'Moana' is Disney's latest reminder that nostalgia isn't enough

Disney remaking its animated classics as live-action movies has become as much a certainty as death and taxes. It's a big blue Will Smith genie we just can't put back in the bottle.

It's time to resign ourselves to this fact: Hope for the occasional cool origin-story prequel ("Cruella") or well-done retelling ("Cinderella"), and be OK when it's something that turns out aggressively fine ("The Little Mermaid"). Just as long as it isn't completely unnecessary and the new version, fingers crossed, kinda-sorta justifies its existence.

The new "Moana" misses that mark wildly, with a little coconut dude shooting blow darts.

From Disney's standpoint, it's a smart if not exactly creatively interesting gambit to remake, to an extremely faithful degree, the original Oscar-nominated 2016 musical adventure. It's one of the most rousing and exciting movies in the entire animated canon, and the combo of empowered teen Disney-princess-but-not-a-princess wayfinder Moana (voiced by Auliʻi Cravalho) and macho trickster demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) is electric perfection.

Watching them sail across the sea and deliver the heart of Te Fiti is an amazing odyssey. Watching their live-action counterparts run it back is a slog. Johnson reprising his character is actually one of the saving graces of the new "Moana," which teams him with Australian newcomer Catherine Lagaʻaia. The film is painfully slow until around the 45-minute mark when Maui cuts loose with his signature song-and-dance number "You're Welcome." Which is, ironically, partly animated.

Timing is part of the problem: It's been a mere 10 years since the first "Moana" was released. Movies such as last year's "Snow White" and "Lilo & Stitch" – which came out 88 and 23 years, respectively, after their originals – reintroduced their stories to a new generation of youngsters. The kids who grew up with the first "Moana" are now around Moana's age and they're not parents yet, so there's not that same passing down of a pop-culture favorite. Can we agree on a statute of limitations here? Let's say a movie needs to be drinking age to be rebooted.

It would be nice to see a value-added strategy with these things. Maybe a big stylistic swing, the way Tim Burton brought his dark quirkiness to "Dumbo." Or revamping a character's arc that sorely needs improvement, like Prince Eric in "Little Mermaid" and Jasmine in "Aladdin." Or just fleshing out a classic tale with new humanity, akin to "Mulan" and "Beauty and the Beast."

Simply putting The Rock in a questionable wig and getting Lin-Manuel Miranda to write a new song ("Along the Way") isn't going to cut it anymore, especially not at a time when audiences are flocking to original movies (like "Project Hail Mary" and "Obsession"). Even throwing a bunch of babbling Minions on a big screen isn't the easy home run it used to be.

Live-action versions of beloved cartoons are a cash grab. No one's being fooled here. But you should at least try not to look like a cash grab.

The one example that has done it best isn't a Disney jam. Like the OG "Moana," the 2010 "How to Train Your Dragon" is a wonderful animated fantasy that absolutely did not need a live-action redo. But it got one last year, and not only did it recapture the emotional awe and spectacle of the first film, it deepened the young characters' relationships with one another. It took something unnecessary and made it essential.

There's no stopping the Hollywood Remake Industrial Complex, and while it would be nice for Disney to tackle the bad animated movies – "Mars Needs Moms" and "The Black Cauldron" are sitting right there, guys – it's only a matter of time till we see new versions of "Hercules," "Tangled" and, undoubtedly, "Frozen."

Just be creative. The Mouse House was built on a foundation of imagination and ingenuity. It's not as if Walt and Co. were churning out "Snow White and the Eight Dwarves" or "102 Dalmations" back in the day. (The latter was, of course, a live-action sequel.) Look at Pixar: For every "Toy Story 5" and "Inside Out 2," the acclaimed studio also releases a film that's extraordinarily original (see: "Hoppers").

We live in a cynical world, so it's not hard to think that the wrong lessons will be learned from "Moana" and someone's already hatching the prequel where young Maui first gets his magical fishhook.

That, honestly, would not be welcome.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Moana' is Disney's latest reminder that nostalgia isn't enough

Reporting by Brian Truitt, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect

This story was originally published July 11, 2026 at 12:15 PM.