ComingSoon spoke to two of the Moana 2 directors, David Derrick Jr. and Jason Hand, about the hit animated sequel. The duo spoke about the Moana 2’s ending, the series’ future, and much more. The animated film is available on Digital now and is available to stream exclusively on Disney+.
“The film reunites Moana and Maui three years later for an expansive new voyage alongside a crew of unlikely seafarers,” reads the film’s official synopsis. “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.”
Tyler Treese: David, one thing I really liked about Moana 2 is that it really expands the world, especially with the ending when we see that glimpse at all the other clans. You can’t put that toothpaste back in the bottle though. So how is it making that decision to make Moana less isolated?
David Derrick Jr.: For me, it was important and personal from the get go that we expand. This is our own story, it is inspired by the the real feats and the real people of the Pacific Ocean. Part of my ancestry comes from Samoa and the great migrations that happened across the Pacific Ocean, which the people of the Pacific created the largest cultural ethnosphere prior to Western expansion.
You gotta think about the islands, you gotta think from Samoa to Easter Island, Rapanui to New Zealand to Hawaii, they were able to connect and go to all these islands, and that was all through the art, science, and collaboration of many different islands.
And so it was important to us to show some of those islands very specifically at the end, and that the goal be that Moana and her people can’t reach their full potential until they’re fully connected. And so, yeah, from the get go and Jason did some incredible drawings that became like the goal to get to, and it really never changed.
Jason Hand: From the very beginning, that idea was there. And it also sort of connected to the first film in the sense that we see her going out and we see that she’s going to. The ocean connects but we never actually got a chance to see that. So that was the impetus for the story.
Why haven’t they connected? Is there something going on? And all through answering all those questions came the story of Moana 2 and all the things that it meant, and we really wanted that to be an incredible moment and to say there’s this future that’s hinted at, but we don’t quite know what it is yet. Like you said, you can’t put the toothpaste back in, but that was on purpose.
Derrick Jr.: Yeah. I mean, Jason, in early story meetings, we talk about the ocean as this thing that connects. And you were always great. Like to who? To what? And then it, it just kind of became a beautiful question to answer. Absolutely.
This ending really teases a lot, and, and this film was such an incredible success. Obviously, this idea kind of began as a TV show, and I’m not expecting to hear any concrete plans, Jason, but have you guys been talking about what could be next for Moana and all the great new characters that were introduced in this film?
Hand: I mean, at this point we are still just releasing this film, but obviously we love these characters so much. The project really did come from a love of working on the first film. I love seeing Moana come together, so if there’s ever a chance to tell more stories, I’m super excited by that.
There’s lot of ideas that can continue forward. So whether or not we do that or when, we aren’t quite there yet, but we know that there’s a lot of possibilities and we love these characters so much.
David, I wanted to ask, because it did get shifted from a TV show to a movie, were there many ideas from the show that you were able to use here? Or was it not much carried over? What was the amount?
Derrick Jr.: No, like I said, from the very beginning, we had that same ending in mind. We were telling the same overarching story when it was a series that gave us the opportunity to really focus on some of these new characters.
You know, Moana gets a crew this time, which was important to us. To show that to go further and farther, she can’t do it alone. And so we got to understand, you know, how Loto is funny or how she really works. Same with Kele and Moni. There were things that didn’t work in the series, but they were mostly about our side characters, and it helped inform how we could use them for the feature.
Hand: I think we ultimately took a much better version of the story that we were telling in the series by a lot honestly. We work iteratively here, so we’re constantly screening what we have, and we learned what the story needed to be. And sort of all those pieces fell into place in a great way, especially when it became a feature. Dave and I both worked on features our entire career. So in a sense, it actually felt more natural to work in that capacity in the kind of storytelling you do there versus what was gonna be in the series. But we learned so much from that. We wouldn’t change how the process of what got us to where we were.
Jason, you mentioned the side characters and there there’s a delightful couple that are added that joined Moana on our adventure. How is it figuring out exactly how to introduce them all in the film? Because you do have less time than if it was a TV show. So how was it getting them introduced and really setting off the story in motion?
Hand: Yeah, it was so much fun to create, you know, Moni, Kele, Loto. Like you said, we had to sort of put them into their right screen space.
All the information and all the knowledge we learned from the series about delving deep into each one of those characters as we were developing the series really helped us and hone what was their sweet spot. Like, where were they most funny, where are they most interesting? How are they pushing on Moana from a change standpoint, which was a huge theme in our film?
So someone like Lotto was constantly wanting to change everything, even to the point of taking a whack at the mast in the middle of the actual stuff. The adventure is a crazy idea. Having Kele be someone who’s sort of stuck in his ways and doesn’t really want change, but is forced into this change.
Then you have Moni who’s a storyteller, who’s never really lived these stories. So each one of these things sort of were these little nuggets we learned, and then we put into the film. But it was an important idea to have Moana want to be a leader. So that’s idea of her being a leader with people that are on the canoe with her. It’s like a little microcosm of a leadership was really important from her story as well.
David, I wanted to ask about the post credit scene because it was such a delight to see Jemaine Clement back. How did that all come together? Because I got a real kick outta that.
Derrick Jr.: We all love Jemaine. We all love Tamatoa, and we played around with many different versions of him popping in from the very, very beginning. It was so fun to work with him. I mean, he he’s so relaxed and improvisational in how he comes up with his comedy. Yeah, no, it was an absolutely delight. But yeah, we were playing with that from the get go and we finally just kind of found the right formula in the right spot to slip it in.
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Jason, we get to see the Kakamora again in the film and we kind of learned they were misunderstood. How is it adding that extra depth to their portrayal? We have them join the party as well. That’s a really fun dynamic.
Hand: Yeah. I love them so much. They were something to really push to have in the film. And because I love them and I love those characters, we really did wanna sort of understand more about them if we’re gonna bring them back. We wanted it to be for a good reason and understand that it’s actually tied to this larger story of what’s going on. In a sense, they’re disconnected in the same way that Moana is.
So because community such a huge part of this and that idea of disconnection, it felt really natural to, to bring them along for that journey to get those pieces to work quite right was really challenging. But having a character join the crew was something we always wanted early on, and then we just had to figure out how and why it actually meant made sense and why it was important.
Because they’re just so fun to have. From the nonverbal side or the unintelligible language that they’re speaking that we don’t quite know, there’s a lot going on in there. So as we looked at it, we understood that they were suffering under the same thing. And so having Moana and their journey sort of unite and go forward was was so much fun. They’re just a blast to work with. I love those characters.
David, we’ve got the Moana live-action movie coming up. Do you hope we’ll get eventually a live-action version of 2?
Derrick Jr.: We are so grateful for how the world has embraced Moana, from the first film to the second film, seeing how people just love it. My son who’s seven years old wants to be strong like Moana. I feel like she appeals to everyone in such a powerful way. And the fact that our story, that Jason and I worked on the first film, that that story is going to live in a new way wiith new audiences is also exciting to me. So who knows? But I’m very grateful that people love this world that we’ve created and I can’t wait to see that one.
