Moana (2026)

[Jose Gonzalez]

Blakesley,

Again... This is a complex topic, and I'd like to keep it at an 'abstract' cognitive level, because you seem to want to stay at a stage of: "but 40% uses chisels and hammers, and thus ..."

Most people would readily agree that "Prince of Egypt" was "animation", and "Blade Runner" was "live action/actors", and we can cite a multitude of such examples. Most people would consider the last two "Moana" films as such, respectively.

There's no need to agonize over the sub-terms "live action" vs "live actors", the underlying meaning is clear. If preferred, call this "realism", rather than "live ...", or whatever captures the meaning, in distinction with the term "animation".

But consider films like "The Polar Express" or "Beowulf", which used "live actors" but with a certain stylized rendering via motion-capture. What would these films be considered as being closer to, within this context of "animation" vs "realism"?

Or with films like "Avatar", considering only the scenes without the human characters.. What wo uld such scenes be considered as being closer to, within this context. I would say closer to "realism".

What about films like "A Scanner Darkly"? Shot with "live actors" but then rotoscope stylized. I would say closer to "pulp animation".

In the future, with AI generated visuals and sound, you could make what looks&feels exactly like, say, a Cary Grant and Grace Kelly sequel of "To Catch a Thief". How would that be considered, within this context.

It's not hard to categorize things in some prescribed way, when the things seem to readily fit such prescriptions.. But there are things that can appear to be in-between, or outside, of such prescriptions.

Or with films like "Avatar", considering only the scenes without the human characters.. What wo uld such scenes be considered as being closer to, within this context. I would say closer to "realism".

What about films like "A Scanner Darkly"? Shot with "live actors" but then rotoscope stylized. I would say closer to "pulp animation".

In the future, with AI generated visuals and sound, you could make what looks&feels exactly like, say, a Cary Grant and Grace Kelly sequel of "To Catch a Thief". How would that be considered, within this context.

It's not hard to categorize things in some prescribed way, when the things seem to readily fit such prescriptions.. But there are things that can appear to be in-between, or outside, of such prescriptions.

[Jose Gonzalez]

My apologies Blakesley - my phone has 'issues' with cut&paste.

What I ended with about AI and "To Catch a Thief" was supposed to be followed by:

"
Or if there's an AI version of a sequel to "Fantasia", how would that be considered as, within this context.

How about an AI version of a remake of "Snow White", how would that be considered as, within this context.
"

Etcetera, etcetera,....

Would we then have to preface everything with: "but over 40% uses generative AI, and thus........"

[Jon Dent]

I personally would consider Beowulf and Polar Express as animation, if anything just because there are no 'live action' elements in them. Yes the performances were driven by humans, but what we actually see is entirely animated.

Avatar exists in this weird void where it's not really classified as animation, but it would be fitting since everything is artificial (outside of some fleeting live action elements here and there).

Even though it features a great (great) deal of CGI, I would still consider this version of Moana 'live action'.

AI is also fully animated in that none of it is 'real' despite what it may try to appear to be.

[Mike Blakesley]

Jose, this thread is supposed to be reviewing this movie, not debating about animation styles and terminology. You're putting an awful lot of thought into it.

To break it down realistically, here's my definition: If the people and animals "look real," then it's a live-action movie. If they don't, then it's animated. But you're right, there are a million variants within that. But the moviegoing public only sees what it sees.

[Jose Gonzalez]

We could make such assessments... But my overall point is that it's NOT about the "tools", but rather the aesthetic "look&feel" of the end-product (and with 'film' you have the addition of motion/physics, sound, ... ).

It's not about chisels&hammers, brushes&paints, ... meshes&textures, generative AI, .. neural stimulation, ....

It's about the overall aesthetic look&feel. That's what makes the real "distinction", and trying to pidgeon-hole everything into legacy terms like "animation" vs "live ...", doesn't really add much understanding.

Some might prefer one type of "look&feel" over another, for whatever reasons.. I'm not sure what I would think of a new Peter Sellers "Pink Panther" using generative AI, vs a classical-animated version of such.

Anyway.. all the best to everyone in this thread

[Mike Blakesley]

One thing that does bug me about this movie is the color palette they have used. The colors are kind of muted, which has the effect of making it look like we've cranked the brightness down on our lampouse. Nobody has said anything to me about it yet, but to me it's really distracting. Of all the movies, you'd think they'd use the brightest and most natural colors possible on this one.

For a minute I thought it WAS someting to do with our projector, but I've seen comments on the same issue in other places.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

May be at least partly to do with the side effects of Laser Projectors. Especially if the Colorist did his work using a Xenon projector. I have a friend that's a colorist in Hollywood, and he said doing his work using a laser projector is far more difficult than it was using xenon. I know in the past, he worked primarily with Xenon unless the customer requested the work be done with a laser source. Today it's the other way around!

[Mike Blakesley]

Well all the trailers look fine, so I feel like it's more of a filmmaker's choice, albeit a strange one.

[Mike Blakesley]

Moana hasn't crossed the $200M worldwide yet. It had a 58% drop in its second week and isn't looking like it will make back its production cost, let alone promotion/distribution.

Our booker told me that a lot of his theaters are tanking with it, and that we are one of the few that did well with it. I don't know why.,,,unless it has something to do with our air conditioning, which IS pretty awesome in the hot summer we're having.

[Steve Guttag]

Worldwide...it is up to $230M gross on a $250M budget (not including distribution/advertising). No matter how they slice it, this one was an expensive loss and money better spent elsewhere. FYI, the gross is slightly less than half of it being domestic. So, the rest of the world hasn't shown it any love either.

[Mike Blakesley]

From what I understand, their original plan was to put this Moana movie out in summer of 2025, but they had a schedule gap during the 2024 holidays (probably due to the Avatar and Star Wars movies being bounced around) and didn't have a movie lined up for the Christmas season, so they took the Moana home-video series they'd created for Disney Plus, retooled several episodes into a movie, and released that at the end of '24 for the holidays. Then they decided to delay the live-action Moana by one year, probably figuring that the TV-to-theatrical Moana 2 would come and go without much fanfare.

Surprisingly, Moana 2 did blockbuster business and was probably still being watched by a lot of kiddos going into summer of 2025, so when 2026 rolled around and brought the live-action film with it, a lot of people were suffering from Moana overload. Plus, they released it right in the middle of the logjam of other kid-centric movies. I don't know what they were thinking with that plan.

They'd have probably done better releasing it at the end of August, when the only competition is going to be Coyote Vs. Acme (which is probably going to draw more nostalgic adults than kids anyway). Ideally, they should have held it back for another year or two, but when you've got $250 million sunk into a thing, it probably hurts a little to have it just sitting there gathering dust.