"Someone has to take the first step."
Hello everyone!
If you look back through my blog posts you'll see that, often enough, I'll run into these Disney animated movies.
I mean, I grew up on these!
Not the 3D ones, obviously, but the original animated cartoons!
Still, Disney has definitely managed to hit the success button with a number of their newer animations, so when I saw the trailer for their latest endeavour, I thought to myself it was something I should probably watch eventually.
This past Sunday turned into that 'eventually', and then it was time for Raya and the Last Dragon.
You'll find links to the previous Disney animated movies I've reviewed down at the bottom of the page, as usual.
Let's have a look at this one then!
The story begins in voice-over where Raya (Kelly Marie Trans) explains just how the world got broken, which is one way to start lol. But, here's the deal: Kumandra, a land basically shaped like an Asian dragon, was once one mighty land, until the Druun showed up and started turning people to stone. The dragons banded together to fight said Druun, until only one was left, Sisu, who used a Dragon Gem to defeat their enemies, but while the people were turned back, the dragons remained stone, and Sisu disappeared.
The people then fought over possession of the Dragon Gem - because, people - which then separated the land into five parts when they couldn't live in peace: Fang, Heart, Spine, Talon and Tail, and the Gem was hidden.
As it turns out, the Gem's been chilling out at Heart under the protection of its warriors for 500 years, and little Raya joins the ranks of said protectors right next to her father Benja (Daniel Dae Kim), who tells her he's invited the other regions to try and reunite Kumandra once more.
Naturally this doesn't work, as Namaari (Gemma Chan), Princess of Fang, tricks Raya into showing her where the gem is, and everyone and their mother wants a piece.
Raya's father tries one more time, but a fight ensues during which the orb breaks into five pieces, and the Druun, kept at bay only by the power of the dragon magic, are released, wreaking havoc through the lands as each region grabs a piece to run off with.
Six years later, after losing her father to that first Druun attack, Raya is following a clue Namaari gave her back in the day, that Sisu didn't actually disappear, but is sleeping at the end of the mighty Kumadra river, and she's been searching all the smaller ones ever since. She's finally reached the end of the journey, and actually releases Sisu (Awkwafina) from her slumber. But she has bad news for the dragon: they need to get the orb pieces back to try and restore everything, and bring everyone who's gone back too.
Sisu is horrified that humans have become this greedy and self-centered, because as she says, you have to trust someone first before they can trust you, and bringing a gift is the best way to do so instead of stealing the gem pieces like Raya proposes. But Raya, world-weary and cynical, explains that's not likely to happen, and they find the Tail gem where the Tail leader has basically died in the heart of all the booby traps she set up.
They then have to flee when Namaari and her warriors show up, demanding to know why Raya's after the pieces - because, naturally, the ones who started it all are the most idiotic, since, you know, maybe she just wants it back in Heart where it ACTUALLY BELONGS.
Raya and Sisu escape and find their way to a harbour where they sort of hijack a boat owned by a boy named Boun, who lost his family to the Druun. They're then on their way to Talon to get the third orb piece, which it's been revealed grants Sisu powers her siblings infused into the stone before perishing, as she herself doesn't actually have any magic humans would consider useful (but she's a heck of a swimmer, so Michael Phelps, make way).
Once at Talon, Sisu presses the idea of giving the leader a gift to receive the stone in return, but Raya turns her down and goes off to do her own thing. Sisu, however, tries her tactic anyway and ends up in a precarious position when the leader of Talon - who looks like a harmless old lady - threatens to leave her to the Druun.
Meanwhile, Raya encounters a con baby and her three monkey companions before realizing the leader has been turned to stone and someone else leads Talon now, so she hurries to save Sisu and get back to the boat, the con baby in tow. Sisu is shocked that someone would have willingly given her up to the Druun, but her faith in humanity still remains as they travel to Spine together to recover the fourth orb piece.
This region might be the saddest of all, as it's revealed that only one sole person remains after the Druun attacks, Tong, who initially takes Raya and Sisu captive, but once Namaari shows up with her army to arrest Raya - because for some reason Fang seems to think they're the freaking police and overlords or whatever, it's never explained why, only that THEY believe so, but it doesn't look like the other regions ever subscribed to that belief, so bye - he agrees to help them.
Raya goes to distract Namaari so her friends can escape, but ends up in a fight she can't win which prompts Sisu to reveal herself and help her - this is a bad idea on a lot of levels because their last orb piece is at Fang, and Fang has other plans than just handing it over.
Namaari argues that with a living dragon, they SHOULD restore the Gem and fight off the Druun, but her mother explains that if everyone who's now gone comes back, they'll come for Fang as the rightful perpetrators of what happened 6 years ago ... but if they get the pieces AND Sisu, then might will be on their side and they can browbeat everyone into believing they're the saviours, too.
Yes, because a dragon will willingly let herself be taken, or that logic makes so much sense. Yes of course.
As this is going on, Sisu convinces Raya to try negotiating with Namaari after all, even though Namaari has stabbed them all in the back (especially Raya) multiple times by this point. She explains that, originally, it was her four siblings who created the Dragon Gem after all other dragons failed in the fight, but they entrusted Sisu to use it as they gave themselves up to buy her time. By trusting her to save Kumandra they empowered her, because she was neither the best, nor the strongest, but it was HER they chose - and that trust is what she's been trying to teach Raya all along.
So Raya goes along with the plan and meets with Namaari, but Namaari turns a crossbow bolt on Sisu and basically is halfway to pulling the trigger when Raya springs into action with her chain-sword - she trusts Sisu, but not Namaari, and truth be told I wouldn't trust Namaari either.
This results in Sisu getting hit, falling into the water, and the river disappearing with the last dragon, and with it the last protection against the Druun, who can't cross water.
They invade Fang while Raya goes after Namaari to beat her ass into kingdom come after what's happened, actually beating her this time while Namaari mourns the loss of her mother, but she changes her mind about killing her when she sees her friends outside - each one from a different region - working together to save the people of Fang from the Druun. But the orb pieces are failing, and Raya realizes what has to be done.
She trusts Namaari with her piece and allows the Druun to take her, leading the way for her friends to do the same even though they'd much rather let the Druun take Namaari instead. She considers running, then puts the orb together and gives up, too, which as a final act of trust ignites the dragon magic again and releases the dragons from their stone slumber once more.
Sisu also returns to life from her water element, and they all return to Heart together where Raya reunites with her father but also shows him that she's achieved his dream: she's reunited Kumandra.
And as the people celebrate their reunion, the dragons pass by playfully overhead, where Sisu rejoins her four siblings and they frolic together to the dragon magic.
The end.
Beautifully animated with stunning visuals, Raya and the Last Dragon attempts to show that not everything is black and white, but rather morally gray, though I'm not entirely sure it succeeds because 10 year olds won't actually grasp the message, if you ask me.
The plot itself is fairly straightforward, uniting people from different, warring regions to finally bring the Gem together and releasing the dragons, which begs the question why this didn't happen the first time around since, at THAT time, Kumandra was actually one sole entity and everything fell apart only after with the orb, but Sisu maybe explains it best, in that the land was already on the way to falling apart since that might have been what called the Druun in.
Druun are a plague born from human discord. They've always been here, waiting for a moment of weakness to attack. They're the opposite of dragons: instead of bringing water and life to the world, they're like a relentless fire that consumes everything in its wake, until there's nothing left but ash and stone.
By this logic, working together is what releases the dragons the second time around, although it's flimsy at best.
There is also a problematic message with Sisu's relentless harping about trust, because whether or not you're a cynical person, if someone stabs you in the back as greatly as Namaari stabbed Raya, it's highly unlikely you will EVER trust that person again. It reminds me of the Christian message of 'turn the other cheek', which is probably empowering in a way but more often than not, someone who keeps coming back for more of the bad is simply someone who's been conditioned to never stand up for themselves and take whatever someone else dishes out.
Sisu, as a dragon, displays a childish naivete of what should rule the world, whereas Raya represents humanity's view of it, which is much more realistic. In fact, looking back, Disney has slowly eschewed the more traditional hero vs. villain storytelling in their newer adaptations which confuses a lot of the storylines as there isn't any black and white, like in previous movies.
Originally, you had a villain who coveted something, and this was portrayed as bad - if you think about it, in Beauty and the Beast Gaston covets Belle, in The Lion King Scar covets the throne, heck in Coco that one dude covets fame and the power it brings. This then gives audiences a focal point and pits our heroes against it, so that the journey becomes a struggle they must overcome, and the villain is granted a potential redemption arc.
In Raya and the Last Dragon, this arc is muddled as Namaari isn't technically a villain - because by that logic every other region besides Heart should be villainous, which it arguably isn't. But she represents the person who continues rejecting Raya and the gang's advances and going behind their backs, which begs the question: why should you feel any sympathy for this person to begin with?
This becomes clearer when her mother falls in the last Druun attack and she lashes out at Raya, blaming her for it, but ironically enough Raya never once blames Namaari or her mother for the death of her own father 6 years prior, even if THEY are VERY CLEARLY at fault here, while she is arguably more in the morally grey area. This is an incredible missed character and emotional beat, because it's simply there to garner sympathy for a character that's largely unlikable for the majority of the movie, and yet we're not supposed to remember she's guilty of the same crime right from the start.
But I digress.
Overall, Raya and the Last Dragon delivers a cute and funny sort of epic journey to gather some lost treasure, bring it together, and hopefully manage to save the world while they're at it. The visuals are breathtaking and the characters are funny enough, and I like that the animations try to emulate the actual people that voice them; but the message itself is convoluted at best, and worrisome at most. I don't think children will quite understand its meaning, and adults will probably scoff at it.
And also, did anyone else get The Last Unicorn vibes with these dragons, especially their return there at the end??? Just me? Come on now!
xx
*images and video not mine
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