This might be a new low for Disney. It’s hardly been ten years since the titular Polynesian voyager sailed onto our screens in the animated Moana (2016), but the powers that be at Disney have decided it’s now high time for a live action remake. The purpose is as clear as the azure waters surrounding Moana’s home island of Motunui: money. But whether audiences are nostalgic enough yet for a remake of a film released in relatively recent memory and still going strong as one of Disney+’s most streamed titles, remains to be seen.
At least with some of Disney’s other live action output, like 2016’s The Jungle Book or 2023’s The Little Mermaid, there was the argument that outdated elements could be modernised somewhat and that groundbreaking computer technology offered a totally new experience of older stories. The original Moana, however, was already a very inclusive, progressive film and used the modern, CGI animation style we’ve got used to in recent years, rather than the simplistic, hand-drawn style of the past. There isn’t the same leap, then, from traditional drawings to hyper-realistic CGI, and to make matters worse, zero effort or creativity has been put into the execution of this new Moana. Scenes play out exactly as they do in the original – it is essentially a shot-for-shot remake.
