Raya and the Last Dragon is Just Alright (And Why Disney SHOULDN'T Be "Just Alright")

Disney, Disney, Disney. How I feel conflicted about thee. Well, at least modern Disney.

Compared to their mostly stellar television animation from the same time period, the Mouse House's theatrical animation from the 2010s really struggled to stay consistent. I've seen a majority of these films (save for Tangled), but what I have seen is a fascinating, if a touch disturbing trend. For every good film, there was a bad one to counter it a year or two later.

On top of that, Disney's theatrical animated output was sidelined in favor of live-action remakes that only happened because of Tim Burton's disturbed Alice in Wonderland reimagining being a hit for reasons that I still don't understand. While some of these remakes were nice (The Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast say hi), others felt like shameless cash grabs that only existed to make the Mickey Mouse empire bigger and better. I'm not saying that these remakes should never have happened; it's just that the more greedy remakes seemed to fly in the face of Walt's statement that he "made money to make movies" rather than the other way around.

2021's Raya and the Last Dragon was an interesting experiment for Disney. In the face of the [CURRENTLY ONGOING WORLDWIDE EVENT THAT DOESN'T NEED TO BE MENTIONED AGAIN], they decided to put some of their new films on Disney+ so that they could still profit off of them. Some films were given a $30 "premium access" paywall (arguably cheaper than a nuclear family going to see one of these films in theaters), and others were released for free. The latter fate befell Pixar's three 2020s offerings while the former tactic was utilized for Mulan's dishonorable remake, Cruella, and Jungle Cruise.

Raya was also among the films hidden behind a premium paywall.

Prior to actually seeing the film in July 2021, I decided to wait it out while reading through/watching spoiler-free reviews of the film. There was a very notable disconnect between "professional" critics who showered the film with praise and audiences who were more critical of the film's rushed pacing and mixed messaging. I was curious. Why was this film evoking such juxtaposing reactions?

Of course, I'm not a conventional Disney fan. Treasure Planet is an underrated classic, Frozen has visible scars from when Elsa was forcibly rewritten from a classic Disney villain into a "sympathetic" heroine, and I didn't see The Lion King until I was 17. (Don't judge me). But to me, Raya was intriguing. Were the critics right, or were the audiences?

...

Raya was alright. It's technologically impressive, well-voiced, and I liked some of its characters, but I have to agree with some of this film's detractors. This is not Disney at their best. Here's why.

DISCLAIMER: There are spoilers present here in this article. I mean, this is a dissection of the film, its faults, and its praiseworthy elements, so they're kind of expected to be in an article like this.

SUMMARY

Trust is a hard thing to come by in the mystical world of Kumandra.

500 years ago, the malign petrifying spirits known as the Druun were defeated by the power of the last dragon, Sisudatu. Sisu's power was concentrated into a magical gemstone (she vanished after doing this), but the people of Kumandra were split over who should get it. Their conflict was enough to divide their world into 5 tribes- Heart, Fang, Talon, Tail, and Spine. To prevent the conflict from reigniting, Heart took up the gem.

In the present day, the chief of the Heart tribe is determined to reunite Kumandra as one people, encouraging his daughter Raya to put aside her preconceived notions and welcome them. Things start off well, with the young lass befriending the princess of Fang, Namaari, and bonding with her over their shared fascination with dragons. However, there's a scheme afoot.

See, Namaari was sent by her mother to snatch the gem for Fang. However, a scuffle amongst the tribes' leaders results in the gem breaking and the Druun returning. In their selfishness, the other four tribes each snatch up one piece of the gem. Raya's father sacrifices himself, saving her from the Druun.

Several years pass.

Raya is now a jaded adult, convinced that she can't trust anyone because of Namaari's betrayal and the fiasco that resulted because of it. With her massive pillbug and hedgehog-like steed Tuk Tuk at her side, she's on a quest to find Sisu's resting place. However, when she finds Sisu, she's surprised to find the "Last Dragon" isn't quite as majestic or as sage as the old legends had suggested.

To compound matters, Namaari is on the hunt for her, the gem pieces and Sisu. It's now a race against time as Raya and Sisu gather the broken parts of the gem in hopes of casting away the Druun. Will they succeed, or will victory be in the hands of Fang? Will Raya learn that just because one person broke your trust doesn't mean that everyone around you is suspicious and shouldn't be trusted?

CHARACTER DESIGN (or "Why Marketability Doesn't Always Equal Appeal, As Demonstrated by the Awkwafina Dragon Lady")

The first thing that I take umbrage with is the character design. I hate to sound like an old-timer, but BACK IN MY DAY Disney was able to give each of its animated films distinctive visuals. This distinctiveness helped not only to set each film apart, but it also allowed for the visual department to honor specific cultures (see Mulan and Hercules).

However, that is not true of Raya... or many of the studio's post-Tangled animated films, for that matter. As much as I respect Glen Keane for his faith and creativity (he's the guy who animated the Beast's reversion to his human form!), I feel as if his work on Tangled and its character design became an unfortunate staple of the studio that resulted in much of their 2010s output feeling samey visually. Moana, Big Hero 6 and Wreck-It Ralph (coincidentally, my favorites of Disney's 2010s offerings) are among the films that don't try to imitate Tangled's style, but they're the exception rather than the rule.

I don't dislike this style (Keane clearly adapted to CGI well if Disney is still imitating his Tangled work); it's just that Disney's made it their visual trademark to the detriment of films focused on specific cultures. Imagine if Frozen looked more like a Norwegian children's book brought to life. Imagine if Big Hero 6 tried something like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse due it being based on an extremely obscure Marvel comic. Imagine if Disney applied the same care they did to Hercules and Mulan when it came to implementing culture-specific art traits into their films.

The problem isn't that these films' characters are badly designed; it's more so that Disney's clinging to Keane's style is inhibiting what can be done with the visuals of their animated films. And I think that Sisu is a glaring example of that sad fact. Now, she's not all bad. Her body is appropriately slinky and elegant, as one would expect from an Asian dragon. They're more majestic and sage than mindless and monstrous, if you catch my drift.

However, it's her head (more specifically, her face) where things fall apart. One of the consequences of Disney's struggles to break out of the "modern CGI Disney style" is that instead of having a more conventional Eastern dragon face, Sisu looks rather human. Too human, in fact. She looks like a pre-2010s My Little Pony reject with how big her eyes are!

Ironic, then, that her human form ("I can shape-change!... my butt is so much closer to my head now!") is one of the better designs in the film. It's imperfect and messy in a way that even characters who logically should've been messier (like Wreck-It Ralph) didn't achieve. I honestly wish that human!Sisu's gappy teeth and more haggard look was reflected in her base dragon form. It kind of does to an extent, but I get the face that the execs didn't want the character who they wanted a ton of merchandise for to look too unmarketable.

The result of Sisu's base form having such a bland visage is that she loses most of her appeal. I believe that Disney wanted another "Robin Williams's Genie" kind of character on their hands when they cast Asian comedienne Awkwafina, but unlike Genie, she feels too artificial, designed as a marketable mascot rather than from a place of honesty. In fact, this seems to be a very visible trait within the final years of Bob Iger's tenure at Disney.

It seemed as if the executives were determined to get "the next big marketable" character out the door rather than crafting a sincere, honest character who could joke around while also providing sage advice to the film's jaded protagonist in need of some life lessons and a decent friend. Sisu's missing the one thing that Genie had, and that's pathos. Sure, people remember all the celebrity impressions, inventive animation, and "Friend Like Me," but they forget how honest Genie was with Aladdin about what Jasmine would be looking for in a suitor.

I'll talk more about the problems of Sisu's character not having the same sincerity that carried Genie later, but the point about marketing smoothing out her imperfections still stands. By removing anything that would hurt her marketability, the execs ironically made her homogenous with the traditional "Disney Princess" look and unattractive to the very kids she was meant to attract. Again, if only they went with a more haphazard look- it would've at least matched up with Sisu's character and self-deprecating schtick!

Moving on from Sisu, the other designs... aren't all that bad. Aside from the humans suffering from the designers clinging to the "CGI Keane" look, these designs are perfectly serviceable. Raya herself looks good, her companions are all distinct and memorable, her pet/friend Tuk Tuk is ADORABLE and one of the few designs I take no issues with, and Namaari... holy crap, Namaari. Are we sure that her design was meant for this film? Because she really seems like she has too good a design for this film.

From her slick hair (for once, the side shave cut looks dignified) to her practical outfit and realistically buff woman physique, she just screams "I deserve better". In fact, that's something I notice a lot with Raya as a film. Its good elements could've been isolated into a Disney+ original series (which Disney desperately needs more of) and its not good elements could be remedied had they been given more time to stew in the metaphorical pot.

Speaking of not good elements-

WORLDBUILDING ON FLAWED FOUNDATION

In theory, I should love Raya's worldbuilding. It's a big fantasy world with mishmashes of real-world species, distinctive cultures for each area of said fantasy world, and an interesting history. The problems are that 1) most of the backstory is told to us and not shown and 2) the movie breezes through each area of its world too quickly. This first problem is caused by how messy the opening of the film is.

We go from present-day Raya telling us about ancient history to an extended flashback to her childhood about how everything went to dung back to the present day. While it's not entirely an issue of the movie telling and not showing (around 10 minutes of the movie's first act is the aforementioned flashback to Raya's youth and where everything went to dung), I feel as if the movie's decision to open with present-day Raya telling us about the past rather than just starting in the past and jumping ahead a decade feels janky pacing-wise. Perhaps this was a last-minute decision by the execs who thought starting with exposition would turn people off.

Mind you, this was made by the studio that currently owns Star Wars, the master of exposition being communicated well by the opening minutes of a film.

In all honesty, the janky opening can be fixed by rearranging the first few beats of the story so that 1) we get the Asian puppetry-looking intro out of the way first, explaining what became of Kumandra, the dragons, and the Druun, 2) everything going wrong with the gem follows as a prelude to the rest of the movie, and 3) we end with Raya riding Tuk Tuk into the dunes of Tail as the REAL story begins. See? All the intro of this movie needed was tighter editing and some slight rearranging.

Speaking of tight, let's talk about the other worldbuilding issue this movie has. It rushes through a lot of really interesting areas and concepts so it can fit within its two-hour length, and that's a darn shame. Each part of Kumandra is ripe with potential for exploration, and yet we only see minuscule portions for like 15 or so minutes each. Tail is a wasteland full of people who got Druun'd, Talon is a wretched hive full of backstabbers and swindlers, Spine is a cold forest with only one man fighting to protect what remains from the Druun, Heart has been abandoned since Raya's dad's attempt at reunification fell apart, and Fang is doing rather well for themselves given the conditions surrounding them.

All of these are at the very least interesting, but their potential is stunted because the movie is running at such a breakneck speed. If there's anything nice I can say about Raya's worldbuilding, it's that (much like Namaari) there are times where it seems like the film's world is crying out to be in a better film. Talon really emphasizes how destructive distrust is what with how willing its people are to sell each other out; Spine provides a somber look at how the Druun's spread has affected even the toughest people in Kumandra; Heart is a reminder of a world lost to darkness, and Fang is something of a fantasy Southeast Asian Babylon (in the Biblical sense).

The only area in the film that I feel was wasted even within the short amount of time it had onscreen was Tail because it was just sand dunes full of Druun victims. Maybe they could've added some crazed beggars who've been driven mad because of the loss of their families, but I doubt that'd be a welcome sight so early in a Disney film. Then again, this is the same studio that subjected the world to a fawn watching his mother get shot and a lion cub watching his uncle backstab his father in the first 30 minutes of those films, so it's not entirely out of the woods for them to do something as gutsy as that.

Even with all my worldbuilding gripes, it's clear that the designers and writers poured a lot of love into the world of Kumandra. Each tribe has its own culture, fashion sense and architecture, all of which were drawn from life and rendered in a lush manner. It's just that thanks to the two hour limit and brisk nature of the quest, the world isn't really allowed to show off as much as Agrabah or the world of Treasure Planet were able to.

WRITING/CHARACTER PROBLEMS

(sighs). Where do I start?

Raya's writing is plagued with many problems, the most visible of which is the overuse of modern slang. It seems as if Disney post-Aladdin has decided that the key to a successful movie is "fantasy world + modern vernacular = hit with audiences", a formula that proved true multiple times in the past. However, Raya abuses this supposed formula to its detriment, resulting in artificial-sounding dialogue that sounds like what the writers thought was funny and/or relatable. (See the clip in which Sisu is reawakened and describes herself as the dragon equivalent to "that kid in a group project who barely did anything and still got the same grade as everyone else)

Moving on from the most visible problem, let's talk about the characters and how they're written. For the most part, they're alright, with very few highs or lows. One thing I must commend the writers for is how they made sure that everyone in the main cast had lost at least one loved one to the Druun's advances. Raya lost her dad, Sisu's four siblings were turned to stone before the Druun were first sealed away, mercenary kid shrimp merchant Boun lost his family (including his "kind of annoying little sister), hulking softie and chief of the Spine clan Tong lost his wife and infant child, and pint-sized "con baby" Noi lost her family. I wish the movie leaned a touch harder into this aspect and let Raya form a found family (because I'm a sucker for that trope), but alas, that didn't happen.

Speaking of Raya herself, I feel as if she's played well by Kelly Marie Tran but undercut by the writing that her voice actress just didn't mesh with. If you've ever seen her in a film not made under the Disney banner, Tran is a very sweet, kind young woman. Conversely, Raya as a character is a broken, jaded lass who feels she can't trust anyone because of the whole mess with Namaari that led to the Druun's return.

The problem is that Kelly's voice really doesn't have the grit or stoicism that you'd expect from a hardened heart like Raya's own. What attempts the writers make at humor with her feels awkward and stilted- a shame, given that Tran herself was so sweet that it led Rian Johnson to rewrite her character in Star Wars: The Last Jedi to better match up with her actual person. Something like this must've happened with Raya, as Raya's dialogue doesn't always match up with her VA's delivery (not in the sense that her lips aren't matching her words; it's more like her tone doesn't gel with how she's talking).

Raya is rather stilted by how the movie she's in chose to preach its message of learning to trust again after having been wronged in the past. The movie wants us to believe that she's in the wrong, but she has a very justifiable reason for why she doesn't trust the people of other nations. The people of Talon and Fang (the only two tribes who are still around in the present day) are both hostile to outsiders, and the whole mess with the botched reconciliation all those years back certainly didn't help her perceptions of them. Ergo, her having a skeptical perspective is understandable, considering the last time she trusted someone (Namaari), it reawakened an ancient evil and cost her her father.

However, this perspective isn't challenged thoroughly enough by Sisu and those around her, something that should've happened if the writers wanted to make us believe her growth was genuine. The movie starts Raya off on a journey to learn how to trust others again by having her befriend Sisu, Boun, Noi, and Tong only for it to undercut itself in a borderline disastrous scene in which she lets her grudge against Namaari overshadow Sisu's plan to win Namaari over... a scene that results in Sisu's temporary death and the Druun being nigh-unstoppable. Way to go, "hero"! You just doomed the world to Druun-ification!

I legitimately DESPISED Raya after this scene. How Disney thought this was acceptable for the thematic progression of the film is baffling to me, given how they had set Raya's arc up earlier in the film. I take it that her rage towards Namaari was a remnant of an earlier draft where she was more volatile, but there's no confirmation of this online, so take it as just my silly speculation. The movie attempts to show us Raya learning from her little outburst for the film's big emotional climax, but it's so soon after she lashed out that it felt hollow.

I'll admit, Kelly Marie Tran's voice work is very impressive and there are glimmers of potential within her character, but Raya falls apart the deeper you look at her. She's supposed to be a character learning how to trust again, and yet the movie puts her in a world where trusting the wrong person could get you turned to stone or betrayed. She should've come to realize that the Namaari incident was just that- an incident- and that she needed to move on as she spent more time with people who made her rethink her loner ideology, but the writers decided that her relapsing despite having seen the virtues of trusting others was a better plot point. To put it simply, Raya is a mess of contradictions disguised as Disney's next big female lead.

Next, let's look at Sisu. Compared to how much I griped about her facial shape in her base dragon form two sections back, I actually quite liked her for what she was. She's not a perfect mentor who Raya needs to learn from or a deus ex draconis (tweak on the Latin term deus ex machina); she's just a magical scaly lady regaining her power as the film progresses and a friend that Raya can confide in. She is simultaneously a relic of an age long gone (an age that Raya looks up to) and something of a child experiencing a world completely and utterly alien to her, unaware of the brokenness which now pervades it.

Come to think of it, Sisu would've made a much better POV character than Raya. Think about it- 1) she's been out of the picture for centuries by the time the movie's present day narrative begins (allowing for we the audience to better understand the world of Kumandra), 2) it would've better emphasized their different worldviews, and 3) she would've brought a very different message to the story- instead of just Raya learning to trust again, she would've learned that not everyone has your best interests in mind. Instead of Raya and the Last Dragon, why not "Sisu and the First Human"?

Her comedic moments, while they don't always hit right, play to Awkwafina's strengths (at least, the strengths she can play to in a family film; her previous work's titles sound pretty family-unfriendly). I honestly like her quite a bit, and I feel like I can say the same about both Boun and Noi. Boun was a fun, well-written child character, and despite my initial fears that she and her Minions-like monkey companions would clash against the tone set by the trailers, Noi was a very cute and surprisingly not annoying member of the main ensemble. There's not much I can really say about those two other than that.

The real star of Raya's party, though, is Spine chief and hulking softie Tong. That's because unlike the film's opening, so much of his backstory is implied and not said. He's a warm and boisterous soul with a quiet aura of tragedy to him. This tragedy is communicated by an empty crib in his little hut- subtly saying that Tong was a family man before the Druun swept over Spine, and ever since they were turned to stone, he's been on watch to protect his piece of the gem and himself from the Druun's potential return and/or the invasion of other kingdoms.

So much is said about Tong without a single line of dialogue during his introductory scene, and he stays on that high throughout the reminder of the film. We see him bond with Noi (communicating his parenting skills), and he remains loyal to Raya's fellowship to the bitter end. Wait... Fellowship... I missed a perfect opportunity to make a Lord of the Rings reference by saying that Tong is the Gimli of the team! Shoot.

Outside of the main quintet (I'm not counting Noi's monkey companions since they really only existed to be merchandisable cuddly critters), we have Namaari. As you can tell by how I've spoken about her, I believe Namaari is the breakout character of Raya. She's not a cackling mad, fun, classic Disney villain (who've only found their modern equivalents in the forms of King Candy from Wreck-It Ralph and Tamatoa the giant crab from Moana), but rather a real, conflicted woman acting on what her culture's raised her to be.

She is, in many ways, a dark mirror to Raya. Where Raya rejects her father's hope for a unified Kumandra as nothing more than wishful thinking, Namaari is conflicted between honoring the queen of Fang- her own mother- and carrying out her own mission to hunt down Sisu and the gem pieces. It's clear that the culture of Fang and her mother's expectations have chafed on her for most of her life, and she's grown quite rough internally. Conversely, Raya in her youth was rather judgmental of the other tribes, something quite antithetical to her father's desire for a reunified Kumandra.

Many of this film's detractors act as if Namaari is entirely responsible for the incident that led to the Druun's return when in actuality, there were many factors playing into that event. Namaari's mother presumably planned out the events that would've gotten her daughter close to Raya (ergo allowing for Fang to take the gem for themselves) and the other tribes' squabbling over the gem gets it broken. So, yeah- Namaari's not entirely at fault for the end of the world, but Raya's naive trust of her (a trust motivated by her father's request to be open-minded when the people of Fang, Talon, Tail and Spine came to visit) was probably one of the biggest factors which led to the Druun coming back.

The film does a rather good job making her a persistent rival to Raya (complete with incredibly well-animated and choreographed sword fights between the two of them), and through some quick quips between the two, it also suggests there were a few fights that happened in the interim between the past and present. At the same time, though, it emphasizes the similarities between the two of them. Namaari clearly respects the dragons, even almost tearing up when coming face to face with Sisu during a fight. In addition, both of them are the daughters of their tribe's leaders, but their parents had opposing ideals- Raya's father sought unity; Namaari's mother sought control over the other tribes by harnessing the gem's power for Fang's own ends.

Namaari honestly feels too good for this film. She's a surprisingly complex rival to Raya, and in the end, it's her, not Raya, that saves the world. Okay, technically, it's her, Raya, Boun, Tong, and Noi working together to put the dragons' gem back together to stop the Druun, but Raya kind of invalidated herself as a hero by getting Sisu killed earlier in the film. Do I wish this film did more with her? Yes. Am I happy that she was written as well as she was? Also yes.

One thing that I've personally noticed is that with both Namaari and Amphibia's Sasha Waybright (excellent show if you haven't seen it yet; it's WAY better than this film) is that both of them are better examples of what She-Ra and the Princesses of Power tried to do with its reinterpretation of Catra. All three of these characters are rivals to their respective media of origin's main heroine (who they have complex histories with), but what sets Namaari and Sasha apart from Catra is that both of them are still considered villains by their respective narratives. She-Ra 2018 tried way too hard to make Catra sympathetic and "deep" (resulting in main protagonist Adora being bland as bread and the show's morality getting messed up something fierce); Raya and Amphibia both understood the importance of giving their heroines rivals who actually challenged them.

Speaking of Namaari's mother, I feel like she's the biggest example of the film's missed potential. You see, the Druun aren't active villains- they're more so a mindless obstacle embodying the destruction distrust and conflict can cause in a nation. The problem with this is that it acts like distrust and intercultural conflict are something that can be easily taken down if a select group of people work together- a far simpler answer to these problems than what audiences are bound to find in real life. (Frustrating, considering how Zootopia didn't pretend to have all the answers to discrimination and treated the matter with nuance)

Instead, the writers should've provided Raya with a willing instigator of distrust and cultural clashing, and Namaari's mother seems like she'd have been a perfect candidate for that role. She's why Namaari backstabbed Raya. She's what led to the Druun came back. And she schemes to capture Sisu and use her power in order to leverage Fang's superiority over the remaining tribes who haven't been fully Druunified. Compared to the non-characters that are the Druun, Namaari's mother had the potential to be a legitimately fascinating, monstrous villain that stoked the fires of bigotry to keep herself in power...

... and said potential was wasted because the writers decided to have her get Druuned for the third act of the film. I feel as if the third act is where Raya's narrative caves in on itself, what with Raya's character going off the rails, Sisu's unnecessary death, and everyone in Raya's party suddenly deciding to see Namaari as untrustworthy because the plot demands it. It's a real mess.

I wish we could've seen the version of Raya where the Druun had a diminished role and Namaari's mother was the main villain. That way, we could've seen Raya realize that what led to the Druun's return wasn't all Namaari's fault in a manner that made sense, we could've had a better redemption for Namaari (what we got in the final film was alright, but it could've been better executed), and we could've had a proper final fight that demonstrated why trust between the tribes was the first stepping stone towards a reunified Kumandra. But we didn't get that because apparently purple smoke monsters emblematic of bigotry in the most vague ways are better ideas than a real monster who abuses cultural conflicts to keep themselves in power.

Ultimately, Raya's writing and characters feel simultaneously underbaked and overcooked. Some characters surprised me with how much was done right about them (see Tong and Namaari), but a majority of them were either alright (Sisu, Noi, Boun), took a swerve for the worse late in the film (Raya herself), or were criminally underused (Namaari's mom). Combine that with the rushed pace of the film and the out-of-place modern vernacular, and you end up with a film that is too flawed to be considered anything above aggressively decent yet also too well-intentioned to be considered truly bad.

Ergo, Raya is just alright. Should it have been, though?

THE DISNEY CYCLE (AND WHY IT NEEDS TO BE BROKEN)

I've noticed a trend when it comes to modern Disney animated films. Ever since Frozen in 2013 (a notoriously rough year for theatrical animation in hindsight), the Mouse House's animation studio has had a rather fascinating cycle of going from a good film to a bad film and then back to a good film. I call this the "Disney Cycle".

Contrary to public opinion, I greatly dislike Frozen, and it's not because of the songs being sung so much by grade schoolers. Rather, it's that the film's production scars caused by the writers overhauling Elsa from classic Disney villainess to misunderstood, insecure heroine really make this less fun to watch. Elsa is a mess of a character who sends bad messages to kids (when confronted by something that upsets you, run away and dump your problems on other people), the Hans twist is kind of dumb in retrospect and really emphasizes why villain!Elsa should've stayed as she was, and it uses the homogenized CGI post-Tangled style. Oh joy.

That being said, Frozen isn't without its redeeming aspects. The soundtrack is good albeit not the best it could be (listen to the Broadway version!), Anna is a refreshing, funny break from the traditional princess mold, Kristoff was one of Disney's best leading men in years, and Olaf was tolerable. It's just that its worst aspects really drag it down for me.

Only one year later, Big Hero 6 (loosely based on the obscure Marvel team of the same name) released. It was a pleasant surprise, innovating on a visual level and having a witty, smart, and heartfelt script that explored the topic of grief in a thoughtful, honest manner (unlike Frozen's botched attempt at exploring Elsa's depression). While I don't think it deserved a full three-season-long TV show spin-off, it was definitely an enjoyable film. My dad and I still do Baymax's fist bump thing every once in a while!

2016 was the year where the "Disney Cycle" was temporarily broken, with both Zootopia and Moana being critical and financial darlings... that I didn't see until this year. I still don't know why I held out on both for so long, but now I'm kicking myself for having done so. Zootopia (or Zootropolis for those reading in European territories) is a masterclass example of world-building with sharp writing and a surprisingly nuanced look at discrimination for a family film; Moana (or Vaiana in Italian territories) yet another cinematic crown jewel from the minds of Ron Clements and John Musker (of Little Mermaid, Hercules, Treasure Planet, and Princess and the Frog fame) that blends characters with heart, a respect for Polynesian culture and myth, and a killer soundtrack courtesy of In the Heights and Hamilton mastermind Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Sadly, the Disney Cycle returned in full force with 2018's Ralph Breaks the Internet, a half-hearted cash-grab sequel to Wreck-It Ralph. I was particularly disappointed with this one. Not only did it massacre the characters and concepts of the first film, but it also served as a shameless showcase of everything Disney owned at the time the film was made. While it has its charms ("A Place Called Slaughter Race" is proof that Alan Menken still has it in him to make good music and some of the character interactions were sweet), this feels like a dated relic of the time when Disney would release shoddily-written sequels to their Renaissance-era movies that didn't deserve a theatrical release.

To my surprise, 2019's Frozen II was much, much better than the first film. The story's not without its weak elements (and Elsa is still not great), but it made several improvements on the flawed foundation of the first film. The soundtrack is slightly better and doesn't need a Broadway upgrade to sound good, the good characters from the first film are better used (Kristoff is best Disney leading man), and even only average characters like Olaf or Anna and Elsa's parents were improved by new additions made by this film. I wouldn't say that it's good enough to justify rewatching the first film, but it IS a big improvement over the flawed freshman effort that was its predecessor.

See? There's a very visible pattern in how Disney's animated efforts turn out nowadays. One film is good, the next is bad, the next may be good or medicre, and then we loop back to being bad. It's a rather stark contrast to how things were in the 90s "Renaissance"- while there were occasional duds like Pocahontas or The Rescuers Down Under, they were often outweighed and overshadowed by heavy-hitters like The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Hercules, Mulan, and even Tarzan.

Why does the Disney cycle exist, though?

Well, dear reader, I believe that the Disney cycle is born from the titanic nature of modern (Iger-era... Ig-era?) Disney. Say what you will about Michael Eisner's business decisions, but it's clear that he knew the Mouse House's animation department had to step up their game if they didn't want to keep getting outpaced by upstarts like disgruntled ex-Disney animator Don Bluth. The result was the theatrical animation department putting out some of their best work in quite some time, all while being motivated to do better because they just came out of a dark time when they weren't sure if the medium of animation was really all that viable.

However, once Bob Iger took the reigns in 2006 (and Pixar head John Lasseter was assigned to running both Disney's animation department and Pixar), the studio began to act like they were too big to fail. In all honesty, this was somewhat justifiable. The Renaissance reestablished their animated dominance, buying out the Muppets in 2004 fulfilled a deal long left unfinished between Eisner and Jim Henson, and buying out Pixar meant that one of their most lucrative partners was now part of the Mickey Mouse empire.

But pride took a toll on Disney, and they began to want more and more, regardless of how it would affect them. Power Rangers stops being a source of revenue for them? They sell it back to the owner and buy Marvel Comics so they can have a good boy-centric brand under their thumb. George Lucas wants to sell off Lucasfilm? They buy it out for 4.5 billion, taking Star Wars and Indiana Jones with them. 20th Century Fox won't play nice and let Marvel use the X-Men in the MCU on top of suffering from financial issues? Disney buys them and their subdivisions in 2019.

Between their studios, acquisitions, parks, and merchandising, post-Iger Disney is a monolith drunk on its past successes, a giant who bellows "I'm too big to fail" regardless of how their products do. I think that the Disney Cycle was a byproduct of this, as mediocre or bad movies (animated or not) were barely enough to dent their reputation. However, in light of the pandemic stabbing the Mouse House in the side (causing them to bleed money and shut down Blue Sky Studios) and making their missteps more visible in the general public's eyes, I don't think Disney can afford to have another bad or even mediocre film on their hands without inviting apathy from audiences and/or suffering financially.

And apathy really isn't what one should feel towards a Disney film. There was a time when a new Disney film felt like an event, a time when families could go into the theatre or sit down around the couch on Sunday night (my parents' generation will know what I'm referencing when I say that) and be whisked away to another world. Alas, those days seem to be gone. With some very notable exceptions, a sizable amount of Disney's theatrical animated output has been either mediocre or really not great.

I'm not going to act like I have all the answers the execs need to break the Disney Cycle. The best I can suggest right now is 1) give your films the right amount of time to develop and don't force the people working on them to rush art (you can't do that, in the words of the cleaner from Toy Story 2) and 2) give us the audience a respite from annual films (allowing for the movies to be events again) and 3) follow in the footsteps of Walt and make money to make movies, not the other way around.

I'm hopeful that Encanto (a Colombia-set film about a mostly-magical family with original music from Lin-Manuel) will be good. According to the standards set by the Disney Cycle, it should be good. However, I could be wrong, given that 2016 happened to have two good films. I dunno; I'm just spitballing at this point.

CONCLUSION

Raya and the Last Dragon is a very confused film. On one hand, it proposes fascinating concepts and has good intentions with its morals. On the other, though, it squanders many of those concepts, has janky writing, and shoots its moral in the foot by having its main character remain set in her ways at a point where she really should've known better.

It's quite tragic how Raya turned out. From what I've heard, Disney was hopeful that this would be a showstopper and potential start to a new property. However, thanks to circumstances out of their control like the pandemic and creative difficulties that indirectly hurt the final product, the film is probably going to be remembered more as a mess than the start of a glorious new age for Disney animation.

I wish it could've been better. What I liked about the film, I quite liked (ie Namaari, Sisu, Tong, the worldbuilding that wasn't put on fast-forward). Sadly, the film we got is riddled with problems and things that keep it from being a good start to 2020s-era Disney theatrical animation. All in all, if I was reviewing this film, I would give it a 5.8/10. There are good elements, sure, but what good elements it has aren't enough to outweigh the positives.

Thanks for reading, everyone. God bless!