Eight years after the release of “Moana”, the second movie debuted in theaters on Nov. 27. The first movie is a childhood favorite of mine, in fact, I still find myself listening to the soundtrack or playing the movie in the background of my homework.
For this reason, I was beyond excited for the release of “Moana 2”. I will admit, I was unsure what more directors David G. Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller could do with the plot, given Moana ended with no questions left unanswered. However, within the first ten minutes of the movie I realized the storyline would not disappoint.
Upon returning from a recent voyaging trip to look for other people, Moana has a vision in which her ancestor, Tautai Vasa, reveals Moana needs to raise the island Motufetu in order to reconnect her people. Afterwards Moana assembles a crew to help her on the journey.
The series of events that unfolded throughout the movie felt very familiar as they mirrored the plot structure of the original movie. But what wasn’t similar was the music.
Moana’s now iconic soundtrack was composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mark Mancina and Tokelauan singer-songwriter Opetaia Foa’i. However the songs in the second movie were written by Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear as Miranda is currently busy on other projects. The difference is obvious.
Without Miranda, the movie and music fell short. In no way did the songs further the plot. In fact, they felt forced. “Can I Get A Chee Hoo?” sung by Dwayne Johnson was a clear attempt to replicate the favored song “You’re Welcome” from the original movie, but it just wasn’t the same.
What separated the original “Moana” music from any other soundtrack was Miranda’s ability to weave lyrics in English and both Samoan and Tokelauan. This is something that is extremely hard to do as different languages have differing world lengths, symbols and phonics, making it difficult to match melody and rhythm.
While Barlow and Bear did their best to live up to his legacy, their songs weren’t able to invoke the same feeling that Miranda had.
Still, I look forward to seeing the third one. I was pleasantly surprised to watch the extra scene at the end of the movie which was set up for “Moana 3”, and I hope Miranda will be able to rejoin the team.
