Hacker Cinema
Raya and the Last Dragon
2021 · Film · 107 min
Directed by Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada
AnimationActionAdventureFantasyFamily
Long ago, in the fantasy world of Kumandra, humans and dragons lived together in harmony. But when an evil force threatened the land, the dragons sacrificed themselves to save humanity. Now, 500 years later, that same evil has returned and it’s up to a lone warrior, Raya, to track down the legendary last dragon to restore the fractured land and its divided people.
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8 comments on Hacker News
I don’t know if that’s Disney’s problem, overall—Turning Red, Elemental, Encanto, and Raya and the last Dragon are all recent Disney movies with female leads who had interesting character arcs. Not all had love interests, but most the main character was too young. Raya could have, but she lives in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and anyway I don’t think the movie had room for another subplot.
> You can look at all the Disney movies for kids: all men are stupid, liars, stealer, and when you hit them it’s funny. On the opposite the feminine is often perfect, manage it all on the first try.
A few counterexamples: Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Zootopia, Raya and the Last Dragon, Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatoullie, Up, The Good Dinosaur, Onward, Soul, and Luca.
Yup. Even if you only look within a relatively small category of films one per year can miss a bunch. For example, consider the category of animated feature length films released after 2000 in the US, and pick one per year by picking the winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
In 2001 you'd miss Monsters, Inc. because of Shrek.
In 2002 you'd miss Lilo & Stitch because of Spirited Away.
In 2004 you'd miss Shrek 2 because of The Incredibles.
In 2005 you'd miss Howl's Moving Castle and Corpse Bride because of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
In 2008, no Kung Fu Panda because of WALL-E.
In 2009, no Coraline or Fantastic Mr. Fox because of Up.
In 2010 you'd miss How to Train Your Dragon because of Toy Story 3.
In 2011 no Kung Fu Panda 2 because of Rango.
In 2012 no Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, or Wreck-it Ralph because of Brave.
In 2014 no How to Train Your Dragon 2 because of Big Hero 6.
2015 no Shaun the Sheep Movie because of Inside Out.
2016 you miss Kubo and the Two Strings and Moana because of Zootopia.
2019 No How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World because of Toy Story 4.
2021 you'd miss Raya and the Last Dragon and Luca because of Encanto.
Most of the winners are good...but if you just put all the above mentioned films in a pool and asked most people to pick their top 14, most would have a lot of films on their list that were not among the winners of the aforementioned years.
I recently did a month of Disney+ when they sent me promo for first month for $2.99.
During that month I watched the Pixar movies Soul, Luca, and Turning Red (and rewatched Onward). I also watched the Disney movies Raya and the Last Dragon and Encanto. And Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs. Oh, and also the latest Dr. Strange and Thor Marvel movies, plus the Loki series.
Are you seriously claiming that all that was garbage?
Or they simply watched everything they were interested in watching on the first service so there was no point in keeping the subscription active. It's not like it takes any effort to cancel. They will come back to it later (it's easy at most to reactivate a dormant subscription) when it has accumulated enough new stuff.
That's what I've been doing for the streaming services that aren't bundled with something else I have for reasons other than video streaming (Prime Video because I have Amazon Prime, Hulu because I have Spotify, Peacock Premium because I have XFinity as my ISP, and Paramount+ because I have Walmart+).
For example a couple months before "Avengers: Endgame" was released I realized that I had to see it in theaters. My previous approach for Marvel movies of waiting until they showed up on some non-premium cable channel like FXX meant I was a couple years behind, and I realized there was no way I'd be able to avoid major spoilers while waiting to see Endgame that way. So I got a month of Netflix (they had all the Marvel movies back then) and caught up on Marvel, and a few other things, then cancelled.
Later I got Disney+ for a week (free trial) and caught up on Disney and Pixar animated movies (Coco, Incredibles 2, Toy Story 4, Frozen II, Onward), watched Captain Marvel, rewatched Endgame to see what I'd missed on my bathroom break when I saw it in theaters, and watched the Star Wars trilogy that starts with The Force Awakens, watched Rogue One, and cancelled.
Right now, a couple years later, I'm back on Disney+, because they sent me on offer for a month for $1.99. I've caught up again on Pixar (Soul, Luca, Turning Red), Disney animation (Ralph Breaks the Internet, Raya and the Last Dragon, Encanto), Marvel (Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, the Loki series), some Simpsons shorts, and am trying to decide if there is any new Star Wars that interests me. When the month is up I will rewatch Luca once or twice, and then cancel.
I'll be back on Netflix for a month probably next year to watch Lucifer.
I'll also probably at some point do a month of HBO Max for South Park.
I know a few dozen struggling screenwriters who are trying to get (a) their screenplays produced or (b) contracted to write scripts. Note that these are all female screenwriters with an actual track record in industry (in this case, episodic broadcast TV).
It really boils down to a few gatekeepers (mostly old white guys) giving the screenwriting jobs to the same idiots over and over again. For example, the guys who wrote Morbius have never written a successful film that made money back at the box office but already have 1 new screenplay in production and have been contracted to write several more; meanwhile the screenwriter of Crazy Rich Asians (which not only outgrossed Morbius but nearly grossed as much as Morbius' screenwriters' other films combined) has only been hired for a single film (Raya and the Last Dragon) since.
> For every Spider-Man: No Way Home, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, No Time to Die, Dune, or Fast & Furious 9 that brings in big bucks, there’s a Space Jam: A New Legacy, The Suicide Squad, Tenet, or Raya and the Last Dragon that fails to turn a single penny of profit in theaters.
Tenet made plenty of money in worldwide box office sales, not counting DVD/Blu-Ray or streaming: https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Tenet-(2020) "worldwide box office is 1.8 times production budget"
Raya (budget $100m) also made money in theaters alone (worldwide box office $116m) despite being released in March 2021. Phew, I was going to be sad for a moment that Raya was some kind of failure, as if being included in a list that contained the new Space Jam movie wasn't bad enough.
Whoever wrote this article doesn't seem to know what they are talking about.
Almost after 2 years of original release date, Disney+ is going to bring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt’s family-friendly movie Jungle Cruise to the theaters this summer. As like other movies Mulan, Raya, and The Last Dragon, Black Widow you can easily enjoy this film from home only. This is because Disney+ has officially announced that the movie is going to hit the streaming platform on the same day as theaters.