Watching Disney's "Moana" for 2nd time...

Took my parents, visiting from Samoa, to watch "Moana" and they enjoyed it! for me being the second time with my littlest we enjoyed it even more. I thought about it whilst watching the movie and considered the different features that appealed to me as a NZ Samoan educated female academic/artist and it's for the following reasons as I expand on my earlier post when first watching it in Fiji:

• loved the colour palette, bright azure coloured sea contrasting with yellow sky, greenery and earthy browns
• my love of the sea, ocean, you'll see a lot of my paintings incorporate the sea, land, sky 
• the people actually look Polynesian, had to laugh at Maui, I suppose they needed Maui to look "larger than life"? as a demi-god
• enjoyed the music with various languages and poked my mum when the Samoan lyrics came on
• loved singing so much of Samoa incorporated into some of the motifs, the "fale" Samoan house features (similar to many other Pasifika traditional houses), her "tuiga" or headress, the "tatau" or male tatoos (although some modern tatoos added too)
• the fact that our ancestors were sea-faring, way-finding, explorers way before Captain Cook who took so much credit for "discovering" islands when he actually hadn't as they had been "discovered" centuries before by Pacific ancestors
• loved the arts depicted through tapa-like pictures, on the sails, carvings, on Maui's tatoos etc. so many ways of demonstrating various art
• loved the music and dancing, as Pasifika cultures each have their own movements, music and songs etc. passed down from generation to generation and changing
• enjoyed the relationships that formed between inter-generations of parents with children, grandparent/s, even animals, and the way that in the village, everyone has a role/part to play and no wo/man is an island with the values and stories passed down
• each Pacific Islands/families, village etc. has precious stories of origins and genealogy passed down although many are missing these vital stories of who they are and where they came from
• Maui's Pacific sense of humour, often mocking but also very funny at times with the play on words

I could go on and on but these were a few of the ideas that I thought about whilst watching the movie again and laughing over the various scenes with Maui and Moana. Again, highly recommended for families (despite what the "haters" say) and an affirmation of my ancestral history of explorers, scientists and artistic craftsmen, artisans, artists who had a dazzling sense of humour.