(Mini rant incoming, be careful!)
Yeah, so I saw Raya and the Last Dragon at a public screening a few months ago. Then I saw it again in my own time and uh...
I don't like this movie.
I can acknowledge that the animation is pretty and some of the score is lovely -- I like the orchestration when Sisu walks on water droplets. The food looks amazing too, it makes me hungry whenever I see it.
But! And this is a big BUT.
This movie has a TERRIBLE moral about trust. It really rubs me the wrong way.
Spoilers (!!!); Will spoiler tag just in case but maybe it's not needed.
Long story short the movie is constantly bombarding me and Raya that you gotta trust others, that trust cannot work unless you take the first step.
Except
Raya DID take the first step back when they were kids, and then Namari promptly backstabbed her, which led to people fighting over magic and things going to heck and back.
Raya had NO parent for years after that incident -- plus she kept questioning if her father was wrong to believe in trust, and Raya had the burden of trying to restore the world. Meanwhile Namari and her mom were able to live in relative peace in their kingdom. ... Yey...
Ultimately
Raya was hurt by someone and once the dragon comes in Sisu is repeatedly saying "Trust your enemy, give them another chance!"
When Raya is an adult
, I believe that she stole something from Fang (the scroll?) And that's why Namari is chasing Raya when this movie starts up.
Okay, that works for interesting character tension, not so much the trust moral because it's basically a double whammy of no trust -- although I don't think anyone really cared that Raya stole something? Like it did not seem like it mattered to anyone or hurt anything except Namari's pride. Hm.
When Raya
needs to finish the gem, Namari is about to betray her AGAIN. Namari has an arrow pointed at Sisu ... And she doesn't expect Raya to freak out here? Namari doesn't even try to explain why she's doing it, no "my mom would be angry if I didn't," no "Fang is struggling more and more".
Why is it Raya's responsibility to put the first step in trust here, again? Wouldn't it have made more sense for Namari to communicate, even briefly, about her perspective? Why couldn't Namari see that Raya has people on her side that trusted her and that maybe Raya knew a good idea to fix things?
I do not care if
Namari did what she did to make her mom happy. Good intentions get washed away by bad actions. Namari's actions constantly hurt others -- Raya stealing was her worst crime but evidently that didn't matter much in the grand scheme of things.
The fact that Namari doesn't realize that or care about her own wrongdoings and instead goes (to Raya): "You're just as much to blame" for Sisu's death is despicable.
Do people see Namari and Raya as good friends or even potential partners? I really hope not -- they have way too many issues.
I can see what they were trying to do, but like others this whole message of "trust and forgiveness" could have thrived in a series where the characters have more of a slow burn, the low points could have slowly been built, etc. The side characters were barely there and I felt dumbfounded by the con baby.
Eh... Positivity again... Sisu's human design is really pretty. The cultural representation, while surface level (they apparently crafted a language for this world but only once is it used, when Raya sings a prayer) is nice. Namari's hair style reads as too contemporary for me, but Raya's hair as a kid and adult looks great.
I don't think this is the worst movie ever, I just hate the moral combined with how this movie uses its characters to push said moral. I feel this could have worked if they rewrote the script one more time.
): I wanted to ask, how long before a new release like starts to follow the member discounts the way everything else does? I didn't realize the buy one full price / everything else 40% off didn't impact new releases. Is it usually only the first week new releases aren't affected or the first month?
