MOANA Melts Frozen!!

Disney is on a roll for 2016!! Disney Animated Studios has bragging rights to Frozen (the highest grossest animated film of all time), Zootopia in the #2 spot and Moana is well on its way to melting Frozens’s record.

Moana (Auli‘i Cravalho) tells the story of a young Hawaiian girl who is searching for a demigod (Maui played by Dwayne Johnson), who once he is found, the two embark upon a journey to save her island and her people from impending destruction. Auli’l’s voice is absolutely amazing and “The Rock” surprised me with his vocal prowess on “Your Welcome”.

It was so nice to see Disney add another ethnic Princess to their stable twice in one year (Elena from Avalor was introduced to the Disney Channel earlier). The photography is absolutely stunning and so life-like that one forgets that you are watching an animated feature.

The diverse and dynamic team behind the film’s inspired music includes Tony®- and Grammy®-winning lyricist/composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, who’s behind Broadway’s Pulitzer Prize-winning and multiple Tony-winning “Hamilton” and the Tony-winning “In the Heights,” and is a 2015 MacArthur Foundation Award recipient. Three-time Grammy®-winning composer Mark Mancina created memorable scores for films like “Speed,” “Tarzan” and the Oscar®-winning “Training Day,” and co-wrote songs, produced and arranged the score for Broadway’s musical production of “The Lion King.” Opetaia Foa‘i, the founder and lead singer of Te Vaka, is a winner of numerous world music awards, including the Senior Pacific Artist award for his contribution to Pacific music. Miranda is well on his way to becoming an EGOT (Emmy-Grammy-Oscar-Tony) member before the end of 2017!!!

Click HERE for how the cast and crew felt about working with WATER

Kudos Disney and directors Ron Clements & John Musker for really working it out on the diversity front for 2016! Of course, this shouldn’t be a surprise since this same team brought us Princess & The Frog and Aladdin. We won’t have to guess who all the little girls will want to be for Halloween 2017…lol.

Of course, No Disney film would be complete without villains (the Coconuts) and the loyal best friend (The Rooster and the Baby Pig). Of course, my favorite was Grandma Tala (Rachel House). She is sugar and spice with everything naughty and nice:).