remember when this blog first started making posts and the photoshop was okay at best but years later constable-frozen is out here revealing masterpieces before our eyes
my favorite thing about this is that each of them is walking in a different direction, it’s like these girls are off to conquer the entire goddamn world
so you know this cool challenge dance maui does to get the lava demon’s attention? it’s called a haka, and it turns out new zealand sports teams do it before their matches.
Y’ALL my sister just dropped a theory about Moana on me and I’m
Grandma Tala. She seemed like a fairly healthy old woman on the whole, right? Dancing with the sea and the rays, doing Old Crazy Lady things etc etc. Okay. Sure.
The thing is, my sister suddenly pointed out that, ever since Moana dropped it as a baby, Tala had possession of the Heart of Te Fiti. The source of Life.
And then she gave it to Moana, who ran off with it to try and get the islanders to voyage out for Maui, and… suddenly deteriorated. Died.
What if the Heart had been keeping her alive. Te Fiti gave Life to the islands, but in the hands of another, what if that isn’t what it does? What if the Heart grants immortality? What if Tala knew, and still gave up the Heart so that Moana could find Maui, restore Te Fiti, and save Motunui?
And if that’s what the power of the Heart really was, no wonder the monsters wanted it.
And that’s why Moana survived in places she should have died, INCLUDING venturing the realm of spirits aka the underworld
okay this is awesome, i love it. i was just thinking the other day about how like, why was it that maui stole the heart to give its power to humans, but then moana carries it all over the place and never displays any supernatural powers at all? it would be really cool if its power was just to keep people alive. like, that’s all the power you need, as a human: just being alive. and from there you can accomplish everything yourself.
also, moana didn’t even need maui’s powers, when push came to shove. this guy who pulled up the islands and pulled down the sun and could turn into a shark and everything, and the most important thing she took from him was just how to sail the open ocean. she only really needed a demigod to recover information that had passed from her people’s living memory: once she had it again, once she and the knowledge were alive together, she was unstoppable.
humans didn’t need te fiti’s powers. humans didn’t need maui’s powers. humans love and appreciate the gifts given to them by benevolent gods and heroes, but when it comes to taking care of business— and taking care of each other— just being alive is enough power for anyone.
I have crossed the horizon to find you. I know your name.
Okay but legitimately… this scene is so powerful in some beautifully subtle ways…
One of the tricks that filmmakers use to give an audience visual cues is that when somebody is in a position of power they walk from left to right – because that is the direction Westerner’s read, so it’s how we naturally view everything – and when somebody is in a place of weakness they walk right to left. It’s why when there’s a battle, the people who are going to win ALWAYS come from the left.
But this… Moana is coming from the right, and Teka is coming from the left. The water behind Moana is pale, while the water behind Teka is bright and vibrant – the bright blue and orange overpowering the pale blue and tan.
All of the visual cues are putting Moana in a place of weakness.
All of the visual cues are telling us that Moana is not going to win.
But that’s the strength of Moana… All throughout the movie she questions why the ocean chose her, and I think this very beautifully spells it out. She wasn’t chosen because she put a turtle into the ocean, or because she’s the daughter of the village chief, or because she’s descended from voyager.
The reason the ocean chose her is because when you put her in a position of weakness she will always turn that into a strength. The reason the ocean chose her is because she won’t back down when things are impossible, when the odds are against her, and when everything around her is signalling her imminent defeat.
Only a very special person could be so completely overpowered, and still be stronger than everything around her.
just moving along like everyone else 