The Raya Experience

On March 5, Disney’s long-anticipated Raya and the Last Dragon was released in theaters and on Disney Plus. I’d been watching its trailers for months, and was intrigued by Disney’s ever-improving CGI and the fluffy, sassy dragon, Sisu, who appeared in every trailer. 

A month earlier, my mom had agreed to rent Disney Plus—but just for a month (we have an unofficial Disney Plus boycott in our house because Disney keeps raising park prices; we decided to take a hiatus from the boycott, because, well, it’s Disney). We happened to be renting Disney Plus through the movie’s release date of March 5. The day it came out, my sisters and I crowded around the TV, eyes wide—only to find that it had been released on “early access.” We could wait for a couple months or pay the extra $20 to watch it, in addition to the Disney Plus monthly fee we’d already paid. Wow, Disney. We found out it wouldn’t be free on Disney Plus until three months later, on June 4th, when our Disney boycott would be back in action. Great.

So, the day after, our mom took us to AMC, where we probably spent more than $20, but at least, my mom commented, the money didn’t all go to Disney. Side note: I don’t want you to think my family is obsessed with boycotting Disney or something. It’s a casual “boycott”. We also have a casual “boycott” against Amazon because it’s becoming such a monopolistic conglomerate. But it’s all talk, no action, because we order stuff off Amazon anyway. Occasionally, of course.

We went straight into the theater, no popcorn or soda--gotta take those COVID precautions—and sat down to a slew of commercials. There was a really cute short called “Us Again”, which played before the film. I recommend watching it. It tugged at my heartstrings, even if it did fall a little flat at the end. 

And finally, the film itself. In its opening scene, Raya evades several surprisingly predictable booby traps to reach a cavern that holds the legendary Dragon Heart, which is basically holding Kumandra, Raya’s world, together. My first thought was: “Whoooaaaa, Raya’s voice is waaay too low for a little girl’s.” Would it have killed Disney to audition a younger girl to play the younger Raya? Her voice doesn’t change at all between her looking like a ten-year-old, to an eighteen year-old. But aside from strange voice-over choices, the film had both its good and bad sides. 

What this movie lacked in complexity of plot, it made up for visually and in character development. I thought the movie was a masterpiece of animation. There were more textures flitting across the screen than I could count: if I’d touched the water on the screen, my hand would have come away soaked—not to mention, each character’s individual hairs changed shades in the light. The textures of soft and jagged fur, smooth stones, prickly leaves, and metal swords were all on point. Not that I’m an animation expert, but considering Disney’s audience, they succeeded in making Raya and the Last Dragon as aesthetically pleasing as possible. Well, I take that back. Not quite as much as Frozen. But it’s way up there.

Besides visuals, Raya’s character development is among the best parts of the movie. Raya’s twelve-year-old self, at the beginning of the film, is peppy and mischievous, determined in a light-hearted way. She looks up to her father, and is naive to all the darkness in the world. Then, six years later, after Sisu’s heart is destroyed by the other clans of Kumandra, and basically everyone, including her father, has been turned to stone by the purple Druun, she’s a very different person. Different, though still as serious and determined as ever; while her previous, mischievous joy has dissipated. She’s way bitter, which makes her determined in an almost dark way. She’s going solo now, and fills that cliche of keeping your heart closed off because “you’ve been hurt before.” Her complete seriousness did make her fall a little flat on the entertaining side, but it was an accurate characterization of what might happen to a person when they’ve lost everything. 

Apart from Raya, Sisu’s character, played by Awkwafina, also did actually get some layers throughout the movie. She's a very upbeat and bubbly dragon throughout the film, but we learn about halfway through that her siblings sacrificed their lives to save the world from the Druun, leaving her behind. She’s the guilty survivor, which means that her bubbly cover shows strength of character instead of naivety. She’s strong even through tragedy. 

Major Spoiler Alert! Stop here if you’d like to watch the film in the future.

Now, I do need to address a couple things around the movie’s plot. One plotline I simply can’t ignore in its “cringiness” is the resurrection of Sisu. She’s killed in a slightly emotional scene in which Namaari and Raya, longtime nemeses, try to make peace; except, it can’t be that easy in a Disney movie. The two women’s differences and mistrust of each other lead to a tense scene in which Raya ends up accidentally making Namaari shoot Sisu. Yep, Sisu dies. Bam. She’s dead. They mourn her death for a short time, and then other things go haywire and they have to move on. After they defeat the Druun by restoring Sisu’s heart, the dragons return. And Sisu, in a matter of 10 seconds, is resurrected from the dead. There wasn’t really any crying involved. Sisu isn’t confused about having been dead, and no one seems overjoyed or surprised for more than five seconds. The emotional reaction of the characters was so flat and nonexistent that I cringed for about ten minutes afterwards. The whole plotline of killing off Sisu casually, and then resurrecting her casually shortly afterwards, was so hasty that I just can’t imagine what those people at Disney were thinking when they wrote it. It unfortunately reminds me of the time in Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker when Rey comes back to life, she and Kylo kiss, and then Kylo keels over and dies. Casually. No one’s too concerned for too long. I mean, what? C’mon, Disney. We know you like happy endings, but a crappy happy ending is worse than one where something sad genuinely happens, and the characters grow from it.

Overall, this film just does a bad job of tugging our heartstrings, something Disney films typically blow everyone out of the water with. People cried their eyes out during Frozen, Moana, Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo—at least, I did. I have a low sadness tolerance. The lack of emotion in Raya and the Last Dragon was comparable that of Frozen 2 and to a few of Disney’s latest live-action films, such as Beauty and the Beast (2016), and particularly Mulan (2020), which were missing that token Disney emotion and heartstring-tugging spark. I’m seeing a pattern in Disney’s latest movies, but let’s hope they send out a film that really makes us tear up soon. I’ve got my eyes on a couple release dates—look out for Luca in June.

On the whole, I did have a good time watching the movie with my sisters and mom, so I’m glad to have spent the time watching Raya and the Last Dragon. While it lacked a lot plot-wise and emotionally, it was grounded in good character development and visuals. If you’d like to judge it for yourself, I’d recommend checking it out--after June 4th, of course, when it’ll be free on Disney Plus. Or just go to AMC. You can start a casual Disney Plus boycott too. 

by HALEY CREIGHTON