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Raya the last dragon movie movie#
The movie is set in the fantasy world of Kumandra, where more than 500 years ago, humans lived in harmony with each other and also with mystical dragons who created rain and water for the humans. RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON is an exciting, touching, funny fantasy adventure with a redemptive, moral premise, but it has a strong Non-Christian, pagan worldview about mystical dragons. Raya and the Last Dragon is out on DVD and Blu-Ray on May 18.RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON is an animated fantasy adventure from Disney about a young woman warrior who must track down the legendary last dragon to restore her fractured land and its divided people and save them from an evil force. “When we saw our character designers’ first take on Namaari, we all went, Oh my God, she’s so cool,” laughs Shurer. In contrast, the more militaristic Fang, known for its fearsome warriors, is all sharp lines and angles, and Namraari’s design has edges to match - not to mention a kick-ass haircut. “In the world of Heart, if you look at the design, everything is circular and round like a drop, because they’re so connected to the dragon. While they are both athletic and good fighters, there were some key differences about their upbringing that set them apart. When it came to Raya and Namaari’s physical designs, they also looked at the different environmental factors the girls were raised in, and designed them specifically to be foils.
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The Raya team ended up looking at their own relationships and people they knew to help them carve out the bonds in the movie. “There are great action characters, but most of the female action heroes don’t have a sense of humor, are not necessarily warm, not necessarily as flawed, with as big a journey ,” explains Shurer. (A faux girl-power scene where the lady heroes briefly pose together doesn’t count.) Even though many shows for young girls showcase deep bonds between female characters, that rarely translates to the big screen, with very few exceptions. It’s especially rare to see multiple female characters interact in any weighty way. Looking at action films - for instance, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which falls within Disney’s own catalogue - it’s rare to see more than one female character on screen at a time. “I remember some of us sitting in the story room in the early days and we kept thinking, Well, what are examples that we can look to in mainstream films with the central relationship as a friendship between two female characters?” producer Osnat Shurer tells Polygon.
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In the early days of production, they looked back at cinematic history, and quickly became stumped. The filmmakers behind Raya found that out when they were looking for past characters and relationships to draw upon. The lack of relationships between women in film isn’t just a Disney-movie problem: Lately, Disney is actually doing better than the rest of the film industry in that regard. The sequel rectifies that somewhat, but Frozen 2 is still the exception, not the norm. Even Frozen (which is arguably not a Disney princess movie, but its own separate franchise, but I’m counting it here for argument’s sake) separates sisters Anna and Elsa for the majority of the movie. Somehow, that’s pretty damn rare.Įven though Disney has an extensive pantheon of princess movies, few of them contain significant relationships between two female characters. There are three women at the center of Raya and the Last Dragon: warrior Raya (Kelly Marie Tran), smart-talking dragon Sisu (Awkwafina), and fearsome rival Namaari (Gemma Chan), and they all have meaningful relationships with each other. Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon is notable not just for being Disney’s first film with a Southeast Asian lead character, but also for being one of the few Disney films with more than one female lead.