A modest eight years after the first film’s release, the trailer for the long-awaited Moana 2 has finally arrived and it gives us our first idea about the plot of the film.
2 Fast 2 Moana
The trailer opens with Moana (Auli‘i Cravalho) giving a hermit crab a bigger shell on a pink-tinged shore before blowing a conch. It’s a cool little double entendre within the editing, signalling someone within the film and signalling that the trailer has begun.
In the next shot, our lead looks out across the ocean (while standing on a ship) as her gaze follows seagulls. It eventually lands on Motunui, her home island and it’s implied she is giving it a farewell. She raises her hand in a position that blocks the view of the island while grinning, showing she is ready to leave again.
The next shot shows Moana’s family and the people of the village bidding her farewell in the shallows. The trailer rolls on showcasing people beating drums ritualistically, and then both the interior and exterior of the village hall.
While a ceremony is taking place, lightning strikes right in front of her and through the roof of the building. We then get our titular character in the middle of a cave, seemingly the same one we see in the preceding film. Within the cave is a rectangular drum and two batons, which Moana utilizes to drum.
A few quick shots of carvings in the cave flash across the screen before our protagonist begins to drum. The chicken Heihei (Alan Tudyk) returns too and hilariously pecks at the drum in the cave before being thrown off by Moana. She then leaps from the shore onto her ship and paddles out of the shallows.
A pod of dolphins swim under the boat making for some good visuals, which is immediately followed by Moana swimming in front of a bioluminescent whale shark.
As the trailer progresses, we find ourselves witnessing Moana on a boat flanked by some new characters, which the synopsis refers to as unlikely seafarers. The Kakamora returns in this film as we see Moana face the creatures again. Moana also tries to steer her boat out of the maw of some wild creature with many eyes, teeth and an outer shell of an island.
At the end of the trailer, we get an expected but great scene of Maui (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) reuniting with Moana and Heihei, while also meeting Pua the pig for the first time.
Mo(ana)re Details
The synopsis for the trailer reads “After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana must journey to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she’s ever faced.” You can watch the trailer in full below:
Moana 2 is directed by David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand and Dana Ledoux Miller. It stars Auli‘i Cravalho as Moana and Dwayne Johnson as Maui and features music by Abigail Barlow, Emily Bear, Opetaia Foaʻi, and Mark Mancina. The film releases in theatres on November 27, 2024
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