The long-awaited first official trailer for Disney’s Moana is finally here, and it looks spectacular.
Moana’s first official trailer is our best look yet at Disney’s sweeping sea adventure
It reveals more about the plot — and also lava monsters.
Caroline Framke wrote about culture, which usually means television. Also seen @ The A.V. Club, The Atlantic, Complex, Flavorwire, NPR, the fridge to get more seltzer.
We’ve gotten hints about what Moana might be about, thanks to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson getting cast as the shapeshifting demigod Maui. We knew that Hamilton composer Lin-Manuel Miranda is helming the music, proving yet again that the man writes like he’s running out of time. But outside of that, and the fact that the movie is about a determined girl named Moana (newcomer and actual teen Auli’i Cravalho) going on a “sea voyage,” the movie was mostly a mystery.
Now we know that Moana and her googly-eyed pet chicken go to find Maui when her island is in danger, in order to fulfill a prophecy that says, “A hero ... will journey to find the demigod Maui and together, they will save us all.” This first trailer also gives us our first real look at the movie’s sweeping scope, with Moana and Maui staring down vivid lava monsters and curling waves.
This being a Disney movie, it’s unsurprising to discover that Maui — as Moana’s sidekick, though he probably wouldn’t agree with that title — is a wisecracking guy who reminds Moana that his full name is “Maui, shapeshifter, demigod of the wind and sea, hero of men.”
But he soon finds himself impressed by Moana, who has the ability to morph water to her will, whether it’s to spit her back up from its depths onto her canoe deck or just to give her a high-five. She even calls the ocean “a friend” — which should come in handy on their treacherous journey across the sea to the ominously named “Realm of Monsters.”
Moana comes to theaters on November 23, 2016.
