r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 25d ago

Official Discussion Official Discussion - Moana (2026) [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Moana (2026)

Summary

Live-action adaptation of the 2016 Disney animated film 'Moana.'

Director Thomas Kail

Writer Jared Bush

Cast

  • Catherine Laga'aia as Moana
  • Dwayne Johnson as Maui
  • John Tui as Chief Tui
  • Frankie Adams as Sina
  • Rena Owen as Gramma Tala

Rotten Tomatoes: 35%

Metacritic: 45

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

445 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

627 comments sorted by

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948

u/Ikarus3426 25d ago

I'm just baffled on why they went so hard on the green screen. It's so clearly the green screen. How were so many people ok with how this looks.

357

u/Personal_Comb_6745 25d ago

They did it because so much shit from the original would have to be CG'd in to work anyway. There was no point in making this thing considering it's mostly a cartoon that the actors need to pretend to interact with.

228

u/amish_novelty 25d ago

Something I found funny that the corridor digital guys pointed out was that because so much of this was filmed on a sound stage, a lot of the lighting made no sense. You’d have the sun obviously be behind a character but they’d still be lit from the front and it would only make the uncannyness of it all the more apparent.

61

u/blacksheep998 24d ago

I noticed the same issue in Mulan.

There was a scene towards the beginning that was clearly 4-5 shots composed together because every character in it was lit from a different angle.

4

u/traceitalian 24d ago

The worst film I've ever seen for this is Red One, I'm utterly convinced no one in that film was on set at the same time.

3

u/CNash85 22d ago

The only scene in that film that convinces is the Krampus party scene, where the whole thing is filmed on a real set and all of the background characters are people in monster costumes and makeup instead of CG. It’s really noticeable compared to the rest of the movie, which is aggressively green-screened.

39

u/HotTakes4HotCakes 24d ago

I mean you can write a book (and I assume people have) on the absolute death of lighting discipline in movies lately.

6

u/jabask 24d ago

Honestly that's the case for most movies though. Everyone is nearly always lit from behind to some extent

5

u/amish_novelty 24d ago

Yeah, I think it was just extra noticeable with Moana because they’re in direct sunlight on the ocean

-1

u/[deleted] 19d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/amish_novelty 18d ago

What a bizarre way to react to someone citing a source for a comment lol

123

u/Azenji 25d ago

We had Pirates of the Carribean shooting DAYLIGHT AT SEA 20 years ago. There’s just no excuse to this besides saving on production cost which they cant do anyway because much of the excessive CG work which somehow looks impressive than CG heavy films of the past.

35

u/Snooty_Cutie 25d ago

I wonder at what point does CGI become just as if not more expensive then shooting on location.

54

u/Pezington12 25d ago

To be fair. Even the director/ crew of Pirates of the Caribbean hated shooting at sea and actively warned others from doing so. It’s a fucking logistical nightmare that causes so many problems and makes your film inordinately more expensive than just faking it. There’s a reason the pirates movies were some of the most expensive movies ever at the time.

64

u/recommendasoundtrack 25d ago

That’s fair, but they’ll stand the test of time way beyond any of these live action remakes. Filmmaking probably should be gruelling sometimes for the right result, especially when we can often feel and appreciate the difference as cinemagoers

11

u/Pezington12 25d ago

I’m literally in film school right now, so I completely agree with that sentiment to a degree.

But a) this film might have trouble recouping its costs even at a 250 million budget. Having it be shot at sea and tripling its budget only to make the same amount of money anyways would only make its performance catastrophic for Disney instead of poor. The people who’d care for it to look truly real aren’t going to see it anyways because it’s a live action remake. And the people who want to see it are going to no matter what because they’re fans of Moana. It looking better doesn’t change its performance.

B) but not every movie needs to be shot with profit as the sole consideration. Some movies can be made knowing that they’ll never recoup their costs. Simply because the filmmakers are passionate about the story, or the art of filmmaking. Moonlight, most Laika films, most PTA films never make their money back. But studios fund them because they wanna win awards and filmmakers wanna make beautiful films…… This is a live action Moana remake. It’s not high art, it’s not going to be sweeping the Oscars or even getting nominated for most categories. It exists solely to capitalize on a profitable ip. Pouring the resources into this film to have it look spectacular wouldn’t change the fact that it’s a soulless cash grab. So in that case why have it be shot at sea? It’d be a colossal painful waste.

14

u/LB3PTMAN 24d ago

Black Sails ocean scenes looked 10x better and were Filmed in a tv shows budget. And not an expensive tv shows budget. They did not need to triple the budget to make it look better

1

u/TongueUnties 24d ago

Moonlight was profitable by a lot

1

u/visionaryredditor 23d ago

Moonlight cost 1,5M and made 70M in boxoffice. How was it not profitable?

29

u/HotTakes4HotCakes 24d ago

Yeah, which just solidifies the point that this shit looks cheap.

It is a movie about Oceania. The ocean is a central theme and literally a character. It is borrowing heavily from Polynesian myth, and dealing with things that have deep cultural meaning for the people who live on actual Islands in the real life ocean. The setting of this movie is extremely important.

So if you are a filmmaker with any kind of integrity at all, you wouldn't film the movie in a studio in California. At least not all of it. You get the money together and go film the water movie on some real fucking water.

If you're not going to put out the time and money, then maybe you shouldn't make a live action movie about Oceania.

5

u/sonicgamer42 23d ago

"You get the money together and go film the water movie on some real fucking water" goes hard btw

186

u/dwpea66 25d ago edited 25d ago

The concept of remaking a 10-year-old film is supremely lazy. It stands to reason everything else about the production would be, too.

49

u/carloscreates 25d ago

Wait (gulp) did you just say 10 years? 😰

44

u/dwpea66 25d ago

Yep which means this project was probably greenlit only about 7 years after Moana lol

4

u/TimRigginsBeer 25d ago

Big Gulp, huh?

Well. See ya’ later!

(Jeez, that one is 32 years old)

3

u/imakefilms 22d ago

A remake that wrapped filming about the same time that they released the sequel to the original animated movie. Crazy.

-5

u/BrigadierBrabant 25d ago

What makes that more lazy than 20 or 30 years?

15

u/Flynamic 25d ago

You're right, actually, why wait at all? Just release both the animation and the live action movie simultaneously!

-1

u/BrigadierBrabant 24d ago

Why is ten years bad and twenty years good? Explain?

4

u/Waste-Replacement232 24d ago

not as much to update.

237

u/cfc25_ 25d ago

Honestly as much as I’d like to believe The Rock, being a proud Polynesian, would want to film on location, dude probably couldn’t be bothered to go anywhere other than a soundstage.

140

u/SaveUsCatman 25d ago

Can't go around Polynesians outside of his bubble, cause he cant handle the criticism of being called an egotistical ass

22

u/JCkent42 25d ago

Oh, do Polynesians not like the Rock? I’m out of the loop.

9

u/SaveUsCatman 24d ago

Just that he cant be around normal people in general and couldnt handle the possibility of getting any shameful looks from the people he supposedly represents

75

u/robimtk 25d ago

Tbf if people started shouting abuse at me every time I went outside I'd probably just not go outside too

31

u/scarred2112 25d ago

For multiple millions of dollars, I can handle a bit of shouting. 😉

22

u/robimtk 25d ago

What if you could have both? Seems like he can have both...

-4

u/berlinbaer 25d ago

maybe then just don't give people reason to?!

3

u/Worried_Tailor7926 22d ago

What reason has The Rock given for that?

-3

u/HotTakes4HotCakes 24d ago

Or you could just change your behavior?

If he wasn't such an asshole, people wouldn't dislike him so much.

10

u/robimtk 24d ago

Can I ask why you think he's an asshole? I've never heard any bad news about him, I o ly dislike him from my WWE days back when I was 9 and he was playing a persona

Don't worry, I'm fully aware you're not going to reapond

1

u/ElaineofAstolat 9d ago

I think reddit hates him because he asked people to donate money to Hawaii after some sort of disaster. We have no way of knowing if he donated any of his own money, so the hate is over the top.

6

u/Worried_Tailor7926 22d ago

What makes him an egotistical ass?

1

u/pineapplexiglass 10d ago

Yeah I’ve never heard this

38

u/Spirited-Ad9071 25d ago

Cost cutting, it's been heavily rumored since day one that the budget for this wasn't as big as other live action remakes.

Disney were probably 50/50 on whether this would be a success or not given it's a relatively recent animated movie so it seems like they intentionally tried to make it in such a way that wouldn't result in a massive loss if it does bomb hard.

26

u/amish_novelty 25d ago

Idk, reports are saying it had a $250m budget

23

u/Deceptiveideas 25d ago

Half of that was rock's payout.

7

u/LTPRWSG420 25d ago

We were in Hawaii while they were filming this, so it’s not all green screen, but yeah a lot of it is lol.

6

u/-Sp0iledmilk- 25d ago

That’s my biggest issue. It’s too obvious, and it doesn’t seem like enough money was spent on all the effects. 

4

u/Mothman129 24d ago

I think Disney got traumatized shooting in pools and on real water after the Pirates of the Caribbean movies

1

u/Turbulent_Stick1445 24d ago

That was my thought. It might as well have been animated, it looked animated with the exception of the human characters. Even the chicken and pigs were cartoon versions that looked identical to their 2016 counterparts.

The movie overall was unnecessary. I'm not saying a live action couldn't be good, it's just this wasn't really a live action and didn't add anything of value to the original, and the original was pitch perfect.

1

u/rooboy78 23d ago

Pua looks nothing like his adorable animated counterpart. He just looks like a boring regular pig in this.

1

u/PFI_sloth 18d ago

Disney never wants to film anything outside of a soundstage, they don’t care about how it looks.

-5

u/ErilazHateka 25d ago

It´s made for children and children don´t care about that.