Raya and the Last Dragon

 This past weekend I was able to watch a screening of the new Disney movie, "Raya and the Last Dragon." I absolutely loved it! I thought it was incredible, Raya is probably my new favorite Disney princess. The visuals are stunning, the acting is incredible, and the story is heartwarming. It's pretty much everything you'd want in an animated movie. 

First the animation. The movie looks so beautiful. And it highlights plenty of different animation styles. There is one for the main story, one for the flashback to tell the history of the kingdom, and another one for when characters tell stories. Honestly you could probably break that last category down even further, but I only saw the movie once and can't remember all the small differences. But they all looked really good, and it's a neat way to highlight the skills of the animation team. And a lot of them are inspired by East Asian art, since that is the region that the movie is based on.

So many people on the production team as Asian as well. And a number of the actors! There has been some pushback that they aren't all East Asian, which is entirely reasonable. I think that there does need to be a balance between an ideal world and what would best promote the movie today. A lot of the stars in the movie are really good actors, and definitely treat the material respectfully. I especially loved the voice of Raya. While I'm discussing the characters, this movie is definitely the closest that Disney could get right now to a queer character. So much of Raya and Namaari's relationship is queer coded, from Namaari's undercut to how they track each other for years. Raya's voice actor has come out very vocally and insisting that Raya is queer, and had romantic feelings for Namaari. Which I appreciate immensely, since there's no way that Disney would explicitly put that into the script.

Finally there's the story. Most of the movie focuses on Raya and how she has become mistrustful of others since humans caused a mysterious plague that turns people into stone to resurface. Then she meets Sisu, an ancient dragon who is a little too trusting of others. Raya and Sisu have to travel around, searching for gem pieces that will cure the plague. Raya tries to teach Sisu street smarts, but Sisu ends up teaching Raya to trust and help others. There are so many things that I love about this. It's very relatable, talking about trust, because I think part of growing up means that you become mistrustful. It's also about finding common humanity with others, Raya has to learn to trust and care for humans who come from different areas of the kingdom in the process. And the thing about trust is in the end, it means that you have faith in others to do the right thing. That's a core concept of it. The movie illustrates this so well, the ending comes with Namaari (who might have been the bad guy) putting together the gem and saving the world. Not Raya. It both illustrates trust and how powerful teamwork can be. Putting the hero to the side at the last minute is a powerful choice and the writers used it so well here. The final thing I want to highlight is that there is not really a villain. Namaari ends up being good in the end. So much of the conflict is humans being scared and confused rather than evil. Even the strange plague is said to have been born from human discord. It is essentially their distrust personified within the movie. So well written and so cohesive.

The movie "Raya and the Last Dragon" is wonderful. It has so many aspects of a really wonderful movie. The story is excellently written so that it all flows into one unifying message, the visuals are stunning, and the actors are wonderful. If you can see it, definitely do so, if you can see it without paying Disney, more power to you!