Trivia / Raya and the Last Dragon

• Acclaimed Flop: Critics praised the film, which sits at a 93% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with over 300 reviews, but it generally did poorly domestically and overseas both in terms of theaters and streaming. Fittingly, it did do well in southeast Asia. Its worldwide box office total made approximately around half of its total budget. The cause of this is largely speculated to be its release date in early 2021, which was still in the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
• Actor-Shared Background:
  • Raya is voiced by Vietnamese American actor Kelly Marie Tran. She was originally going to be voiced by Cassie Steele, who is half Filipina.
  • Izaac Wang is Laotian/Chinese American.
  • Thalia Tran is Vietnamese American.
  • Patti Harrison is half Vietnamese from her mother.
  • Ross Butler is half Malaysian from his mother.
  • François Chau is Cambodian American.
• All-Star Cast: The cast includes Kelly Marie Tran, Awkwafina, Daniel Dae Kim, Sandra Oh, Gemma Chan, Benedict Wong, Ross Butler, and of course, Alan Tudyk.
• Delayed Release Tie-In: The toys started showing up in stores at the end of January 2021 (around the time the final trailer was released), reflecting the fact that they were manufactured to be ready for November 2020.
• Denial of Digital Distribution: Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, Raya and the Last Dragon was simultaneously released in cinemas and Disney+. However, at the time of its release, Disney+ had yet to receive a launch date for Southeast Asian countries (the only exception being Singapore and Indonesia). As a result, this ironically meant Raya and the Last Dragon could not be legally seen by Southeast Asian audiences^note which also includes Indonesia because Raya and the Last Dragon is only available with Disney+'s Premier Access before June 4, and Disney+ Hotstar in Indonesia doesn't include the premium service if one ruled out the option of visiting a movie theatre during a viral pandemic. Presumably, though, Raya will be available for streaming on Disney+ once the app finally launches there.
• Fake American: For consistency with the rest of the cast, the British Gemma Chan and Benedict Wong voice Namaari and Tong, respectively, with American accents. Averted with Namaari's young actress, Jona Xiao who is American.
• Fake Nationality: The film is full of actors primarily of East Asian descent (apart from Alan Tudyk) playing characters from a culture based on Southeast Asia.
• God Never Said That: Although Raya is a princess, she isn't considered a part of the Disney Princess lineup. The only people claiming her to be so are crew members calling her one tongue-in-cheek (such as KZ Tandingan) or the news sites mistaking her for such. However, as of August 19, 2022, Raya actually is now part of the lineup.
• No Dub for You: Asian language dubs were initially unavailable on Disney+ in the United States. However, on June 4, 2021, Indonesian, Malay, Thai and Vietnamese dubs were added. Additional Asian language dubs (Cantonese Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese Mandarin) were added a few months later.
• The Other Marty: Cassie Steele was originally announced to be voicing Raya. In August 2020, it was announced that Kelly Marie Tran took over the role.
• Production Posse: Adele Lim wrote for Crazy Rich Asians, which Awkwafina and Gemma Chan both starred in.
• Promoted Fangirl:
  • Kelly Marie Tran grew up with Mulan and saw both her and her voice actress Ming-Na Wen as role models for Asian women. Now, she voices another Asian Disney warrior princess, and in the link, Wen personally gives Tran her congratulations.
  • Thalia Tran was inspired by Crazy Rich Asians' Asian representation, and now she gets to be a main character in an animated Disney movie written by the movie's writer and stars alongside some of the movie's cast.
• Release Date Change: The movie was originally set to release on November 20, 2020, before COVID-19-related complications pushed the movie back four months to March 12, 2021. Later, the movie was pushed up a week to March 5, 2021, this time coming out in theaters and Disney+ on the same day, becoming the service’s second Premier Access title.
• Same Voice Their Entire Life: Kelly Marie Tran voices Raya all throughout the movie, both as an adult and as a 12-year-old.
• Screwed by the Network:
  • The film's theatrical rollout in the United States was strangled by Disney's refusal to budge on terms with theater chains, demanding they get the same treatment as always despite having made Raya available on Disney+ Premier Access. This was in stark contrast to Warner Bros., which offered its HBO Max Same-Day Premieres releases to theaters at cheaper rates than usual. As a result, the #2 and #3 theater chains in the nation, Regal and Cinemark, blacklisted the film, severely denting its theatrical chances and resulting in it underperforming the prior week's Tom & Jerry. Presumably following negotiations, the film finally launched at those chains on May 7th, over two months later.
  • The film also had a badly strained release in Latin America, and in particular Mexico, which contributed to Raya also underperforming there; Cinépolis, the #1 theater chain in the country, refused to exhibit the film for largely the same reasons as in the U.S. above. It didn't help that its rival chain Cinemex had its theaters temporarily closed due to financial difficulties at the time.
• Shipper on Set: Kelly Marie Tran welcomes headcanons about Raya being LGBT, also believing that Raya is LGBT herself and that Raya and Namaari's relationship has a romantic subtext to it. She's even joked that she was probably the first person to ship them.
  Tran: I think if you're a person watching this movie and you see representation that feels real and authentic to you, then it's real and authentic. I think it might get me in trouble for saying that, but whatever.
• Troubled Production: Due to the Covid-19 pandemic shutting down non-essential businesses like recording studios, the bulk of the film's dialogue had to be recorded remotely by each actor in their own homes. Setups included an isolation tent (used by Awkwafina), a makeshift sound booth constructed by her boyfriend (Kelly Marie Tran), and the old rookie voice actor's trick of recording in the closet (most of the other cast members). Producer Osnat Shurer believes that Raya is the largest-scale film recorded remotely to date.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Canadian Filipina actor Cassie Steele (Degrassi: The Next Generation) was the original voice of Raya, but it was announced in late August 2020 that she would be replaced by Kelly Marie Tran. Producer Osnat Shurer cites "there was a change in Raya's story" that necessitated the recasting.
  • It's possible that this pitch described as John Pomeroy (and this) eventually evolved into Raya and the Last Dragon. A traditionally animated film, the story would've been an urban fantasy about an Asian teenage girl named Ash discovering the existence of dragons and following up on someone's research about them in awe of her new fascination, and ends up befriending Qinlong. The main setting seems to be the Himalayas and a tropical island. Pomeroy thinks that this would have been a direct-to-DVD movie.
  • Prior to the film's title and synopsis reveal at D23 2019, it was said that the movie would be titled Dragon Empire and the screenplay was going to be written by Kiel Murray (Cars, Cars 3). Rumors circulated that the story would be about Jan-nin (who Jamie Chung was in the talks to voice), her 900 year old mentor (and comic relief) Bolin, and a dragon named Katsu.
  • Raya takes the release date place of Gigantic, a planned Disney Animated Canon adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk set during the Age of Discovery in Spain, which was scrapped due to a Troubled Production.^note It got a reference in Zootopia, however.
  • According to an interview with the directors in Empire Magazine, the original cut of the movie had "broken bones and stuff", but had to be removed as it possibly risked the film getting an R-rating for violence, though this might've been tongue-in-cheek.
  • Early in development, Namaari was a more conventional Disney villain and would have been the Big Bad controlling the Druun. But as the filmmakers decided to make her more nuanced and sympathetic, they accordingly chose to make the Druun an overwhelming force with no agenda.
  • For some time the filmmakers were uncertain if Sisu and the other dragons would be resurrected in the end or Killed Off for Real. But producer Osnat Shurer finally insisted that they needed a traditional Disney ending that "made your heart sing," and that because Raya and the others had saved the world themselves, they had earned the right to have the dragons back.
  • There is a message on the credits thanking the whole crew for working on the film in spite of the unprecedented circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. It originally contained a cheeky rib at co-director Don Hall, who was notorious for having the worst time working with remote tech, frequently breaking up, accidentally muting himself, etc. However, the line "that means you, Don" was cut at the advice of Disney legal, and replaced with the more general "dude, you're still on mute."

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