Dwayne Johnson made a splash while promoting Disney’s MOANA!
Moana, Disney’s upcoming animated film based in the South Pacific, made some serious waves at its D23 panel with the appearance of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, one of the film’s stars!
The actor talked in detail about his character, the demigod Maui. While a strong and handsome fellow, it turns out that Maui feels a little out of place as a human raised by gods, trying to please both cultures equally.
Johnson even got a bit emotional when discussing his own Samoan heritage and what a dream it is to help bring South Pacific culture to the screen in collaboration with Disney.
/Film attended the presentation and took note of a few key clips shown:
At first the Hawaiian girl and her pig aren’t impressed in a clip that shows [Maui] explaining his animated tattoos. Maui reacts incredulously to their blank unimpressed stares, “Nothing? What does a demigod gotta do?”
A proof of concept clip showed a very young, baby Moana meeting the ocean for the first time. As she’s walking on the beach, the water comes into the shore, and then divides to show seashells hidden on the ocean floor for her to collect. Moana walks deeper into the ocean, the water parting for her to move through safely, allowing a glimpse into the water and its inhabitants like in an aquarium.
And then we see the water form into an arm and touch her gently. Suddenly her father calls her back, and the ocean picks her up and carries her to shore of a wave. Her bond with the ocean is strong, and as a teenage girl, she still has the seashell she found as a baby, showing that she still has strong ties to this old friend.
Moana sails into theaters on November 23, 2016.