Less than a decade after the original animated Moana hit theaters, Disney has released the first real trailer for its upcoming live-action remake, and folks, it doesn’t look great.
On November 17, Disney released the first official teaser trailer for its live-action remake of Moana. Starring Catherine Lagaʻaia as the titular Moana and Dwayne Johnson reprising his role as demigod Maui, the remake appears to be a nearly shot-for-shot recreation of the original 2016 animated movie. Here’s the trailer:
I know this isn’t an original complaint, but it continues to be wild how many of these live-action Disney remakes barely look like live-action films at all. Moana might not be completely CG like the “live-action” Lion King remake, but boy howdy does a lot of this movie look like an Unreal Engine fan-game based on the original movie and not a film starring real people in real places. And when we do see real people, they almost look out of place.
One scene in particular, involving Maui jumping off a cliff, looks so artificial and crappy that if you showed that to me without any context and said it was created by some AI tool, I’d probably believe you. And while some shots, like the one involving a whale and some boats, look better, I’m still not convinced this won’t be a mess. And making the chicken fully CG is boring and strange. Give me a real chicken, damn it!
It was around this time last year that Disney fully revealed the Snow White remake and its horrific-looking dwarves. That movie ended up being a very expensive flop for the Mickey Mouse company, reportedly leading to at least one live-action film being shelved. However, this year’s Lilo & Stitch remake was a massive hit for Disney, so I don’t expect the company to stop plundering its treasure trove of famous animated movies and turning them into live-action slop anytime soon. We’ll see how well this new version of Moana does at the box office when it arrives in theaters on July 10, 2026.
