The child in mind is very much alive, can you tell? Well, today I watched Moana, and I enjoyed it tremendously. Moana is a great family movie; I love the direction Disney is going these days, skipping Prince Charming altogether.
This story is about Moana, the chief’s daughter who has been chosen by the sea to go on a voyage that would save her people from danger though the disaster is not imminent at the time. Moana has the dilemma that most of us go through to either tread a path that had been laid out for her by her father to be content to stay on the island and lead her people or to sail across the sea to find her way. She learns the traditions of her people to become a great chief but continually receives inspiration from her grandmother the village crazy lady. Tragedy pushes her to take the plunge; she must sail to find Maui the Demigod and command him to sail with her and return that which he took.
Maui, on the other hand, has a lot of subliminal lessons for us to learn from, abandoned to the gods by his parents, he becomes a demigod and performs deed after deed to receive love and worship from the humans which are never enough. Thor has his hammer; Maui has his hook which he lost in battle. Moana, the human, helps Maui see that he is valuable with or without his hook or the love of humans.
It is beautiful to see that the main villain was once the source of all things beautiful, almost like Maleficient showing us that most villains are mostly understood or simply hurt. Moana sees this in the end as is able to make it right. She returns home a hero and leads her people to sea as their ancestors before them went on as voyagers.