Disney Animation Archives - The Wide Screen

July 8, 2021

“Encanto” 1st Trailer Promises A Return To Disney Musicals

For the fourth-largest continent on the planet Earth, South America has only served as the setting of one major Disney Animation film to date – the ambiguously Incan-inspired The Emperor’s New Groove – while Europe, only the fifth-largest continent, is the backdrop to innumerable Disney fairytales, from Snow White to Frozen II. But that’s going to change later this year with the release of Encanto, a completely original musical from the mind of Tangled director Byron Howard, which will turn a spotlight on Colombian culture and folklore. And today, we got our first good look at Encanto in a short but visually stunning teaser that effortlessly nudges the film to the forefront of the race for Best Animated Feature at next year’s Oscars.

Encanto continues Disney Animation’s recent trend of experimenting with their tried-and-true Disney Princess formula, as the film’s frizzy-haired, bespectacled heroine Mirabel isn’t technically a Princess by the studio’s strict standards. Instead, she hails from a highly-esteemed family of matriarchal multigenerational magic-users who live together in a marvelous house called Casa Madrigal on the edge of the Amazon Rainforest. She wears a dress, so by Maui’s definition she’s at least halfway to being a princess already, but the only animal sidekicks at Casa Madrigal seem to be devoted to another young scion of the family tree; a boy whose name is probably Carlos, if character details obtained by The DisInsider in December of last year still hold true.

And oh, the animal sidekicks! Honestly, most of the Disney Princesses should be embarrassed, parading around in the forest with their deer and chipmunks and the occasional singing crab, while Carlos is out here riding a jaguar, accompanied at all times by a tapir, a flock of macaws and toucans, a family of capybaras, and a couple of ring-tailed coatis. The sheer abundance and diversity of South American wildlife on display in Encanto is something I could ramble on about for quite some time, but I think I’ll spare you. I just hope there’s plenty of scenes in the rainforest, so we can see some tree-frogs, maybe an anaconda or two, perhaps a sloth.

But I also want to spend as much time as possible in Casa Madrigal, the sentient house. We’re so used to seeing magic – particularly in animation – as clouds of multi-colored CGI glitter and smoke, that it’s a really welcome change to visit Casa Madrigal, where the magic is almost entirely conveyed through ripples in the stonework, tiled surfaces, and floorboards, which create kaleidoscopic patterns or help the Madrigal family in small ways. Each of the Madrigals has their own individual talent, which they bring to the design and decoration of their little corner of Casa Madrigal – from one girl’s bedroom balcony being weighed down by the giant pink flowers she’s able to conjure from thin air (based on The DisInsider‘s reporting, I suspect that girl’s name is Ines), to Carlos’ being decorated with paintings of the animals with which he can communicate. I love it when a film is able to make a location feel vividly real, and Encanto definitely seems to be doing just that.

The crux of Encanto‘s plot, however, is that our protagonist, Mirabel, is the only member of the Madrigal family who doesn’t have a magical gift – and it inspires an amusing, if slightly awkwardly written gag in the trailer where she gets a gift from the postman as a kind of “not-special special”. I can’t pass judgment on the story just yet, because that’s essentially everything we know: and to be honest, a few of the shots in the trailer don’t even look like scenes from the actual movie, but more like some kind of pre-vis animation designed to showcase character movements and mannerisms (although if they are from the movie, I suspect many of them are from some kind of introductory montage at the beginning).

We also don’t get to hear too much of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s original music for Encanto in this teaser – just bits and pieces of something that sounds reminiscent of Miranda’s work on In The Heights, his first stage musical and the source material for a recent film adaptation which Miranda produced and cameoed in. That being said, Miranda is still undeniably a big part of Encanto – for instance, I can’t imagine it’s a coincidence that Stephanie Beatriz went from having a scene-stealing role in In The Heights to being confirmed as the voice of Mirabel Madrigal – and I’m sure it won’t be long before the airwaves are deluged with whatever catchy new earworm he’s cooked up.

It’s early to be making predictions about Encanto‘s quality when the film is still several months away, but I know that there’s a number of people who will love this, and I expect it to be a big hit with viewers who are excited for the mix of Colombian representation and Disney magic, fans who have been starved for Disney musicals recently, and folks who are really just here for Mirabel’s muscular older sister Lydia, whose biceps are giving Princess Namaari’s rhomboids a run for their money.

Trailer Rating: 8/10

March 6, 2021

“Raya And The Last Dragon” Review

There was a time when Disney had me convinced that Raya And The Last Dragon would be heavily rooted not only in Southeast Asian culture but in the region’s various unique mythologies…and while to some extent that is true and Raya does pull from many sources (too many, some have argued), the final product is to the best of my knowledge an almost wholly original story, having no basis in any specific myth or legend, and inventing more monsters and mythical creatures than it borrows from local folklore. Does that disappoint the mythology buff in me? Well, yeah, but also no – because what we get instead is an ingenious, beautiful, and almost eerily timely story of division and human failing in a time of unprecedented chaos. Sound familiar?

Disney’s darkest animated movie in years, Raya wastes no time setting up its tragic tale. Set in a sparsely-inhabited dystopian world named Kumandra, where most humans have been transformed into stone by a swarm of unearthly black tumbleweed called Druun, the film never sugarcoats the feelings of fear and confusion that keep most of Kumandra’s survivors locked up in their individual castles and kingdoms, protected by shards of the magical Dragon-Gem – the only thing, besides water, that can repel the onslaught of the Druun, which have ravaged most of the land’s forests, deserts, and mountains. Splintered into factions representing parts of the Last Dragon (Fang, Heart, Talon, Spine, and Tail), Kumandra has been trapped in this unsustainable status quo for six years, since a clash between Princess Raya of Heart (voiced by Vietnamese-American actress Kelly Marie Tran) and Princess Namaari of Fang (Gemma Chan) led to the breaking of the Dragon-Gem and the ensuing power struggle over its fragments.

But Raya And The Last Dragon is the rare dystopian epic that doesn’t aim for a gritty or grungy aesthetic – in fact, it’s a vivid, colorful masterpiece of animation, a particularly admirable feat given how much of it was created at home during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Every detail, from the diverse and unique character designs down to the food they eat (be warned, this film will make you hungry) looks lovingly crafted and real. Even the parts of Kumandra that have been overrun by Druun are hauntingly beautiful, dotted by rows upon rows of eroding statues.

Visual splendor was never the chief selling-point for Raya, which perhaps misleadingly billed itself as an intense action film. There are fight sequences, all very fast-paced, well-choreographed, and intensely violent without so much as a single drop of blood being spilled (give us the R-rated cut, Disney!), but they’re not exactly frequent. That being said, they’re elevated by the distractingly beautiful settings in which they take place, and the array of unique weapons being used. For instance, what I thought was a dragon-mace in the first trailer was actually a glimpse of Raya’s sword, which transforms into a significantly cooler bladed whip. Namaari, her main opponent throughout the film, rides into every battle on a giant cat.

Speaking of which…am I the only one getting Catradora vibes from the occasionally flirtatious banter between the two women every time they clash, or the dynamic at play in their complicated relationship? I mean, even Kelly Marie Tran wants us to know her Disney Princess is unofficially gay. Raya And The Last Dragon is arguably Disney Animation’s gayest movie yet, which of course means that every interaction between the protagonist and antagonist is technically platonic, in the same way Elsa and Honeymaren’s interactions were technically platonic in Frozen II. But there’s something about their relationship still being the real thematic core of the entire movie (not to mention a myriad of “JUST KISS ALREADY!” moments, and every time they refer to each other as “dep la”, which roughly translates to “strangely beautiful” in Vietnamese) that makes me feel like Raya might have been more overtly queer in the writing process. It’s worth noting that, while there are several metaphors for broken trust throughout the film, including the shattered Dragon-Gem, it’s Namaari’s dragon-pendant – a gift to Raya – which ultimately best symbolizes that theme, representing not just Kumandra itself, but the most painful betrayal in Raya’s life.

The pendant is but one of many small details incorporated into the film – separate from the incredible level of detail in the animation I mentioned earlier – which flesh out Kumandra’s extraordinary world, although loosely borrowing/blending bits and pieces of various Southeast Asian cultures is not a strategy without its faults, particularly since the film didn’t put in the work when it came to representing Southeast Asian voice talent. Each region of Kumandra is at once unique and different (I’d love to explore more of Talon’s colorful floating markets in a Disney+ series), but the people and their cultures clearly influence each other across borders: particularly through their food, and through a shared reverence for the Dragons of ancient lore, still visible in their most common greeting – forming the shape of the Dragon-Gem with one’s hands and lifting it above one’s head to denote respect. Little things like this subtly make Kumandra one of the most realistic worlds in Disney Animation.

The titular Dragon, however, is probably the film’s most controversial element – since Awkwafina’s shapeshifting Nāga Sisu doesn’t fit entirely comfortably within the otherwise somber story, and she’s never actually treated with much reverence, either by the characters in the film or by the film itself, which uses her as the butt of some fairly lazy jokes. Her design is also a rare misfire: with a disheveled feather-boa mane and a head that looks far too large for her serpentine body, Sisu looks awkward rather than awe-inspiring, only vaguely capturing the majesty of Southeast Asian water dragons as depicted in art and folklore for centuries.

But considering that its only other major misstep is a pacing issue and a blurriness between acts that makes the story feel rather more episodic than epic, I believe Raya And The Last Dragon is strong enough to kick off a new age of Disney Animation movies marked by more complex and mature storylines, and a lack of music I never once missed (until now, because I suddenly wish Namaari had a Disney Villain song gradually transitioning into a poignant romantic ballad).

Rating: 8.5/10

January 26, 2021

“Raya And The Last Dragon” 2nd Trailer!

The first trailer for Disney’s Raya didn’t make that big an impact when it dropped several months ago, despite its stunning animation, stellar voice-cast headlined by Kelly Marie Tran, and beautiful Southeast Asian setting. It caused plenty of heated discourse, though: as many fans understandably felt cheated by the way the film blends several vastly different Southeast Asian cultures, traditions, and myths; and others drew unfavorable comparisons to Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend Of Korra, saying Disney had blatantly ripped off the popular Nickelodeon series’.

The second trailer – released today, completely out of the blue as far as I can tell – is bound to be a shock for anyone who genuinely loved the first trailer for its maturity, somber tone, and grandeur. We’re about two months out from Raya‘s release, and suddenly Disney has decided to market the film as Lord Of The Rings by way of…Fast And Furious, I guess? I’m not complaining, because this movie still looks ridiculously awesome (emphasis on the ridiculous), but Disney’s misleadingly epic teaser trailers are becoming a bit much at this point. Then again, anyone who actually thought Frozen II was going to be a dark fantasy about the impending dangers of climate-change based on one scene of Elsa running over water was probably setting themselves up for failure.

But the key difference between Raya And The Last Dragon and other Disney animated family films is that Raya actually does have the stunning, gravity-defying action sequences its trailers promise. According to directors Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada, a cut exists of the movie that could have landed it an R-rating for violence. That may be exaggeration, but their insistence that the film’s fight scenes are inspired by those of franchises like John Wick certainly gives me hope that we’re in for something spectacular when Raya leaps onto our screens in March, armed with her iconic wavy-bladed kalis, whip, and magic powers.

Thankfully, Disney Animation has broken recent tradition and given Raya an actual villain to bounce off of, and to fight. Although I appreciated Frozen II‘s villain twist (“the crimes and misdeeds of previous generations, if left unaddressed, are the greatest evils of our time” was a clever and brilliant message, albeit completely undermined in the film’s third act), I’ve been missing real Disney villains lately: their unapologetic campiness, their swagger, and their braggadocio. Raya’s nemesis, named Namaari and voiced by Gemma Chan, might not have a campy bone in her body, but she’s got the swagger, she’s got the braggadocio, and most importantly, she’s got back muscles that most Disney villains would kill for. I don’t know whether to ask for her workout regimen or her hand in marriage.

There’s always a chance that Namaari and Raya (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran, who recently made her triumphant comeback to social media after years of relentless harassment from embittered Star Wars fanboys) will join forces by the end of the movie to defeat some greater evil, but before that happens we’ll get plenty of duels between the two, as they both hunt for the last dragon – the only creature capable of saving the land of Kumandra from an ancient evil. Set to modern epic music, the trailer invites us on a globe-trotting quest around Kumandra’s warring regions alongside a fellowship of anti-heroic misfits, including a con-baby with a troop of monkey minions. Each region seems to reflect a different part of Southeast Asia, from the forests of Indonesia and the Philippines, to the river-delta villages of Bangladesh. The new trailer showcases more of the area’s diversity than the teaser, while memorable sequences from the teaser are noticeably absent: the sequences that had viewers comparing Raya and Korra’s blue outfits and similarly-styled ponytails.

But the new trailer does confirm that the mysterious masked man seen battling Raya in the teaser was, in fact, her father – and the ritual guardian of Kumandra’s dragon gem, as I guessed at the time. Daniel Dae Kim will voice the role, which will surely be brief: he barely gets to speak a single line in the trailer before we cut to Raya placing flowers at a shrine with a statue of him. It’s somehow comforting that, with the world as unpredictable and chaotic as it is, you can always rely on Disney Animation to kill their protagonists’ parents. Some things never change.

But what about you? How excited are you based on this new trailer? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

Trailer Rating: 8.5/10

October 21, 2020October 21, 2020

“Raya And The Last Dragon” First Trailer!

For a while, the only official material we’ve seen from Disney Animation’s upcoming epic Raya And The Last Dragon is a few pieces of stunning concept art, one poster that wasn’t meant to leak, and a new poster released yesterday in anticipation of this morning’s first trailer release. And today, I am both surprised and relieved to discover that this is one of the few cases where the finished film actually seems to look just as good as – if not better than – the already beautiful concept art.

Set in the lush, vibrant kingdom of Kumandra, the first trailer for Raya gets off to a good start instantly, with a stringed instrument providing haunting, atmospheric background music over scenes of our brave young heroine, Raya, – voiced by the talented yet criminally underrated and mistreated Kelly Marie Tran, making a brave comeback after her role as Rose Tico in Star Wars made her the subject of cyberbulling and targeted harrassment by racists – while she prepares for the fight of her life. We see a wide range of different landscapes and locations throughout Kumandra in the trailer, most notably a palace or temple complex perched on a tall, arch-shaped rock formation which appears to be taking some architectural influence from real-life locations in Southeast Asia such as the temples at Bagan in Myanmar. Raya And The Last Dragon will become Disney’s first film set in Southeast Asia, and follows a pattern established over the past several years by Disney in that it stars a bold, capable, adventurous princess in the lead role – though, to be fair, it’s not entirely clear from the trailer if Raya is a princess by birth, and if that will make her ineligible to join the official Disney Princess line-up.

She might pull a Mulan and simply get in because she earned the title on her own. In the trailer’s first thirty seconds, we see Raya donning the outfit of a warrior meant for stealth missions (she has an entire room full of weapons, which I hope to see explored to the fullest): and then embarking on one such stealth mission herself, leaping from rooftops in the rain and vanishing into a network of deep, subterranean tunnels which presumably lie beneath the aforementioned palace/temple. The entire sequence is gorgeously animated, exquisitely filmed, and evocative of action films and spy thrillers. After a hold-up in a tunnel full of traps (falling nets rather than the usual spikes jutting from walls or disappearing floor-tiles), Raya reaches her destination – a massive, circular chamber housing what I have to imagine is the “Dragon Gem” she mentions later in the trailer as the magical artifact she’s sworn to protect: but on this particular occasion, she has company. A warrior is already there before her, wearing a fanged dragon mask to hide their features, and engages her in combat – although the warrior wields a large, wavy-bladed sword called a kris, Raya is using a martial arts style which employs two short staves: this could be Arnis, a fighting style popular in the Philippines, but which is believed to draw on influences from throughout Indonesia, Malaysia and India. The fight between the two warriors is interspersed throughout the rest of the trailer, with Raya and her opponent evading each other in a sort of dance.

From there, we jump to a desert setting – which is interesting, because Southeast Asia isn’t really known for its deserts. Raya, now carrying her very own kris, is on a quest to find the Last Dragon of Lumandra, as she informs us through narration, so this could perhaps take place further afield, maybe even in India or China: not that it will matter much to Raya, who is lucky to have on her side a large pangolin/pillbug hybrid creature named Tuk Tuk, whom we are introduced to as an adorable baby in the opening sequence but is already enormous when we see him carrying Raya through the desert at high speeds. This, coupled with Raya telling us that she trained her whole life to become the guardian of the Dragon Gem makes me think that her fight in the cavern isn’t with an enemy, but instead a ritual she must have undergone to become said guardian – some sort of “passing the torch” ceremony meant to prove her worth and strength. But it seems like, despite her best efforts, something bad is happening to Kumandra and the Dragon Gem isn’t enough to keep several different kingdoms or clans united: these are the four groups we see moments later attending an event held by a man and a young girl who is probably his daughter and undoubtedly Raya. Maybe she is a Princess by birth after all. While a few of these groups might just be there to provide worldbuilding, two at least look like they are probably important to the story: the group dressed in dark green, equipped with a small army of elephants and led by a long-haired man who looks a bit like the warrior in the cavern; and the group to their left, dressed mostly in white, led by a very regal woman with a striking haircut, who come with a bunch of giant dog…wolf…creatures. A little hard to tell what’s going on there, but I am very intrigued. Will we get huge battles in this movie with war elephants and some mythical beasts? I hope so!

The trailer leaves us with only a tantalizing glimpse of the Last Dragon – through a colorful illustration in a scroll and a fleeting, feathery silhouette. But far more striking is the kaleidoscopic title card, which shows us tiny, blue-hued hints of other things I already can’t wait to see in clearer detail: Raya, standing on a cliff, looking out towards a huge staircase carved into the side of a mountain; and a mace carved into the shape of a writhing dragon. Raya looks to be the most heavily-armed Disney Princess in history, and I hope she gets to use all of that weaponry at some point: assuming the warrior in the cavern is not an enemy but rather a mentor or ritual opponent, there’s no sign of any other villain – except perhaps in the scroll, where we see the Last Dragon locked in combat with a black and purple swirl of cloud. This black and purple motif is possibly mirrored in the cavern, which is filled with glowing purple flowers which cover the walls and hang from the ceiling: but don’t seem to be the same glowing flowers we saw in the concept art and leaked poster, as those were bright blue. My takeaway from this is simply that we should be on the lookout for all sorts of significant botanical specimens in this film. I do also want to point out that I genuinely hope there’s a physical villain in Raya And The Last Dragon, only partially because I still feel cheated that we never got an epic third-act battle in either Moana or Frozen 2.

So what do you think? How do you feel about this first trailer, and how excited are you to see Raya in action? Share your own thoughts, theories and comments in the comments below – and if you come from the Southeast Asian region, please feel free to share any information about your own culture that you feel may have influenced the film!

Trailer Rating: 8.5/10