It's finally happening.
After years and years of nothing but remakes, sequels, and continuations of other people's franchises, we're finally getting a brand-new, original Disney movie. Possibly even another Disney princess, depending on what the rules for becoming a Disney princess actually are. This will be my first time following the release of a brand-new Disney movie since getting into the fandom, and I'm excited. But also nervous. I really really hope Disney still knows how to make a Disney princess movie.
Yes, you'll notice here that there's no figurine photograph this time. Raya merch does already exist, as you might know, but it seems weird to me to sell merch for a movie that hasn't even been released yet. I mean, even if you're sure you'll love the movie and everyone in it, you wouldn't know exactly what personalities these characters have, and so they'd just sit there empty. Why not just promote the merch in advance and then release it after the movie??
So, the teaser trailer looked promising. A little too much focus on the action for my tastes, but then, this trailer was only showing us a tiny part of the whole movie. And I was pleased to see that Raya seemed kind. Mind you, we only saw her talking to her pet Tuk Tuk (who by the way is adorable), so it's not exactly a full gauge of her personality, but it did look in that trailer like they weren't slipping into the action-heroine-who-can't-have-emotions trap. Especially since Raya's supposed to be the next Disney princess and kindness sort of goes with the territory.
With the second trailer came some doubts. Here the focus seemed to be entirely on the action, and almost everything here felt either too dark-and-gritty serious or too childish and silly. Almost everything we see of Raya in this trailer focuses on her life as a warrior, on her fighting skills and her mission. And I was disappointed, because that isn't at all what I hoped this movie or this heroine would be. I really hope that this is just the trailer's focus and that in the full movie, the plot will hit a nice balance between the serious and silly sides, and that we'll see more layers to Raya that just warrior-girl. Like Mulan; she was a highly effective warrior while still being kind and creative and sometimes unsure of herself. She got the balance right, and I sincerely hope Raya will too. It would be just awful if after decades of representing a dozen different ways that women can be strong, the next Disney princess degenerated into your stereotypical modern action heroine.
On that note, it's been bothering me for quite a while now that as I see more and more promotional material for Raya (including those dolls and figurines I can't figure out why they're selling before the movie's release), it's looking more and more like there isn't going to be any love interest yet again. Who ever would have thought we'd see the day they'd make Disney princesses without love interests? It wasn't so bad when we just had one or two, but this will make four in a row, technically, since Anna, the last Disney princess to get a love interest, is in the same movie as Elsa, who doesn't get one. That means it's gotten past the point where we can say they're just switching up the formula a little - every single Disney princess released after Rapunzel, with the exception of Anna, is without a love interest, when no Princess, whether she made it to the official lineup or not, ever was before. And it's not like they never figured out the right Disney prince formula either. The Disney princes have come a long way from being generic handsome princes with hardly any screen time! We've had a lot of really great Disney princes by now – not least my favourite, Aladdin. What, as soon as you figure out the formula, you're going to completely throw it away and never use it again?! I think I know why they're doing this – to please those people who want to see “strong, independent women who don't need a man”. Well, if you want heroines like that, I'm not sure why you're looking to Disney princesses and not to some other franchise where romance isn't one of the fundamental aspects. And I'd like to know exactly how falling in love with a man automatically strips a woman of her strength and independence anyway. I am seriously starting to worry that this perspective on romance will lead to us never getting another classic Disney couple ever again.
Sisu the dragon looks promising, showing a goodly amount of humour and heart. I'm already putting in a guess that she's going to be my favourite character (maybe followed closely by Tuk Tuk), although I'm not making any final decisions before I see the movie. And am I the only one who got a bit of a Genie vibe off of Sisu from the second trailer? Or rather a vibe of them going for a Genie-type character, in little things like the way she first appears to us and the way she starts making references to a modern world that the other characters probably wouldn't get. (Although strangely they all did seem to get her reference to modern-day school group projects, which is odd. Are schools and group projects supposed to be a thing in Raya's world??) Anyway, the resemblance to Genie could be either a good or a bad thing, depending on whether Sisu ends up as fun and vibrant as Genie but in her own unique way, or if she comes across more as “Well, this character type worked in Aladdin, let's do that again, because we don't know what else to do with her”. I'm really hoping it's the former. She does show promise.
We also get a hint in the second trailer of a possible villain – the woman who's also looking for the last dragon, in opposition to Raya; I believe her name is Namaari. To me she looked more like an antagonist than a true villain. And considering the themes of the story of groups of people divided and at war and not trusting each other, I'm wondering if Raya and Namaari will just make up their differences by the end of the movie and everyone will be friends. I mean – that's not necessarily a bad way to end a story, depending on what kind of story you're telling.... But Disney has made some of the best classically villainous villains I've ever seen! Jafar, Maleficent, Lady Tremaine, Scar, Mother Gothel, Gaston... It would be so sad if we never got to see any of those again, just as sad as if we never see another Disney romance. Not only that, but if Namaari is nothing more than an antagonist to Raya, and Raya turns out too tough to be truly likeable, it's going to be very hard to know who we're rooting for and why we should want Raya to win and not Namaari. Well – maybe Namaari will still be a true villain in her own way; maybe she's not just an opposing warrior. Maybe she's actually trying to prevent the people from reuniting or something like that.
The third trailer gives us a little more insight into the movie plot itself, and exactly how Raya's finding the last dragon will help reunite the people. I do feel like there was a little more heart in this one, although now it's Sisu who seems a bit too silly in places, but I like what I'm seeing of her and Raya's relationship. Honestly, all the trailers seem to be giving me a mixture of too tough and too silly, but that could easily just be the parts the trailers decided to show us, and the actual movie could be a lot more nuanced.
No sign so far of whether this is going to be a musical or not, and I wonder if Raya will end up as the first Disney princess who never sings anything at all (is that allowed for a Disney princess? What is the criteria for becoming a Disney princess anyway??) Well, I guess at least that might make Jasmine feel better about not having her own personal Disney Princess song....
Maybe I'm putting too many expectations onto this movie to be something it isn't, and I do want to go into this with an open mind, to see if the movie is good in its own right even if it's not what I was expecting. But... Disney has been around long enough that I can hardly be blamed for having certain expectations from a Disney movie, especially when Raya seems to have already been promoted as the next Disney Princess in some circles, before her movie's even been released so we can see if she fits the criteria. (I don't know why Raya automatically gets a pass when some very deserving heroines like Meg or Giselle didn't make it.) I want Raya and the Last Dragon to feel like a Disney princess movie, and I want Raya to feel like a Disney princess. And that isn't the vibe I'm getting, not from the trailers anyway. It feels more like an action movie. Maybe it'll turn out to be one of those situations where the trailer only decided to focus on a certain aspect of the movie for some reason, and the setting will actually be very fairy-tale and whimsical, and Raya will actually have more layers to her than just her warrior side. Maybe Namaari will actually turn out to be a full-on, menacingly evil villain who plots and tricks Raya and laughs an evil laugh, or at least a sadistic force of destruction like Shan Yu, which seems more likely from what I've seen of her. Maybe there's some love interest for Raya in there that we just never see in the trailer and hasn't been released as merch yet because he only appears in the second and last scenes of the movie like Snow White's prince (okay, I kind of doubt that last one....) I just feel like this movie seems more “gritty” than classic Disney fairy-tale, and I'm worried that's because some people think that no one wants fairy tales anymore. That no one wants whimsy, or love-at-first-sight, or dreams coming true, or happily-ever-afters. Maybe they think the time for those kinds of stories has passed, that those stories are only for children, that people nowadays want more “serious” plotlines, more “realistic” issues. And it would be incredibly disappointing if Disney decides to stop writing about hope and dreams and only focus on this darker type of movie. I really really hope that Disney hasn't lost sight of their original mission, that they haven't decided, and never will decide, to stop telling those kinds of stories and spreading that message.
We shall see. I'll be back after the release of Raya and the Last Dragon to give you my opinion on the actual movie.
(Edit: Well, it has been nearly three years and I still haven't gotten around to actually seeing the movie. A lot has happened since then regarding Disney movies, and - well, instead of watching every single one that comes out and hoping they'll be good, I've decided to take a break until they get back on track telling the kind of stories that actually first drew me to their company. To be honest, looking back, I think I was far too generous in my assessment of this trailer, really suppressing my disappointment. Bear in mind when you read this review that my perception was, even then, a lot more full of dread than I ever made it out to be.)
Comments