Moana

[Quixii]

Has anyone else seen this movie yet? I've been very excited and eagerly anticipating Moana for over a year now, so my family and I went to see it the night it came out.
One of the many reasons I was excited for it is the HAIR!

She's got longish hair, at hip-ish length. It's wavy/wurly. It's beautiful. And it moves like hair! [x (http://66.media.tumblr.com/7f324da130f2e3e73824d42402ed3311/tumblr_odkp2jXzrL1sfdmxzo3_250.gif)] [x (https://66.media.tumblr.com/c5b197b9addf3acaba5740c1a5038ecb/tumblr_ohdcnuULqT1sqyhgqo1_540.png)] [x (https://67.media.tumblr.com/c6825c0793177f0b30ac8bd871b95142/tumblr_ohbmr68Auo1st0dt8o4_250.gif)] When it gets wet, it looks like wet hair. [x (http://oceanianetwork.tumblr.com/post/153773922036/same)]

But one of the things I was most excited for, that we could tell even from the trailers, is that she puts it in a bun! When she's about to do something that requires her effort and concentration, she makes sure her hair is up and out of the way. It's not elaborately putting her hair into an updo, or suddenly becoming a stern librarian. She just pops it up in true LHC-style timing. I am so excited to see that in a movie! [x (http://67.media.tumblr.com/006398b397fd4db537de1240f3fc0173/tumblr_odkp2jXzrL1sfdmxzo1_250.gif)] [x (http://66.media.tumblr.com/0847bd74ae51fbf18f4660c7ce539962/tumblr_odkp2jXzrL1sfdmxzo2_250.gif)]

And while I just talked about Moana's hair a bunch, Maui's hair is also amazing! I love that it was still dark and long (for a mainstream media guy), but it was also different than Moana's. It was a bit curlier, and moved a bit differently. [x (http://wdwnt.com/wp-content/uploads/Maui2-600x249.jpg)] [x (http://yournumberonetrashphan.tumblr.com/post/153781275953/maui-demigod-of-wind-and-sea)]
And, excitingly for me, he also put it up in a bun when he needed it out of the way! [x (https://67.media.tumblr.com/7460fc632a5effc4c0aa6b716e13888b/tumblr_ogul3xK2sH1v4gqe1o1_540.png)]

So yeah, I'm very excited about Moana and the hair in Moana. :)

[Wavelength]

Wow, that's the best animated hair I've seen yet! Love that there's a distinct difference in movement between wet and dry. How does she secure her bun?

[teal]

I wonder whether Disney worked with the Pixar team on the hair at all. Pixar overhauled their hair rendering engine to handle Merida's hair in Brave (and that of Angus the horse, and the bears, too, though those get less attention... look for it next time! :D)

[reilly0167]

Gotta love the imagin "ears" (Disney term teehee)

[Doom]

The contrast between the realistic hair and the uncanny valley-ish faces is disturbing. If they can model and animate hair that well, why won't they do it with the faces? It should be even easier!
BTW, you know what's lame? In Italy, the title of the movie is "Oceania" and Moana is named Vaiana, because otherwise someone (but is anyone really that dumb?) might believe the movie to be about the late Italian porn actress Moana Pozzi.

[Rebeccalaurenxx]

The contrast between the realistic hair and the uncanny valley-ish faces is disturbing. If they can model and animate hair that well, why won't they do it with the faces? It should be even easier!
BTW, you know what's lame? In Italy, the title of the movie is "Oceania" and Moana is named Vaiana, because otherwise someone (but is anyone really that dumb?) might believe the movie to be about the late Italian porn actress Moana Pozzi.

Thats so weird.


I could not stop thinking about the hair during the movie to be honest. I noticed everything you mentioned, I thought I was weird for paying so much attention to the hair, but I guess TLHC has affected us all.... lol

[Wavelength]

The contrast between the realistic hair and the uncanny valley-ish faces is disturbing. If they can model and animate hair that well, why won't they do it with the faces? It should be even easier!


The faces aren't in Uncanny Valley territory for me at all, but then again I'm used to playing a lot of different video games with different art styles. This art style is pretty similar to others I've seen. Specifically I'm thinking of Civilization VI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7bqO4pYAZU) (check out Cleopatra at around 1:09).

[Cherrys]

The first time I watched the trailer I thought something was "off" about her hair, and now I realize it's just so different from what I'm used to seeing from animated films. I agree with Doom, the faces are incredibly disturbing, they look like something from Wallace & Grommet (sp?), which is super jarring next to the hyper detail of everything else in the world.

[FennFire911]

What are uncanny valley faces?

[Cherrys]

What are uncanny valley faces?

The Uncanny Valley is this idea that if something is like a person but not quite (ventriloquist dummies, puppets, statues) it's in the uncanny valley, i.e. super creepy. Like, how movies sometimes have portraits' eyes moving, because they're almost human, but somehow not.

So, the faces of Moana's characters look just a tad bit "off" (i.e. unrealistic to the true human form) and it's creepy.

Sorry, that was long, but that's how I interpreted the phrase.

[Quixii]

Huh, I don't find the animation uncanny valley-ish at all. Maybe I've just been raised around enough animation that it doesn't register as much to me.

FennFire911, the uncanny valley (https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&q=uncanny+valley&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6pOjc4MzQAhUIKGMKHRiHB-wQ7xYIGigA&biw=1920&bih=945) is essentially a phenomenon where the thing you see is so close to life-like, but not quite close enough, that it weirds you out. If it looks like actual life, good, if it looks clearly fake, good, but that awkward place in between, some people find disturbing.

[FennFire911]

Ooohhhh gotcha. I didn't know there was a name for that. I just thought Disney faces are caricaturized. The features are exagerated.
Yea I don't know why they did that with the faces but had hyper-realistic hair. I didn't know it was already out. Time to head to the movies!

[Wavelength]

The first time I watched the trailer I thought something was "off" about her hair, and now I realize it's just so different from what I'm used to seeing from animated films. I agree with Doom, the faces are incredibly disturbing, they look like something from Wallace & Grommet (sp?), which is super jarring next to the hyper detail of everything else in the world.

You must've hated Shrek, then. I'd say Moana's art style is a lot closer to that than Wallace & Gromit.

[littlestarface]

You must've hated Shrek, then. I'd say Moana's art style is a lot closer to that than Wallace & Gromit.

That must look odd, I love shrek but for a hawaiin type movie with real people I dunno.

[Quixii]

Oh, I was also going to say that I'm really into how they've been animating hair lately, and how that's progressed.
One of the first films I really noticed that with is How to Train Your Dragon. There were all sorts of animation/art details that I was just blown away by, and one of the things I loved was Hiccup's hair. It had movement, and when one of the other characters put some braids in his hair, the braids remained for the duration of the movie, and had their own movement.
I went to a panel at a convention on Big Hero 6, and one of the things they talked about is how they've changed the animation of hair. They showed us different things they tried with Hiro's hair, how they finally went with the different spikes and how they had to spend a lot of time making sure each spike moved independently but also with the others. It was so cool!
And of course, Merida's hair in Brave. One of the first times we really got to see animated curls, and it was very exciting.
I'll always have a soft spot for Tangled/Rapunzel, but I think because Rapunzel has such unrealistic amounts of hair, they didn't get to do such cool things with the realistic and interesting movement of her hair. Plus, it's fun seeing how the hair gets handled in all these movies where the hair is just a minor detail, that never actually gets attention called to it.

[Entangled]

The hair in this movie seems to have skyrocketed on realism since Brave, Tangled, and Frozen. It's amazing.

I don't think I can say any of Disney's big movies are uncanny valley territory for me. (Some of pixar's early films can get close, but they were smart to focus on non-human characters.) The characters are not realistic. Their eyes, noses, or chins are too big, and their expressions too exaggerated. I could only call some of the "good guy" male characters slightly realistic, and even then there'a quite a bit of exaggeration. The Polar Express, on the other hand...
example 1 (http://www.cdn.sciencebuddies.org/Files/6966/5/animated-3Dboy.jpg)
example 2 (http://www.web2carz.com/images/articles/201305/the_polar_express_1368220582_300x200.jpg)
example 3 (http://cdn2.sbnation.com/imported_assets/845498/The-Polar-Express.jpg)

[Robot Ninja]

I agree that the cartoonish faces and bodies look kind of odd with hyper-realistic hair. Whereas Merida, Rapunzel, and the Frozen characters had more cartoonish hair. It wasn't as impressive from an animation standpoint, but it matched the rest of the characters' design better.

Still, the hair in those gifs is really impressive and beautifully done. Although the cynic in me says they had them wear it in buns not because it's practical for the characters to do so, but because it's easier to animate.

[truepeacenik]

The first time I watched the trailer I thought something was "off" about her hair, and now I realize it's just so different from what I'm used to seeing from animated films. I agree with Doom, the faces are incredibly disturbing, they look like something from Wallace & Grommet (sp?), which is super jarring next to the hyper detail of everything else in the world.
Aardman's plasticine people and animals are so unreal while the world is much more real, down to the boxes in the trash.
I'm a Wallace and Grommit fan, but Creature Comforts is my fave.

[Lunnafindel]

Oh my god I LOVED Moana! I've been listening to the music on repeat ever since I watched it. God, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Disney are a dream team...

But on the hair front, yes! Moana was great for hair! My favorite part was how their hair realistically got in their faces ...and then they DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT and put it in a bun! I think that's the first time I've seen that in a movie, and it's so refreshing! I assume it was something like a high nautilus bun, since it behaved just like my nautilus buns behave, i.e. held for a couple minutes on its own and then fell out because they forgot to pack a hair fork in their boat (what noobs).

Here's a fun thing about hair in Moana I just learned:

[Maoi's] original design was actually much shorter and, crucially, bald. Trust member and Tahitian cultural practitioner Hinano Murphy recalls visiting the studio in L.A., seeing the sketch and saying, “We have to put more hair on Maui’s head, because it’s very important. The mana is in the hair, the power of the demigod. It looked just like he was naked. For us, it was really important.”

Animators quickly got to work, piling on more and more hair. “Not enough!” Murphy recalls saying—until finally Maui had a full head of curls, inspired by Polynesian football players like Troy Polamalu.The whole Trust was “bursting laughing,” as Murphy puts it, they were so pleased with the results. Though there was some pushback (C.G.I. animation of hair is tricky, and some feared it would be “a technological burden to the whole movie”), John Musker says they immediately scrapped the original bald design they had been working with for a year.
- from This Article in Vanity Fair (http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/moana-oceanic-trust-disney-controversy-pacific-islanders-polynesia)

I love the idea of them "piling on more and more hair" :silly:

[littlestarface]

Just seen the trailer after this thread n I like how her hair moves like real wind is blowing on it, I have a feeling my nieces are now gonna say to me "you have moana hair" uh oh. I'd rather have jasmines hair tho.

[Quixii]

Oh my god I LOVED Moana! I've been listening to the music on repeat ever since I watched it. God, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Disney are a dream team...

But on the hair front, yes! Moana was great for hair! My favorite part was how their hair realistically got in their faces ...and then they DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT and put it in a bun! I think that's the first time I've seen that in a movie, and it's so refreshing! I assume it was something like a high nautilus bun, since it behaved just like my nautilus buns behave, i.e. held for a couple minutes on its own and then fell out because they forgot to pack a hair fork in their boat (what noobs).

Here's a fun thing about hair in Moana I just learned:

- from This Article in Vanity Fair (http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/moana-oceanic-trust-disney-controversy-pacific-islanders-polynesia)

I love the idea of them "piling on more and more hair" :silly:

Yess, I was so excited about LMM and Disney working together! Leading up to Moana's release, it felt like every new detail I learned made it sound even better than before. Lin's work was instantly recognizable, and, in my opinion, fantastic.

And that's very cool! I'm glad they gave Maui hair. :)

[FennFire911]

Just wanted to add that I lived in Hawaii for a few years as a kid, and hair is a really big deal there. There was a girl in my 7th grade home room who had never cut her hair and it was to her ankles, just shy of dragging the ground. Non Pacific Islanders would generally maintain long hair by most standards, but I think the Pacific Island girls (of Hawaiian, Samoan, Tahitian descent, etc) simply didn't cut their hair.
And they very much did bun and tie their hair with no toys. They would wrap and tuck buns in such a fashion that it would stay on its own. Probably wouldn't stay put for action scenes like what's probably in this movie, but they could go about daily lives with their hair up and nothing in it. They would also sometimes tie the length in a square knot on their back for a low pony tail type of control when they didn't want their hair all the way up.
I try these things and as soon as I let go my hair goes flying back out of the 'do lol But those girls have a texture that allows them to style their hair and expect it to generally stay put.
Also, their hair had the potential to be curly and "wild." I guess this is why I don't see people as "needing" to straighten their hair. I got 3 years of exposure to wild curls looking amazing, and not only accepted in the community, but appreciated. Heaven help the person who tells a Pacific Islander she *should* straighten her hair. I'll just go get the popcorn and sit back and watch a nosy little critic get schooled on minding their own business.

[Silverbleed]

I'd already watch it just for the hair :cool:
It's what also got me interested in Brave. I'm really happy to see the attention to hair lately, especially the creators trying out new textures. I can totally imagine it's difficult to work with, but it seems the technology is finally here c:

And it really does look wet (https://66.media.tumblr.com/ceaf131af58df89303a30a4a4c00d146/tumblr_ohd5go93FI1v9oda2o1_400.gif) - I love it (https://67.media.tumblr.com/4a76f204ad0d30ae9f0eaadbd93a8ab7/tumblr_ohd5go93FI1v9oda2o2_400.gif) xD

Really looking forward to seeing it c:

[EbonyCurls]

I love her hair, especially the color of it and the texture and thickness. If I daresay I would have Moana hair if only my hair were thicker and longer lol. So close yet so far :( I adore Polynesian hair, on both men and women. I love that it's worn down and long and wild. I'm just amazed at how or why it doesn't seem to tangle. When I brush or comb my hair out it's a similar texture, but if I don't put it up minutes after it just gets tangly and static-y.

Regarding the animation, I agree the hair is beautiful but I am kind of distracted by how shiny it is. It looks like Moana is heavy handed with the cones. I think it would look more natural if it had more of a honed look.

[LongCurlyTress]

http://www.instyle.co.uk/celebrity/news/moana-the-new-polynesian-disney-princess

Woot woot woot!! Yeah for long curly hair in a movie!! Yours is still prettier Quixii!! :cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fRdwJch6uo

And the real actress' hair!! ;)

[mizukitty]

I loved her hair in this movie. First off, the animation was excellent, they captured it amazingly when it was wet, dry, bunned, down and wavy. I loved it so much! I really like his hair as well, the hair type differences were very cool to see.

[Quixii]

There's a brief little bit in this video (https://youtu.be/iuJlvisbnqU?t=16m6s) about her hair. :)

[hypersensitive]

Oooh! I haven't seen the movie yet but I'm excited now that you guys are up talking the hair aspect! I adore the realistic movement and texture of her hair already!

[mermaid lullaby]

I didn't know it was out either! I think after class ends I will check it out :)

[kinnyuu]

Oh my gosh, is that you in your signature??? Look at that beautiful hair!

[Serimel]

Woaah :heartbeat I really have to check this one out, hadn't even heard about this movie before seeing this thread. Checked some trailers and loving the graphics.

[catmashie]

Moana seems like a super good movie! The graphics look nice and I think the story is interesting too. Also her hair is so so so pretty. I can only wish to have that mane!

[Zebra Fish]

Wohhoooo can't wait to see it now :D

[mermaid lullaby]

I just saw it last night!

I liked it better than Frozen hands down! Probably my most favorite out of this Disney era.

[Entangled]

You know you're a longhair when...

You correct Maui in your head when he calls Moana curly-haired. Looks much more like wavy to me.

One thing I really enjoyed about Disney's recent princess movies is how they try to give a strong sense of setting and culture. (I didn't like the "not a princess" comments, though, because they forcibly jerked me out of the movie.)

[calmyogi]

Just wanted to add that I lived in Hawaii for a few years as a kid, and hair is a really big deal there. There was a girl in my 7th grade home room who had never cut her hair and it was to her ankles, just shy of dragging the ground. Non Pacific Islanders would generally maintain long hair by most standards, but I think the Pacific Island girls (of Hawaiian, Samoan, Tahitian descent, etc) simply didn't cut their hair.
And they very much did bun and tie their hair with no toys. They would wrap and tuck buns in such a fashion that it would stay on its own. Probably wouldn't stay put for action scenes like what's probably in this movie, but they could go about daily lives with their hair up and nothing in it. They would also sometimes tie the length in a square knot on their back for a low pony tail type of control when they didn't want their hair all the way up.
I try these things and as soon as I let go my hair goes flying back out of the 'do lol But those girls have a texture that allows them to style their hair and expect it to generally stay put.
Also, their hair had the potential to be curly and "wild." I guess this is why I don't see people as "needing" to straighten their hair. I got 3 years of exposure to wild curls looking amazing, and not only accepted in the community, but appreciated. Heaven help the person who tells a Pacific Islander she *should* straighten her hair. I'll just go get the popcorn and sit back and watch a nosy little critic get schooled on minding their own business.

I was going to add this as well. I worked with quite a few people from the pacific islands at one job I had. Hair is a big deal to them and as I was reading the coments about how much detail was added to the hair, but not to the faces this is the first thing I thought of.

[Zebra Fish]

So it is called Vaiana here... The most I found is this:

"The picture will be titled Vaiana in many European countries following a trademark conflict. The picture will be titled Oceania in Italy, while the name of the protagonist will be Vaiana in lieu of Moana, presumably to avoid confusion with an Italian porn star of the same name, Moana Pozzi."

I don't like when they change names.