I feel, as the comments are describing because I read a few before writing my own, that Disney has been teaching us "People Are Bad Please Be Careful" and now it's going "Well if you don't trust them either before or after they've hurt you you're a jerk" and I'm just.... I'm struggling with this and human-ing enough as a freshly diagnosed autistic adult and I side with Raya, how are kids going to deal with this either way???
@@Roadent1241 Just in general the “Just trust someone no matter how many times they hurt you and if you don't then it's on you” it's such a horrible thing to teach, sounds kinda like gaslighting honestly
@@AlexMartinez-dl9xi Yes, I agree. I'm confused what Disney's logic is right now. "Eh we're not talking to the kids anymore. Adults, do you not trust people because we taught you not to? Don't be stupid. Be like your kids. Trust blindly!!!"
This movie could have been incredible if it was about earning back trust instead of Raya trusting someone who broke her trust. It should have been on Namari to earn back Raya’s trust instead of it being Raya’s fault that she didn’t trust her
Agreed. Honestly, the way the movie handled the arc between Namari and Raya was just obscenely, horrendously toxic and honestly dropped the movie in my books from "S'alright" to "Swivel on my middle digit!" I've got a particular grudge against anything that tries to victim blame, and the way that this one almost gaslights Raya is especially insidious. That is some Mother Gothel levels of manipulation there, Disney.
I agree. It bothered me how this movie blames Raya for not trusting Namaari when she is constantly proving that she can’t be trusted. To make it worse Namaari never apologizes or makes an effort to earn Raya’s trust back.
Spoilers: It drives me insane how Raya was partially blamed for that failed negotiation in the climax "because she should have trusted Sisu", even though Sisu pretty much spent the whole entire movie doing nothing but getting Raya and her party into constant trouble by repeatedly being too trusting of other people. Not only did Raya have no reason to make peace with Namaari, but she also had no reason to trust Sisu's judgement.
I mean but it's kind of accurate though. When you give trust you have to take the good with the ugly. As for the namaari thing let's be real they barley knew eachother so I think there's two flaws. One is that Raya cares way to much to hold a grudge for that long over a stranger (but maybe that's just me) and 2, from Sisus standpoint since they barley knew eachother maybe she felt like Raya should give her another chance due to her barley knowing her or her reasons for the first betrayl which is the same reason for the second one, her mother. Her mother was the influence for her actions. A good old, I want to make my mother proud kind of trope.
@@NWolf17 Maybe I misread your comment, because you said Raya cared too much over a grudge with a stranger, even though that said stranger caused her large amounts of pain and trauma.
This! Sisu acted like the idiot comic relief character for the first half of the movie then decided to have a tonal shift and put her big girl pants on and act like she’s in charge even tho Raya had been the only one keeping them out of danger and actively working to make sure the plan was carried out effectively, even going as far as to sacrifice herself in that fight with Namari so the rest of the gang could escape
I just dont understand this film punishing Raya for not trusting especially to Namaari, I mean yeah of course she feels that way to the person who betrayed her causing a literal apocalypse
I wanted Raya to yell angrily during their fight "you broke the world, TWICE!" while slashing that sword. But no. Somehow this was Raya's fault too. (rolls eyes)
Namaari actually did want to help Raya and Sisu but her mom said backstabbing them would be better in the long run so there was a lot of internal conflict in her. I like the idea but I agree it was poorly handled.
Betrayed her twice. Raya was ready to trust Namaari after 6 years, but then Namaari pulled a crossbow on her... I mean the first time, I could have understood. Everyone makes mistakes. I mean even if it's a worldending mistake... But twice... Namaari betrayed Raya twice, never once apologized, and somehow Raya is suppose to just trust her now? And everyone in the end acts like Fang didn't nearly end the world for selfish reasons...twice if you count Namaari killing Sisu. Even for a kids movie, that's too much suspension of disbelief, and it's really toxic.
@@morehero1, then the conflict of trusting your biological family over people that are actually a real family that wouldn’t have fucked the world over like Fang did should have either been in a tv series or cut out completely because if One Piece can do that same conflict of Whole Cake Island and Dressrosa Arcs, and they can do it better than a trillion dollar company like Disney then that just shows how sad and pathetic Western animation story telling is compared to a small billion dollar franchise like One Piece.
My issue was the ending. I liked the entire movie until they pushed that it was Raya's fault for not trusting Nemari that Sisu died. She was not at fault for trying to disarm Nemari after Nemari's history of betrayal. Trusting her when she made no move to show she could be trusted now, was really stupid. It tells kids, hey trust people who are clearly not trustworthy and haven't even apologised for the trauma they put you through.
Ok, to be fair, Raya did cause Female Zuko to accidentally pull the trigger and kill Sisu. But then again, Female Zuko caused the whole Druun mess to begin with so... eh, who am I kidding. It would have been satisfying if Sisu just let everyone else beat up Female Zuko instead of trying to talk to her, everything was Female Zuko's fault.
@@cintronproductions9430 Imagine it was a gun instead, then. Causing an accident when you're trying to stop someone from shooting a gun isn't the same "responsibility" of death, one person in that scenario is trying to save the victim's life while the other is purposefully threatening it.
I feel that Sisu getting revived really ruined this film for me, I feel it’s bad that literally the only issue stemming from Raya having trust issues (Sisu dying) getting fixed (edit: just by trusting one person) sort of diminished the film’s message for me
The movie wasn't saying trust Nemari. It was saying Trust Sisu. Raya didn't trust her friend to handle the situation and it got her friend killed. Plus, the only blame the movie placed on Raya was a single line from Nemari. Everyone else blamed Nemari for Sisu's death. I kinda wish there was a little more blame on Raya. Not a lot. Because it was everyone's fault. Not just one person. Everyone shares some blame.
The movie has a major show don’t tell problem because it’s telling us Raya needs to be more trusting but it’s showing us every reason why she’s completely justified in not trusting people.
@@shinyneko8136 Totally agreed. She can't trust Namaari for obvious reasons. But when she doesn't trust people who clearly are pure, and have proven to be trustworthy, this could've made for a better morale for the film.
@@shinyneko8136 Forgiveness in my opinion seems like a good accomplise to the theme of trust because it's the only thing that can ever (and i mean EVER) redeem this movie's sense of logic.
Eh honestly I don't see it really being a series, I think it's just fine as a movie, plus I think we get enough time in each world 🌍, but hey that's just me🤷 so I respect y'all opinion 🥺
@@LilWolfie-18 no worries, it's not like it was a complete mess as a movie either, for me I wanted to see Raya's rivalry fleshed out more so the end would feel more impactful
Honestly I think this would’ve been better as a show, because as a movie the pacing was kinda fast. We didn’t get to see the characters interact with each other that much, and if we did it was just some shitty joke
That's why big burly guy was the best character. There was so much "show don't tell" with his personality and backstory--him living alone, the empty crib, the fact that after he joins he's usually seen holding or interacting with the child, etc. I wanted way more of that stuff and way less "dragon nerds/group projects."
Yes thank you! The whole time I was watching it I was like "I need more". The emotional scenes just fell flat because I didn't know the characters, and the world felt so "big" and I couldn't wrap my head around it. Also the fact that it wasn't a musical? Literally begging to be a show. I really hope this is successful enough to cause Disney to consider a show for this, because the world and characters are so interesting, the movie just wasn't able to show it.
"You're just as much to blame!" Said the betrayer, who brought as crossbow, who loaded the crossbow, who fired the crossbow. Not a strong argument there lady
Not only that, said a person who obsessed with Dragon and make a better world for Fang. Yeah, Namaari believes that Sisu's death was Raya fault even though it was Namaari's fault because she's holding a crossbow.
I think if the movie focused on forgiveness instead then the message would be much clearer. You can forgive someone, but not trust them. Trust is earned not given and I would have liked to have seen more of Namaari actually being remorseful of what she did to Raya. While also trying to gain Raya’s trust again. The fact that she said that Raya is just as much to blame for Sisu’s death. I was like no she is not.
Yeah, I think that's the big problem with the premise. Everyone knows that trust is earned. Since we have an omniscient perspective, we know that Namaari can be trusted if she could just act on her own. But Raya and her friends can't know that.
This! Movie completely missed the mark in confusing trust, forgiveness and reconciliation! Like you said trust is earned not given. As others have commented forgiveness is about the abused finding peace within themselves to move on and not hold a grudge as it only hurts them more and reconciliation is about the abused and abuser trying to reconcile with what occurred and coming to terms with each other’s roles in the entire situation. Raya gets halfway there with the forgiveness but never follows through on the reconciliation and completely mislabels trust.
Sisu’s design wasn’t bad, it’s the fact that the other dragons don’t look distinct from each other to make the dragons stand out, besides the different shades of color.
Disagree. I found the design to be very uncanny valley, especially the head. Its hard to explain but its like, the skull proportions are off? The face has a really wide jaw but a really small forehead. Head-on it looks like a triangle
In my opinion, the character design is very bad. The dragon herself looks pretty, but next to the world Sisu looks like shes from a completely different universe. I don't think the other dragons is what made her bad.. I really agree that the dragons should've been distinct though- imagine how many cool dragon toys could've been made??? Yet another missed opportunity by Disney. -_-
I feel like the movie makes a mistake confusing forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness refers to letting go of your pain and anger towards someone who hurt you. This is all about healing yourself and doesn't include the victimizer. Them apologizing for hurting you can help, but at the end of the day it's your own journey to let go of the grudge and heal. Reconciliation is where you start a dialogue with the victimizer, exchange stories to allow yourself to understand their perspective and for them to understand how they've hurt you, and reastablish trust. It's about you forgiving them and letting go of the pain and them taking responsibility for their actions and trying to earn that relationship with you again. You can forgive someone and still not want anything to do with them, because it's not about letting them off the hook, it's about taking care of your own emotional healtg because holding a gruge is not good for you. The movie does a good job showing Raya slowly forgive Namari by letting go of her anger and learning to trust all thrse other people, but then it trips over itself trying to force Raya to reconcile with Namari, a person who refuses to accept that they've done anything wrong. Trust from someone who hurt you before HAS TO BE EARNED. And you are not in the wrong for not including them in your friend group. Namari had to take responsibility for betraying Raya and dooming the world, and then actually do something that shows Raya and the audience that she can be counted on to do the right thing. But no, she brings a crossbow to a negotiation, aims it at her idol and then blames Raya for it going off. There was no dialogue or actual reastablishment of trust, the movie just says trust people who've proven that they can't be trusted.
Avatar the last airbender spoilers!!! Katara goes through that. She manages to track down the general that lead the assault on her village and who kidnapped and likely killed her mother. Zuko warns her that anger isn't worth it but doesn't actually move to stop her and lets her make the choise. Katara is shown to be PISSED and verbally rips into the guy for what he did to her and her people. But at the end she decided to forgive him as he's a shitty person who was willing to sell out his own mother to save his life. That kind of person wasn't worth Katara's time or getting her hands and heart dirty with murder, however justified it might have been. Raya doesn't have that with Namaari really. What she and Fang did is just ignored.
@@bensemusx That's a great example, especially since the show used the terms in the right way. With that said, Katara admits that she didn't forgive the man who killed her mother, she's still holding a grudge and they never address if she moved on from it later. I think a more full take on forgiveness vs reconciliation is Kung Fu Panda 2. In the movie, Po is struggling with attaining inner peace because he's coming to the understanding that something terrible happened to him and his people. He spends the entire movie confronting Lord Shen, the villain who is responsible for his trauma, about his feelings and it gets in the way of his ability to fight Shen. Shen himself keeps using Po's pain to get out of encounters, (flying away while he's stunned, blasting him with a cannon while saying hurtful things) making it clear that he doesn't feel remorse for what he's done. Po then has to come to terms with those feelings by accessing those repressed traumatic memories and understanding what they mean to him. He then lets go of his pain and anger by remembering that it doesn't define him and attains inner peace. Importantly, Shen is not discussed in that scene, because it's not about him, it's about the pain he caused. If anything Po has to forgive him in order to fight him better, so Shen is definitely not off the hook for everything he has done. That is forgiveness. Finally at the end of the movie, when Shen is defeated and no longer a threat to everyone, Po attempts to reconcile with him. He tries to explain his feelings to Shen so that he can understand what he did to him, and then offers Shen a chance at peace. Unfortunately, Shen is both proud and a subscriber to the all or nothing school of thought, so he turns down Po's attempt at reconciliation and attacks him one last time before tragically dying to his own cannon.
@@bobi200samatar6 Your right that she doesn't forgive. She lets go of the anger as it's not healthy. She's definitely not suddenly friends with the guy.
My two biggest problems with this movie is that they introduced all these things and characters but they didn’t end up being fleshed out. And, they should’ve done more showing and less telling, like Raya said ‘you can’t trust anyone’ or something similar to that way to many times.
Honestly a lot of these newer Disney movies feel more like advertisements for playsets and/or TV pilots. You get a new world they can copyright, with characters who have identifiable traits but aren't super fleshed out so you can easily make stories for playtime.
Yup also they constantly talk about Namari and Raya’s relationship like they’ve known each other for a long time and how it was such a horrible betrayal but like they literally knew each other for only a couple hours before Namari betrayed her so the way their relationship is described in the movie doesn’t feel accurate and raya was too trusting of someone she just met.
Yeah, I think they're all cool or cute, but still, there's a little too many main characters. We got Korra, Elsa's fursona, Female Zuko, Aladdin, Boss Baby, three Minions, Asian Nick Fury and Bumpy the Ankylosaurus. XD
I feel like the conflicts in this movie go by too fast. First Sisu trusted the old lady and nearly gets sacrificed to the Druun, and Raya has to save her. But then it's just over. Then Sisu tries to prove Raya wrong and ends up getting captured, and that's also kinda it. They meet Tong and they keep on going.
@@rsnowden0524 the point is Sisu was proven to be wrong here,yet the movie is like "no no kids,Sisu is right,sure,her blind trust of random people she never met almost got her killed,but she's in the right!!!!!"
I think that the message that you should trust someone who has repeatedly betrayed and hurt you (and freaking KILLED your friend!) is a terrible one lmao. Trust should be earned, not granted.
@@faith4disney That's also an awful message. You can't ASSUME there is good in someone, especially since that someone actively harmed you without any remorse. That person has to show that they are trustworthy and willing to be good.
@@faith4disney I misphrased myself. Maybe, you can see good in strangers you haven't got to know yet. But, when it comes to people who hurt you and don't even feel a speck of regret, that is when you know they cannot be trusted. As a Christian, I do believe that forgiveness is a good way to move on. You can forgive someone who wronged you, but don't be stupid enough to trust them again if they don't make an effort to earn that trust. Also, if that was the core message of the movie, then why didn't they show a shed of good in Namaari? An asshole mom doesn't immediately make her this good person, that's just lazy writing. The only morally good thing she did, was use the gem to save the world, and that was only because she had no other option, and was taken place right after she tried to harm Raya throughout the movie. Sometimes, there isn't good in every person, and that's just how things are.
@@randomcomment1286 namaari: causes druun, petrifies half the kingdom, is directly responsible for raya's father turning into stone, attacks raya very commonly, has betrayed her once before. yeah why not lets trust her.
@@faith4disney Then why didn't they actually SHOWED Namaari deserved a second chance? Her actions were always either for Fang,her mother,or for her own selfish reasons. If they wanted to show she had good in her, then make her APOLOGIZE! Make her REGRET her actions! The only thing she seems to regret is killing Sisu,but she doesn't even give a shit about being the cause Raya's father is stone. Also,in the end of the movie,she only put that rock back together because SHE WAS ALSO GONNA GET STONED IF SHE DIDN'T! That's not heroic,she saved her own ass! As for regretting killing Sisu,that was just because Sisu is a dragon and she has a dragon obsession,if Sisu was a human,she'd be like "Oops...Oh well"
My problem with Raya And The Last Dragon was how aggressively cringeworthy 95 percent of the dialogue was and the fact that no one but the Honest Trailer is calling this out is so frustrating. We shouldn't let writers get away with making a movie consist of awful dialogue. We need to ask for better
Agreed. When the movie wasn't doing atrocious "too modern" dialogue it just ridiculously simple lines. No character feels that different from each other (except the dang dragon, and she stood out in a bad way).
@_Bagginshield It was an extremally poor execution of Aaron Ehazs style of humor. They understood the "make characters say cringey things intentionally" thing but they didn't remember that why this worked in The Dragon Prince was the context of how the characters saying things like "unstoppable is just another form of stoppable" were written in general. So, they failed and 80 percent of the dialogue was the awful one liners that were in OG Teen Titans stretched across the entire movie
i really dont get how they couldn’t just show that raya and namari were childhood friends for a long time before the betrayal and make it as though namari was forced to betray raya in order to bring prosperity to her people. it would have made a lot of the dynamic between them make more sense and give us more of a reason to sympathize with namari
Not to mention how strange it was for raya, within a few hours, to be like “hey come look at this extremely valuable dragon gem.” When her whole thing was to PROTECT the gem BECAUSE it was a target
@@cornbreadbutcringey5723 26 episodes is the normal length for a season of a show on television. of course it doesn't have to be 26 episodes, but that's usually the number studios go for since that'll generally give them a year of content. releasing one episode a week will get you through 6 months, but since networks air multiple shows, that means that some weeks may be skipped due to specials from other shows, certain events the network hosts, other unaccounted for events, etc. all that aside, if each episode is 20 minutes long, then you're looking at 8 hours and 40 minutes worth of content, which honestly is plenty of time to fix what was wrong with Raya, so i do agree with the sentiment that this should've been a show rather than a film.
@@cornbreadbutcringey5723 well it's a lot more nuanced than just being half the year. i figured you'd want a better explanation beyond, "yeah, it's half a year"
The problem I hear is Trust issues, the other tribes are fine because they're essentially strangers to her, Namaura is the one who caused the apocalypse and murdered someone, and I don't buy the parent excuse, she could've not broken the stone, and she could've put the arrow gun down instead, this should've been a show on Disney Channel or Plus instead.
I mean, she TECHNICALLY caused the apocalypse. Namaari tried to take the gem from Raaya and called the Fang soldiers in to help her steal it. The different tribes were all struggling to get the gem after Benja was shot in the leg and they dropped it, which shattered it into pieces. Namaari betrayed Raaya, but she wasn't the one who broke the gem. The Fang soldiers trying to steal it opened the floodgates to the rest of the Tribes, who all wanted it for themselves.
@@phousefilms I'll give yea that, but then Namaari would have to be seen making up for it which doesn't seem to happen till the end after murdering a dragon possibly genociding an entire species before bringing 'em back, still doesn't exactly change anything
Yeah, my main gripe with the film is that it seems to be promoting BLIND trust, rather than giving everyone a chance to earn it. If Namari had been given a chance to EARN Raya's trust again, to prove herself a trustworthy person even after their past history, that would be different - but that never really happens. Sure, Sisu getting shot was not what Namari had intended, but she still came to a peace meeting loaded for bear (or dragon, rather). She remains untrustworthy right up until the last moment, when she's like 'ah, screw it; the world's about to end' and puts the gem back together, which is basically what she wanted to do anyway - but the film's position seems to be 'aww, but Raya never even gave her a chance; shame on her for being so untrusting'. Yes, she did give her a chance! She gave her EVERY chance, and Namari was still ready to betray her right up until she basically had no chance not to! I mean, ye gods, movie!
I totally agree!! Raya gave namaari a solid chance at redemption, made it super easy for Namaari to switch sides and help fix the gem with Raya. Ppl who defend Namaari say that her mom controlled her and namaari "had no choice". The movie turns namaari into the helpless victim so... therefore raya's the bad guy? You don't victimize yourself and pass the blame to ur mom for pity points to get someones trust. You need to prove yourself and earn that trust. I kinda expected disney to inspire us with namaaris redemption. Shes clearly a strong, independent thinker so how come the only way to gain rayas trust was to play the helpless victim?
@@desaturatedchaos9304 I hadn't thought of it that way, but you have a point there. Making Namari's mom the true villain of the movie would actually have fixed a lot. If, all the time, she was just trying to make her tyrannical mother happy, and we learned this right near the end, that would A: have explained why Namari was the way she was, and B: given her and Raya a connection beyond being 'dragon nerds'. After all, Raya's driving force is also love for a parent. Maybe Namari could have a 'there's only room for one of us' mentality - like 'you want your dad back, I want my Mom's love, but if you get what you want, I'll NEVER get what I want, because I can only earn her love if I keep our kingdom on top!' And that would make sense, because, after all, she's the one who betrayed Raya in the first place, and we know she did so at her mother's instructions. The final twist could have been that her mom WANTED the kingdoms divided, because that would put hers on top, since they were the best prepared for it. Namari could have felt betrayed by her, and try to change, and THEN the whole issue of 'someone's got to trust' would make sense, since they'd BOTH have issues that they'd have had to fight past - Namari's conflicted feelings about her mother, and Raya's doubts about whether or not she's gone too far in the name of rescuing the world. Instead, Namari's mom is actually a pretty nice lady, so... that doesn't work. Namari's still basically the villain right up 'til she's not, and the whole business doesn't really work.
@@Psycopathicus ahh I saw this late but yeah this would've been a more legit explanation for namaari's betrayal. Her mom was portrayed as ~kinda~ controlling but not enough to convince anyone that namaari was doing all this for her mom. Canonically Namaari could've easily used her controlling mom as justification and her redemption would be genuine but yeah her mom seems too nice and chill T-T
@@Psycopathicus also THAT WOULD'VE BEEN SO COOL if Virana actually did WANT the lands divided. WHY DIDN'T THEY HIRE YOU AS A WRITER smh. Another thing I don't understand is when namaari tells her mom that they need the gems to "secure fang's future" and all but at the same time she empathizes with raya's situation and wants to help raya??
@@desaturatedchaos9304 (bows) Thank you, thank you. And yeah, that is kind of a wishy-washy position to take. She's clearly a pretty fierce patriot of her country/city-state/whatever they are - she's doing undercover missions at age twelve or whatever, for cryin' out loud - so you'd think Fang would come first in her consideration. (Not that you can't be a patriot and still want other places to do well, of course, but still - you'd think a hot-tempered commando princess would have a more hard-line attitude.)
The most ironic thing is that Disney has made a South-East Asian-inspired movie available on Disney+, a streaming platform that is currently not available in South-East Asia.
@@nightmarefanatic1819I learned from a video by Xiran Jay Zhao that there are SEA VAs in the film, but there are extremely few of them. Their roles? They're mainly just background characters. And I find that even more sad. Oh yeah, just wanna correct you, both of Raya's voice actresses (Cassie Steele, the original actress who was gonna voice her but was replaced with Kelly Marie Tran) are both SEA.
I agree that the dialogue was too contemporary for my tastes. The movie does have problems, but I did still enjoy it and would like to see it fleshed out more in the future. I would especially like to see how the relationship between Raya and Namaari develops.
Exactly. The dialogue was cringy and I agree with that. But apart from that it was fine. The only problem I had with it was the ending where Namaari blamed Raya for Sisu's death when she's clearly the one who pulled the trigger halfway and was going to kill her whether Raya intervened or not. And also, the trust message isn't really good for children to learn. The movie clearly shows every reason why Raya doesn't trust Namaari and they just put the whole blame on her for not trusting her. But to be honest, Disney did its best. Atleast we have an original Disney movie rather than a live action remake.
I think the trust theme was ruined by the dialogue. The movie kept _telling_ us about trust as an over simplistic concept where you can and should trust anyone regardless of their past actions. And it kept _showing_ us that trusting people was largely a mistake because they'll end betraying you. What they told us was inconsistent with what they showed us. And as someone else in the comments pointed out, they kept confusing forgiving someone with reconciling with them
I was shouting, "No, fuck off" at my screen in the orb repair scene. The most frustrating thing about raya is that the plot is nearly antithetical to the message. It tells me it's all about trust, but nearly ever time a character trusts someone with any agency things always take a turn for the worse. Siru trusting the old lady, anytime anyone trusts nimari (except when everyone is about to die), raya trying to help the baby. The dissonance between what the characters are telling me and each other and the events happening on screen made me want to pull my teeth out
12:30 Yeah, THIS is why the whole "trust is good" moral didn't work for me. It's not just Raya and Namari. People are *consistently* getting betrayed and deceived throughout the movie. I'd need to watch it again to say for certain, but my first impression is that across the story, being trusting ultimately creates more problems than solutions. And (if I'm right) that makes it a pretty broken moral. It almost feels like the writers wrote the story, then said "oops, we forgot the takeaway!" and kind of shoehorned the trust thing in there.
I think the difference was that for Frozen 2, while there were no consequences in the end, the message still stood, as technically, the people who were saved were innocent. On the other hand, for Raya, the message doesn't work because... it's just executed badly.... the entire movie shows why you SHOULDN'T trust rather but says that trust is good.... It consistently SHOWS a message that's the opposite of what it LITERALLY SAID.... Frozen 2, while it added some BS, at least didn't go against it's own message. You want a film that shows the problems of not trusting??? Watch Encanto. It's a film about a family whose sole problems happen because NONE of the family members trust each other enough to talk about their problems when they all really do love each other and care for each other. And it's finally solved when they finally open up.
There are a lot of elements about this movie that I love, but I overall didn't enjoy it as a whole. The villians redemption arc was not earned in the slightest. It almost felt like Raya was being gaslighted into trusting her despite Raya having a very valid reason to never trust her. Also the dragon who's name in forgetting is kind of obnoxious.
As I commented in the Disney + promo... in this world of liars, scammers and thieves, Disney made a movie about trusting liars, scammers, and thieves...
Same. I really enjoyed this movie, in fact I may even watch it again. But it does have its problems with how they were trying to execute the message which is a problem I have for a lot of movies, mainly Disney
It's fine to compare this movie to ATLA. It's natural. Most people in the west have NO clue about most Asian high fantasy films. Buuuuuuuuuut to say ALL Asian fantasy is the same is just.....that's like saying "oh all western fantasy is the same" and if ATLA should tell you....That is just....INOCRRECT. Same beats yes, but those beats sound VERY different per film they are in IF done WELL.
I mean Just about every western fantasy thing is at least somewhat inspired by Tolkien, why do we take it at face value that people in fantasy worlds all have British accents? Well because they all do in the lord of the Rings.
@@seanmcloughlin5983 wait omg TRUE and I'm SO glad that they don't have accents here. Or if they do it's just like....the ACTORS' accents which is hella nice.
@Ribotto Studios If u see the movie out of context or (within obviously) u notice how similar the narration and worldbuilding and characters design almost copy paste with Avatar. Take it last this (insert 5 tribe name) Long ago live a nation of people in Kumadra live in peace and harmony. It all change when the....drune attack. Only the last dragon can save the world but when kumadra need her the most she vanishes. 500 years later, (raya) found the dragon... but I believe Sisu can save the world. Lol honest trailer callls out the similarity in the best way possible go watch it
If you’re talking about premiere access, then i agree, because of the fact that many people couldn’t watch the movie due to the fact that you had to pay extra to watch a movie on a streaming service that YOU ARE PAYING FOR.
@@kast6296 please notice that when movies are exclusive, it’s because they aren’t on Disney + yet, if you want to see it months prior you buy the premier access.
I feel like this movie was originally written with the idea that Namaari and Raya were super close childhood friends before the betrayal, either through fostering or in secret or even through betrothal, but then the time spent establishing that was cut, but then they just kept the relationship dynamic that would have been the result of such a close friendship being broken. It would explain their banter as adults. But instead, they went with the shorter version of Raya being an idiot who trusted someone she just met for no reason, but kept their nemeses dynamic like they had known each other their whole lives. It just felt like something important was cut.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this movie lately. More specifically, I’ve been thinking about Sisu’s character. I have thought that instead of the way she’s depicted in the movie, loud, kind of obnoxious at times, I feel like she should be more like Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda. A wise, old dragon that tries to teach Raya about trust in proverbs, instead of pounding the message into our heads. I feel like that would be better because it A) doesn’t try to make her a comic relief, because I feel Boone and Noi fill that roll fine, and B) makes her more serious scenes better, because she no longer has to be annoying. But that’s my thought on her. What do you think?
This film felt like it should have been done as a TV series in a similar vein to ATLA, or at least they should have made the film longer to really flesh it all out. The world building in this is awesome, I really wanted to learn more about the different cultures and the side characters but everything felt so rushed along. My biggest complaints about this film were: 1) How they hammered the message of "you just gotta trust people" so hard and yet, there seemed to be a nonstop betrayal. Like c'mon, really? 2) The "villain" was super unlikable, she made for a great rival which I actually really liked but because of the theme the film forced down our throats, you're meant to like/sympathise with her when she never gave me a reason to. Like CellSpex said, Nemari never had anything to lose and only became "trustworthy" when she had no choice. 3) The world felt weirdly cheerful considering it's technically post apocalyptic. Not hopeful, but cheerful, which felt like a super weird tonal dissonance. However many thousands of people are dead, all 5 civilisations dislike each other, terrifying monsters you can't fight back against roam the majority of the world and trust is apparently at an all time low. And yet there was never any sense of threat or emergency through the whole film? People just seemed to be super nonchalant about it all. Shouldn't there be way more hatred for Fang since they screwed it all up? 4) The entire film seemed to have this... emotional immaturity. Jokes were mostly flat, serious moments were flat, the message was flat. Heck, Cars 3 had more emotional maturity than this, and that's a film about talking cars going fast! All in all, his film is a solid meh/10 for me which is a massive shame. At least it was gorgeous to look at, the score was spectacular and the side-characters were a lot of fun. Really wish we got more out of them.
I disagree that Frozen 2 is a "Thanksgiving retelling," it's reflective of actual events that happened (and are still happening) regarding Scandinavian cultural genocides of the Sami people. Of course parallels can be drawn to any colonial situation, but I keep seeing people say that the Northuldra are supposed to be Native American.
those things happen all the world why do people keep bring up "colonial" (witch its really conquest) when its not unquie and really there very little to no genocide and finally
Northaldra are supposed to be native American but theyre white af ok lmao. I dont see where they're coming from because Scandinavians are typically white.
When you say "cultural genocide" do you mean the suppression of the indigenous culture of the Sami by the nation-states of Scandinavia or an actual genocide? Because there was never a genocide of the Sami.
@@KaylaTheKindOne Sure. It's just, as a Sami myself it feels like such a poor way to phrase it, gives people the wrong idea of what happened. It wasn't like America's treatment of Native Americans in the slightest.
This movie's treatment of trust as some sort of currency that needs to be earned or can be poorly spent really winds me up. Trust, like respect, is a _verb,_ it's something you _choose_ to do. A betrayal of trust or respect is also a choice by the person doing the betrayal.
honestly the whole “the writing feels to contemporary for the setting” is why i love the interactions and dialogue in the game genshin impact and the show the dragon prince so much. they stay interesting and feel relevant while still being able to retain humor. i feel like fantasy is trying too hard to be modern-day without advanced technology a lot these days.
I had the same take on the ending, Namaari had no reason not to believe in Raya and the rest, what was she gonna do otherwise? run and get turned into stone with her people later because the magic of the stones faded away..? I think they should have established a reason for humans to fear using the stone, so that she really had to have faith in Raya's words.
There was supposed to be a Atlantis TV show but was cancelled because of poor reception and box office performance, though the Atlantis sequel was basically a pilot episode for that TV show
I hate how much of a wasted concept the Atlantis series pilot "movie" was. They could've gone a full route of having the human world and the Atlantean world fight off Lovecraftian monsters (and the kingdom of Ryleh could've worked as the Evil Empire version of Atlantis).
@@MattEldritchHorror That sounds amazing! I still can't believe Atlantis wasn't very successful when it came out. When I found the movie as a kid I thought it was amazing, it's animation style is so unique and it has an interesting and mysterious world! I haven't seen the sequel, I feel like I'll have to try to find it at some point.
@@iceprism367 Be warned though, that instance of Lovecraft is only in the first third of it and its quickly forgotten. And speaking of Lovecraftian influences, Mike Mingola, creator of Hellboy and countless others, worked on the original film
@@BahamutZero09 wait there wasn't a series? Could've sworn I watched multiple episodes when I was really young, that's such an odd self imposed mind trick
I really liked this movie, but i hate the fact that Disney+ made it so that you needed premier access to see it, which, i guess, only applies to some movies, as movies like Soul didn’t get this treatment so.. yeah.
Yeah this reminded me a lot of Atlantis: the Lost Empire. Immense, creative world-building that had to be crammed into such a short time. Though enjoyed the change of pace compared to what Disney has been pumping out recently.
But Atlantis was a good movie. The characters where introduced in short times but instead of just telling us about them in dialogue they personality was shown through their actions.
YES! Exactly what I am wondering! Where the heck is everyone else in Heart? Why hasn't Fang taken the gem earlier if it was that easy? I'm glad someone else is also wondering this.
Same!!! When I saw the movie for the first time last week I was like “okay so Raya’s dad invites all these other groups of people who want this gem yet has ZERO security guarding/monitoring 24/7?” Like you can still take a non-violent approach but still guard the damn gem haha
What makes Sisu worse than the Httyd side characters, at least in the first movie, is that sisu is not a side character, she is a main character, and is just as annoying. This is why I like toothless not being able to talk at all and remmy not being able to talk to linguini, It makes these movies way less annoying.
I agree with pretty much all the issues you had with this movie. As a Filipino, I had really high expectations because it’s the first time we’ve gotten a SEA princess and world at the center of a major Disney movie. At the end of the day I’m just glad to get some representation and an overall positive reception, especially now. It’s a step in the right direction.
Honestly, there were a LOT of ways they could’ve fixed the loose ends to make the story work better. Sisu: This character is actively depicted as being an annoying comic relief who is consistently overly trusting, leading to bad things happening. Let’s be honest here, there isn’t a single scene where Sisu herself actually earns our respect or trust as an audience, let alone Raya’s. Raya is the one that chooses to trust people, and Sisu only ever gets them into more trouble. But they could’ve fixed that with the ONE scene where you could argue Sisu maybe succeeds. In Spine, they have Sisu and Raya get captured by the sole survivor, leading to them getting him as an ally, right? Well, what if instead, only Sisu gets captured. Raya has to sneak into Spine, witnessing firsthand that there is no one left, that everyone in the village has died or is missing, and the chief really is all alone. Maybe she makes it to the hideout he’s keeping Sisu in, and Raya has a chance to strike him down and save the dragon. But, Sisu herself manages to talk down the chief in front of Raya and prove to both her and the audience that she is actually capable of getting enemies on her side. That way, Raya has an actual reason to trust Sisu at the crossbow scene. But no, instead Raya is expected to trust someone who has done nothing but screw up at this point to somehow talk down Namaari, someone who has NEVER earned her trust, with a crossbow. Namaari: I actually don’t hate Namaari, I think she’s at least kinda well written. It does feel like they explain the why if her character and what it is that keeps her from being the good guy. Her mother essentially convinces her that doing the right thing would lead to the other nations pointing fingers at Fang and then her people would be outcasts. However, they do actually manage to show the audience that Namaari does actually want to do good. The issue, however, is that her actions go against this and Raya is never given any reason to ever trust Namaari or forgive her for her actions. Here’s my idea. Maybe, for example, Namaari goes to do the negotiations like she’s supposed to. But this time, all she brings with her is a knife for protection, but actively is shown to be trusting and willing to help. Maybe she and Raya actually start to talk again and heal together. And then Namaari gives them the gem, and actively chooses to let them have it and save the world while she starts to leave. But her mother sends some spies to make sure Namaari is safe. And as soon as they see Raya start to repair the gem, they try to steal it back, only to shoot Sisu by mistake. Raya discovers the spies from Fang, as well as the knife on Namaari and instantly assumes this was her plan all along, even though Namaari insists it wasn’t. And then water dies and the same basic thing happens. But, this time, Namaari is actually shown as being capable of redemption, of putting others before herself and her kingdom. And we also get actual payoff for the way her mother has been acting throughout the entire movie, instead of just kinda throwing her away toward the end. Honestly, I think the pacing is the main issue of the movie. It’s a cool world with cool ideas, but they just bumrush through it all. As a result, it just feels like they do way more telling than showing. They don’t even really establish Heart as a homely place, and don’t really make us feel for it’s downfall as much as they probably could have if they took more time to establish it. Same could be said about the original Namaari betrayal, honestly.
Personally, the way this movie handled the trust thing was downright abhorrent and caused my opinion of it to absolutely plummet from about a 6/10 to a damn 2, to be placed alongside such "treasures" as Mulan 2 and Shrek the Third. I *REALLY* took offense to the bits where they tried to blame Raya for 1) not trusting Namari and 2) for Namari's actions in the first place. That is so incredibly insidious and damaging to the point that I can safely put this in my bottom five of Disney movies on that basis alone. I don't care about it being simplistic, I get that, but Disney's handled simplified versions of complex morals alright in the past, but straight up gaslighting the main character and saying that's alright is *unacceptable.*
@@thealientree3821mulan 2, easily. I agree with the point about gaslighting mentioned above, though, and raya is also in my list of “bottom 10” disney films.
@@midekubrandio8592cause not every Asian Fantasy story is the same or based on the same idea. Avatar is about basically the second world war and it's negative effects on the people who can literally bend elements. In Raya the entire story is about trust and betrayal and it's negative effects on these tribes who can only fight with weapons. Avatar is based on East Asian culture's: Japan (Firenation), China and Korea (Earth kingdom), Tibetan nomads (Air nation) and Inuit or Yupik with an influence of Polynesian catamarans (Water tribes). While Raya is a wild mixture of Southeast Asian Countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. There are obvious differences, so it's not the same story.
"...and Raya is the first Princess protagonist in an action film that is not a musical" -- We just gonna do my girl Kidagakash like that? ಥ_ಥ She was my favorite Disney Princess growing up and she's always forgottennnnnnn
I feel like there was a bit of queerbaiting between Namaari and Raya. Their flirtatious banter and complex relationship was just really interesting and it feels like they didn't go far enough with their relationship. Even Raya's actress thought she was gay.
It would be nice if she were lesbian but didn't end up with Namari. It's so toxic and I hated how Namari gaslighted Raya so much about "you cause this apocalypse".
@@jeva4869 I mean she kind of did by trusting someone who she only met for like 10 minutes maybe less. Kind of like a Hans and Anna kind of thing. As for redemption I think namaari got a pretty good redemption in terms of the limited time. If the movie could have been longer I feel like the ending would have been better and her redemption would have been better but due to kids having low attention spans, we're stuck with what we have and have to interpret with what we know. To be honest, yes the ship is toxic as of now but if they give Namaari a better redemption Arc the second time around... I think this could be a healthy relationship not going to lie. Just have to see how it plays out.
I feel like some of the trust parts, well, fall apart because they never address a big part of trust, or learning to re-trust: Forgiveness. I feel like if Raya's lesson was to trust new people after having been savagely betrayed, and learning to _forgive_ Namaari, and that Sisu's lesson was that being _too_ trusting can also be a problem (it seems like they tried to do that, but it never really got through to her) some of the movie's message would have felt more satisfying.
...Agree to disagree stranger, I watched that short after watching my town library's copy of the dvd and could not tell what in the world was happening.
I am so glad I wasn't the only one who had a big problem with "You're just as much to blame". Un excuse me, Raya did not bring a weapon to a peaceful meeting, Raya did not point a weapon at literally the only being capable of saving the world, Raya did not pull that trigger how on earth is ANY of that Raya's fault?!
i really do hope disney makes a raya and the last dragon show in the future. i know WDAS is busy with 4 of them right now, but i would much prefer a raya show than another big hero 6 one
A show dealing with the logical aftermath of the movie, having Raya deal with trying to unite the five lands while conflicts and tensions arise between the people could be great. Also more Southeast Asian mythological creatures. The Druun were just CGI smoke clouds, come on.
I get that they were going for a younger, subversively less impressive dragon than what Raya was expecting but the other dragons should have been far grander and odd looking as they were older and more mature with the own magic. Like when Aang and Zuko met the masters, being completely dwarfed by their size. (That seen is just *chef’s kiss*) It would have made Sisu look like a baby in comparison, the kid sibling, yet to come into her own as a true dragon. Then when they were at the stone dragon grotto Raya would really see just how small and young Sisu was, putting her optimism into perspective as someone who is just like her but wasn’t hardened by it, instead she was made kinder. A touch of Sisu being the bratty younger sibling who was untrusting of people sprinkled in would help with this angle honestly, emphasising her confusion on why she was chosen to stop the druun and why she is now an aggressively optimistic person (she wants to make up for her past mistakes). If the other dragons were more wild in their design I wouldn’t be complaining as much, but the dragons all look like Sisu reskins.
Dewey De-Night as “For Fun” and Boss Mabel as “For Business” is the best thing in this vid. Also, I saw this movie and the Ducktales finale on the same day.
Sisu’s comparison of trust to her family who she’s know her entire life and never betrayed her once and saying it’s the same thing as trusting someone who has betrayed you all the time and caused you serious trauma literally confused the hell out of me. Was Disney High when they wrote this?
Fang. Heart. Spine. Talon. Tail. My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days, how Kumandra once lived in harmony. How everything changed once the Druun attacked. Only Dragons mastered all life’s power. Only they could stop the ruthless Druun. But when the world needed them most, they are defeated or disappeared. Nobody had seen them for a hundred years, until my pet Tuk and I found one of them, a dragon named Sisu. The problem is, this Dragon is still weak, and even though her potential can be brought back, she has a lot to learn before she's ready to save anyone. The Fang Nation will do anything to capture the Dragon before she get all the her powers back, so I must keep her safe until she's ready to fulfill her destiny. All tribes thinks I'm crazy, but I believe Sisu can save the world."
I’m honestly glad that this movie did not come out when I was four or three years old. People who were born in 2004 probably would have thought blind trust would be okay.
Trust can be a good thing to learn but this film's message teaches it in a dangerous way. Raya's whole arch is learning to trust her enemy: The same enemy who betrayed her after she trusted her enough to reveal the gem's location, and basically caused the entire world to go into apocalypse. I don't know how to spell her name but Namari repeatedly proves to the audience why Raya doesn't trust her, yet Raya's in the wrong for not trusting her. This could teach young viewers that no matter how many times someone hurts you or betrays you, it's on you to trust them instead of them needing to better themselves before they can earn your trust again.
Any thoughts on the soundtrack?? Soundtrack was produced by James Newton Howard, same legend from Treasure Planet from 2002, and personally I love the whole soundtrack! (Especially "Dragon Graveyard" :'D)
I liked the movie, but my main problems were exactly the ones you mentioned, the contemporary dialogue, Sisu being somewhat annoying, the constant repeating need of "trust" and Naamari herself.
My thought as I watched the credits roll: I think this movie could’ve been better if it wasn’t a Disney movie. Iron out the humor, dialogue, pacing; develop the characters more and appropriately. Make Raya and Sisu’s balance as leads more...balanced. I liked a lot of the movie but I saw ways it could improve
I just hope disney won't start pitting different types of girls against each other. don't get me wrong, i love tomboyish girls in fiction, but i don't like it when they're used to antagonize more stereotypically girly girls
@@sshy_indigoo i do get that the constant makeover trope of tomboys was usually trash, but now people are taking it to another extreme as though strength and femininity are mutually exclusive (winx would beg to differ). and this annoying trend of mary sues being turned into feminist icons.... they have me defending Alice from Anderson's RE movies
I was waiting for this! To me it seems like some plotlines were abandoned, like in the trailer it seemed like Sisu is some kind of looser dragon or something, she mentions it in the movie as well but there is nothing to back that up - she can use magic, she knows how it works, she didn't mess up or cause the apocalypse, so why mention it at all? Also the moral the story tries to wedge in is to trust people, while showing all the ways they would stab you in the back when you do. Looked stunning but overall to me is meh. Maybe I'm getting too old for this stuff.
Well, the story in Frozen 2 was uncommon for Disney because it was quite messy to be honest. The same with Frozen 1, the story is kind of a mess, but it worked. However, in Frozen 1 it was accidental and in Frozen 2 they seemed to be following a white rabbit, trying to repeat the same thing and they didn't fully understand what made Frozen 1 a success. It wasn't the snowman, it wasn't the songs... It was the bond between sisters, the interactions between the characters, the dialogues were really good. The relations between characters were important. In Frozen 2 they were irrelevant and I find certain resemblance with Raya. Every character works in some kind of subtle vacuum. Well, that's just my opinion.
Frozen 1 was brilliant because it was simple and said little. There is this misconception that a story is deep only if it has complicated backstories and convoluted twists. Frozen 1 isn't any of that. It tells a simple story well and it tells it efficiently. Expanding the mythology of what is essentially a fairy tale is just so stupid.
One positive I will give Frozen 2 is that at least it EXPANDED on the relationship between the sisters and their own individual characters. It’s a flawed film and YMMV on whether where the characters ended made sense, but you get a lot more of the Anna and Elsa bond in Frozen 2.
@@tariqthomas9090 I honestly disagree about that. At least I got nothing, they just repeated the same stuff adding flare... or tell me what new aspects of their bond you found, maybe I don't clearly remember.
Frozen 1 is a great Disney princess film, I don't know why it gets a lot of hate, there isn't much dumb comedy, Olaf is the closest we get to that and he's still good, Hans isn't a great villain, but he isn't the worst either. It's a solid movie.
The fact that neither Nemari nor Virana said sorry ONCE pissed the hell out of me. I'm with the consensus that the theme of the film should've been forgiveness rather than trust, would've made WAY more sense.
something i enjoyed was that eastern dragons(which the dragons in the movie are clearly based on) tended to be associated with water, which the dragons(and the dragon gem) were clearly associated with. eastern dragons also tended to be associated with wealth and prosperity, now when the dragon gem was whole and in Heart which land was most prosperous? Heart, but it gets better, after it was shattered and Fang had the largest shard, which nation seemed the most prosperous and powerful? Fang. just that was an interesting touch i noticed
My biggest problem with this film is this trust message: On the one hand the film is about Raya learning to trust again. On the other hand, trusting never leads to anything until right at the end. The babies steal from Raya, the leader from Spine threatens to kill Sisu and when Raya tries to convince Namaari to work together, the meeting falls apart and Sisu dies. Which part exactly made Raya learn to trust other people?
My favorite things about Raya and the Last Dragon. First and foremost, when I saw the trailer, I immediately found Sisu to be a fun and entertaining character, so she was my main pull to go see it, and I got what I wanted in that respect because I do like her character and her personality. Second, the animation looks incredible, namely the water or how things look when they're wet; fur, clothes, hair, it all looks really good, the way the color slightly darkens and the texture looks smoother. In that scene when Sisu first swims in the river after they meet Boun, the way her fur slicks down, but is also a little messy and ruffled in some places whenever she's swimming, and it looks especially good when does that little spin by the boat and her "mane" clings together as she spins. That all looks amazing. Those are really my two biggest pros about this movie. Oh, and the fighting. The actual fights between Raya and Namaari look really good too.
While overall I enjoyed the movie, I felt the biggest problems were that it needed more time, that the dialogue - especially with Sisu - felt tonally inappropriate in a lot of places, and the ending felt unearned. It should've honestly been a series where everything would've had more time to develop, and the comedy had more room to breathe and not intrude on more tonally dark and serious scenes.
So apparently there’s a sequel in the works (allegedly). I wonder if they’re gonna go the now-typical route of shitting on the themes of the original and having the group separate permanently. If they do, I can’t see them getting off scott-free like they’ve done in the past three sequels with that theme. With Frozen 2 and Toy Story 4 you could have some plausible deniability of the themes of the previous movies, and Ralph Breaks the Internet was a shitfest where the ending was the least of its problems. But Raya’s theme of trust and unity is so heavy-handed that there is no way people aren’t going to notice that sequel trope is bullshit.
You know what would have made this movie much better? If it was Namari and the Last Dragon. What if our hero’s origin story was that as a child she had not placed enough value on being shown trust, and had unhesitatingly betrayed Raya on her mother’s paranoid demands? And then what if she’s forever trying to earn her mother’s trust as a leader, but also is still a dragon nerd at heart and deep down feels guilt for the world falling apart and so in her spare time searches for the dragon? And in the end, to make the gem work she has to place complete trust in Raya - to believe that whatever their past, Raya won’t betray her the way she did? And in doing so, reject her mother’s paranoid insistence that Raya MUST be out to destroy them in revenge?
Sisu wasn't the only unfunny bit considering it had Minion / Boss Baby fart/ butt "jokes", Sisu was just basically Pinkie Pie trying to befriend / gift everyone even if it was someone who helped the world be destroyed (like Nightmare Moon). Nemari broke trust first when they were kids, if she's the only friend you had before the world turned into stone and you mostly blame her not wanting to trust her is understandable, and so was acting like the world was going to just stab her again if she opened up. If Sisu didn't start in her dragon form, Raya wouldn't trust her either period.
Seems to me like it might have been worth keeping the Dragon Gem on netrual ground as a sign of good faith. Maybe with someone from each of the kingdoms guarding it, so if one of them tries anything funny the other four would know immediately. Might've made Benja more sympathetic.
I'll never forget that on the way to the theaters to watch this, an old friend of my late brother's lied to me that she was in a car crash, which is the same reason that my brother was "late" in the first place. It's the only thing I could think of when I watched the film.
Raya had great animations but felt like the basic plot of Avengers Endgame, with a group of people travelling all over the planet collecting some stones. Oh yeah, and the dragon exists and then dies, so whatever.
@Vacron, Raya isn't even remotely similar to End Game. Saying, "Oh ,this movie is similar, because it involves collecting stones", is just a a weak surface level argument, which ignores the fact that the movies are far different.
Have yet to finish it, but it seems to frustrate me that Raya isn't the most interesting princess/character, dialogue, the comedy is abysmal and is tonally all over the place (not even talking about the dragon), and Namaari is irredeemable. Also please talk of the end of DuckTales!
Huh what do you mean Namaari is irredeemable. If you literally look into the fact that she is also a princess wouldn't you say that her actions are justified because she was doing what she thought was right for the kingdom? Not to mention her mother played a role in her actions? The whole message of the movie was that everyone makes mistakes when it comes to what they feel is right in order to protect themselves and the ones they love, thus causing harm to others. It is only when we open up about our problems to others that we can receive help that is long lasting and that our weaknesses can help us become stronger as well as trust. All of the kingdoms had flaws which caused greed for the gems but the reason as to why is because of fear and the dragons is what brought everyone together. Once the dragons left everyone was scared again and broke apart. Basically Raya is the glue that keeps the kingdoms together as she Basically bonds with someone from every kingdom and instills trust in them. So me personally with this in mind I feel like Namaaris and Rayas charcters were good on a disney level. Sure they could have made more charcter depth but that would require more time so for the time they did have, I say it was pretty good.
@@NWolf17 In my opinion, Namaari could've been written much better. Yes, she's working for her country, but in spite of the horrible things she does, the story doesn't regard ANY of those things. She comes off as one who doesn't take accountability for her actions that caused MANY, MANY problems. That's my take, but I wouldn't lean too harshly on it. Sorry if I caused any confusion.
@@genevieveowusu885 nah it's cool I get what you mean. The movie should have expanded on her character instead of just bypassing it and hoping people will theorize on her motivates and stuff.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
The whole forgive and trust someone who’s repeatedly wronged you lesson is honestly such a dangerous thing to be teaching children.
I feel, as the comments are describing because I read a few before writing my own, that Disney has been teaching us "People Are Bad Please Be Careful" and now it's going "Well if you don't trust them either before or after they've hurt you you're a jerk" and I'm just.... I'm struggling with this and human-ing enough as a freshly diagnosed autistic adult and I side with Raya, how are kids going to deal with this either way???
@@Roadent1241 Just in general the “Just trust someone no matter how many times they hurt you and if you don't then it's on you” it's such a horrible thing to teach, sounds kinda like gaslighting honestly
@@AlexMartinez-dl9xi Yes, I agree. I'm confused what Disney's logic is right now.
"Eh we're not talking to the kids anymore. Adults, do you not trust people because we taught you not to? Don't be stupid. Be like your kids. Trust blindly!!!"
@@Roadent1241 it's not just the trust blindly part, it's also the “if it doesn't work or someone hurts you, it's your fault” part
@@AlexMartinez-dl9xi Yes I still agree.
This movie could have been incredible if it was about earning back trust instead of Raya trusting someone who broke her trust. It should have been on Namari to earn back Raya’s trust instead of it being Raya’s fault that she didn’t trust her
Agreed. Honestly, the way the movie handled the arc between Namari and Raya was just obscenely, horrendously toxic and honestly dropped the movie in my books from "S'alright" to "Swivel on my middle digit!" I've got a particular grudge against anything that tries to victim blame, and the way that this one almost gaslights Raya is especially insidious. That is some Mother Gothel levels of manipulation there, Disney.
It's worse since they tried to say that Raya also had some fault in Sisu's death. Which is BS
That's a very interesting point, just another reason this needs a series (I know, I'm probably the hundreth person who's said that right now)
I agree. It bothered me how this movie blames Raya for not trusting Namaari when she is constantly proving that she can’t be trusted. To make it worse Namaari never apologizes or makes an effort to earn Raya’s trust back.
Yes this. Raya was a good character imo until they have to dumb her down in the end by having her feel at equal fault with Namaari
Spoilers:
It drives me insane how Raya was partially blamed for that failed negotiation in the climax "because she should have trusted Sisu", even though Sisu pretty much spent the whole entire movie doing nothing but getting Raya and her party into constant trouble by repeatedly being too trusting of other people. Not only did Raya have no reason to make peace with Namaari, but she also had no reason to trust Sisu's judgement.
I mean but it's kind of accurate though. When you give trust you have to take the good with the ugly. As for the namaari thing let's be real they barley knew eachother so I think there's two flaws. One is that Raya cares way to much to hold a grudge for that long over a stranger (but maybe that's just me) and 2, from Sisus standpoint since they barley knew eachother maybe she felt like Raya should give her another chance due to her barley knowing her or her reasons for the first betrayl which is the same reason for the second one, her mother. Her mother was the influence for her actions. A good old, I want to make my mother proud kind of trope.
@@NWolf17 Namaari was indirectly responsible for the fall of Raya's kingdom and her father's death. Raya had the right to hold that grudge.
@@randomcomment1286 true never said she didn't
@@NWolf17 Maybe I misread your comment, because you said Raya cared too much over a grudge with a stranger, even though that said stranger caused her large amounts of pain and trauma.
This! Sisu acted like the idiot comic relief character for the first half of the movie then decided to have a tonal shift and put her big girl pants on and act like she’s in charge even tho Raya had been the only one keeping them out of danger and actively working to make sure the plan was carried out effectively, even going as far as to sacrifice herself in that fight with Namari so the rest of the gang could escape
I just dont understand this film punishing Raya for not trusting especially to Namaari, I mean yeah of course she feels that way to the person who betrayed her causing a literal apocalypse
I wanted Raya to yell angrily during their fight "you broke the world, TWICE!" while slashing that sword. But no. Somehow this was Raya's fault too. (rolls eyes)
Namaari actually did want to help Raya and Sisu but her mom said backstabbing them would be better in the long run so there was a lot of internal conflict in her. I like the idea but I agree it was poorly handled.
Betrayed her twice. Raya was ready to trust Namaari after 6 years, but then Namaari pulled a crossbow on her...
I mean the first time, I could have understood. Everyone makes mistakes. I mean even if it's a worldending mistake... But twice... Namaari betrayed Raya twice, never once apologized, and somehow Raya is suppose to just trust her now? And everyone in the end acts like Fang didn't nearly end the world for selfish reasons...twice if you count Namaari killing Sisu. Even for a kids movie, that's too much suspension of disbelief, and it's really toxic.
@@morehero1, then the conflict of trusting your biological family over people that are actually a real family that wouldn’t have fucked the world over like Fang did should have either been in a tv series or cut out completely because if One Piece can do that same conflict of Whole Cake Island and Dressrosa Arcs, and they can do it better than a trillion dollar company like Disney then that just shows how sad and pathetic Western animation story telling is compared to a small billion dollar franchise like One Piece.
@@RoronoaZoro-ur6hr I love this comparison so much. One piece doesn’t get the credit it deserves.
My issue was the ending. I liked the entire movie until they pushed that it was Raya's fault for not trusting Nemari that Sisu died. She was not at fault for trying to disarm Nemari after Nemari's history of betrayal. Trusting her when she made no move to show she could be trusted now, was really stupid. It tells kids, hey trust people who are clearly not trustworthy and haven't even apologised for the trauma they put you through.
Exactly! I was confused when the film started telling me that Raya was at fault. I'm like "Did I miss something?"
Ok, to be fair, Raya did cause Female Zuko to accidentally pull the trigger and kill Sisu. But then again, Female Zuko caused the whole Druun mess to begin with so... eh, who am I kidding. It would have been satisfying if Sisu just let everyone else beat up Female Zuko instead of trying to talk to her, everything was Female Zuko's fault.
@@cintronproductions9430 Imagine it was a gun instead, then. Causing an accident when you're trying to stop someone from shooting a gun isn't the same "responsibility" of death, one person in that scenario is trying to save the victim's life while the other is purposefully threatening it.
I feel that Sisu getting revived really ruined this film for me, I feel it’s bad that literally the only issue stemming from Raya having trust issues (Sisu dying) getting fixed (edit: just by trusting one person) sort of diminished the film’s message for me
The movie wasn't saying trust Nemari. It was saying Trust Sisu. Raya didn't trust her friend to handle the situation and it got her friend killed.
Plus, the only blame the movie placed on Raya was a single line from Nemari. Everyone else blamed Nemari for Sisu's death. I kinda wish there was a little more blame on Raya. Not a lot. Because it was everyone's fault. Not just one person. Everyone shares some blame.
The movie has a major show don’t tell problem because it’s telling us Raya needs to be more trusting but it’s showing us every reason why she’s completely justified in not trusting people.
Agreed. This is why I felt the film should have been about forgiveness instead of trust.
@@theflickchick9850 No, it should've been more about Raya learning to trust her new friends, not the person who freaking betrayed her.
...Yep
@@shinyneko8136 Totally agreed. She can't trust Namaari for obvious reasons. But when she doesn't trust people who clearly are pure, and have proven to be trustworthy, this could've made for a better morale for the film.
@@shinyneko8136 Forgiveness in my opinion seems like a good accomplise to the theme of trust because it's the only thing that can ever (and i mean EVER) redeem this movie's sense of logic.
You know it's weird how much children's books can handle much darker themes and visuals and yet still is able to get away with it
Yeah there was a children’s book by Heinrich Hoffman which was sooooo dark and no one said anything besides jessevii (that I know of)
Even Watership Down is sometimes handed out as kids book. And don't get me started on Animorphs ;)
@@fermintenava5911 And Warriors and Guardians of Ga'hoole
@@catfoy8888 Wings of Fire had one character force his father to rip out his own guts. And don't get me started on the current arc.
Dont forget the Wizard of Oz series
it really needed to be a series instead
Agreed. OR a simpler story
Eh honestly I don't see it really being a series, I think it's just fine as a movie, plus I think we get enough time in each world 🌍, but hey that's just me🤷 so I respect y'all opinion 🥺
@@LilWolfie-18 no worries, it's not like it was a complete mess as a movie either, for me I wanted to see Raya's rivalry fleshed out more so the end would feel more impactful
@@xxTC-96xx Hmm makes sense when you really do break it down ⬇️
Just watch avatar or the dragon prince. Same story. More fleshed out
Honestly I think this would’ve been better as a show, because as a movie the pacing was kinda fast. We didn’t get to see the characters interact with each other that much, and if we did it was just some shitty joke
That's why big burly guy was the best character. There was so much "show don't tell" with his personality and backstory--him living alone, the empty crib, the fact that after he joins he's usually seen holding or interacting with the child, etc. I wanted way more of that stuff and way less "dragon nerds/group projects."
@@carlotta4th yah he was my favourite too
Yes thank you! The whole time I was watching it I was like "I need more". The emotional scenes just fell flat because I didn't know the characters, and the world felt so "big" and I couldn't wrap my head around it. Also the fact that it wasn't a musical? Literally begging to be a show. I really hope this is successful enough to cause Disney to consider a show for this, because the world and characters are so interesting, the movie just wasn't able to show it.
it couldve been Disney's Avatar.
oh wait, am i gonna get cancelled now, because i prefer Avatar.
@@whodatninja439 it would be a better Korra at least
"You're just as much to blame!"
Said the betrayer, who brought as crossbow, who loaded the crossbow, who fired the crossbow.
Not a strong argument there lady
Not only that, said a person who obsessed with Dragon and make a better world for Fang. Yeah, Namaari believes that Sisu's death was Raya fault even though it was Namaari's fault because she's holding a crossbow.
I think if the movie focused on forgiveness instead then the message would be much clearer. You can forgive someone, but not trust them. Trust is earned not given and I would have liked to have seen more of Namaari actually being remorseful of what she did to Raya. While also trying to gain Raya’s trust again. The fact that she said that Raya is just as much to blame for Sisu’s death. I was like no she is not.
Yeah, I think that's the big problem with the premise. Everyone knows that trust is earned. Since we have an omniscient perspective, we know that Namaari can be trusted if she could just act on her own. But Raya and her friends can't know that.
Yes , Preach it. Only stupid people trust blindly
This! Movie completely missed the mark in confusing trust, forgiveness and reconciliation! Like you said trust is earned not given. As others have commented forgiveness is about the abused finding peace within themselves to move on and not hold a grudge as it only hurts them more and reconciliation is about the abused and abuser trying to reconcile with what occurred and coming to terms with each other’s roles in the entire situation. Raya gets halfway there with the forgiveness but never follows through on the reconciliation and completely mislabels trust.
Agreed, the execution of the message was the weakest part, even though it was still fun
@@Inkan1969 And her being trustworthy was because plot needed her to be trustworthy.... cause watching everything, we find no reason for trust....
Sisu’s design wasn’t bad, it’s the fact that the other dragons don’t look distinct from each other to make the dragons stand out, besides the different shades of color.
Ok, to be fair, Pengu, Amba, Jagan and Pramee are Sisu's siblings so of course they look similar. Did I get their names right?
Why does it talk damit?.
@@cintronproductions9430 good point, But that still doesn’t explain the other dragons revealed in the end
Disagree. I found the design to be very uncanny valley, especially the head. Its hard to explain but its like, the skull proportions are off? The face has a really wide jaw but a really small forehead. Head-on it looks like a triangle
In my opinion, the character design is very bad. The dragon herself looks pretty, but next to the world Sisu looks like shes from a completely different universe. I don't think the other dragons is what made her bad.. I really agree that the dragons should've been distinct though- imagine how many cool dragon toys could've been made??? Yet another missed opportunity by Disney. -_-
I feel like the movie makes a mistake confusing forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness refers to letting go of your pain and anger towards someone who hurt you. This is all about healing yourself and doesn't include the victimizer. Them apologizing for hurting you can help, but at the end of the day it's your own journey to let go of the grudge and heal. Reconciliation is where you start a dialogue with the victimizer, exchange stories to allow yourself to understand their perspective and for them to understand how they've hurt you, and reastablish trust. It's about you forgiving them and letting go of the pain and them taking responsibility for their actions and trying to earn that relationship with you again.
You can forgive someone and still not want anything to do with them, because it's not about letting them off the hook, it's about taking care of your own emotional healtg because holding a gruge is not good for you.
The movie does a good job showing Raya slowly forgive Namari by letting go of her anger and learning to trust all thrse other people, but then it trips over itself trying to force Raya to reconcile with Namari, a person who refuses to accept that they've done anything wrong. Trust from someone who hurt you before HAS TO BE EARNED. And you are not in the wrong for not including them in your friend group. Namari had to take responsibility for betraying Raya and dooming the world, and then actually do something that shows Raya and the audience that she can be counted on to do the right thing. But no, she brings a crossbow to a negotiation, aims it at her idol and then blames Raya for it going off. There was no dialogue or actual reastablishment of trust, the movie just says trust people who've proven that they can't be trusted.
Excellent point
Avatar the last airbender spoilers!!!
Katara goes through that. She manages to track down the general that lead the assault on her village and who kidnapped and likely killed her mother. Zuko warns her that anger isn't worth it but doesn't actually move to stop her and lets her make the choise. Katara is shown to be PISSED and verbally rips into the guy for what he did to her and her people. But at the end she decided to forgive him as he's a shitty person who was willing to sell out his own mother to save his life. That kind of person wasn't worth Katara's time or getting her hands and heart dirty with murder, however justified it might have been.
Raya doesn't have that with Namaari really. What she and Fang did is just ignored.
@@bensemusx That's a great example, especially since the show used the terms in the right way. With that said, Katara admits that she didn't forgive the man who killed her mother, she's still holding a grudge and they never address if she moved on from it later. I think a more full take on forgiveness vs reconciliation is Kung Fu Panda 2.
In the movie, Po is struggling with attaining inner peace because he's coming to the understanding that something terrible happened to him and his people. He spends the entire movie confronting Lord Shen, the villain who is responsible for his trauma, about his feelings and it gets in the way of his ability to fight Shen. Shen himself keeps using Po's pain to get out of encounters, (flying away while he's stunned, blasting him with a cannon while saying hurtful things) making it clear that he doesn't feel remorse for what he's done. Po then has to come to terms with those feelings by accessing those repressed traumatic memories and understanding what they mean to him. He then lets go of his pain and anger by remembering that it doesn't define him and attains inner peace. Importantly, Shen is not discussed in that scene, because it's not about him, it's about the pain he caused. If anything Po has to forgive him in order to fight him better, so Shen is definitely not off the hook for everything he has done. That is forgiveness.
Finally at the end of the movie, when Shen is defeated and no longer a threat to everyone, Po attempts to reconcile with him. He tries to explain his feelings to Shen so that he can understand what he did to him, and then offers Shen a chance at peace. Unfortunately, Shen is both proud and a subscriber to the all or nothing school of thought, so he turns down Po's attempt at reconciliation and attacks him one last time before tragically dying to his own cannon.
@@bobi200samatar6 I need to see that movie...
@@bobi200samatar6 Your right that she doesn't forgive. She lets go of the anger as it's not healthy. She's definitely not suddenly friends with the guy.
My two biggest problems with this movie is that they introduced all these things and characters but they didn’t end up being fleshed out. And, they should’ve done more showing and less telling, like Raya said ‘you can’t trust anyone’ or something similar to that way to many times.
@_Bagginshield they shoved that narrative down our throats at every possible moment but every time it doesnt go well
Honestly a lot of these newer Disney movies feel more like advertisements for playsets and/or TV pilots.
You get a new world they can copyright, with characters who have identifiable traits but aren't super fleshed out so you can easily make stories for playtime.
@@MysteryDisc I'd honestly want a more interconnected world with the princess movies so far
Yup also they constantly talk about Namari and Raya’s relationship like they’ve known each other for a long time and how it was such a horrible betrayal but like they literally knew each other for only a couple hours before Namari betrayed her so the way their relationship is described in the movie doesn’t feel accurate and raya was too trusting of someone she just met.
@@championofthedarksoul4200 when you think about it everything was her fault
disney: hey guys, lets meet all these wonderful characters we barely get to meet and arent fleshed out much!
It worked for Big Hero 6
@@erichfiedler1481 yes but here there were more
Yeah, I think they're all cool or cute, but still, there's a little too many main characters. We got Korra, Elsa's fursona, Female Zuko, Aladdin, Boss Baby, three Minions, Asian Nick Fury and Bumpy the Ankylosaurus. XD
@@cintronproductions9430 i think barney the dinosaur wouldve worked for bumpy
AND LET’S RELEASE IT BEHIND A PAYWALL OF $30 ON DISNEY+ WHEN DISNEY+ HASN’T EVEN BEEN RELEASED IN SEVERAL SOUTHEAST ASIAN COUNTRIES
I feel like the conflicts in this movie go by too fast. First Sisu trusted the old lady and nearly gets sacrificed to the Druun, and Raya has to save her. But then it's just over. Then Sisu tries to prove Raya wrong and ends up getting captured, and that's also kinda it. They meet Tong and they keep on going.
To be fair it's a children's movie, so the pacing is inherently going to be faster
@@rsnowden0524 that is no excuse
@@rsnowden0524 the point is Sisu was proven to be wrong here,yet the movie is like "no no kids,Sisu is right,sure,her blind trust of random people she never met almost got her killed,but she's in the right!!!!!"
I think that the message that you should trust someone who has repeatedly betrayed and hurt you (and freaking KILLED your friend!) is a terrible one lmao. Trust should be earned, not granted.
@@faith4disney how so?
@@faith4disney That's also an awful message. You can't ASSUME there is good in someone, especially since that someone actively harmed you without any remorse. That person has to show that they are trustworthy and willing to be good.
@@faith4disney I misphrased myself. Maybe, you can see good in strangers you haven't got to know yet. But, when it comes to people who hurt you and don't even feel a speck of regret, that is when you know they cannot be trusted. As a Christian, I do believe that forgiveness is a good way to move on. You can forgive someone who wronged you, but don't be stupid enough to trust them again if they don't make an effort to earn that trust.
Also, if that was the core message of the movie, then why didn't they show a shed of good in Namaari? An asshole mom doesn't immediately make her this good person, that's just lazy writing. The only morally good thing she did, was use the gem to save the world, and that was only because she had no other option, and was taken place right after she tried to harm Raya throughout the movie. Sometimes, there isn't good in every person, and that's just how things are.
@@randomcomment1286 namaari: causes druun, petrifies half the kingdom, is directly responsible for raya's father turning into stone, attacks raya very commonly, has betrayed her once before.
yeah why not lets trust her.
@@faith4disney Then why didn't they actually SHOWED Namaari deserved a second chance? Her actions were always either for Fang,her mother,or for her own selfish reasons. If they wanted to show she had good in her, then make her APOLOGIZE! Make her REGRET her actions! The only thing she seems to regret is killing Sisu,but she doesn't even give a shit about being the cause Raya's father is stone. Also,in the end of the movie,she only put that rock back together because SHE WAS ALSO GONNA GET STONED IF SHE DIDN'T! That's not heroic,she saved her own ass! As for regretting killing Sisu,that was just because Sisu is a dragon and she has a dragon obsession,if Sisu was a human,she'd be like "Oops...Oh well"
People arguing on Namari's behalf forget one thing;
She never apologized. Not once.
Not only that but she gaslit raya with it’s a “your fault Sisu is dead.” 💀
Right like she did one good thing AND THE THING SHE DID WAS IN HER OWN BEST INTEREST ANYWAY!!
Exactly 💯
Which one of the many reasons why I abhor this movie
@@jammindragon1812Even though we know it was 100% Namaari's fault because she's obsessed with dragon. What Raya did is self defense.
My problem with Raya And The Last Dragon was how aggressively cringeworthy 95 percent of the dialogue was and the fact that no one but the Honest Trailer is calling this out is so frustrating. We shouldn't let writers get away with making a movie consist of awful dialogue. We need to ask for better
Agreed. When the movie wasn't doing atrocious "too modern" dialogue it just ridiculously simple lines. No character feels that different from each other (except the dang dragon, and she stood out in a bad way).
@@carlotta4th It was doing the atrocious "modern" thing and it was to an extreme degree "bling is my thing, I slaughter when I hit the water"
@_Bagginshield It was an extremally poor execution of Aaron Ehazs style of humor. They understood the "make characters say cringey things intentionally" thing but they didn't remember that why this worked in The Dragon Prince was the context of how the characters saying things like "unstoppable is just another form of stoppable" were written in general.
So, they failed and 80 percent of the dialogue was the awful one liners that were in OG Teen Titans stretched across the entire movie
@_Bagginshield Basically, Avatar did what this movie tried to do flawlessly and people should watch it instead
"We shouldn't let writers get away with awful dialogue."
That's what I always say about James Cameron movies.
They kept shoving the Trust theme down our throats at like every point of the movie
That what I thought so too when I first saw this movie
Do NOT have a drink every time they say "trust", unless you want a one-way trip to the afterlife.
i really dont get how they couldn’t just show that raya and namari were childhood friends for a long time before the betrayal and make it as though namari was forced to betray raya in order to bring prosperity to her people. it would have made a lot of the dynamic between them make more sense and give us more of a reason to sympathize with namari
Not to mention how strange it was for raya, within a few hours, to be like “hey come look at this extremely valuable dragon gem.” When her whole thing was to PROTECT the gem BECAUSE it was a target
This should have been a 26 episode series so everyone could properly shine, but oh well
that is an oddly specific number
@@cornbreadbutcringey5723 That is like one season or two season.
@@cornbreadbutcringey5723 26 episodes is the normal length for a season of a show on television. of course it doesn't have to be 26 episodes, but that's usually the number studios go for since that'll generally give them a year of content. releasing one episode a week will get you through 6 months, but since networks air multiple shows, that means that some weeks may be skipped due to specials from other shows, certain events the network hosts, other unaccounted for events, etc.
all that aside, if each episode is 20 minutes long, then you're looking at 8 hours and 40 minutes worth of content, which honestly is plenty of time to fix what was wrong with Raya, so i do agree with the sentiment that this should've been a show rather than a film.
@@Dracon350 you could have just reminded me it was half of fifty-two
@@cornbreadbutcringey5723 well it's a lot more nuanced than just being half the year. i figured you'd want a better explanation beyond, "yeah, it's half a year"
The problem I hear is Trust issues, the other tribes are fine because they're essentially strangers to her, Namaura is the one who caused the apocalypse and murdered someone, and I don't buy the parent excuse, she could've not broken the stone, and she could've put the arrow gun down instead, this should've been a show on Disney Channel or Plus instead.
I mean, she TECHNICALLY caused the apocalypse. Namaari tried to take the gem from Raaya and called the Fang soldiers in to help her steal it. The different tribes were all struggling to get the gem after Benja was shot in the leg and they dropped it, which shattered it into pieces. Namaari betrayed Raaya, but she wasn't the one who broke the gem. The Fang soldiers trying to steal it opened the floodgates to the rest of the Tribes, who all wanted it for themselves.
@@phousefilms I'll give yea that, but then Namaari would have to be seen making up for it which doesn't seem to happen till the end after murdering a dragon possibly genociding an entire species before bringing 'em back, still doesn't exactly change anything
Yeah, my main gripe with the film is that it seems to be promoting BLIND trust, rather than giving everyone a chance to earn it. If Namari had been given a chance to EARN Raya's trust again, to prove herself a trustworthy person even after their past history, that would be different - but that never really happens. Sure, Sisu getting shot was not what Namari had intended, but she still came to a peace meeting loaded for bear (or dragon, rather). She remains untrustworthy right up until the last moment, when she's like 'ah, screw it; the world's about to end' and puts the gem back together, which is basically what she wanted to do anyway - but the film's position seems to be 'aww, but Raya never even gave her a chance; shame on her for being so untrusting'. Yes, she did give her a chance! She gave her EVERY chance, and Namari was still ready to betray her right up until she basically had no chance not to! I mean, ye gods, movie!
I totally agree!! Raya gave namaari a solid chance at redemption, made it super easy for Namaari to switch sides and help fix the gem with Raya. Ppl who defend Namaari say that her mom controlled her and namaari "had no choice". The movie turns namaari into the helpless victim so... therefore raya's the bad guy? You don't victimize yourself and pass the blame to ur mom for pity points to get someones trust. You need to prove yourself and earn that trust. I kinda expected disney to inspire us with namaaris redemption. Shes clearly a strong, independent thinker so how come the only way to gain rayas trust was to play the helpless victim?
@@desaturatedchaos9304 I hadn't thought of it that way, but you have a point there. Making Namari's mom the true villain of the movie would actually have fixed a lot. If, all the time, she was just trying to make her tyrannical mother happy, and we learned this right near the end, that would A: have explained why Namari was the way she was, and B: given her and Raya a connection beyond being 'dragon nerds'.
After all, Raya's driving force is also love for a parent. Maybe Namari could have a 'there's only room for one of us' mentality - like 'you want your dad back, I want my Mom's love, but if you get what you want, I'll NEVER get what I want, because I can only earn her love if I keep our kingdom on top!'
And that would make sense, because, after all, she's the one who betrayed Raya in the first place, and we know she did so at her mother's instructions. The final twist could have been that her mom WANTED the kingdoms divided, because that would put hers on top, since they were the best prepared for it. Namari could have felt betrayed by her, and try to change, and THEN the whole issue of 'someone's got to trust' would make sense, since they'd BOTH have issues that they'd have had to fight past - Namari's conflicted feelings about her mother, and Raya's doubts about whether or not she's gone too far in the name of rescuing the world.
Instead, Namari's mom is actually a pretty nice lady, so... that doesn't work. Namari's still basically the villain right up 'til she's not, and the whole business doesn't really work.
@@Psycopathicus ahh I saw this late but yeah this would've been a more legit explanation for namaari's betrayal. Her mom was portrayed as ~kinda~ controlling but not enough to convince anyone that namaari was doing all this for her mom. Canonically Namaari could've easily used her controlling mom as justification and her redemption would be genuine but yeah her mom seems too nice and chill T-T
@@Psycopathicus also THAT WOULD'VE BEEN SO COOL if Virana actually did WANT the lands divided. WHY DIDN'T THEY HIRE YOU AS A WRITER smh. Another thing I don't understand is when namaari tells her mom that they need the gems to "secure fang's future" and all but at the same time she empathizes with raya's situation and wants to help raya??
@@desaturatedchaos9304 (bows) Thank you, thank you.
And yeah, that is kind of a wishy-washy position to take. She's clearly a pretty fierce patriot of her country/city-state/whatever they are - she's doing undercover missions at age twelve or whatever, for cryin' out loud - so you'd think Fang would come first in her consideration. (Not that you can't be a patriot and still want other places to do well, of course, but still - you'd think a hot-tempered commando princess would have a more hard-line attitude.)
The most ironic thing is that Disney has made a South-East Asian-inspired movie available on Disney+, a streaming platform that is currently not available in South-East Asia.
Yup,
As an SEA 🤣🇵🇭
And had no SEA actors voicing the characters, despite the fact that Raya's original VA was going to be someone of SEA descent.
@@nightmarefanatic1819oh wow
@@nightmarefanatic1819I learned from a video by Xiran Jay Zhao that there are SEA VAs in the film, but there are extremely few of them. Their roles? They're mainly just background characters. And I find that even more sad.
Oh yeah, just wanna correct you, both of Raya's voice actresses (Cassie Steele, the original actress who was gonna voice her but was replaced with Kelly Marie Tran) are both SEA.
I agree that the dialogue was too contemporary for my tastes. The movie does have problems, but I did still enjoy it and would like to see it fleshed out more in the future. I would especially like to see how the relationship between Raya and Namaari develops.
Exactly. The dialogue was cringy and I agree with that. But apart from that it was fine. The only problem I had with it was the ending where Namaari blamed Raya for Sisu's death when she's clearly the one who pulled the trigger halfway and was going to kill her whether Raya intervened or not. And also, the trust message isn't really good for children to learn. The movie clearly shows every reason why Raya doesn't trust Namaari and they just put the whole blame on her for not trusting her. But to be honest, Disney did its best. Atleast we have an original Disney movie rather than a live action remake.
I think the trust theme was ruined by the dialogue. The movie kept _telling_ us about trust as an over simplistic concept where you can and should trust anyone regardless of their past actions. And it kept _showing_ us that trusting people was largely a mistake because they'll end betraying you. What they told us was inconsistent with what they showed us. And as someone else in the comments pointed out, they kept confusing forgiving someone with reconciling with them
they told but never showed
I was shouting, "No, fuck off" at my screen in the orb repair scene. The most frustrating thing about raya is that the plot is nearly antithetical to the message. It tells me it's all about trust, but nearly ever time a character trusts someone with any agency things always take a turn for the worse. Siru trusting the old lady, anytime anyone trusts nimari (except when everyone is about to die), raya trying to help the baby. The dissonance between what the characters are telling me and each other and the events happening on screen made me want to pull my teeth out
12:30 Yeah, THIS is why the whole "trust is good" moral didn't work for me. It's not just Raya and Namari. People are *consistently* getting betrayed and deceived throughout the movie. I'd need to watch it again to say for certain, but my first impression is that across the story, being trusting ultimately creates more problems than solutions. And (if I'm right) that makes it a pretty broken moral.
It almost feels like the writers wrote the story, then said "oops, we forgot the takeaway!" and kind of shoehorned the trust thing in there.
I guess this is going on the list of films that would work ten times better as TV shows
I think the difference was that for Frozen 2, while there were no consequences in the end, the message still stood, as technically, the people who were saved were innocent.
On the other hand, for Raya, the message doesn't work because... it's just executed badly.... the entire movie shows why you SHOULDN'T trust rather but says that trust is good....
It consistently SHOWS a message that's the opposite of what it LITERALLY SAID....
Frozen 2, while it added some BS, at least didn't go against it's own message.
You want a film that shows the problems of not trusting??? Watch Encanto. It's a film about a family whose sole problems happen because NONE of the family members trust each other enough to talk about their problems when they all really do love each other and care for each other. And it's finally solved when they finally open up.
The problem with Raya and the Last Dragon:
*I w a n t m o a r*
turn it into a series, not exclusive to disney+!
i just want everythiiiiing
and mOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE-
@@emilymonahan5232 I want the moon
*I WANT TO LIVE ON THE MOON*
@@spooderman6312 Since it is made by Disney and Disney + exist now, of course it will be an exclusive there, no way around it.
Why the dragon has Elsa’s face ?
There are a lot of elements about this movie that I love, but I overall didn't enjoy it as a whole. The villians redemption arc was not earned in the slightest. It almost felt like Raya was being gaslighted into trusting her despite Raya having a very valid reason to never trust her. Also the dragon who's name in forgetting is kind of obnoxious.
i can't see how she can be
As I commented in the Disney + promo... in this world of liars, scammers and thieves, Disney made a movie about trusting liars, scammers, and thieves...
Yeah sometimes trust issues are normal
Whether or not they lead to paranoia is the issues in my opinion
As much as i enjoyed Raya and the Last Dragon, i'll admit it does have it's ups and downs like all movies do.
Same here.
Agreed, honestly I really enjoyed it but it is FAR from flawless
Same. I really enjoyed this movie, in fact I may even watch it again. But it does have its problems with how they were trying to execute the message which is a problem I have for a lot of movies, mainly Disney
It's fine to compare this movie to ATLA. It's natural. Most people in the west have NO clue about most Asian high fantasy films.
Buuuuuuuuuut to say ALL Asian fantasy is the same is just.....that's like saying "oh all western fantasy is the same" and if ATLA should tell you....That is just....INOCRRECT. Same beats yes, but those beats sound VERY different per film they are in IF done WELL.
I mean
Just about every western fantasy thing is at least somewhat inspired by Tolkien, why do we take it at face value that people in fantasy worlds all have British accents? Well because they all do in the lord of the Rings.
@@seanmcloughlin5983 wait omg TRUE and I'm SO glad that they don't have accents here. Or if they do it's just like....the ACTORS' accents which is hella nice.
Well to be fair not all but most western high fantasy is wayyyy to dameu
Trouble is, plenty of people haven't watched ATLA. So when you try to compare something to it, people have no frame of reference.
@Ribotto Studios
If u see the movie out of context or (within obviously) u notice how similar the narration and worldbuilding and characters design almost copy paste with Avatar. Take it last this (insert 5 tribe name) Long ago live a nation of people in Kumadra live in peace and harmony. It all change when the....drune attack. Only the last dragon can save the world but when kumadra need her the most she vanishes. 500 years later, (raya) found the dragon... but I believe Sisu can save the world. Lol honest trailer callls out the similarity in the best way possible go watch it
the villian lady has an “openly gay in 6th grade” haircut.
She looks like she’s about to demand to speak to your manager
yeah i hatr that hair style
@@Steven9567 I think she looks really cool
Still better than the Skrillex half and half haircut.
@@GodOfOrphans true
Half Last Airbender, half My Little Pony, all Disney.
My Little Pony Friendship is Super Gay!
@@undeadblizzard Very original.
@@undeadblizzardnot offended though since it's friendship not MLP
@@undeadblizzard _...waiting for the punchline here._
@@undeadblizzard no it isn't
Wish they could’ve done what soul did, and just be free. Don’t understand why this movie is so expensive honestly.
If you’re talking about premiere access, then i agree, because of the fact that many people couldn’t watch the movie due to the fact that you had to pay extra to watch a movie on a streaming service that YOU ARE PAYING FOR.
@@kast6296 yeah, that’s what I was referring to.
@@kast6296 please notice that when movies are exclusive, it’s because they aren’t on Disney + yet, if you want to see it months prior you buy the premier access.
@@rinafae so why didn't they do this for soul?
@@Tekkerman I don’t know, maybe it didn’t get as much promo as raya?
To be fair, Rapunzel's Tangled adventure was really good.
I haven't seen this movie yet, I'm waiting for it to be free on Disney plus
It’s not worth the 30$ trust me just wait till it’s free
@@theswig2339 even if it was the best movie ever I wouldn't pay that much. 🙂
@@theswig2339 She literally just said that...
@@laurendynes6289 pirate it
no it wasnt dont lie
I feel like this movie was originally written with the idea that Namaari and Raya were super close childhood friends before the betrayal, either through fostering or in secret or even through betrothal, but then the time spent establishing that was cut, but then they just kept the relationship dynamic that would have been the result of such a close friendship being broken. It would explain their banter as adults. But instead, they went with the shorter version of Raya being an idiot who trusted someone she just met for no reason, but kept their nemeses dynamic like they had known each other their whole lives. It just felt like something important was cut.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this movie lately. More specifically, I’ve been thinking about Sisu’s character. I have thought that instead of the way she’s depicted in the movie, loud, kind of obnoxious at times, I feel like she should be more like Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda. A wise, old dragon that tries to teach Raya about trust in proverbs, instead of pounding the message into our heads. I feel like that would be better because it A) doesn’t try to make her a comic relief, because I feel Boone and Noi fill that roll fine, and B) makes her more serious scenes better, because she no longer has to be annoying. But that’s my thought on her. What do you think?
Yes!!! They definitely could've made her into a wise dragon instead
I think the naivete is a fine character choice, but they didn't have to use the same style of humor.
This film felt like it should have been done as a TV series in a similar vein to ATLA, or at least they should have made the film longer to really flesh it all out. The world building in this is awesome, I really wanted to learn more about the different cultures and the side characters but everything felt so rushed along.
My biggest complaints about this film were:
1) How they hammered the message of "you just gotta trust people" so hard and yet, there seemed to be a nonstop betrayal. Like c'mon, really?
2) The "villain" was super unlikable, she made for a great rival which I actually really liked but because of the theme the film forced down our throats, you're meant to like/sympathise with her when she never gave me a reason to. Like CellSpex said, Nemari never had anything to lose and only became "trustworthy" when she had no choice.
3) The world felt weirdly cheerful considering it's technically post apocalyptic. Not hopeful, but cheerful, which felt like a super weird tonal dissonance. However many thousands of people are dead, all 5 civilisations dislike each other, terrifying monsters you can't fight back against roam the majority of the world and trust is apparently at an all time low. And yet there was never any sense of threat or emergency through the whole film? People just seemed to be super nonchalant about it all. Shouldn't there be way more hatred for Fang since they screwed it all up?
4) The entire film seemed to have this... emotional immaturity. Jokes were mostly flat, serious moments were flat, the message was flat. Heck, Cars 3 had more emotional maturity than this, and that's a film about talking cars going fast!
All in all, his film is a solid meh/10 for me which is a massive shame. At least it was gorgeous to look at, the score was spectacular and the side-characters were a lot of fun. Really wish we got more out of them.
I disagree that Frozen 2 is a "Thanksgiving retelling," it's reflective of actual events that happened (and are still happening) regarding Scandinavian cultural genocides of the Sami people. Of course parallels can be drawn to any colonial situation, but I keep seeing people say that the Northuldra are supposed to be Native American.
those things happen all the world why do people keep bring up "colonial" (witch its really conquest) when its not unquie and really there very little to no genocide and finally
Northaldra are supposed to be native American but theyre white af ok lmao. I dont see where they're coming from because Scandinavians are typically white.
When you say "cultural genocide" do you mean the suppression of the indigenous culture of the Sami by the nation-states of Scandinavia or an actual genocide? Because there was never a genocide of the Sami.
@@Isulfr I mean it seems pretty clear to me that they meant the first option you said....
@@KaylaTheKindOne Sure. It's just, as a Sami myself it feels like such a poor way to phrase it, gives people the wrong idea of what happened. It wasn't like America's treatment of Native Americans in the slightest.
I think it's a rare occasion where the criticism is ACTUALLY we need more of it
This movie's treatment of trust as some sort of currency that needs to be earned or can be poorly spent really winds me up.
Trust, like respect, is a _verb,_ it's something you _choose_ to do. A betrayal of trust or respect is also a choice by the person doing the betrayal.
honestly the whole “the writing feels to contemporary for the setting” is why i love the interactions and dialogue in the game genshin impact and the show the dragon prince so much. they stay interesting and feel relevant while still being able to retain humor. i feel like fantasy is trying too hard to be modern-day without advanced technology a lot these days.
I had the same take on the ending, Namaari had no reason not to believe in Raya and the rest, what was she gonna do otherwise? run and get turned into stone with her people later because the magic of the stones faded away..? I think they should have established a reason for humans to fear using the stone, so that she really had to have faith in Raya's words.
Like Atlantis, this desperately needs a TV show.
There was supposed to be a Atlantis TV show but was cancelled because of poor reception and box office performance, though the Atlantis sequel was basically a pilot episode for that TV show
I hate how much of a wasted concept the Atlantis series pilot "movie" was. They could've gone a full route of having the human world and the Atlantean world fight off Lovecraftian monsters (and the kingdom of Ryleh could've worked as the Evil Empire version of Atlantis).
@@MattEldritchHorror That sounds amazing! I still can't believe Atlantis wasn't very successful when it came out. When I found the movie as a kid I thought it was amazing, it's animation style is so unique and it has an interesting and mysterious world! I haven't seen the sequel, I feel like I'll have to try to find it at some point.
@@iceprism367 Be warned though, that instance of Lovecraft is only in the first third of it and its quickly forgotten. And speaking of Lovecraftian influences, Mike Mingola, creator of Hellboy and countless others,
worked on the original film
@@BahamutZero09 wait there wasn't a series? Could've sworn I watched multiple episodes when I was really young, that's such an odd self imposed mind trick
I really liked this movie, but i hate the fact that Disney+ made it so that you needed premier access to see it, which, i guess, only applies to some movies, as movies like Soul didn’t get this treatment so.. yeah.
Keep in mind: The Premier access is for if you wanna see it EARLY. If you can wait a few months, you can see it for free on Disney+
@@darthestar8791 Or you go to a cheap afternoon matinee like I did. It's enough to hold me over till it's free on Disney+ or I can just buy a copy.
I think its because soul is a Pixar movie and didnt come from Disney directly, but i still agree with the premier access thing.
Also Soul is a Pixar movie Raya is Disney sooo yea that’s why
Yeah this reminded me a lot of Atlantis: the Lost Empire. Immense, creative world-building that had to be crammed into such a short time. Though enjoyed the change of pace compared to what Disney has been pumping out recently.
But Atlantis was a good movie. The characters where introduced in short times but instead of just telling us about them in dialogue they personality was shown through their actions.
The one thing I just really don’t get is how it seems like there are only 2 ppl in Heart like where are the guards when Fang tried to take their gem?
YES! Exactly what I am wondering! Where the heck is everyone else in Heart? Why hasn't Fang taken the gem earlier if it was that easy? I'm glad someone else is also wondering this.
Same!!! When I saw the movie for the first time last week I was like “okay so Raya’s dad invites all these other groups of people who want this gem yet has ZERO security guarding/monitoring 24/7?” Like you can still take a non-violent approach but still guard the damn gem haha
I get the whole “Main family is considered protectors.” But they couldn’t have had two people standing at the entrance of the stone for the party 😂
What makes Sisu worse than the Httyd side characters, at least in the first movie, is that sisu is not a side character, she is a main character, and is just as annoying. This is why I like toothless not being able to talk at all and remmy not being able to talk to linguini, It makes these movies way less annoying.
I found her kinda funny. Depends on your sense of humor.
I agree with pretty much all the issues you had with this movie. As a Filipino, I had really high expectations because it’s the first time we’ve gotten a SEA princess and world at the center of a major Disney movie. At the end of the day I’m just glad to get some representation and an overall positive reception, especially now. It’s a step in the right direction.
Honestly, there were a LOT of ways they could’ve fixed the loose ends to make the story work better.
Sisu: This character is actively depicted as being an annoying comic relief who is consistently overly trusting, leading to bad things happening. Let’s be honest here, there isn’t a single scene where Sisu herself actually earns our respect or trust as an audience, let alone Raya’s. Raya is the one that chooses to trust people, and Sisu only ever gets them into more trouble. But they could’ve fixed that with the ONE scene where you could argue Sisu maybe succeeds.
In Spine, they have Sisu and Raya get captured by the sole survivor, leading to them getting him as an ally, right? Well, what if instead, only Sisu gets captured. Raya has to sneak into Spine, witnessing firsthand that there is no one left, that everyone in the village has died or is missing, and the chief really is all alone. Maybe she makes it to the hideout he’s keeping Sisu in, and Raya has a chance to strike him down and save the dragon. But, Sisu herself manages to talk down the chief in front of Raya and prove to both her and the audience that she is actually capable of getting enemies on her side. That way, Raya has an actual reason to trust Sisu at the crossbow scene. But no, instead Raya is expected to trust someone who has done nothing but screw up at this point to somehow talk down Namaari, someone who has NEVER earned her trust, with a crossbow.
Namaari: I actually don’t hate Namaari, I think she’s at least kinda well written. It does feel like they explain the why if her character and what it is that keeps her from being the good guy. Her mother essentially convinces her that doing the right thing would lead to the other nations pointing fingers at Fang and then her people would be outcasts. However, they do actually manage to show the audience that Namaari does actually want to do good. The issue, however, is that her actions go against this and Raya is never given any reason to ever trust Namaari or forgive her for her actions.
Here’s my idea. Maybe, for example, Namaari goes to do the negotiations like she’s supposed to. But this time, all she brings with her is a knife for protection, but actively is shown to be trusting and willing to help. Maybe she and Raya actually start to talk again and heal together. And then Namaari gives them the gem, and actively chooses to let them have it and save the world while she starts to leave. But her mother sends some spies to make sure Namaari is safe. And as soon as they see Raya start to repair the gem, they try to steal it back, only to shoot Sisu by mistake. Raya discovers the spies from Fang, as well as the knife on Namaari and instantly assumes this was her plan all along, even though Namaari insists it wasn’t. And then water dies and the same basic thing happens. But, this time, Namaari is actually shown as being capable of redemption, of putting others before herself and her kingdom. And we also get actual payoff for the way her mother has been acting throughout the entire movie, instead of just kinda throwing her away toward the end.
Honestly, I think the pacing is the main issue of the movie. It’s a cool world with cool ideas, but they just bumrush through it all. As a result, it just feels like they do way more telling than showing. They don’t even really establish Heart as a homely place, and don’t really make us feel for it’s downfall as much as they probably could have if they took more time to establish it. Same could be said about the original Namaari betrayal, honestly.
Personally, the way this movie handled the trust thing was downright abhorrent and caused my opinion of it to absolutely plummet from about a 6/10 to a damn 2, to be placed alongside such "treasures" as Mulan 2 and Shrek the Third. I *REALLY* took offense to the bits where they tried to blame Raya for 1) not trusting Namari and 2) for Namari's actions in the first place. That is so incredibly insidious and damaging to the point that I can safely put this in my bottom five of Disney movies on that basis alone. I don't care about it being simplistic, I get that, but Disney's handled simplified versions of complex morals alright in the past, but straight up gaslighting the main character and saying that's alright is *unacceptable.*
Question. If you have to, would you watch Mulan 2 or Mulan Live Action?
@@thealientree3821mulan 2, easily. I agree with the point about gaslighting mentioned above, though, and raya is also in my list of “bottom 10” disney films.
I got heavy Avatar vibes from this. I even made a joke while watching it by saying “but everything changed when the fire nation attacked”
Don’t let Twitter find out you said that!
@@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527 uhhhhhhh, why? Should I be worried? XD
@@midekubrandio8592cause not every Asian Fantasy story is the same or based on the same idea. Avatar is about basically the second world war and it's negative effects on the people who can literally bend elements. In Raya the entire story is about trust and betrayal and it's negative effects on these tribes who can only fight with weapons. Avatar is based on East Asian culture's: Japan (Firenation), China and Korea (Earth kingdom), Tibetan nomads (Air nation) and Inuit or Yupik with an influence of Polynesian catamarans (Water tribes). While Raya is a wild mixture of Southeast Asian Countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. There are obvious differences, so it's not the same story.
"...and Raya is the first Princess protagonist in an action film that is not a musical"
-- We just gonna do my girl Kidagakash like that? ಥ_ಥ
She was my favorite Disney Princess growing up and she's always forgottennnnnnn
I'm afraid this film is going to be forgotten
And of course *underrated*
@@Carlos-Cordero. *overrated
@@dislike_button33 oh nevermind 😅
I've already forgotten it
Who is Raya again 🤷🏼♀️
*sees this video is unlisted* Well, I'm sure glad I have all notifications turned on!
Disney + recently raised up the price of their service, and that makes me mad.
They can’t take down ALL the piracy websites ; )
Pirate and borrow from the library. And pirate
Why? They finally have a steady stream of new content. Gotta make money somehow.
Go see it in theaters. Oh wait.
@Katie Lewis not in my country, here they cost almost twice as much.
I feel like there was a bit of queerbaiting between Namaari and Raya. Their flirtatious banter and complex relationship was just really interesting and it feels like they didn't go far enough with their relationship. Even Raya's actress thought she was gay.
It would be nice if she were lesbian but didn't end up with Namari. It's so toxic and I hated how Namari gaslighted Raya so much about "you cause this apocalypse".
@@jeva4869 I mean she kind of did by trusting someone who she only met for like 10 minutes maybe less. Kind of like a Hans and Anna kind of thing. As for redemption I think namaari got a pretty good redemption in terms of the limited time. If the movie could have been longer I feel like the ending would have been better and her redemption would have been better but due to kids having low attention spans, we're stuck with what we have and have to interpret with what we know. To be honest, yes the ship is toxic as of now but if they give Namaari a better redemption Arc the second time around... I think this could be a healthy relationship not going to lie. Just have to see how it plays out.
@@NWolf17Hmmm.....Interesting points here.
There was TONNES of queerbaiting. Like "hey princess undercut"? Tell me thats not giving u catradora, gay enemies flirting whilst fighting vibes?
@@bellac6311 oh, just the pairing I like. Do you recommend the series?
I feel like some of the trust parts, well, fall apart because they never address a big part of trust, or learning to re-trust: Forgiveness.
I feel like if Raya's lesson was to trust new people after having been savagely betrayed, and learning to _forgive_ Namaari, and that Sisu's lesson was that being _too_ trusting can also be a problem (it seems like they tried to do that, but it never really got through to her) some of the movie's message would have felt more satisfying.
Ok but, the short "Us Again" before this film was really good!
I know right
...Agree to disagree stranger, I watched that short after watching my town library's copy of the dvd and could not tell what in the world was happening.
I am so glad I wasn't the only one who had a big problem with "You're just as much to blame". Un excuse me, Raya did not bring a weapon to a peaceful meeting, Raya did not point a weapon at literally the only being capable of saving the world, Raya did not pull that trigger how on earth is ANY of that Raya's fault?!
i really do hope disney makes a raya and the last dragon show in the future. i know WDAS is busy with 4 of them right now, but i would much prefer a raya show than another big hero 6 one
So would I
Yeah a show set during the 6 year timeskip would be cool but since they couldn’t have Sisu or any other supporting character, it might be unlikely
A show dealing with the logical aftermath of the movie, having Raya deal with trying to unite the five lands while conflicts and tensions arise between the people could be great.
Also more Southeast Asian mythological creatures. The Druun were just CGI smoke clouds, come on.
"The determination to assign blame is distracting from finding actual solutions."
I get that they were going for a younger, subversively less impressive dragon than what Raya was expecting but the other dragons should have been far grander and odd looking as they were older and more mature with the own magic.
Like when Aang and Zuko met the masters, being completely dwarfed by their size. (That seen is just *chef’s kiss*)
It would have made Sisu look like a baby in comparison, the kid sibling, yet to come into her own as a true dragon. Then when they were at the stone dragon grotto Raya would really see just how small and young Sisu was, putting her optimism into perspective as someone who is just like her but wasn’t hardened by it, instead she was made kinder.
A touch of Sisu being the bratty younger sibling who was untrusting of people sprinkled in would help with this angle honestly, emphasising her confusion on why she was chosen to stop the druun and why she is now an aggressively optimistic person (she wants to make up for her past mistakes).
If the other dragons were more wild in their design I wouldn’t be complaining as much, but the dragons all look like Sisu reskins.
Dewey De-Night as “For Fun” and Boss Mabel as “For Business” is the best thing in this vid. Also, I saw this movie and the Ducktales finale on the same day.
Sisu’s comparison of trust to her family who she’s know her entire life and never betrayed her once and saying it’s the same thing as trusting someone who has betrayed you all the time and caused you serious trauma literally confused the hell out of me.
Was Disney High when they wrote this?
Fang. Heart. Spine. Talon. Tail. My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days, how Kumandra once lived in harmony. How everything changed once the Druun attacked. Only Dragons mastered all life’s power. Only they could stop the ruthless Druun. But when the world needed them most, they are defeated or disappeared. Nobody had seen them for a hundred years, until my pet Tuk and I found one of them, a dragon named Sisu. The problem is, this Dragon is still weak, and even though her potential can be brought back, she has a lot to learn before she's ready to save anyone. The Fang Nation will do anything to capture the Dragon before she get all the her powers back, so I must keep her safe until she's ready to fulfill her destiny. All tribes thinks I'm crazy, but I believe Sisu can save the world."
Dang. This AU of avatar sounds good lmao
I’m honestly glad that this movie did not come out when I was four or three years old. People who were born in 2004 probably would have thought blind trust would be okay.
Trust can be a good thing to learn but this film's message teaches it in a dangerous way. Raya's whole arch is learning to trust her enemy: The same enemy who betrayed her after she trusted her enough to reveal the gem's location, and basically caused the entire world to go into apocalypse. I don't know how to spell her name but Namari repeatedly proves to the audience why Raya doesn't trust her, yet Raya's in the wrong for not trusting her.
This could teach young viewers that no matter how many times someone hurts you or betrays you, it's on you to trust them instead of them needing to better themselves before they can earn your trust again.
Any thoughts on the soundtrack?? Soundtrack was produced by James Newton Howard, same legend from Treasure Planet from 2002, and personally I love the whole soundtrack! (Especially "Dragon Graveyard" :'D)
I liked the movie, but my main problems were exactly the ones you mentioned, the contemporary dialogue, Sisu being somewhat annoying, the constant repeating need of "trust" and Naamari herself.
My thought as I watched the credits roll: I think this movie could’ve been better if it wasn’t a Disney movie. Iron out the humor, dialogue, pacing; develop the characters more and appropriately. Make Raya and Sisu’s balance as leads more...balanced. I liked a lot of the movie but I saw ways it could improve
I just hope disney won't start pitting different types of girls against each other. don't get me wrong, i love tomboyish girls in fiction, but i don't like it when they're used to antagonize more stereotypically girly girls
Yes! You can be a strong female character whether you're girly or tomboyish! I wish there was more appreciation for that other than in kids shows.
@@sshy_indigoo i do get that the constant makeover trope of tomboys was usually trash, but now people are taking it to another extreme as though strength and femininity are mutually exclusive (winx would beg to differ). and this annoying trend of mary sues being turned into feminist icons.... they have me defending Alice from Anderson's RE movies
Or when girly girls are portrayed as inferior or antagonistic to tomboys
I was waiting for this! To me it seems like some plotlines were abandoned, like in the trailer it seemed like Sisu is some kind of looser dragon or something, she mentions it in the movie as well but there is nothing to back that up - she can use magic, she knows how it works, she didn't mess up or cause the apocalypse, so why mention it at all? Also the moral the story tries to wedge in is to trust people, while showing all the ways they would stab you in the back when you do. Looked stunning but overall to me is meh. Maybe I'm getting too old for this stuff.
Well, the story in Frozen 2 was uncommon for Disney because it was quite messy to be honest. The same with Frozen 1, the story is kind of a mess, but it worked. However, in Frozen 1 it was accidental and in Frozen 2 they seemed to be following a white rabbit, trying to repeat the same thing and they didn't fully understand what made Frozen 1 a success. It wasn't the snowman, it wasn't the songs... It was the bond between sisters, the interactions between the characters, the dialogues were really good. The relations between characters were important.
In Frozen 2 they were irrelevant and I find certain resemblance with Raya. Every character works in some kind of subtle vacuum. Well, that's just my opinion.
Frozen 1 was brilliant because it was simple and said little. There is this misconception that a story is deep only if it has complicated backstories and convoluted twists. Frozen 1 isn't any of that. It tells a simple story well and it tells it efficiently. Expanding the mythology of what is essentially a fairy tale is just so stupid.
One positive I will give Frozen 2 is that at least it EXPANDED on the relationship between the sisters and their own individual characters.
It’s a flawed film and YMMV on whether where the characters ended made sense, but you get a lot more of the Anna and Elsa bond in Frozen 2.
@@tariqthomas9090 I honestly disagree about that. At least I got nothing, they just repeated the same stuff adding flare... or tell me what new aspects of their bond you found, maybe I don't clearly remember.
Don’t agree being a mess.
Frozen 1 is a great Disney princess film, I don't know why it gets a lot of hate, there isn't much dumb comedy, Olaf is the closest we get to that and he's still good, Hans isn't a great villain, but he isn't the worst either. It's a solid movie.
The fact that neither Nemari nor Virana said sorry ONCE pissed the hell out of me. I'm with the consensus that the theme of the film should've been forgiveness rather than trust, would've made WAY more sense.
something i enjoyed was that eastern dragons(which the dragons in the movie are clearly based on) tended to be associated with water, which the dragons(and the dragon gem) were clearly associated with. eastern dragons also tended to be associated with wealth and prosperity, now when the dragon gem was whole and in Heart which land was most prosperous? Heart, but it gets better, after it was shattered and Fang had the largest shard, which nation seemed the most prosperous and powerful? Fang.
just that was an interesting touch i noticed
My biggest problem with this film is this trust message:
On the one hand the film is about Raya learning to trust again.
On the other hand, trusting never leads to anything until right at the end. The babies steal from Raya, the leader from Spine threatens to kill Sisu and when Raya tries to convince Namaari to work together, the meeting falls apart and Sisu dies. Which part exactly made Raya learn to trust other people?
CellSpex: **Mentions the puppy line is funny**
Me, only remembering that line I found funny:
THANK YOU-
My favorite things about Raya and the Last Dragon. First and foremost, when I saw the trailer, I immediately found Sisu to be a fun and entertaining character, so she was my main pull to go see it, and I got what I wanted in that respect because I do like her character and her personality. Second, the animation looks incredible, namely the water or how things look when they're wet; fur, clothes, hair, it all looks really good, the way the color slightly darkens and the texture looks smoother. In that scene when Sisu first swims in the river after they meet Boun, the way her fur slicks down, but is also a little messy and ruffled in some places whenever she's swimming, and it looks especially good when does that little spin by the boat and her "mane" clings together as she spins. That all looks amazing. Those are really my two biggest pros about this movie. Oh, and the fighting. The actual fights between Raya and Namaari look really good too.
While overall I enjoyed the movie, I felt the biggest problems were that it needed more time, that the dialogue - especially with Sisu - felt tonally inappropriate in a lot of places, and the ending felt unearned.
It should've honestly been a series where everything would've had more time to develop, and the comedy had more room to breathe and not intrude on more tonally dark and serious scenes.
So apparently there’s a sequel in the works (allegedly).
I wonder if they’re gonna go the now-typical route of shitting on the themes of the original and having the group separate permanently. If they do, I can’t see them getting off scott-free like they’ve done in the past three sequels with that theme.
With Frozen 2 and Toy Story 4 you could have some plausible deniability of the themes of the previous movies, and Ralph Breaks the Internet was a shitfest where the ending was the least of its problems. But Raya’s theme of trust and unity is so heavy-handed that there is no way people aren’t going to notice that sequel trope is bullshit.
You know what would have made this movie much better? If it was Namari and the Last Dragon. What if our hero’s origin story was that as a child she had not placed enough value on being shown trust, and had unhesitatingly betrayed Raya on her mother’s paranoid demands? And then what if she’s forever trying to earn her mother’s trust as a leader, but also is still a dragon nerd at heart and deep down feels guilt for the world falling apart and so in her spare time searches for the dragon? And in the end, to make the gem work she has to place complete trust in Raya - to believe that whatever their past, Raya won’t betray her the way she did? And in doing so, reject her mother’s paranoid insistence that Raya MUST be out to destroy them in revenge?
This is perfect! :D
I just noticed that Sisu's human design looks like Nikita Dragon 😂😂
Raya definitely deserves a series since it has a lot of interesting characters and worldbuilding.
I’ve never seen this movie but Im still watching this XD
Same
Me too
not worth it
I found Sisu's giant baby eyes so incredibly unsettling in dragon form.
Still can't get over how that saddle completely defies even this fantastical version of physics.
Sisu wasn't the only unfunny bit considering it had Minion / Boss Baby fart/ butt "jokes", Sisu was just basically Pinkie Pie trying to befriend / gift everyone even if it was someone who helped the world be destroyed (like Nightmare Moon). Nemari broke trust first when they were kids, if she's the only friend you had before the world turned into stone and you mostly blame her not wanting to trust her is understandable, and so was acting like the world was going to just stab her again if she opened up. If Sisu didn't start in her dragon form, Raya wouldn't trust her either period.
not gonna lie, the constant talk about trust hammering in the message to the audience was a huge turn-off for me
Seems to me like it might have been worth keeping the Dragon Gem on netrual ground as a sign of good faith. Maybe with someone from each of the kingdoms guarding it, so if one of them tries anything funny the other four would know immediately. Might've made Benja more sympathetic.
I'll never forget that on the way to the theaters to watch this, an old friend of my late brother's lied to me that she was in a car crash, which is the same reason that my brother was "late" in the first place.
It's the only thing I could think of when I watched the film.
Raya had great animations but felt like the basic plot of Avengers Endgame, with a group of people travelling all over the planet collecting some stones.
Oh yeah, and the dragon exists and then dies, so whatever.
Nice way to spoil dude
@Vacron, Raya isn't even remotely similar to End Game. Saying, "Oh ,this movie is similar, because it involves collecting stones", is just a a weak surface level argument, which ignores the fact that the movies are far different.
Have yet to finish it, but it seems to frustrate me that Raya isn't the most interesting princess/character, dialogue, the comedy is abysmal and is tonally all over the place (not even talking about the dragon), and Namaari is irredeemable.
Also please talk of the end of DuckTales!
Honestly Raya is a good character until the very end where they have to force her to trust in a dire situation
Huh what do you mean Namaari is irredeemable. If you literally look into the fact that she is also a princess wouldn't you say that her actions are justified because she was doing what she thought was right for the kingdom? Not to mention her mother played a role in her actions?
The whole message of the movie was that everyone makes mistakes when it comes to what they feel is right in order to protect themselves and the ones they love, thus causing harm to others. It is only when we open up about our problems to others that we can receive help that is long lasting and that our weaknesses can help us become stronger as well as trust.
All of the kingdoms had flaws which caused greed for the gems but the reason as to why is because of fear and the dragons is what brought everyone together. Once the dragons left everyone was scared again and broke apart.
Basically Raya is the glue that keeps the kingdoms together as she Basically bonds with someone from every kingdom and instills trust in them.
So me personally with this in mind I feel like Namaaris and Rayas charcters were good on a disney level. Sure they could have made more charcter depth but that would require more time so for the time they did have, I say it was pretty good.
@@NWolf17 In my opinion, Namaari could've been written much better. Yes, she's working for her country, but in spite of the horrible things she does, the story doesn't regard ANY of those things. She comes off as one who doesn't take accountability for her actions that caused MANY, MANY problems. That's my take, but I wouldn't lean too harshly on it. Sorry if I caused any confusion.
@@genevieveowusu885 nah it's cool I get what you mean. The movie should have expanded on her character instead of just bypassing it and hoping people will theorize on her motivates and stuff.
@@NWolf17 Very true. It was just average to me, though I was shocked about how average and sometimes messy it is.
For a nearly 200 minute movie, everything felt fast as heck. It would’ve been a better show or if we had more time it would’ve worked better.
Personally I was in the crowd that did warm up to Sisu as the film went along.