Disney’s newest animated film was a fine attempt, but there is still room for improvement

By: Asha Cooper

** Spoiler alert: plot points are discussed in this article

When I saw the first cover art and preview release for Raya and the Last Dragon, I was ecstatic. The movie takes place in a fictional land called Kumandra, which is heavily derived from Southeast Asian cultures and countries. There aren’t many Disney movies in which this type of representation is showcased, so I had high hopes.

When I actually watched the movie though, I was a bit disappointed about the cultural aspect. Instead of focusing on one specific culture, the movie derived influence from so many. While it was nice to notice and recognize elements from my Indian culture, it felt like an assumption that all Southeast Asian cultures were the same, or at least similar enough to all be lumped into one, which obviously is not the case. I noticed Indian patterns in the architecture, floating markets like in Vietnam, and street food vendors that seemed plucked right out of China. Despite this, the fact that the influence was evident in the traditions, food, clothing, landscape, and practices of the characters was something that I could appreciate.

The storyline itself is essentially Disney’s classic formula. The land of Kumandra is shaped like the dragons they revere, and the different regions are named after the respective part of the dragon they are from: Heart, Talon, Fang, Spine, and Tail. An evil entity called the Druun is a magical being that turns all those it touches into stone, and its presence in Kumandra was catastrophic. The revered dragons did their best to fight it, but eventually ran out of options and turned to their last member, Sisu, to enact a dragon stone made from their combined magic to fight off the druun and bring all of the people back. It succeeds, but the dragons were all turned to stone except for Sisu, who went into a dormant state somewhere very hidden.

The different regions of the land began to fight over the dragon stone, believing that it has power, and consequently split apart and become divided. The story then pans to young Raya, who is the daughter of the chief of the Heart region. She trains to be the protector of the dragon stone to follow her father and looks up to Sisu’s legend. Her father hopes to bring all the regions together during an event held at Heart, during which Raya meets Namaari, daughter of the Fang chief. Raya shows Namaari the dragon stone but is betrayed, causing all of the other land chiefs to come in and break the dragon stone. The druun returns and Raya’s father is turned to stone before she escapes.

We then see an older Raya on a journey to awaken Sisu and find all pieces of the dragon stone in order to undo everyone from their stone state. She is successful, and she and Sisu set off together to find the remaining pieces of the stone. Namaari however, still seeks to ruin Raya and is always a step behind them. On their journey Raya and Sisu befriend other isolated members of Kumandra, one from each land. Because of the major betrayal Raya faced, she has deep trust issues and doesn’t believe in the good of others anymore. Sisu tries to enforce the fact that the only way to solve the issue at hand and come together is through trust. When it comes to Fang’s stone, Sisu believes they can negotiate with Namaari. They attempt to cooperate with her, but she ends up shooting Sisu with a bow, causing her to fall into a nearby ocean. With the last dragon finally gone, the druun is now unstoppable. Raya and Namaari battle until they are trapped with the other members of the journey, and realize that they must come together to rid Kumandra of the drone. They all pass their stone pieces to Namaari, and trust she will put them together as they all, including Raya, turn to stone.

The plan works and everyone who was turned to stone comes back, including the dragons. They go to resurrect Sisu, and she returns to reunite with Raya. Sisu is proud of her and forgives Namaari, and when Raya meets with her father again, the rest of the regions come too, uniting Kumandra as one again.

In summary, I thought the plot itself was basic; there was a magical problem and in this instance with the power of trust it was able to just solve anything. The animation and scenery was beautiful, but I also thought most of the side characters were more interesting than the main ones. Raya was fairly one-dimensional, and so was Namaari. Raya was simply a trained warrior toughened by life who couldn’t trust anyone until she absolutely had to. Namaari really had no redeeming factors about her and just committed one act of betrayal after another until she was also literally about to die. Sisu’s character however, I did enjoy. Her voice actor, Awkwafina, I love and know already from movies like The Farewell and Crazy Rich Asians. She made Sisu’s personality real and loveable, and I think it could appeal to a wide range of audiences.

Raya and The Last Dragon fell a little flat for me overall, and I had some issues with how Southeast Asian culture was displayed as someone with that heritage myself. However, I am happy to see more cultural and racial representation in Disney, especially in the form of a new DIsney Princess. I know so many young girls will be excited to see and connect with a princess that looks like them. 

Let me just start off by saying, wow!

By: Ava Lutz

Let me just start off by saying, wow. This movie totally blew me away. Recently, Disney has been a little off when it came to making animated movies. The animations themselves were as expected, always great, but the plots kinda fell short. It had me thinking that maybe the new kids’ movies didn’t feel the same anymore, because they didn’t have that added feeling of nostalgia. So, when I sat down to watch this movie, my expectations weren’t too high.

The visuals, on their own, were phenomenal. The sound track blew my mind, it was just so bouncy and fun. The storyline had me in tears.

When I watch a movie, I have a really big tendency to try and figure out what is going to happen next based on what is happening currently or what happened before. While watching Raya, I kept guessing what was going to happen. Usually, that will make a movie predictable and boring, but this movie wasn’t. Even if I guessed the next bit right, the way it would be carried out would be just beyond my own imagination.

Raya travels along searching for the lost pieces of the dragon stone, and through each city of the broken Kumundra she visits, she meets more people and adds them to her team. 

The movie opens with a flashback of how the dragon stone was broken, and the pieces spread across each of the different cities. Raya meets a girl her age that she wrongfully trusts. Raya brings the girl to the secret place where the dragon stone is being protected, and she pushes her down, leading up to the events of the stone breaking, and releasing the Druun, a shadow monster meant to represent human greed.

If the Druun were to pass over you, you would turn to stone, and there is no way out except for the rain that comes from the dragon stone. As Raya travels to the different cities of Kumandra, and she finds others to help her restore the stone, she finds out they have all lost their families to the Druun. 

A little boy with a boat from Tail, a small baby and her posse of monkeys from Talon, a soldier, and the Last Dragon from Spine. Each one from a different city in Kumandra, except for the very last one. The chieftess daughter from Fang, the very person Raya trusted enough to show her the Dragon Stone.

The dragon, Sisu, explains the real story behind the Dragon Stone. Everyone believed that Sisu created the stone all on her own, but it was actually created by her most powerful brothers and sisters, and then they gave it to her to use, and save everyone who had been petrified.

Sisu is the Last Dragon, because all of the others had been petrified by the Druun about 500 years prior to their story. The Dragon Stone had created a rain that saved all of those who were petrified. Except for the dragons.

In one of the scenes where they were talking about that, Raya made a point that really stuck with me. “The dragons didn’t come back, because we didn’t deserve them” she says. Because before, the dragons helped them all live in harmony, but once they were gone, they fought. They all fought each other, and blamed each other.

The movie has a really big theme of trust. They thought they needed Sisu to use the dragon stone, but all they needed was to trust each other. The stronger dragons give the stone to the weakest dragon, because they trust her.

At the climax, they are all trapped in a circle of Druun, the power of the Dragon stone weakening. They each hand their shard to Naamari, the one from Fang, because she is the least trustworthy of all of them. 

Throughout the movie, it gives examples of when someone is too trusting, and when someone isn’t trusting enough.

Sisu wants to trust everyone and because of that, there are many times where she is taken advantage of.

Raya, on the other hand, doesn’t want to trust anyone. Because of that, she ends up killing Sisu. She is afraid to trust anyone again, especially not Naamori. 

Which is why, at the very end, it takes Raya, and the others, trusting Naamori to bring everyone back.

The dragons, which were all still stone (and had been for 500 years) didn’t come back because the people didn’t trust each other. The second they felt like someone else had something better than them, they all turned on each other.  It wasn’t until the people all trusted each other that the dragons returned.