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Disney have been making cartoon TV shows as spin offs from their big animated movies for years. This started as a lesser known aspect of their celebrated 90s renaissance with The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King, Hercules, Beauty & the Beast and Tarzan all getting this treatment. It then carried on through the early days of the new millennium with The Emperor’s New Groove and Lilo & Stitch both getting a series of small screen stories, and into more contemporary times with the further adventures of Tangled, Big Hero 6 and Zootropolis. I can only think of one occasion where it went the other way, with a cartoon show getting a cinema adaptation as 1990’s Duck Tales The Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp.

Now though I think we have the first case of one of these planned projects changing tack mid production and been retooled away from TV, or streaming in this case, and back into theatres as a full on sequel to the film that inspired it. 

It’s not clear why they decided that the proposed Moana: The Series should become Moana 2 but it is reasonable to assume that it has something to do with the performance of last year’s Wish, the film that was designed to be Disney’s huge self referential celebration of 100 years of the studio, but bombed both critically and at the box office. Realising they needed a cinematic hit and having just been painfully reminded that all the money is in sequels right now, it seems someone suggested that this belonged in movie houses and not on Disney+. 

In terms of the current success of established series over original content, consider that sixteen of the twenty highest grossing films of this year are sequels. In fact it is seventeen, and all of the top ten if you consider Wicked to be a legacy sequel to The Wizard of Oz. It is clear that Disney’s plan has worked as well because Moana 2 is currently number five in that list and climbing. (Ducktales only made it to seventy.) It has had the largest Thanksgiving Weekend opening ever, and the biggest opening for an animated movie ever.

For my money, Moana 2 is not as good as Wish. This isn’t a widely held opinion but for all of its efforts to reflect the studio’s legacy, that movie did things a little differently. Moana 2 by its nature does not. Frozen 2 took its story somewhere new but this one plays on similar ideas to its predecessor. Moana herself goes out across the sea on another mission, Maui joins in midway through, and the water gets choppy again as they face off against another made up Oceanic deity (he’s based on Tāwhirimātea, the Polynesian god of weather and storms). This is probably one of the throwbacks to its origin status as, conversely, is the main aspect that is new; the increased cast of mostly forgettable characters. 

None of this is to say that the film is not great though. When Disney decided to redirect this to cinemas they clearly threw some money at it. The animation is spectacular and the resolution of the story, which I’m sure has grown to match the format, feels genuinely epic (if reminiscent of their big 1997 release). The characters are also still well rounded and Moana herself has lost none of her easy feminist power (still no love interest, still not a princess). The songs are bops, if not as catchy as what came before (you probably can’t get Lin-Manuel Miranda for a TV show) and it is clearly finding its audience. 

I would love it if new stories were ruling the box office but that’s not where we are right now. To be honest I am just thrilled that a Disney animated film has done so well when their main focus seems to turning their whole back catalogue, including Moana, into live action movies. What I’d really like to see is a decision to put all of those live action projects on streaming (maybe it will end as it started, with Snow White) while they concentrate more on doing what they have always typically done so well; making great animated stories for the cinema. 

Role on Frozen 3, Zootropolis 2 and no doubt Moana 3.