Disney's Raya and the Last Dragon

Note that the box office numbers are just from theater ticket sales. And even with the lower take than Tom and Jerry, WB made some concessions to the exhibitors that Disney did not so Disney's percentage may be larger.

We actually don't know how well the $30 home access performed because Disney doesn't release those numbers. They didn't say for Mulan either. I did actually pay for Raya, but split it up with my family. That would have ended up being over $30 in tickets anyway if we were going to the theater. It's not for a single showing, it's added to your Disney+ account.

If the film is considered a failure, well, it wasn't exactly given the benefit of the doubt, so to speak. Gets released at a time period when theaters are still an extremely touch and go situation given vaccine distribution likely won't be complete until summer at the earliest, the remedy of avoiding the theater is stuck behind a paywall that makes any single viewer balk, and even those willing to go to the theaters have limited options because of Disney's actions causing a theater chain to balk at showing the film. And even on its own service, it wasn't the biggest source of hype this week, that was a series that the entire country was talking about, one whose demand was so high it crashed their servers as soon as the episode went up, and wasn't behind an exorbitant paywall. Given all those factors, Disney was setting this film up to fail. Not on purpose, but look at the constant delays to Black Widow as a contrast.

Of course, if studios and corporate heads are good for anything, it's twisting the facts to support a pre-held belief.

Hell, the reason that there aren't any theatrically released 2D animated films anymore is because some studio executives got into their heads that Toy Story and other 3D animated movies were doing so well was because they were 3D rather than the fact that they were well made movies. So when Home on the Range bombed executives took it as a sign that this assumption was true rather than the fact that it just wasn't a good movie.

IIRC, it was damage control for Mulan.

I saw the concept art for the dragons and why can't they have been the final product?

Sharing this article from the Atlantic, which nailed my feelings of "the Southeast Asian aspect of it felt like set dressing" and what other "cultural mishmash" works got right that this one didn't.

As a Filipino myself, it was nice to see stuff like arnis and houses on the water, and to hear jokes about mangoes and kulintang in the music. But I didn't feel like there was anything strongly "Southeast Asian" (as much as something can be, insert jokes about ASEAN ineffectualness here) in the themes or even the plot.

It's still a net positive representation-wise to be sure.

Watched it. With all the hype, I expected a more... tangible(?) representation. Instead all I get is that Indonesians are evil (Fang's houses have roofs based on Indonesian Rumah Gadang).

It's a decent movie, discounting the cultural kinks.

It doesn't feel exceptional honestly. Not a big fan of the characters having modern hairstyles too.

I just finished watching the movie. I thought it was quite good. :)

x4. Also Disney kinda trying to lump all South East Asia culture together. SEA is very diverse since so try to represented them as one single unify culture is not a wise move. And unlike China or Europe, there isn't really a central core to unify them with each other. Like Vietnam and Thailand while is next to each other are pretty distinct ( Thailand is more influenced by India while Vietnam is more influenced by China)

Edited by BattleRaizer on Mar 13th 2021 at 12:47:41 AM

Vietnam is actually very interesting, because as a country it basically has two different cultural spheres. North Vietnam sees more influence from Chinese and East Asian culture (take a wild guess how that happened ), while South Vietnam has a lot more distinctly South East Asian flavour (because of its close proximity to the other SEA countries, and also the lands that are now South and Central Vietnam used to belong to the Champa Empire before the Vietnamese expanded.)

Edited by Nightwire on Mar 12th 2021 at 10:20:39 AM

This is prolly way too complex for Disney's purview.

There's also a bit of French due to France colonizing it.

Supposedly my family tree actually has a bit of Vietnamese and French in it.

...I try not to think about how that happened.

Edited by M84 on Mar 13th 2021 at 2:30:36 AM

The French colonisation also started in the south, with the baguette eaters aiding Gia Long in his fight against the Tay Son dynasty in the north. The Mekong Delta in the early 19th century was a lot less "Vietnamese" then than it is now: there were still lots of Champas, Khmers and local indigenous tribes eking out a living in the face of increasing Vietnamese settlement (in fact, modern-day Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City was originally a Cambodian settlement named Prey Nokor). It was a Wild West kind of frontier in flux, which made it more receptive to French Catholic influence compared to the classically Confucian/Buddhist north.

I couldn't help but notice and feel like that the druun were very similar to the sha.

Which yeah, also directly led to the American occupation of the South after the French bailed. Because of how history went down, the South in general is just a lot more receptive to Western influences and cultures.

Also it felt like only the boat kid did amount to anything on the companion role.

The movie will be available April 2 on digital and May 18 on DVD and Blu Ray.

https://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/1166383-raya-and-the-last-dragon-blu-ray-dvd-digital-details-released

It will be also be available to all Disney+ subscribers June 4.

I was a little disappointed the short Us Again wasn't included in the early access. It will be on the Blu-ray, but I don't know when it will be otherwise available.

I watched it today and I must say I like it. The world is colourful and I enjoyed what little we saw from every kingdom. The animation was superb, especially the action scenes. The characters were likable and in the case of Raya Namaari and Sisu surprisingly complex. However the ending felt rushed and the message about trust...mishandled. The chiefs got away with a slap to the wrist and I was baffled that the story agreed with Namaari blaming Raya for Sisu's death. What even?

Yeah I still can't get over it. They literally framed the camera with Namaari's fingers ready to pull the trigger.

Edited by Ookamikun on Mar 21st 2021 at 8:47:41 PM

Seriously. I was incredibly confused at how Namaari blamed Raya for that, and it made her come off as incredibly Never My Fault for it. I was even more confused when Sisu agreed with Namaari. If you want to create moral ambiguity then maybe don't have Namaari go that far in it.

Really it doesn't make sense even after a second rewatch. The only time Sisu and Namaari had a scene prior was the escape and even then it was just them glaring at each other. The whole encounter afterwards was never ambiguous at all yet they made a point about it.

The film got an Honest Trailer.

I find it amusing how blatantly obvious Namaari was pulling a Never My Fault that pretty much everyone is calling her out on it. You'd think the scriptwriters would have noticed that.