![Adding a tray of canned corn to the pile, junior Michael Collop assists in transporting donations for the Holiday Food Drive. The event, hosted schoolwide from Dec. 10-17, raised over 5,000 food items to deliver to the Parkway Food Pantry, helping several families in need. [The drive] is a great thing for us to do because you're giving to those who are less fortunate, and it helps provide for people who can't provide for themselves. [The] competition is always fun, too. It was fun to be in [social studies teacher Jess] Chazen’s class, because he always gets worked up over [the competition]. He made it exciting, and was always convincing us to turn in cans for the drive,” Collop said.](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/feature-photo-unsung-2.png)
![NEW CHALLENGE, NEW TEAM MEMBERS: Every season, VEX creates a new game that robotics team members are faced with and have to build a robot to compete in. This year’s game forces students to create a robot that is able to stack rings onto mobile goals in order to score points. The change in games each season is something that robotics teacher Audrea Moyers appreciates.
“One of the things that I like about VEX is that they have a new problem to solve every year,” she said. ¨Even though the equipment’s the same, they have to analyze the game, and they have to come up with solutions that are unique that year. They are using their knowledge from prior years, but they have to kind of redesign a problem.”
As returning teams were faced a new game, some new teams and members had to adapt to a uncommon playing field and game.
“Three of our four teams were competing for the first time this year, and they had very different experiences match to match, so I think they learned a lot,¨ she said. ¨It’s hard just watching a video online to know how it’s actually going to be in person, so they all learned a lot about what gameplay is like, how to work with an alliance partner [and] how to adapt during the day to changes.”](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_9283-1-1200x800.jpg)
- Warning: This review contains spoilers.
Released in 2016, “Moana” is hailed as part of a dying phenomenon: a Disney movie beloved by fans and critics alike.
“Moana 2” is neither.
The 2024 sequel follows Moana’s (Auli’i Cravalho) perilous journey as she charts across ancient Polynesian-inspired waters to answer the call of her ancestors. Sounds pretty similar to the original, right?
That’s because it is.
Moana’s first adventure thrived because it was a creative but classic hero’s journey. She started as an underdog, burdened by doubts from her family and community while striving to prove her worth as a leader and wayfinder. The stakes felt high, and every step of her journey — every challenge, every setback — drove her personal growth and earned the audience’s emotional investment.
“Moana 2,” on the other hand, struggles to replicate that magic.
The movie wastes no time diving into the action, opening with Moana on a foreign island as she searches for signs of another civilization beyond her secluded village. The film doesn’t bother taking a moment to reintroduce her world or build new stakes. This lack of setup — a common flaw in sequels — assumes the audience already cares, bypassing the establishment of emotional connection that made the first “Moana” so compelling.
When the original film came to a close, Moana had nothing else left to prove; her story arc had been completed. This leaves “Moana 2” with a significant though not impossible challenge: how do you create tension, nuance, and growth for a protagonist who’s already achieved everything she set out to do?
The answer the sequel offers is flimsy at best.
With Moana established as an evolved character, there’s no sense of urgency or stakes that push her to improve. This leaves “Moana 2” stranded between its trite, surface-level adjustments and incessant references to the original movie, clinging to the thrill of its predecessor while failing to understand what made it resonate in the first place
The film’s structure suffers as a result.
Unlike the original, “Moana 2” is propped up almost entirely by paper-thin external conflict with little internal development. Moana gets a new wardrobe and rag-tag team composed of type-cast crew members: an eccentric raft architect, a grumpy elderly farmer, and a Maui (Dwayne Johnson) fanboy. These shells of people are added in an attempt to shake up the dynamic, but their introductions are rushed, rendering them little more than background characters barely offering a shred of comic relief.
The film unsurprisingly sprinkles in callbacks to the original movie’s musical motifs, especially with its opening song, but these moments only serve as reminders of what’s missing (mainly the songwriting of Lin-Manuel Miranda).
And then there’s the villain — or lack thereof.
The main antagonist, Nalo (Tofiga Fepulea’i), is a storm cloud deity foreshadowed early but never remotely expanded upon, leaving his intentions and existence murky throughout the entire movie. Frankly, a spooky, face-, name-, and motivation-less storm god isn’t inciting fear in anyone, even the young audience “Moana” movies are geared towards.
Like Maui, I was left missing the lava monster of the previous film.
It’s typical for Disney to throw in a few bad guys that serve as barriers rather than final bosses. Mantangi (Awhimai Fraser), a bat shape-shifter acting as a conspicuous supernatural presence through the first half of the film, is presumed to be one of these antagonists — complete with her own ‘I want’ song (see: “Shiny”) and suspicious temperament.
Her presence is taunted from the beginning, appearing to be foiling Maui’s plans to stop Nalo — presumably to save the humans, though this is never clarified objectively — when in reality, she acts as a perfect way for him to reunite with Moana, magically falling into his lap.
Whatever happened to the classic Disney villain song? Here, not a breath is heard from the major antagonist, and only from a character serving as a plot device. This leaves the film’s climax feeling contrived. And a bit lazy.
By the time the credits roll, it feels less like a satisfying conclusion and more like a setup for the inevitable trilogy looming on the horizon.
“Moana 2” is not without merit, though. Moana’s relationship with her sister, Simea (Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda), is one of the few elements that are truly heartfelt and well-developed, with their bond lending shining moments of sincerity amidst the sequel’s many shortcomings.
Additionally, Moana’s dynamic with Maui was one of the most memorable aspects of “Moana,” something that rings true for the 2024 sequel as well and remains an ever-charming characteristic of the film.
Overall, “Moana 2” does what a movie is meant to do: entertain.
But that’s all it does, which, honestly, isn’t surprising. Entertainment value is what gets cash the quickest; taking risks does not.
The numbers speak for themselves. The first “Moana” was a triumph, earning a 95% critical score and an 89% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. In contrast, “Moana 2” has stumbled out of the gate with a much lower 63% critical score, despite an 87% audience score — two points below the original, as if even the loyalest of fans can sense something’s missing.
What’s not there? Risk.
The risk that comes from originality.
Strumming up a movie concept that’s been proven to be profitable — a sequel — is the least risky, least original endeavor that any film company can conceive of, as with originality comes the potential for failure. They’ve gotten away with avoiding the threat of a decreased profit margin, despite the echelon of old ideas, because of the childhood memories the company drums up so well.
All in all, “Moana 2” is a decent watch, with moments of charm and nostalgia; however, an imitation can’t reach the same acclaim as the original — it’s simply a redux of recycled content reviving a story that was already complete.
When even die-hard fans think the movie is just good — not great —there’s a clear problem to be solved. Fans of the original will likely find enough nostalgia to enjoy the ride, but for those hoping Disney would break its sequel slump, “Moana 2” is yet another missed opportunity.
Disney can’t rely on its fanbase forever. Eventually, it’ll have to go outside the box.
This story was originally published on The La Salle Falconer on December 4, 2024.