I was just like I'm curious how this holds up and it's one of those things where when it starts you're just like did we really all fall for this and by the end of the movie you're like fuck it works it's right well that's the disney thing i mean obviously it just it so works on just a basic story level even if the semiotics

of it are a little bit dodgy right uh sorry but back to moana back to the little moana but no but yes to lenica's point it's just, the prologue thing is just like, at this point, a corporate mandate, right? That's like part of your budget. You're not going to get the green light unless you figure out

how to do an opening number with the toddlers so that we can sell those dolls and shit. And the fact that it actually establishes so much, not just in the background, but as you said, Lenica,

about the characterization and like the whole thing of being drawn to the water, feels like i even think before seeing this movie i expected it was going to be like a billy elliott thing of like i want to be a sailor and the dad's like no you need to be a princess and she runs away in like rebellion right and it's like no she takes to the water because that's the thing she thinks needs to be done to help the people of the island. But also there's this odd nature nurture thing because they talk about how the people of Mata Nui used to be adventurers, used to be sailors. They've repressed that within themselves.

And there's something innately just drawing them like it's they're going against the very temperament of their island and their culture by shutting off this part of themselves. And also just happy that neither of her parents die. Because I do feel like there's so many Disney movies propelled by that, by parent peril. But grandma. Just grandma peril, yeah. But it's not really peril. She's not in peril. She's just old and, you know.

Yeah, right. It's a little more serene what's happening with the grandma. But it's not really peril. She's not in peril. She's just old and, you know. Yeah, right. You know, it's a little more serene what's happening with the grandma. But it's true. There is some grandma peril. You're right. You're right. She stays there with her, you know, throughout the whole movie. Yeah.

Right. There's that thing. There's the fact that the grandmother kind of feels like she's letting go of her own volition to a certain degree. And that she also, the grandmother uses her death strategically to give Moana the chance to escape. Sure. She's like, I got you. I'm just going to die.

Right, it's not a formative trauma moment. It's like, hold on, I'm just going to die quickly. You sneak out the back. I also think, though, that we should say as much as she's concerned with her people, her grandma represents, like, independence and going after things that are even bigger than the island, you know?

Like, I don't know. I just, the grandma character at that moment, that's when I really start to fall. Oh, oh, yeah. But that gets to, like, I think one of the reasons this movie is so potent with kids because it is kind of a different story than these films usually tell, which is like, you're a kid, you go like, why are all these adults telling me what to do?

I understand. I could do this on my own. Everyone should just let me do what I want to do. And then she goes out and does it and she isn't proven wrong, but she finds out it's very difficult. It takes a lot of work. And there's something like for a kid, I think it's like a good struggle to watch

someone just have to really deal with how do you actually get things done. You learn by doing. And sometimes you end up on the right island. Sometimes you bounce, baby. So some context about this movie. Clements and

Musker, after making the princess and the frog in 2009 wanted to as i believe we talked about last week uh we're make an adaptation of terry pratchett's novel mort which is about a boy who works for death uh it's a great book uh it's a discworld book they could not get the rights it's too bad i would love to see it they i love that book and it would be super cool uh so uh instead they're they're deterred so they're like okay we need to think of original ideas like we we can't get tied into a rights battle or whatever right you know so the thing that they pitch to uh john lassiter lots of hugging lassiter the head of disney at that point is uh is a movie about Maui specifically.

I think they were the most interested in the demigod, whatever. They had read up on the mythic figure Maui. That was their original way into the movie. Was it Clements? I mean, he got into Polynesian mythology and it sort of sounds like they wanted to do something like Hercules,

but with Maui. Do a more straight sort of retelling of the myths yes and then they learned and i'm reading this off the internet but uh they learned in their research that the people of polynesia stopped making long distant voyages about 3 000 years ago i i don't know uh specifically what they're learning here but you know right like i guess, I guess they were like, why was there a transition from like seafaring people to more island based people? Is that, does that make sense? Because that seems to be the narrative thrust that they have come upon is like

this seafaring people who have stowed their boats away. Right. Like that's, that's the big reveal at the end of the first act of Boana is, you know, they have these boats and, you know, that's that's the sort of part of her that she's long sort of wondered, like, why do I want to explore when my dad's always telling me to stay home? Well, that's the other thing, as they said, they just came to the idea that it should be about Maui and the daughter of a chief, which I have to imagine is Disney going, you have to put a princess in this. But the other thing I should mention is that Taika Waititi wrote the original screenplay for the film and then dropped out to because he had a kid and he was making what to do in the shadows, what we do in the shadows. And he says he has nothing to do with the movie as is.

That it was a family movie. It was like about a girl. Yeah, they rewrote it. Right, it was like a girl with six brothers and I think it was going to be more family-oriented. I don't know. He has some special thanks or additional story material credit, but this is also a movie where there's only one credited screenwriter but like seven story by credits it feels like it just went through a bunch

of different drafts and different takes and different angles and different writers jared bush that's the final credit right who's now just sort of like a disney he's one of those guys right he had like five sitcom credits before this and pretty like you know, Baby Bob the sitcom that was about the E-Trade baby. It was like shit like that and then he did like this I think Big Hero 6

and Zootopia like he's just a Disney story trust guy now. Yes he is, yes. Anyway so that's all I really know. The only thing i'm interested by that i don't know much about is and and lenica like we've been you know a lot of these movies that clements and musker made and we've been talking about this the entire time like aladdin princess and the frog and then there's other disney movies like there's always the anecdote

that they like went to the place that the movie is set in. We spent two weeks in China for Mulan. It's always two weeks. Trust us, we did our work. So apparently they went all, you know, they went to Fiji, they went to Samoa, they went to Tahiti. I don't know much about their research trips or whatever.

It does seem a little more in-depth than the usual Disney vacation. It seems like they put more... Yeah, it seems like they took this one more seriously. I know that they created... I think they called it the Oceanic Trust, and they had anthropologists and linguists. Right, the Oceanic Story Trust.

That's right. Yes, yes. And just, I think, had a lot of notes from locals and historians who knew what they were talking about and like rewrote whole chunks. Like, you know, Maui was supposed to be bald and short or something like I know people complained about how he was designed in the end. But just little things like that, that most audiences wouldn't notice that they've for some reason wanted, you know, that they wanted fidelity for. that they've for some reason wanted, you know, that they wanted fidelity for. Were the complaints about his final design that he sort of is he resembles Dwayne Johnson, that he's sort of like gigantically big?

Because I do see like most of the it's the chunkiness, right? Right. Most of the art of Maui, he's more of just a regular man. Like, right. I think it's that he's like a stereotype and was you know designed to just like very heavy right right right i mean i do i feel like that's partly the dwayne johnson thing that's sort of sort of you know sad reality of modern animation where like they celebrityify things a little bit more you know what i mean like the genie doesn't look like Robin Williams, right? But, like, they like to slip in

a few kind of, like, look, get it? Like, it's The Rock. Like, you love The Rock, right? Here he is, right? But also, like, The Rock is ripped and Maui is a little more built like a brick wall, you know?

Yes, that's true. Yeah, see, it's not like he exactly looks like The Rock at all. Yeah. The eyebrow is the thing that actually is the most egregious. The face is like, I mean,

they're clearly mimicking his expressions. Like maybe they just didn't want a Maui who is super ripped with like the exact physique of the rock half naked for most of this movie or something. I don't know. Yeah. That's also, I mean, they might've been trying actually to avoid making him look exactly like the

rock. Maybe they're just making more room for tattoos that's all sure well right they do have this this very fun idea that his right like the tattoos are like visual stories yeah yeah and like and so yes he's a big canvas that makes that makes some sense um i do remember a vague uh i vaguely remember right the conversation about this when the movie came out because he looks like a rugby player i mean he looks conversation about everything which is unavoidable with these movies and i think they always try to do this thing where it's like the movie is always announced as we're finally going to make a movie about this

culture but it's not really about that culture. We made up a fake country, a fake city, a fake island. So we're sort of taking elements from mythology and we took all these research trips, but also it's fictional, so don't get angry at us. We did go for two weeks about, though.

It looks like this new movie they have, Riot and the Last Dragon, which I hope is good. There's lots to be excited about. But that's another one that's set in a mystical... it's like southeast asia yeah without anyone actually identifying any place geographically i mean like i i get that look whatever like that's fine like i mean you know i hope that they tell an exciting and interesting story. But yes, sometimes you wonder, like, are they just trying to cover their ass in this kind

of half-assed, ambiguous way? Well, I think it's also the issue of, like, to some degree, they bring this upon themselves because when these movies are announced, that's always the first thing they talk about. They always go, like, we got so interested in the history of this culture. We wanted to make a movie about it. We were so respectful. We did so much research. And that's always, the first step they take out, you know, and same with Coco. I mean, it's just like across Disney at large, I feel like they always start the messaging with

that because there's such a public relations company. But then they write, they make the expectations so hard on themselves. I'm not saying they deserve more leeway, but it's just like to a certain degree, the knives are out by the time a first trailer came out. And that's like we talked about, I mean, Princess and the Frog was like the most sort of stepping on rakes of any of these movies in its launch. This one I feel like was genuinely largely positive. But of course, there was like a lot lot of you know uh pushback on different elements i do feel like the reaction was broadly positive this film right uh i'm trying to remember the specific yeah it was it was all the little things and like the other thing was like the

maui costume with the tattoos and like that was the most that i can remember like i don't i don't think that there was anything very serious like they you know with the casting they they went to such great lengths like you were saying griffin just to to cast mostly like people of polynesian descent or you know and and um just making it as faithful in that way or at least signaling that they were you know that they cared um about like honoring this culture these cultures plural but yeah and even the fact i mean even if the final product doesn't really bear his thumbprints at all the mere fact that they started by going to taika waititi signals a kind of like maybe we shouldn't just guess here you know um yeah i mean that we'll

get to the shirt because that's the worst merchandise spotlight we'll ever do in the history of this show uh i feel like the the coconut guys what are they called the kamatoa kakamora kakamora i feel like there was some like unease with that but but right because they're like quote unquote like pygmies right you know yes the thing the thing is they are also coconut pirates which is great you know like it's it's such a funny animation concept like you know and and like the minute you see them you're delighted by like i don't you know i don't think but yes i remember right, I don't, you know, I don't think, but yes, I remember. Right. I was, I mean, you know, I read up on a bunch of articles

and I was trying to find like the most critical ones from the time the film came out, just to try to get the perspective as a stupid white person that I don't innately have. And I feel like a lot of the sentiment was like, if you want to do funny little coconut guys, then come up with a new name. But when you're attaching

the funny visual of little coconut minions to a name that has a sort of cultural history and one that's a little bit delicate to begin with, then it gets messy. Oh, does the name Kakamora

have a history to it? Okay, I thought they just made that up. That's the thing. No, I think Kakamora is specifically tied to a certain type of pygmy legend. Oh, okay. I'm trying to find it

because the only problem is you Google Kakamora, you just see Moana, the cute little guy. It may just be the name of a tribe. I'm not sure if it's specifically attached to anything, but they may have used a real word, um, uh, because it sounds like coconut. Right.

Like later. I mean, anyway, um, right. I do remember the, the cockamore coming under some, but yes, by, by the standards of some of these Disney projects that I would say often feel like they're just kind of blundering for it. And by the standards of this miniseries that we've done, when you think about Aladdin with its like all white cast and its, you know, myriad, just completely like blithe ignorance, you know, right. Like, you know, to the offensiveness of its uh how it's portraying people and you know how it's singing about them like to this and to think that they were made by the same person in my lifetime it is is kind of crazy they just the arc of that yeah yeah i mean this movie i was like looking at it to be it has like less than 10 speaking roles it's one of the

things you don't really realize until you step out of just like this movie has a very contained cast and half the characters don't talk. I think that's why I was initially underwhelmed because right, once she leaves, there's really just her and Maui and then you meet the crab Tamatoa. But

that's it. You know, the villain obviously doesn't speak like quote unquote villain like barely a villain, obviously. And villain obviously doesn't speak like quote unquote villain like barely a villain obviously and the chicken doesn't speak except he clucks and he is voiced by alan tudyk of course right and and the crab and the chicken are the only two white voice actors in the whole movie that's true um and that's and that's it and like i think that may have been one like probably unfairly one reason i was sort of like, you know, it kind of tapers off because then she's just, you know, on a voyage. But the solitude is interesting, you know, in retrospect. Like, that's sort of a curveball for a movie like this. Lenica, I'm curious, because you were talking about seeing this for the first time and being overcome with the emotions from the get go. What is sort of I mean, you are you are Polynesian. So I am like Pacific Islander. Yeah, like, you know, from from Guam,

like I grew up and I spent time in Hawaii, like I have family who are Samoan. And, you know, just when I saw that, I mean, so much of this, like, I realized that even though I'm not Polynesian, so like, when I first heard the first song coming over the, you know, the Disney and then like that, that imagery was like immediately started triggering. Because I was like, it sounds like like Chamorro sounds like a language that I'm familiar with growing up and I'm hearing it in a Disney movie, movies that I just took for granted that I wouldn't see characters who, you know, looked like me or whatever in that very just like simple way. Um, but yeah, when I, when I saw just, I was, I was like, I was floored. Um, just seeing the, the, the animation and the way that the characters looked and seeing, they just looked like my, a lot of my family members. Um, so just on, on that level, I was like not prepared, I guess. Um, and it just, it felt, it felt like the place looked real. It looked like, you know, a place I've, I've spent time in growing up. And, um, and so in that way, as someone who

tends to be skeptical about or cynical about representation stuff like I it just silenced all of that in my mind for for the whole movie pretty much um and my family members too were like we're so excited seeing just like I when I saw Moana baby Moana I thought of my little cousin who was about like Moana's age at the time and looked so much like her um and then I saw the grandma and she looked so much like her um and then I saw the grandma and she looked so much like my step-grandma and who had died that year and so it was just like she looked kind of like her she kind of talked like her she kind of sang like her danced like her um and so yeah like I it's hard for me to separate the first time I saw Moana from like all of those

that that just hodgepodge of feelings had you grown up like a disney fan or what you know like yeah i the first the first the movie i ever remember seeing was aladdin and i watched aladdin every single day until i got another vhs which was pinocchio then watched pinocchio every single day until we got um i remember i like remember we had an order of like vhs's and aladdin was the first one so it was funny that we mentioned you mentioned earlier like same director yeah and yeah exactly um and and little mermaid obviously like just all these these disney movies but i was just it was more of an early disney movie person so you know when you're

growing up and you want to dress up as Disney characters, like the closest that I could dress up with was like Pocahontas, which is problematic. And, you know, just like, it was Pocahontas and Mulan was like, oh, these are the closest things to like, people are like, what are you dressed up as? It's like, oh, I'm Mulan. Can't you tell? Because I'm like Asian or, you know, Pocahontas because I'm brown, like, you know, that kind of stuff. And so it was just like really cool. God, how old was I when I came out? you know, that kind of stuff. And so it was just like really cool. God, how old was I when it came out? You know, I was my late 20s and I was like, my little cousins can dress up as a character who actually looked them was just like so emotional. shit in the world but it is just so insane how much these movies are just like the first thing so many kids in this country and around the world are exposed to like in terms of a movie like not

in terms of things they see but that's also like understandably why you know cultural critics take these movies to task because they they do actually change brains. These movies, you know, it's it's it's not like arguing over whether or not the going to cause violence. It's it's you know, it's really like these movies do imprint on kids at very early ages and give them ideas of who they are in the world. It's 2021, Griffin. Can we retire the Joker bit? Can we unretire the Joker bit or whatever? Can the Joker return? You want to retire the Joker bit? Can we un-retire the Joker bit or whatever? Can the Joker return? You want to retire the **** being retired?

Yeah. Can we just talk about the Joker again? Surely he won't come back and cause- It's so dangerous, David. It's so dangerous. Lenica, we bleep the Joker's name. And if we're not retiring the bit, I'm so sorry, Ben. It's a post **** world. And I think we're okay.

You know what? We'll bleep that. That's what we'll bleep. We'll bleep that name. Right. Well, fine. We'll bleep him. I just, I'm so worried because he is so twisted, this guy.

And the things that make other people cry, they make him laugh. I know. I know. It's terrible. But, like, I'm just, I just want to go into. Do you know what he calls coronavirus? What? What does he call it? The number one comedy in America.

Joker, cut it out. I know. I don't like it. That's why I think it should be banned. Ricky T. He doesn't have boundaries. Yeah, he doesn't have any boundaries. Sometimes he misses. Lenica, the thing you were saying about the pocahontas halloween costume it reminded me when pocahontas came out for whatever reason all the girls in my grade at school liked pocahontas's friend more than pocahontas there's a character at the very beginning who's like why aren't you marrying coco wong and she looks vaguely like pocahontas but her dress is a little different and she's got bangs

I don't even remember this character her name is Nakoma Nakoma wait so they liked her better so they wanted to dress up as her instead so several girls at my school that's why I said she has bangs and her dress is a little different right her dress is like a

two piece is that what it is maybe yeah she's got yes she has dress is like a two-piece. Is that what it is, maybe? Yeah, she's got, yes. She has a two-piece, yes, yeah. Oh, her, I remember her. I think the bangs were a big part of it. She really, I think, just has like the one scene at the beginning talking about Coco. But several girls in my grade,

I'm sure it was one girl started it and the other girls were like, I'm going to do it because I don't want to be left out. Bought the Pocahontas costume and modified it so that they could say they were not being Pocahontas for Halloween. They were being the coma for Halloween. Oh, my God. I didn't I missed this whole discourse.

I mean, this was a discourse I think limited to fucking five girls in my grade and six in first grade or whatever. I'm sure it happened elsewhere. I'm sure this was a thing. I feel bad for ignoring the coma. I love the bangs. I want to I want to point out I looked up Nakoma on the Disney Wikipedia. She is the first human best friend to a Disney princess.

That is how sad the life of a Disney princess was until the 90s. Your friend was an animal or maybe a plant. You got nothing. I guess Sleeping Beauty has some fairies right she gets the fairies but no human peer i mean they're talking animals right though i know but like what if you want to be like oh my legs hurt you know you can't talk to a fish about that well i guess i guess ariel doesn't have legs either so i I take it back. But, you know, in general, yes, that's just a funny milestone. No human friends.

Even Jasmine doesn't have human friends. She only has a tiger. She's got a big old tiger and her dad. Because her dad's a friend. Yeah, but that's why Guy Ritchie added Nassim Pedrad and a character that took America by storm. Yes, that's true. I forgot about that. You could argue that Jafar is Jasmine's closest human friend. Yeah, by default.

He's the only other human who's not related to her who lives in the past. He kidnapped her. That's like, you know, that's intimacy. And he's not very nice to her. Yes. No, that's the thing. She fucking hates him, but he is by default.

She just wants to talk to another human who's not her dad yeah anyway sorry uh nikoma okay yes nikoma we've come a long way from nikoma we have we have come a lot although moana also is fairly kind of friendless she's got i mean there are the kids there are other people um yeah her best friend i guess is a pig the ocean is a friend of hers the ocean's a friend she's friends of all people can you imagine being friends with the ocean yeah the whole ocean is your friend high five the ocean man yeah i mean it's pretty cool you can't drown because the ocean's just like get out of there get out of me i mean look at david's background his background is little baby moana trying to touch

the ocean with its her oldest friend the abyss tentacle coming out you could high five that you could even low five it you could too too slow it moana uh i should i should also mention there is lilo and stitch uh this is not uh disney's first film uh you know like to the pacific islands right i mean lilo and stitch is is contemporary which is really unusual obviously like that's that's practically unheard of for disney but uh but i am no expert i haven't seen lilo and stitch in so many years so i can't even talk about i know you love it griff i love it lilo and stitch was a big deal also for me because i came out when i was like 12 i guess and i just moved to hawai for me because it came out when I was like 12, I guess,

and I had just moved to Hawaii. And so it was like, oh shit, like Lilo and Stitch was everywhere. It was like, they got the pigeon down. They have like everything. But I also haven't seen it in a long time. I think that movie is perfect. I watch it a lot.

I'd be curious to hear what you think of it today, Lenica. I do think that movie is so interesting because it like slipped through the cracks. I spoke erroneously in a previous episode saying that I thought it was animated in Hawaii, which is clearly just me conflating where it's set with where it was made. But the thing I knew was that it wasn't done by the main animation studio. And what it was, it was that they built an animation studio at Disney World in Orlando, mostly so that doing tours of it would be an attraction for people going to the theme park. And I think only three movies were ever produced there. And it was like Goofy Movie, Lilo and Stitch. And I think Mulan was the only like main one. was the only main one.

And Lilo and Stitch was sort of supposed to be like a movie to let them do so there was a reason to keep those studios open. And it was a rare year where there were two Disney animated films because it was the same year as Treasure Planet. And that movie is a much smaller story. It's contemporary. It's a lot more psychological,

which means I think it wasn't... It's not a big, brassy Disney musical that gets folded into their whole princess. Right, and it didn't get the same sort of calculations of you need to do this, we have to avoid this. And it does feel like because of that, there was less meddling. And I don't...

It feels more culturally respectful than a lot of them to me. Sure. But it's also smaller scale, like you said. Right, they're not trying to represent everything. But this movie starts out with an entirely serious, dramatic

prologue. The story being told. The myth of Maui. Sure. Right. We talked about the way these movies start. And there are a couple different kind of starter pack openings that they tend to pick from. There's the workers song, right? and there are a couple different kind of starter pack openings that they tend to pick from.

There's the workers song, right? Where you have like the guys picking the ice at the beginning of Frozen. Yeah, the fathoms below. And the crewmen at the beginning of Little Mermaid and Pocahontas. Yes, you have a kid gets told a story. This is the legend. And then that's, you know, this sort of conflates that

with the very dramatic, epic backstory mythology opening. But it's the thing. I mean, we, of course, when we did our Wonder Woman episode years ago, we talked about how Wonder Woman and Moana have a lot of similarities. But it's the same kind of thing where it's like you drop all the heaviest

mythology stuff at the very beginning you do it in this sort of like cliff notes sort of hitting the high points in a sort of visual montage kind of way and then you immediately pull out to little girl Moana everyone else is terrified by the story and she's like excited

she likes it yeah right everyone else is terrified by the story and, and she's like excited. She, she, she, she likes it. Yeah. Right. Uh, everyone else is crying. Right. You start considering the coconut, uh,

her dad played by Tamura Morrison, the great, uh, Tamura Morrison, who, uh, it does not do the singing of course, because Christopher Jackson from Hamilton,

George Washington does the singing, but he is, he is your is her dad. I love Tamora Marson. I feel like I've been sticking up for him a lot lately because he's Boba Fett. He's Boba Fett. Yeah, and her dad wants her to be...

We talked about where you are. We talked about the setup of this movie, which is great. I know, that's why I'm trying to catch this up to the grandmother. I think it's the first major scene we need to talk about. Rachel House. Rachel House, who's so fucking good, is always so good. But having watched Soul recently, these are two movies where she arguably gives the standout vocal performance.

And they're entirely different performances. Lennox, have you seen Soul yet? Not yet. She's very good in soul. No, it's fine. She's a lot of fun in soul. She's got a,

she's, I mean, Rachel house, obviously, uh, uh, people might also know her from Taika Waititi's movies. She's in,

she's so funny and hunt for the wilder people. Unbelievable. She's really, really fun in Thor Ragnarok. Um, but yes, uh, uh,

she's great. But these are likeagnarok but yes she's great but these are like I mean just two really funny full bodied voiceover performances that sound entirely different from each other and different from her normal speaking voice yes absolutely I was yeah she's not

an old grandma like she gives good grandma in this movie yeah not easy yeah she's she's she gives good grandma in this movie yeah uh not easy yeah she's she's in her 40s or whatever but um i love i love the grant the i want song you know um how far i'll go which was the sort of i that was like the oscar nominated song right that was the should have fucking won i cannot it should have won city of stars oh my god i mean it's this crazy thing because i the whole year figured it was going to win because i thought that because it was the year of hamilton he had three quarters of the egot right it was you know hamilton was at this like

you know a deafening cultural moment uh emmanuel aranda did the music and lyrics for these uh movies along with um oh god um opatea foy i i'm probably going to struggle uh pronouncing some of these but it's basically it's it's it's a music group called tivaca is is basically doing um all the music with him and but i just figured like they'll they the os, the Oscars want Lin-Manuel Miranda on the stage, like, right? Like, don't surely this, that, you know. But the whole La La Land thing kind of overwhelmed it, I guess.

They were just like, well, that's the musical. We have to give the musical the best song, right? Even though City of Stars is this sort of like- It's so fucking boring. You know, kind of forgettable. It's okay. Like, it's, kind of forgettable. It's okay. Like, it's, you know, it's like half a song.

La La Land became such a lightning rod and it became like a love it or hate it, you have to defend or you have to attack it movie. I like La La Land. I think it's fine. Like, it's always been a movie where I was just a little underwhelmed by it, but I think it's fine.

I have no need to really attack it. I think it's lacking in a lot of ways. But if you're going to give it to a fucking la la land song over uh this song give it to one of the good ones which is so good give it to one of the fucking good ones so you start so goddamn boring let it go what do you think of la la land i don't know i forget where you landed on la la land i loved loved la la land saw it once in theaters. I was like, this is the best movie I've ever seen. And then I never saw it again and also felt conflicted by the stuff afterward. I was very happy it lost.

So that's, I mean, that's where I was. Well, yeah. Yes. I mean, in retrospect, I really like La La Land. I think it's a great movie. It's not as good as, I don't, you know, I think Moonlight was the incredibly worthy winner. The more we get away from that insane moment, which was obviously just like the most incredible television. Like it was so crazy to watch it.

It sucks so hard that that happened. I hate that that happened. No, no, no. It was sad yeah you had to be so gracious like on stage yeah right yeah exactly instead of just turned into this whole right like weird drama playing

out in front of everyone and again very dramatic to watch it like I'll never forget watching it alone on my couch because Forky had gone to bed I was a I thought it was a joke at first. Yes, exactly. It was just like that weird tingly feeling where you're like,

is something just going horribly wrong? Like, is someone being weird? I think I immortalized that on Slack, David, because we were both covering it. It was like, I don't know what time it was, midnight or something. Yes, like Forky, my partner, we call my partner Forky on this podcast, had gone to bed because it was like, yeah, La La Land's wrapping this up. You know what I mean? Like Emma Stone had won, Damien Chazelle.

She was like, all right, I'm out of here. And yes, I remember you and I just like screaming at each other, being like, what is this? Yes. My best friend and at that time neighbor, Sophie Fader, I knew she wasn't watching the Oscars because she didn't have a TV. And it happened. And I called her up and I was like, can I tell you what happened? Because this is going to be the only chance I ever get to tell this to someone who doesn't know.

And just recounted what had just happened on TV. And she was like, that's the most bizarre sounding thing in the world. I watch it once every two months. And when I put it on, I have to watch it five times in a row. It is just like it is some like incredible renaissance, like like portrait, like landscape painting where there's so many little things going on in the background. Dwayne Johnson is like, yeah, he's sitting Dwayne Johnson is sitting in the front row practically. Right. He's one of the one of the shocked faces that in the the tableau right you just have to rewind it and go like this time I'm just gonna focus on who's sitting in the front row this time just the people

and was president by then right yes yes he was he'd been sworn in so fucking weird that was the weirdest thing I know you and I had talked about it and we were like, to some degree, it's kind of sad because now you just know that's the best thing that will ever happen at the Oscars. Like as dumb Oscar dorks like you and I are, David, it's just like, well, that's it. There's never that's never going to be a moment like that ever again. I've now seen what will be the best moment of my entire lifetime. Yeah, but I also hate it. I wish Moonlight had just won and then they would, because the people would have been blown

out of their seats by that alone. Yeah. Do you know what I wish would have happened? Yes, what? I wish they had given Best Original Song

to City of Stars and Justin Horowitz had gotten out there and gone like, thank you very much. This song, I put my heart and soul into it. And then the ocean

rose up into the Kodak Theater and plucked the Oscar from his hands and handed it to Lin-Manuel. And then also splashed them. Yeah. Spit in his. Yes. No, that's too much.

I just just yeah. Justin Hurwitz rules. He said that his first man scores one for the ages. Yeah. And he won the Oscar for that. Did he not? The first man? Yeah.

Did he not? No, I don not? No. I don't think so. Poor First Man got, you know, screwed over because Marco Rubio got mad at it. I know. They should have given Justin Horowitz the Oscar for First Man and not for The City of Stars. Didn't he also, he won score that same year. Yeah, he did. Yeah, he

did. His score is great. It's a great score. I agree. The score is better than City of Stars. City of Stars is a boring song. City of Stars is just a dull fucking song anyway we're moving on to the song we're talking about is is uh how far i'll go well i just i just want to say grandma grandma i just feel like the combination of the character animation and the vocal performance it's like the moment this character comes on screen, you're like, I like her. I like her.

She's fun. She's got a unique energy. I know everything about her. And it's like a lot of these movies have like the kooky old grandma character, right? Yeah. Fun old lady.

Yeah. Right. But it's like, are they insane or are they a genius? Right. And an older person who has almost mystical qualities in their oldness. Like, are they wise or... Right. Do they have magic genius. Right. And an older person who has almost mystical qualities in their oldness.

Like, are they wise or... Right. Do they have magic powers? Right. She's got this giant back piece. Like, she's the only one who really understands Moana. But I love that she is clearly wise

from the get-go. Like, she is in her own power. She's funky. She's funky as hell. Real funky. She likes to color outside the lines, but there's never the thing of just like, oh, this old she's like people think i'm a coot i know what's fucking going on she notices everything yeah dude i love when she's like he's my son i don't have to

listen to him i'm like yes right no you don't everything about her is cool and she calls herself the village crazy lady like she's happy to uh lean into her um her status on the island like when she needs to but she reveals to moana of course she brings her into the cave she shows her the ship she reveals to moana that that's that's the background of her people that they were explorers they used to sail the seas which i think is great too now what do you guys think of we know the way uh which is not sung by a character it's sung by lynn manuel miranda and tivaka like you know they they sort of take over and it's but it just i did i talked to a friend who objected to lynn manuel's

singing it was just like i wish someone else was singing that song but um what do you guys think of this song this song really always gets me this is the one i weirdly thought was going to be the biggest song coming out of the screening i love song yeah this hook this really hooked me i i and i like his voice i can understand the argument against it because he's you know he's like he's a rapper uh he's great at writing songs and he's he's right he's a fine singer but he's that has never been his strong suit right his voice is so charming when he sings this though you're singing about these islands i'm like i know you feel this lynn that's the thing with lynn he's got a very thin voice but because

he writes the songs himself he writes songs that fit into his vocal range and also because he is not naturally like you know like an eight octave singer or whatever he does there is a very uh disarming sincerity to his singing because he's working really really hard and it's really genuine that is that is absolutely what people love and hate about him that is exactly it it's the sincerity right that's what drives some people crazy i think and obviously connects for so many people because he's it is it is hard to overstate how and of course i know listeners remember this it wasn't that long ago but just how inescapable he was like and remember the snl episode right around this moment yeah all that like it's all i mean it is very difficult to survive something like that i would say as a famous person you know what i mean like just the the complete overexposure everyone

seeing and weighing in on your work you know it's almost good that hamilton then took years to actually come to the screens like because like that was the only thing that kind of delayed you know uh the total sort of staggering conquering force of hamilton i guess but uh jesus i just saw it for the first time yeah sure tom disney pretty good yeah you enjoyed it well that's great hamilton's pretty good it lived up to the hype but also the the sort of like clowning on Lin-Manuel's earnestness, the biting of the lip, all that sort of stuff. I feel like came after this movie. Really, that's when it started to like percolate.

People thought the Oscar was going to be the anointment at the end of the year. He didn't win it. But then people still start going like, is there too much of this guy? I think when the movie came out and you hear his voice in this song, it kind of felt like, well, of course. I mean, they're not going to not have him sing. He's got like the best selling album of the year. He's not going to play a character. This is the one place they could fit it in.

It's fine. And I think now when you watch it a couple of years later, you're like, I can't stop thinking about the fact that it's Lin-Manuel. Like now it's the one element that kind of sticks out of the movie weirdly, even more than the rock of it all. I don't mind it. I like it. I like it. I don't mind it either.

I just think that's where people, if they get frustrated by it, it's just like, I'm very much thinking about the fact that Lin-Manuel is singing now. Yes. It depends on what happens this year, but 2021 is kind of the next year for him. Like this year. This year he has like

four things coming out right or something maybe he does and i worry again that it's weirdly all packed together and people are going to get furious with him because he has vivo which is the the sony movie right the the animated film that he did the music for uh and and he also is in kanto which is the the disney movie that he did the music for and then in the heights uh supposedly is is definitely hitting this year because warner brothers is putting that out come hell or high water and tick tick boom is gonna be on netflix like i just wonder i mean i he he like he's only directing that so like it's a little different but still like it's it's a lot of him it's a lot of him i wonder how it'll

go but i think the songs in this are so great i love the songs in this i think it's a great score i think that they're so him yeah they are the the right the sort of like storytelling element to them like you know the the full sentence you know we are you know like that i i need to like look up the lyrics to do it exactly but like and i also just like the disney tradition of like let's get a big shot let you know like no no no more messing around and like kind of cheaping it on the songs like who's hot right now on broadway let's bring them in like you know that's what they did with the the lopez's as well right right but i was gonna say creatively it's it's similar to the Ashman thing.

You know, the difference is that, like, in between when they hired him for this movie and when it came out, Hamilton happened. You know, they were hiring the In the Heights guy. And that felt like, OK, here's a thing that was a Broadway show, but it was kind of a cult Broadway show. Avenue Q was a weird Tony winner. Get people who are kind of at the outskirts of mainstream musical theater and have that sort of sense of humor, sensibility. But he's a good fit. It is just bizarre to think like, right, this comes out the year that Hamilton opens on Broadway. Wins the Tonys, obviously.

Yeah, it's just so bizarre. I guess it opens in 2015, whatever it was. But here's the thing I love. And this is why I was talking about the way these movies open generally. It's like this movie

gets to open with the serious mythology and go on for like 15 minutes. And then this is like a second stealth opening of the movie. Like this is the Virginia Sailing Company song.

When she leaves. No, I'm saying when you have the We Know The Way song. Oh, I see. Right. That's the sort of the this is who we are working song. Like, yeah, right, right. Yeah. And because it's almost like a flash sideways, it's like she touches the flame goes up.

She's like transported to this like, you know, flashback. It's like she's saying like, like oh this is the start of my movie this is like a big empowering opening number of a film that's now going to inspire me and then uh i guess uh how far i'll go happens in between the two right between the grandma scene yeah yeah that that's her i want song that's the you know i want to get out of the into the water even though this island you know i'm sorry it happens afterwards because that's when you know i want to get out of the into the water even though this island you know i'm sorry it happens afterwards because that's when she sails out right and she comes back no that's the reprise the reprise is her sailing out yeah it is just a thing like in the way uh

christopher mcquarrie mcquarrie talks about that like the whole goal of the wolf blitzer thing in mission impossible is to make the audience think that they broke in the movie and then revealed they actually were in control of it. When she does the reprise, when she gets out on the ship, when she starts sailing, I remember being like, are they rushing this? Like, it doesn't really feel like she's totally set up where she needs to be to be able to go out in her adventure. To be clear, the reprise is when she gets out. The first rendition of the song,

right, is her getting spit back out. Right. Right. That's what I like. I like, I'm sorry, I'm misidentifying the two,

but I like that she gets spit out the first time. I like that she tries to do it. The movie tries to convince you that she's ready for the adventure and it's like, no, because it's setting up

the fact that this movie is going to be about persistence. You know, it is going to be about work ethic in some way. Right. So then she gets spit back out. Grandma gets sick, gives her the out to escape. She does the reprise and actually makes it out into the water. David, I know we've talked about this in every single episode, how much watching every Musker Clements movie up until this point makes us appreciate 2D animation more than ever. And I like CGI more than you do. I feel

like you naturally are a little bit more turned off by it than I am. You gave it a big thumbs down. But this movie, I think, is so beautiful. And so much of it for me is just the water animation in this is unreal and you just couldn't do in a hand-drawn in the same way it's why it's successful i think is the water is how good the water it looks and also the fact that the movie's so colorful like unlike frozen where everything is like blues and purples and kind of you know like it's sort of muted weirdly like you know this way like the costumes are very colorful the villainous uh you know that you know, like it's sort of muted weirdly. Like, you know, this way, like the costumes are very colorful. The villainous, you know, the way the villain looks, the way, I don't know, it's

just sort of like a more attention-grabbing movie for your eyes. Well, she's on the water for like most of the movie. Like once you get away from the colorfulness of the island, it's just like her and the water. And the water has to have all these different personalities. It's like her friend. And then it's, you know, it's a storm and it's a threat to her and it's just doing all these

things um and then you don't the color doesn't come back until the end which i will not will not spoil i'll jump ahead fair enough but it works both as a character and as an environment because as you said like most of the movies she's on the water. I don't like water. Water scares me. I'm only comfortable when it's in my bathroom or in a glass that I'm drinking out of. I don't like pools. I don't like the beach. I don't like the ocean. I don't like being on a boat. I find this movie so relaxing visually. It's like a visual white noise machine just watching the boat ebbing in the water, whether it's at night or during the day, whatever the color is, whether it's a storm or whether it's still. It's the thing that I think Pixar tried to do with Good Dinosaur and failed, which is like, can you have really cartoony characters with certain very realistic physics and elements? and despite the fact that the water sometimes acts like a magical supernatural creature it also just in most shots looks like real water to a degree that is kind of astonishing it's it's just hyper

real enough but like the fluid simulation is unbelievable in this movie lenica do you play zelda or are you do you just play have you just played the new one the breath of the wild i've just played breath of the wild yeah okay griffin i'm assuming like just because there's the zelda game the wind waker that's set uh uh mostly on like island chains and a lot of the game is you sailing between islands you have a little sailboat um and so a lot of the game is just going across the water with like nothing happening i love i love that shit it always relaxes me i've been thinking of the wind waker but just basically like i understand peril will yeah that's fine

give me peril once in a while but like i also am pretty happy just kind of cruising uh on like a horizon you know like with nothing to think about and just like the sort of soundscape of of the ocean i also think that's what I was going to say. This movie has less score than a lot of the Disney musicals. I feel like it's very comfortable, like sitting in the silence and just the sound of the waves for long stretches. You know, that's the only thing underscoring their dialogue. But then, yeah, Maui doesn't enter until, like, 40 minutes into the movie.

Yeah. She gets into the storm, right? She leaves. She leaves. She gets into a storm. And she's, I think she's, like, basically trying to feel out the ocean and see how much of a friend it is to her. Like, she gets in the storm. She's like, can you help me? And she just, all she does is doesn't drown. But, but like it takes her to where she needs to go and i think it's on that that journey you start hearing a bit of the you're welcome like you know playing as she's approaching maui's island right but yeah it takes it takes forever to get there it's 35 minutes uh yeah we should mention also the other thing is uh of course the movie sort of sets you up to think that uh pua the pig, is going to be the main animal sidekick.

And it's a fake out. They leave her with the least effective animal sidekick in the history of movies. He does one useful thing in the entire movie, right when you most need him to. So I'll have the stone and give it. No, no, give it to her. Picks up the stone. Oh, give it back. Yeah.

Yeah. But Pua is too scared. Pig is really, no, give it to her. Picks up the stone. Oh, give it back. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. But Poo was too scared. Pig is really cute, but he goes with her, like on that first journey where you think she's going to break out and then he almost drowns and then he sees an oar

and he's like, no. Yeah. I just, I love that misdirect. Like her taking him the first time makes you think like, okay, he's going to be the one by her side the entire movie.

And instead it's like, no, the animal sidekick is an impediment. He is a conflict. He is a dilemma. He keeps falling in. He's not really cute. He's dumb. Kind of annoying.

Yep. They had like drafted him. He was in all the early versions of the script. He was supposed to be talking. And his whole character thing was he was supposed to be like very arrogant. Like he thought he was an adventurer and he got things wrong and they realized like oh that's a kind of too much like maui and they kept on retooling the character over and over again but they like started animating they were like doing shit it was at the point where they were like you either

have to cut this character you have to solve it because like it's go time either we're going to remove him entirely from the whole thing or uh you need to come it because like it's go time either we're going to remove him entirely from the whole thing or uh you need to come up with a new take and they just went like what if he's just the dumbest character in the history of movies and he was right so it's alan tudyk doing the squawks because he was supposed to be the speaking voice for dialogue and at the last second they were like no he's just really dumb are you still on board to just squawk a bunch uh and he is because he also i mean wait what's the other thing oh right uh aladdin he's iago and he just squawks right there's no talking now he's just becoming a squawker um uh man we obviously this movie was sold so much on the rock because he is such a famous person

uh and he was doing most of the press and your female lead is an unknown teenager in her first movie role. Who's wonderful. Incredible. I love that she seems to be sticking around. Like she's on television. She has a, what's that show, All Together Now?

Oh, that was the Netflix movie. But no, what was the TV show she was in? She did that Josh Radnerner mbc show she's oh rise yes that's right yes yes she she did that little mermaid live concert where she kind of killed it yeah you know these these disney movies are not quite as craven as like a dreamworks or whatever in terms of like stuffing the movie with uh big stars but yes i, I mean, they're using they're leveraging Dwayne Johnson's major image. Yeah. You're making a Polynesian fairy tale. The biggest movie star in the world happens to be Polynesian right now. You're going to send him out there not just as the face of the movie, but kind of like an ambassador. I just like how much the movie is focused on Moana for the

first thirty five minutes, aside from the prolog, that when Maui enters, you're like, oh, right, he's part of this movie. Even though that's the thing that they sold me on, you know, that you're really just invested in her and then he comes in as sort of the flavor. Once again, I am now quite exhausted by Dwayne Johnson, Griffin. I think we have talked about this.

His star persona has gotten a little relentless, feeling a little flattened, a little samey. The Jumanji sequel, the, what's it called? Skyscraper. Hobbs and Shaw, right? These movies that just sort of feel like they're about how awesome Dwayne Johnson is. Johnson is once again, funny to consider that when this movie came out, I was like, Oh, I like him. He's great. Sure. You know,

I enjoy him. He's in the fast and furious movies. Like, you know, I like this, this, this run he's on. I I'm having a great time and he's good in this.

It also like, this was the point in time where he still let directors use him. You know what I'm saying? Like muster and Clements are very, very wisely and kind of cleverly using his persona to their advantage, in the same way I would argue Michael Bay did in Pain and Gain, in the same way I would argue Justin Lin initially knew how to do in Fast Five before he probably started arm-wrestling control of the movies. The Rock becomes a problem

when The Rock feels like he's not just a color on the palette that he is bob ross you know that he everything has to be built in his image right like what's your do you have strong feelings on on the rock on twain johnson i don't but i was thinking like what wasn't he when he was cast for, he was like really nervous because he hadn't done voice acting. Singing. I think singing was his his biggest concern. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he was just like very, I think, deferential and just like, oh, did I do a good job? Like that kind of thing with this role. One could argue that's the key to a good Dwayne Johnson performance is a sense of humility and a sense of deference to the other people working on the film, as opposed to posting an 18 paragraph Instagram caption about why he chose to make Rampage and explaining the larger points he was trying to make and telling the Rampage story and building out the new Rampage mythology. If you remember, Rampage is the movie

where it's based on a video game and it's about a big gorilla that smashes things up. I remember you wrote a very funny review of it. You've edited so many of my reviews, I always wonder if you remember the details of these stupid movies. Rampage is the movie, of course, where the gorilla gives a

finger to the audience that's like his big joke also uh two of the things that the big gorilla has to smash are a uh big crocodile and a big wolf and of course the film had the tagline uh big meets bigger right and it was because there was The Rock and then a gorilla. Right. Okay. Yes. Yes. Big, big, big, bigger. Yes.

That's the other weird thing. Dwayne Johnson movie started having taglines that didn't reference the movie, but referenced Dwayne Johnson. His imposing image. Right. Or the central intelligence, which is in order to save the day, they're going to need a big heart and a little a little heart and a big Johnson. Right. Right. Lenica's covering her face and cringing. I'm just remembering the billboards.

Yeah, that's the same year as this. That's 2016. That's that's that's when it's starting to overtake, I would say a little bit. Right. Where it's like he's really just playing Instagram's favorite Dwayne Johnson in movies versus like playing like a person or even. Now, pull up. Let me tell you a story. My dad once sat me down and gave me a shot to kill and told me any man in this world has to be able to look a lion in the eye. And that's what inspired me to make my new film. Red Notice.

God, that right. Red Notice. We're going to have to put up with that this year. We're going to have to get the notice. Oh, god um i just think he's very good in this i think this is like exactly using all of his best qualities he and ali have a great such great chemistry like so cute they're adorable it's it's it's a familiar dis dynamic, I suppose. But like, I love it. Like, I like these sort of like. Playfully combative.

Yeah. Right. They want their sort of heading in different directions. They figure out how much they, you know, complement each other and how much they're both, you know, care about things. And that's that's the sort of respect, you know, an alliance of respect is what they're building up to. And that fucking You're Welcome's a lot of fun i mean it helps that like lin-manuel knows how to write for people who have limited singing ranges but he like gives him a song that he can knock out of the park and he does i love that that number goes into the weird like um sort of like collage cut out

art background yes i just get so excited whenever animation uses the other kinds of animation. Yeah. It's just like make everything look cool. Make everything interesting. Experiment. You know?

It's inventive. It's very fun. Oh, right. And then, of course, there's a whole extended Ben's background is now the tattoo. But you have like a

big part of the dance number is done on his chest. I like that the tattoos are 2D, like you're talking about using other mediums. And I also like that there's this sort of like,

he's gotten Milana into the whole song and dance number. He's putting collage-y lay around her neck. He's singing and dancing so much that she doesn't realize that he's stealing the boat. Right, right.

He's like using the song to distract her. The mythology rules too. It's so cool. I never had heard any of those legends before. And I think it's like awesome exposure to all of them. And I mean, the way that Maui is introduced in the prologue,

it seems like he's like a villain kind of, you know, he's a shape shifter. He's a trickster. He's a thief. He stole the heart of Te Fiti and now her island is dying. And this is the first time where you're like, okay, yeah, he's like a villain kind of you know he's a shape shifter he's a trickster he's a thief he stole the heart of tafiti and now her island is dying and this is the first time where you're like okay yeah he's a little arrogant but he seems like he's doing this for people like he you're you're starting to like reimagine who he might be and like what his role in the story is

actually he's like a high school quarterback who won't stop telling you how good he was in high school like that's which is endearing. He's arrogant, but it comes from a place of deep insecurity. Exactly. That's the thing. His insecurity, like the idea of a God who is not doing these things benevolently, but is like, come on, like, aren't I great? Come on.

Don't you like this? Like is a much more compelling sort of, you know protagonist godlike character than someone who is just a big muscly hero who you know we should all root for because he's a big muscly hero and you're welcome is is funny and catchy but it also just sets up that character dynamic so well so quickly but i don't know if you know this moana is a really good kid and she doesn't give up easily she gets herself out of that cave she chases maui he tries to throw her into the water but the water won't fucking let him that's true the water is trying to guide them together as you said lenica right like that's that's the idea here is that that's why he's essentially being released um i you know from an animation perspective i enjoy the physicality of the

character like i just i like you know how a disney movie can make a person that looks so ridiculous move so like fluidly you know like even though he's yeah he's an expert like wayfinder yeah um just that that's right and so the combination of like just the fluidity of how he moves and how he shapeshifts and how the water is and like how that's all being you know represented in completely different way i i like all that i think that's cool well you realize pretty quickly that he's trying to get away because he's afraid. Like he associates this little this little green stone with losing the hook. And the hook is the thing that he had based his entire identity on. Like he's he's like, who am I if I don't have my hook? I'm not Maui. I'm not a demigod. I don't have any powers.

I can't shapeshift. I've been on this island for a thousand years. That's it. That's it. Yeah, you were talking about the appeal of Disney animation, David. Because we've talked about some of the principles of Disney character animation and what the wise old men, the original Disney animators like Ollie Johnson, Frank Thomas created. like ollie johnson frank thomas created um but i i want to pull this up because it's it's just like i i was thinking about this a lot while watching this movie and how well this movie executes all of these at pretty much every moment there's sort of what the old disney animators defined as the 12 principles of character animation and they are hem, squash and stretch, anticipation, staging, straight ahead action and pose to pose, follow through an overlapping action, slow in and slow out, arc, secondary action, timing, exaggeration, solid drawing, and appeal.

appeal. I'm not going to break all those down. A lot of them are sort of self-evident or they sound like what they are. But it's just a thing that like it just feels like every performance in this movie is detailed and thought through enough that it's really functioning on all those levels at all times, you know? Yes. And the intimacy or intimacy is the wrong word but the small scale of it almost helps it's not busy because we have these these sort of small ensemble we know them all really well by the end of the movie right yeah yeah what are you gonna say lenica sorry no i was just thinking like once maui's on that boat once the two of them are on that boat together you finally have this like this this the dynamic like the physical dynamic between the two of them of like throwing each other off like you know they have to share this very tiny space for a good chunk of the movie and so those principles that you were just

mentioning like become even more more important and and i mean they do have a lot of dialogue but like the way that they move and behave around each other kind of like taking the measure of each other and realizing how similar they actually are um i think all of that like the animation does so much lifting there yeah yeah and there's like they they do that one big montage once he's finally relented and agreed to teach her and you're seeing the evolution of her learning um it's it is so much about the the physicality of the two of them and the weird intimacy of like it's such a small space like you just think about like they're on like a raft in the middle of a giant ocean for days together um you also get a pp joke in there which is good

very funny two pp jokes right they bring it back yes at least two after that is the the kakamora scene right that's the coconut pirates that's like the the big action i mean like many a disney movie we only have one song left at this point we're halfway into the movie the only song left is shiny which is a very fun song that i enjoy well well but they do two more small they they right they do reprises but much like Frozen weirdly wrapping up its songs in the middle of the movie and having the troll song be the last song like it's just funny it bums me out yes how they shift

to action mode for sort of the final act of these movies sometimes I'm just waiting for one of these movies to have the courage to have songs all the way through give us an 11 o'clock number essentially they do those two echoes with Grandma and How Far I'll Go Again,

which at least makes it feel like music is still in the lifeblood of it. Shiny is just my absolute jam. Everything about this sequence fucks so hard in my eyes. I love Tamatoa. I love this performance. I think there's something really simultaneously

funny and unnerving about how big he is he's kind of he's he's he's kind of spooky and even though he's a comic he's pretty weird goofy like you think he's gonna be terrifying then he turns out to be goofy then he's actually terrifying when he goes like that glow glow in the dark situation yes his his black light mode but also like his head is pure squash and stretch right which is pretty much just like right his eyes move right and animate things like they don't have bones like they don't have a skull right that their physiology can change based on their mood and his whole face does that obviously his body his shell his claws are more rigid right but his head is like silly putty and his eyes are spinning all over the place it's getting longer and flattening out and whatever but also there's

that weird thing i don't know what the the fucking principle of physics is here but that thing like that that pacific rim does well where like incredibly large objects moving fast would still look slow to us because of the perspective of, you know, our range of vision. And there's that thing where he's simultaneously, depending on the shot, moving like very fast or looking like he's moving slow,

whether you're seeing it from the perspective of like the God's Eye camera or from Moana or Maui. And there's also just something unnerving about seeing these characters who have been our focal point, the whole movie being that tiny, like just being flung around in his claws. Uh, I just,

I love, I love, I love, I love this number. I also just love that it completely breaks the style of every other song up until this point, like all the music has been of a piece. And then now you just have this fucking Davidid bowie number with this weird glam crab uh i love it i love it

i just remember giggling like a lunatic seeing this in theaters for the first time shiny is great uh i like both of these action sequences a lot because they have humor to them you know the the both of these action sequences a lot because they have humor to them you know the the coconut pirates and the crab like they have the uh you know moana and maui working together and working at odds at the same time you know like that's a tough dynamic to do without it feeling frustrating like you know there's only so much we want the two leads to not be friends like we you know we do we want to see how they work together this kind of takes a while for them to do that but it doesn't ever really feel annoying yes i think i just think that's difficult like that's all like i'm just sort of impressed by that and even from the even from the like the kakamora to tamatoa like first one maui's trying

to get he is not invested in protecting the heart at all. He just wants to get the hell away from from them. Yeah, he wants his hook and that's it. Right. Yeah. Right. And the second one, like she does the diversion and now he's like, oh, wait, did you do you saw the heart? So he's like, there's already been some growth in that fairly short amount of time because

she's proving herself to is like a capable and, you know, dynamic person. And the first time I saw this movie, I remember just kind of being like, oh yeah, there's a lot of action at the end, you know, and like just sort of not being as emotionally connected to it. And I don't understand why, because there is the wonderful scene with the grandma. There's this, you know, her singing,

I am Moana, you know, there are all these big sort of soaring moments that totally worked for me this time. I don't know. Look, I mean, **** had just been elected. Whatever. That's my excuse. Yeah. And also, I mean, right.

The Krakatoa is like the most conventional sort of manic action sequence, right? Then Tamatoa is like half musical number, half action sequence. And then you have the first failed attempt at defeating Te Fiti, which is very much like big action epic thing. But the final, the denouement of this movie does become more intimate again. And you have that grandma scene in the middle. You have the sort of Maui heart to heart, him leaving.

I mean, there are real emotional beats they go back to. The grandma stuff just like, I remember I saw this, I think, the first time with our friend, friend of the show, Rachel Lang and Alex Pitts. And Rachel just started bawling the second the grandmother came back. And I went like, why are you crying so much? She went, I'm just so happy she turned into a stingray i mean she made good on her promise earlier like what was her her like dying words were there's nowhere you can go that i won't be with you and i just every time i'm just like oh my god grandma my grandma speaking to me right because that's the kind of thing a character says and you're like okay that's like a thing she's

saying like in your heart right and it's like no no she's literally saying she'll follow you anywhere she's a magical stingray lady ghost now you literally see the lights in the village go out and like her spirit turning into a stingray humming with her when she transforms like after after moana and maui have their they're falling out like she thinks she can make it past the barrier islands and and again ends up getting his hook that he had worked so hard to get back like broken he leaves and she's actually like the last thing he says to her is like you know the ocean shows wrong like you're not the chosen one and this entire time like you i know that she doesn't really grapple with like a major character flaw but if there's one thing that she does like if her coming of age story has some kind of arc it's like going from telling yourself you know you're the chosen one you're

going through the motions of being the chosen one because your grandma told you and you know the ocean chose you and you're you're listening to other people telling you who you're supposed to be but she doesn't believe it like you know she's doubting herself and then like i think she goes from being the chosen one to deciding to realizing that she can make a choice. Like she gives she tells the ocean, like, choose someone else. And the ocean isn't like, no, you have to go on. It's like, all right, like, we'll take the thing. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

The heart just falls down. And then even the grandma says, like, I, I shouldn't have put so much on you. Like, you can go back home. She gives her an out. It's like, you don't have put so much on you like you can go back home she gives her an out it's like you don't have to do all this um but then like right before her oar hits the water she hesitates and she realizes like you know and then her ancestors come out and they like she's not alone it's so beautiful she's been out on this ocean by herself with the exception of maui just like feeling like she's carrying the weight of all these of her village and they are

there with her like she knows where she's from she came from and so now she knows where she can go like it's beautiful you need Maui to not be there it has to be right her and her people right yeah not this sort of demigod right right it plays so much better emotionally with her by herself it also gives Maui the chance to like have his cool fucking han solo i did actually care return um and i do like that anytime he's an animal it's a chunky animal i'm sorry like i i come on yeah you know i enjoy that the the bit with where he's the half shark and he doesn't realize it is just funny it's just funny comedy uh no that was incredibly well said, Lanika. I also think that's like another kind of nuanced thing

this movie is getting at in terms of it being like, this is a movie about how you figure out how to become a responsible adult, like how you be your own person. It's to some degree she has to learn that it is good to doubt yourself, right? That so much of this movie has been like, I know I'm right.

I have to do this. It doesn't matter what anyone tells me. And that part of the equation is if you don't ever doubt yourself, that so much of this movie has been like i know i'm right i have to do this it doesn't matter what anyone tells me and that part of the equation is if you don't ever doubt yourself that's worrying you know you should not always believe you're correct you need to have those questions you're covering something up or something if you really feel that way because like maui presents himself that way but then of course the big realization is no this guy is crippled by doubt like that's that's why he keeps doing crazier and crazier things and that's why it's so good that the arc of this movie yeah is after uh she gives the heart of the ocean to you know back to taffeti is is that she goes home and her parents are like we're glad you're home and it was clearly good for

you right there's no scolding yeah and like you know clearly like i'm glad like you you look great clearly this was a good thing for you it suits you that's and also like you were right thanks for saving us our coconuts aren't turning into dust anymore we can once again consider them which is great which is great but that almost feels secondary to yes it was scary for you to leave. And that's what I was afraid of. But I recognize that that was the right thing to do. But yes, the fact that her return is just them running to her with joy, that it's not any like, oh, my God, you know, and there's no scolding or whatever.

It's so nice. And it is like it's disarming that final Te Fiti sequence. Like I was just still having seen this so many times taken by the imagery of like she is genuinely scary looking. She's a giant volcano lady.

And we've seen her already like make a quick, quick business of our heroes the first time. And to see him want to just stand up to her and stand still and hold out a stone and then that shot where you see them in profile and and and recognize that this is a wounded creature too this is someone beautiful it's so beautiful beautiful but that

shot where it's like the two of them in profile Moana holds out her hand to the bridge of Tafiz knows I fucking love it. Just let her come to me. And the ocean just parts. And it's like, it's so fucking badass. It's great. And also to a degree,

like the thing, the, the lesson she's learned that helps her defeat her is just like, Oh, she understands why people behave certain ways. Now she understands that this is a wounded person that she has to show compassion and not treat her as an enemy. Well, she's forgotten who she is and it's all about self-know compassion and not treat her as an enemy well she's forgotten

who she is and it's all about self-knowledge and and and and um i mean well i'm glad we we came back to that because like the moment when she stands she she you know maui has distracted tikka and she's she's she climbs the the the mountain to put the heart back and she sees like it's like essentially like a a corpse has been drawn in the ocean basically yeah like a chalk outline right like the image was sort of like reminded me of you know that like the nuclear tests they did in the the marshall islands like post-world war ii it was like it was had a bit of that to it and even like the explosion had a kind of like nuclear test feel to it it's spooky yes you know right she gets knocked down

by this right black splash radius yeah right i mean she turns around she realizes and then like holds up the holds up the the stone or holds up the heart and it's like she's so brave like you just see she she knows in that moment she recognizes she knows because she knows who she is now and she recognizes what it's like for someone else to not know who they are. And realizing that Teca and Tefide are the same, the same character was like so powerful. She fucking leads with empathy. It's so touching.

And seeing the transformation, the green cracking through and all of that, it's just so beautiful on every level. That's the other time the animation, like the computer animation, it just blows your mind seeing that green burst through. Right, the colors. on every level that's the other time the animation like the computer animation just really like it just blows your mind seeing that green burst through right the colors i mean the way the lava is animated too much like water like you know just just the sort of it's it the intensity

is higher in three that's that's where the cg does is undeniable like even though i do love a hand-drawn movie and i'm sure i would have loved this if it was a hand-drawn movie, but, you know. Lenica, I have a 3D TV. I bought the last model of 3D television before they were discontinued in the United States because I didn't want to miss out on a trend that had clearly already failed. But I watched this movie in 3D, and I do think that, like, this movie is more impressive as a two characters on a boat in the middle of the ocean movie than Life of Pi. Like this movie does for me what I think a lot of people felt like, oh, my, you won't believe the immersiveness of this. 3D glasses that I now use while wearing while watching 3D movies at home are Anakin Skywalker's

Podracer goggles. Wow. Did you, you got these special? We got these for George Lucas talk show, but this is when Phantom Menace was re-released in 3D at the peak of the 3D trend. They thought a new revenue stream was going to be selling premium 3D trend. They thought a new revenue stream was going to be selling premium 3D

glasses. And unsurprisingly, you can now get these for a dollar on eBay. I was just sitting there, just right there with an arm's reach. But I was like watching the movie. Because I want to show it to you folks. I was watching the movie like this and like crying and laughing. And then I was like, okay, time

to record the podcast. And I go to the bathroom and look in the mirror and I realize I look like this i'll post the photo but it's just like i i forgot while having this very emotional experience that i looked like a young anakin beating subalba in a pot race now this is pod racing now this is pod racing um but but yeah she just fucking saves the day she does but there's no villain i mean i know that the the crab is a secondary villain but like i think i was sort of taken aback because the villain is such a crucial part of these modern disney movies like the villain that you sort of root for and has his own song or her own song you know like that's that's like part of the fun

and this movie very successfully eschews that. It's also kind of an unusual thing. No, the, you know, Tamatoa is a temporary conflict in the same way the Krakatoa are, you know? But this movie doesn't have an overarching villain.

It doesn't have a love interest. It's an aromantic relationship between a male character and a female character. And it's really just about figuring out who you are and how you function independently out in the world, which is like a pretty big thing to make a movie about

because it's not something that cleanly fits into a very kind of precise clockwork narrative, you know? Lenica, is there anything we haven't talked about in the movie that you want to talk about before we play the box office game? I mean, the end of the movie, you said, David, no more songs. But they do, of course, do a We Know the Way reprise as well. They go back on the ocean. It's wonderful.

I'm crying again. You know, like the pig finally gets to be on the water, too, which is a big one. Who is on the water, baby? Yeah. Because the boats are big. Right. Yeah. Oh, so he deserves it.

But yeah, I don't know. You know. Yeah. Is there anything we haven't talked? I mean, you know. It's a good movie. It's a good movie. I love Moana.

Every time I watch it, I'm like, all right, going to have a couple of cry moments in here. And like, it just never, the taffeti scene at the end just always like punches me in the face. It's a grandma scene for me but i also i just the whole time i'm watching it i think the same thing over and over again which is just moana's a really good kid she is good she loves her family she loves her people she like in the end she doesn't want to she doesn't want to run away from them she wants to it's it's like you know the song at the beginning is like a very conservative song like we don't leave we don't change anything this is

how things are um and like she brings them back to the way things were before that like she helps them return to the traditions that made them who they are like it's such an engine now that we're talking about i'm like okay there's there's all these layers in terms of like uh i just i just want to fucking pull chief tui aside and go like, look, I'm sure you hear this all the time, but I just gotta tell you, your daughter's a really good kid. She's a great kid. You got nothing to worry about there. Right, yeah. Yeah.

This is another thing I never realized. Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls is the mom? Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Those pipes cut through the first song. Yeah. Never realized that.

Yeah. Yeah. Her mom is Hawaiian and her dad is Filipino. She's yeah, she's good. No, no, no, no complaints about Nicole Scherzinger. Now, this movie did win the Oscar, right? No. It didn't win? No no zootopia did fuck i forgot this is the same year as zootopia that's the thing it was a rare double disney movie year and zootopia

was this like sort of financial juggernaut that got very good reviews and moana became this weird afterthought it's a huge it's a great year for that category because the nominees are you know these two movies kuba and the two strings which like oh yeah has its faults uh in terms of the cast is you know that's this sort of egregious annoying thing about but the movie itself is you know very pretty and beautifully animated and I like it a lot. My Life is a Zucchini, one of the top five titles of a movie ever, which is a good movie. My Life is an Aubergine.

Yes. In Europe, My Life is a Courgette. Courgette. Oh, sorry. Not Aubergine. And The Red Turtle, which is... I don't love that movie, but it's, again, beautiful. Like, really, really pretty. But that might be five for five the best that category has ever been.

A very good year. And Zootopia is the winner. And I like Zootopia. I haven't seen it in a while, as I said. But, like, you know. This movie is much better. Yeah. This movie is much better.

That's so fun i just did my mind corrected that i know it lost it was nominated for two oscars and lost both of them that's another thing of like this movie did incredibly well but very well frozen was two years earlier three years earlier and just like blew the doors off. So it's like Frozen. And then in between Frozen is Big Hero 6 and Zootopia. So it was like, oh, fuck, this is the next Disney princess movie. They have the Hamilton guy. This is going to be like a juggernaut. And it was just instead a massive hit.

But I think it did very well. But but I think the bar was so goddamn high that it wasn't a disappointment. But people were just like, oh, I guess that did well. I mean, seriously, you just can't underrate the weird, just cultural like atom bomb that is those three months, November, December, January, like where everyone's just kind of like, oh, my God, like it's like the only story. So I think that's part of it, too. It is also so bizarre that Zootopia was such a fucking humongous hit six months before got elected. And it's like a movie that's pretty explicitly, clumsily arguing against. Like, I know not directly, but it's a movie about like the government using fear mongering. Griffin won Zootopia.

He did. The blue wall. He won Zootopia. He flipped it. The blue wall. He flipped Zootopia. You know, that's what, 14 electoral votes? But you know how he won, right? I don't. Because he was willing to try everything. He would try everything.

That does make me cry in Zootopia when she moves to the big city and try everything is playing on her. I like Zootopia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And moving to the big city and try everything is playing on her. I like Zootopia! Yeah, yeah, yeah. And moving to the big city, you know, that's like Ben was saying. Moana is not this, but it's still

the same thing. Striking on you right now. She moves to the ocean city. Yeah. Okay. So this is the thing. We've covered this exact week in the box office game too many times and as recently as Allied. So we felt like we we can't just do the five again so i suggested we do an alternate thing to commemorate the end of this

miniseries the end of musker and clements which spans 30 plus years of disney animation i suggested we do a box office game of the top 10 dis films. We're talking Walt Disney Studios animation. Yeah, so no Pixar and no remakes. No. No fucking Lion King 2019. And no Disney tunes. We're talking the big traditional. Right, okay.

So go on. Give me the number one animated Disney film of all time, Griffin. Now, are you looking at a worldwide list or a domestic list? No, it's domestic only. I can't find a worldwide list. That's too common. So, is Lion King still number one domestic? No. Not even close. It's Frozen 2 and then Lion King?

Nope. Really? Frozen 2 and then Frozen. Those are the top two. Even with Lion King's 3D re-release included? Yes. I don't know. Look, I'm going by it. Look, Griff, this

this list was hard to find. Okay, so give me the numbers. Frozen 2 made $477 million. Jesus. In America alone. Which is a lot of money. Right, and it made like a billion two or something.

Yeah. Frozen 1 made $400 million. So those are the top two. They are just, you know, sizable things. And number three, Griffin. Is not Lion King? Nope.

Number three is Zootopia? Is Zootopia. The movie about a Zootopia. What if there was a Zootopia? Zootopia did like 360. What did it end up at? 341. Wow.

And number four is The Lion King, which made 312. Now, obviously, The Lion King made that in 1994. So if you're just for inflation, The Lion King, yes, was, you know, an unstoppable force in its own right. Multiple re-releases, yes. But what's number five? Number five would be, okay, so 312. So what's the thing that's closest to that number? Aladdin is low twos.

Do you want a hint? Yes. This movie ends up at 260, right? Yes. And the hint is it's this movie. Okay. It's Moana. It's Moana.

Moana is the fifth most successful Disney movie, unadjusted for inflation. Wow. To 48. Long tail, too. You were looking at the box office. It did like four and a half times its opening weekend. Five times its opening weekend. Yeah.

Yeah, it had good legs. But the thing is, it's just also, you know, the model changed and these things became more than just kids' movies and everyone went to see them. And like, you know, That's just the difference between A Moana and a Little Mermaid As well as Little Mermaid did you know

Um like what's Number six Griffin It's another of this you know the last Decade right it's not Big Hero 6 is it it's Big Hero 6 Which like I saw And enjoyed but I couldn't tell you a damn Thing about that movie except that there's a big pillow Robot and I saw and enjoyed, but I couldn't tell you a damn thing about that movie, except that there's a big pillow robot.

And I enjoyed, I enjoyed watching him. Did you see big hero six Lanica? I did. I also can't remember anything other than it was really cute. Yeah, it's cute. And they're,

they're heroes. His dad or brother is dead. There's a dead relative. The brother dies. The big brother dies. It was sad early on that's all I remember um

number seven Griffin is a movie we discussed on this miniseries so number seven's Aladdin number eight is Tangled is that correct

that's correct uh no I'm sorry no not no Tangled is nine what's right above it just a tick above it another recent movie we've discussed on this

podcast ben's ben's a fan oh is it is it ralph two or ralph one it's ralph two he broke the internet man just what a dominant run this has been for them and then r Ralph 1 is 10. So that's the thing. You know, it's just the recency rules. Yeah. But yeah, because then Tarzan is the next one, which was a huge hit. I kind of forget about that. And then...

Go ahead, Ben, sorry. Are they going to make a third Ralph? They should. I don't know what on earth they would make it about. I mean mean if he needs a new friend i'll hang lenica ben really likes wreck it ralph like specifically like he loves the character ralph his face lit up when you mentioned it yeah uh the the ralph trilogy of course uh wreck it ralph ralph breaks the internet and ralph meets ben just hangs out with ben yeah the next one after that is beauty and the beast after tarzan and

then lilo and stitch yeah big hit then pocahontas then does dinosaur count are we counting dinosaur dinosaur counts dinosaur counts yeah what if there was a dinosaur? And then Mulan. Yeah, wow. And then Vault. Yeah. And there you go. And now I'm done. I mean, and obviously the overseas numbers just like explode for these.

No, no, no. I'm just saying for the later movies, I mean, they were always big hits internationally. But this recent wave of the last 10 years, the worldwide numbers have just been ridiculous. I mean, it's like it really has been like a third renaissance for them where it's just, they kind of, what, they've won the Oscar three times. Yeah, they sort of began to outstrip Pixar. Yeah. They would start winning that Oscar, the animated feature Oscar, and whereas Pixar was like pumping out sequels and people were getting a little sort of disillusioned with the Pixar thing. Right. I mean, you know, Pixar will win. They won for Coco. They won for Toy Story 4 won. I think people were resigned to the idea that Frozen 2 was going to win just because Disney had been so dominant.

But Toy Story 4 is better. Frozen 2 wasn't even nominated. It wasn't even nominated? No. Hey, so what was the thing that people thought was going to win? They didn't. They thought Toy Story 4 was going to win. But I mean, but like that Frozen 2 obviously early on looked like

the juggernaut. Yeah, but no. What were the other nominees that year? Okay. How to Train Your Dragon 3. Klaus on Netflix. Missing Link. The little Laika movie. And I Lost My Body, which was the critical fave.

Which is a good movie. Those were the nominees. And this year, God knows what the nominees will be. What a weird year. Yeah. 2020 Oscars. They're going to be not a bummer at all. No, they're going to be normal. I just, God.

I just, I'm very terrified by how quickly people have gone back to like, no, but we need to do the award shows in person. Like, there are so many ways to do an award show during a pandemic. I'm not saying the Emmys were perfect, but they at least were interesting in trying to figure out how to do it responsibly. Yeah, they did some stuff that was kind of interesting and they don't know what they're doing. They don't know.

Whatever it was, the Country Music Awards, they were like, no, we think it's good if we like test everybody and then put them all in an auditorium together. And then like 80 people got sick. Yeah. Well, don't do that. No good. Very bad. Don't do it. Alright, Griffin, the only other thing we gotta do is we gotta rank the Clements and Muskers. There's only seven.

Yeah, I'm ready to do it. Go ahead. You should... Well, no, I'll go first because I feel like mine are boring. Okay. Alright, I'm number one, Little Mermaid. Number two, Aladdin. Number three, Moana. Number four, Hercules.

Number five, Princess and the Frog. Number six, Great Mouse Detective. Number seven, but a worthy final entry is Treasure Planet. Like, I don't want that to feel like the cellar dweller. Wow. Like, I like all these movies. You're going to, I think think be outraged by the list I'm about to count off. No I don't care.

I'm ready. Number one after this talk I'm only feeling twice as empowered to do it. Moana baby she's a good kid. Right. She is Moana. I just like how many times in the movie she has to sing her own name. She is Moana of

Motunui. It gets me when she does it at the end. The big... Yes. There's rarely a movie in which a character's name is said this often, and I think no other movie where a character's name is sung this often. Yeah. Moana, number one. Number two? I think I know what

it is. Yeah, Hercules. You love Hercules. I love Hercules. Herk won me back, baby. I was out and I'm back in.cules you love Hercules I love Hercules Herk won me back baby Do you like Hercules are you a Hercules fan Have you seen Hercules since you were a kid I haven't seen it in a long time But I did love I loved Hercules It's good it's really clever and fun

Like it's worth a rewatch And it looks so cool The designs are so good Number three Little Mermaid Then I'd say Worth a rewatch. And it looks so cool. The designs are so good. Number three, Little Mermaid. Then I'd say number four, I'm going to say Aladdin. Don't get too cute. Treasure Planet.

Great Mouse Detective. Wow, you put Frog at the bottom. Well, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, Frog's the only one I don't really like. Yeah, yeah, don't dislike it but i don't really like it well i can see you like princess and the frog i'm sorry i'm just bouncing all of these off you right now you don't have to have an opinion on them i've always felt guilty for not seeing it because i feel like everyone i know has seen that movie good but i've seen aladdin like at least a million at least before the age of five uh but that's it yeah no i knew hercules would be or either one or two griff i know you love hercules yeah i mean i do think little

mermaid's kind of undeniable but i have to i have to be honest to what i hear in my in my heart i have to listen to the heart of the ocean it tells me moana's number one hercules is number two little mermaid's number three that's fine that That's a okay. We had already announced our next miniseries. We had said that earlier because it's a little harder to find these movies, but we've now finished out

Musker and Clements. Next week, you will hear us do the Blinky Awards, if all goes according to plan. We will not be holding a ceremony in person. I want to make that very clear. We are not going to make the same mistakes that the Country Music Awards did.

That having been said, Darius Rucker will be hosting schedules permitting. I love Darius Rucker. That sounds great. I would love to work with Darius Rucker. What if I went on Cameo and tried to figure out how much it would cost to have Darius Rucker introduce each category? There's no one I love enough to pay for a cameo. No one on earth.

Not even Colin Farrell. Like, I just, no. No, that's okay. Tax deductible. We're a business. I understand. We're paying him as a performer. We're supporting the arts.

We're trying to keep the arts alive. But yes, next week, we're closing out the month of March with the Blankey Awards. And then, of course, April is May. For the entire month of April, we are watching the four films of Elaine May. So get to work on that. Try and track them down. New Leaf, available on a Blu-ray from Olive Films. Heartbreak Kid, hard to find. Do some searching. Mikey and Nikki, available from Criterion. Ishtar,

available from Sony. Some of them have been streaming at different points in time. But we're giving you the advance warning. Yeah, I guess that's what it's called, right? April is May? April is May. And let me just explain this

because, Lenica, you're hearing this for the first time. Yes. The joke is that the filmmaker we are covering next month, her name is Elaine May. That is her surname. Okay, not the month. Well, but then here's this. Well, this is where the comedy comes in, okay?

There's sort of a wry twist here. Griffin, I have to pee. No, no, keep going, keep going. I want to know. I want to understand. She's only made four films, tragically. But in this one circumstance, it works out to our advantage

that her filmography is limited because there are four weeks in a month. And the month is April. And we can do all four May movies in April. And thus, April, the name of the month, is May, the name of the director. Hold for laughter. Okay.

Great. Keep holding. Keep holding. Keep holding. And if you in the edit can just place in a ton of laughter there. Because I know people listening at home are going to be laughing, but I want them to not feel alone.

They're going to feel more encouraged to laugh if they hear other people laughing. David is massaging his temple as he listens. Classic, classic David move. Temple massage. Lenica, thank you so much

for being on the show. Thank you. I feel we have thoroughly considered the coconut oh that's right i think this was a pretty fair consideration the meat the tree the leaves fyc the coconut all of it uh is there anything you want to plug or direct teeple towards lenica what am i supposed to say the atlantic read the atlantic oh the atlantic our workplace workplace we love it david sims at the oh shut up get out of here you maniac read my bts stories

read your bts stories you've been you've been on some pods i feel like we were just talking about that right uh i just i live on twitter just you're on twitter better yeah yeah they hide lenica at lenica cruise uh lenica we've worked together about at math seven years now it's coming up it's six and a half six and a half years yeah okay well you gotta reveal a sim secret okay okay what what What do I have? I'm annoying. I'm precious and thin-skinned. I don't know. What's a secret to reveal about me? Lenica, I'm gonna do the outro for the show while you think on a sim

secret, and I'll let you close out the episode, but I want to be a juicy one. Just one sim secret. Oh, no. You definitely know more sim secrets than I do. That's the thing. I don't know about that uh i think think on this for a minute uh folks thank you all for listening please remember to rate review and subscribe thank you to joe bowen and pat reynolds for our artwork the great american novel for our

theme song thank you to marie bardy for social media. Thank you to our editing team, Alex Barron and AJ McKeon. Tune in next week, as we said, for Blankie Awards. April will be May after that, if you don't get it to play on words because of the director and the month. Go to blankiestartreddit.com for some real

nerdy shit. Go to our Shopify page for some real nerdy shirts, and you can go to our Patreon blank check special features where we're trekking through the Star Trek movies. And as always, Lenica, can you please gift us with one Sims secret? I don't have a Sims secret. All I can think is I've missed David and I want to have the pandemic to be over so I can come to New York and hang out. David, I ask that you do the echo of the line. You know what it's going to be.

Okay. Okay, ready? Yeah. Consider the coconuts Consider Its leaves Wait what am I supposed to do You're supposed to just say consider the coconuts forget it

Forget it David we practiced this so much Before we started come on Wait I guess I'm not echoing I'm not gonna let you say trunks in the leaves That's my fucking moment to shine. That's what I was confused by.

No, you- Okay, okay, all right. Listen, let's just take it from the top.