Disney+ Disney's Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) (1 Viewer)

[Sam Favate]

And despite buying the access on D+, I have every intention of getting this on 4K Blu-ray. Not doing so would leave a gaping hole in my Disney animation collection. Plus, can you imagine this in 4K? (Yes, I know D+ is in 4k and I watched it through a 4K Apple TV device on a 4K TV. I still maintain that the physical 4K disc will look better.)

 

[Jake Lipson]

And despite buying the access on D+, I have every intention of getting this on 4K Blu-ray. Not doing so would leave a gaping hole in my Disney animation collection

I absolutely intend to buy the disc as well. Disney+ is great and I'm glad I have it, but there is a level of permanence with physical media that you just don't get with streaming content. I view the premier access window as comparable to the theatrical one, and the Blu-ray will be a separate purchase. I would probably have spent more than $30 to see this in theaters multiple times if it wasn't released during COVID and still bought the Blu-ray after that.

I also bought Onward even though it was rushed onto Disney+ in advance of its disc release, and have Soul pre-ordered with Best Buy despite it being available on Disney+ as well.

I hope that the short Us Again will accompany Raya on Blu-ray as it does theatrically. Annoyingly, Disney decided not to include it with Premier Access purchases and will put it on Disney+ in June. So if you see the movie in theaters, you get more content than those paying a $30 surcharge to see it at home now. That feels screwy to me. But the short absolutely should accompany the film's physical media release in my opinion. Fingers crossed.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I forgot that.it was a Disney Animation production and said Pixar without checking if I was guessing right.

Sidebar -- and I don't mean this to sound like I'm picking on you -- but a genuine question. Even without looking it up, what would make you associate Moana with a Pixar production? They don't do princess musicals over there, which are clearly associated with the Disney Animation brand. Moana is a textbook Disney film.

 

[Edwin-S]

Sidebar -- and I don't mean this to sound like I'm picking on you -- but a genuine question. Even without looking it up, what would make you associate Moana with a Pixar production? They don't do princess musicals over there, which are clearly associated with the Disney Animation brand. Moana is a textbook Disney film.

I really don't consider "Moana" to be a "Princess" film in the traditional Disney sense. Her growth through the film prepares her to eventually take over as the "Chieftain". Nobody ever refers to her as a "Princess" in the film, and her family, although being the titular rulers are not royalty in any traditionally Western sense of the word. Her father isn't a Kung and her Mother isn't a Queen; therefore, she isn't a Princess in any traditional sense. If she is referred to as a Princess by Disney then it is only to ram her into that lowest common denominator classification for marketing purposes.

As far as mistakenly thinking of it as a Pixar flick, I chalk that up to Pixar more likely to do a film that uses a cast and subject matter that Disney animation normally wouldn't do. "Moana" being a musical should have been my biggest clue that it was a DA product; however, I just honestly forgot that it was a DA production.

I, honestly, do not pay all that much attention to following which production house does these films. CG animated pictures all look similar to me, especially DA and Pixar ones, since they are of uniformly high quality visually, so I simply just screwed up calling "Moana" a Pixar film, because of a terrible memory.

The homogeneity of the textures in CG films is why I miss Disney's 2D animation.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I watched Raya again tonight.

Because my first viewing was on Friday morning, my access would have expired by now if this was a 48-hour PVOD rental like the other studios have been doing during the pandemic. I like that I don't have to give up access to the movie. If other studios had a similar arrangement, I might be more willing to pluck down money for "premium theatrical" titles during the pandemic.

I liked it a great deal the first time, but this is a film that gets better with the second viewing. The worldbuilding is so rich here that there is a lot to take in, both narratively and in terms of fine details in the animation, and you can notice new details in a rewatch. Plus, it is a pure pleasure to spend time with these characters. I look forward to revisiting it again soon.

In case others didn't notice it, Disney also added two brief behind-the-scenes featurettes to the "extras" tab on Disney+. One is a featurette about a research trip the filmmakers took at the start of the movie and the other is about the process of making the movie while working from home during the pandemic. They're only a few minutes each, and I hope the eventual Blu-ray will have more. But they're still cool to see if you're a fan of the movie.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

I went to see this in IMAX last night. The opening short, Us Again was a lot of fun. I have yet to do any research into the filmmaker, but I certainly will. The short films that accompany animated features are very hit or miss for me. This one was impressive. I really hope Disney makes this available on Disney+ soon, so others can see it.

I very much enjoyed the feature as well. The voice talent all seemed to be perfectly cast. It's hard to imagine anyone else playing Sisu than Awkwafina. I knew that I was probably going to like this film based on what I had read, but what I did not anticipate was just how much I was going to be moved by these characters. I'm likely to go see this one a second time and will certainly purchase it on disc.

It sounds like I need to watch Moana, as I've never seen it.

4.5/5

 

[Jake Lipson]

I really hope Disney makes this available on Disney+ soon, so others can see it.

They already announced that they plan to bring Us Again to Disney+ in June, which is also when Raya will drop the Premier Access paywall and go into the standard subscription. I think it should be included with Premier Access purchases because if you're paying more at home, it seems wrong to give less than theatrical audiences would see. But of course they didn't ask for my opinion in determining their releases schedule.

Because it is accompanying the movie in theaters, I would also hope that Us Again winds up on the Raya disc.

And yes, you absolutely should watch Moana. It is delightful.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Disney posted a video with some of the voice talent for Disney legacy characters congratulating Kelly Marie Tran. Admittedly, I'm a sucker for this stuff, but I thought it was really sweet. If you haven't seen Raya yet, don't worry; there are no spoilers in this video.

 

[Jake Lipson]

For anyone else who is interested in the Raya art book, Amazon dropped the price of it to $33.70, which is 21% off of its $42.50 list price. I could wait a while to see if that goes down, but in this case, I really want it so decided to splurge. So I went ahead and pre-ordered. It is being released on Tuesday and I should get it then. I'll report back on it when I have it.

 

[Tino]

New data suggests Disney's 'Raya' was a streaming flop, but the studio is charging ahead with the same strategy for 'Black Widow'

Signups to Disney Plus declined over the movie's opening weekend compared to the previous four weekends, according to Antenna.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[Jake Lipson]

While I understand the desire from reporters to compare the two, it is important to remember that Mulan and Raya are not exact comps.

Mulan was a remake of an existing film which had been a popular title for 22 years before the remake arrived. It also had an aggressive marketing campaign leading up to its original release date, which was supposed to be last March, and played a trailer on the front of The Rise of Skywalker. Raya is a brand new property which audiences don't already know before entering the film. Its theatrical marketing was obviously more limited. Given the state of the box office prior to its opening, it didn't get to have a trailer on every print of a billion-dollar film.

The article says:

There was also a 30% decline in signups to Disney Plus in the US during "Raya's" first weekend compared to the previous four weekends, according to Antenna, while "Mulan" drove double the signups compared to the previous four weekends.

The previous four weekends before Raya featured new episodes of WandaVision generating talk and signups. I don't remember what, if anything, Disney was rolling out in the four weeks before Mulan, but it wasn't anything as big as the first MCU Disney+ show. so I'm sure that is worth taking into consideration when considering new signups in that period. Raya debuted the same day as the WandaVision finale, so of course there were lots of signups in the weeks ahead of its release as people kept talking about the show. This doesn't have anything to do with Raya but means it was coming onto Disney+ at a time when the service was already benefiting from the glow of a zeitgeist-hitting show. So of course the signups are going to be down if you compare its debut weekend to the weekends immediately prior to it when Disney was unspooling a hugely popular series.

Therefore, I think dinging on Raya is a little unfair, especially without proper context.

Black Widow is clearly the biggest movie Disney currently has on the schedule for this year. Cruella is related to a seminal franchise which worked in two versions previously for Disney, and everybody knows who Cruella DeVil is. Of course they are going to offer those titles for a premium fee. Even without knowing what the numbers are, I would guess that Black Widow is going to outdo the Premier Access numbers for Mulan and Raya combined.

I hope Raya finds more of an audience as it progresses through its cycle. It's really good. I think it will get more attention when the surcharge paywall drops in June and all Disney+ subscribers can see it.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I think people are getting fed up with the increasing costs of streaming in their households. I expect some people are getting a little smarter with their streaming budgets.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

While I understand the desire from reporters to compare the two, it is important to remember that Mulan and Raya are not exact comps.

Mulan was a remake of an existing film which had been a popular title for 22 years before the remake arrived. It also had an aggressive marketing campaign leading up to its original release date, which was supposed to be last March, and played a trailer on the front of The Rise of Skywalker. Raya is a brand new property which audiences don't already know before entering the film. Its theatrical marketing was obviously more limited. Given the state of the box office prior to its opening, it didn't get to have a trailer on every print of a billion-dollar film.

The article says:



The previous four weekends before Raya featured new episodes of WandaVision generating talk and signups. I don't remember what, if anything, Disney was rolling out in the four weeks before Mulan, but it wasn't anything as big as the first MCU Disney+ show. so I'm sure that is worth taking into consideration when considering new signups in that period. Raya debuted the same day as the WandaVision finale, so of course there were lots of signups in the weeks ahead of its release as people kept talking about the show. This doesn't have anything to do with Raya but means it was coming onto Disney+ at a time when the service was already benefiting from the glow of a zeitgeist-hitting show. So of course the signups are going to be down if you compare its debut weekend to the weekends immediately prior to it when Disney was unspooling a hugely popular series.

Therefore, I think dinging on Raya is a little unfair, especially without proper context.

Black Widow is clearly the biggest movie Disney currently has on the schedule for this year. Cruella is related to a seminal franchise which worked in two versions previously for Disney, and everybody knows who Cruella DeVil is. Of course they are going to offer those titles for a premium fee. Even without knowing what the numbers are, I would guess that Black Widow is going to outdo the Premier Access numbers for Mulan and Raya combined.

I hope Raya finds more of an audience as it progresses through its cycle. It's really good. I think it will get more attention when the surcharge paywall drops in June and all Disney+ subscribers can see it.

It's also dumb to compare D+ purchases because "Mulan" was only available on D+, whereas "Raya" was theatrical as well.

Yeah, the article mentions that, but the writer seems to pooh-pooh it as a reason.

I agree with your comments. "Mulan" had much better publicity and was a "pre-sold" property. Even if COVID never happened, it almost certainly would've been more successful than "Raya".

 

[Sam Favate]

We watched this again yesterday, and I was impressed all over again. The animation is really spectacular.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Even if COVID never happened, it almost certainly would've been more successful than "Raya".

That gets into a grey area about reception and legs and hypotheticals.

Mulan was very poorly received by critics and audiences. It would have been able to score a big opening based on the popularity of the animated version, but I don't know if it could have sustained itself. I can tell you from having watched it on Disney+ after the premier access paywall dropped that if it had had a non-COVID theatrical release, I would have seen it one time and never again. I thought it was garbage.

The reviews and reception of Raya from those who have seen it has been largely pretty good. I would like to think that, in a normal non-COVID environment, the quality of Raya would have led to a leggy run and benefit from strong word of mouth. I have no reason to believe that it would have done poorly if we take COVID out of the equation.

That being said, there's really no way to know this for sure.

I do know that a lot of my friends are interested in seeing the film but are not interested in paying the surcharge. So I think there will be a lot of people checking this out in June when the Premier Access paywall drops. Of course, that doesn't help Disney recoup money on the film, but I think more people will be receptive to it down the line.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

That gets into a grey area about reception and legs and hypotheticals.

Mulan was very poorly received by critics and audiences. It would have been able to score a big opening based on the popularity of the animated version, but I don't know if it could have sustained itself. I can tell you from having watched it on Disney+ after the premier access paywall dropped that if it had had a non-COVID theatrical release, I would have seen it one time and never again. I thought it was garbage.

The reviews and reception of Raya from those who have seen it has been largely pretty good. I would like to think that, in a normal non-COVID environment, the quality of Raya would have led to a leggy run and benefit from strong word of mouth. I have no reason to believe that it would have done poorly if we take COVID out of the equation.

That being said, there's really no way to know this for sure.

I do know that a lot of my friends are interested in seeing the film but are not interested in paying the surcharge. So I think there will be a lot of people checking this out in June when the Premier Access paywall drops. Of course, that doesn't help Disney recoup money on the film, but I think more people will be receptive to it down the line.

I think people were more willing to pay the "surcharge" for "Mulan" because it was a novelty. We were smack dab in the middle of COVID with no end in sight and the idea of a big "A"-list movie as a TV debut was more intriguing.

Now the idea is "old news", and I think the fact that "Raya" also is on movie screens makes the willingness to pay a surcharge less likely. These people may not be willing to go to a theater, but they may feel less excited about something that's not a D+ exclusive.

As you say, we'll never know what "Raya" - or "Mulan" - would've done in a normal cinematic environment. Or "Onward", too.

Where do you get the info that audiences dislike "Mulan"? Not arguing it - just curious.

I see it has a terrible audience rating on RT but I think RT audience ratings have been "hacked" by blocs with an agenda, and those probably saw "Mulan" as too PC so they tried to knock it down a peg ala the crusade against "Last Jedi".

The IMDB rating is 5.6 - not great, but not terrible!

 

[Malcolm R]

For one thing, Disney specially-designed Mulan to be a huge hit in China, but that market mostly ignored it. I think it earned less during its entire run than Godzilla vs. Kong will earn in its opening this weekend. If it didn't succeed there, its chances were certainly limited elsewhere.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Where do you get the info that audiences dislike "Mulan"? Not arguing it - just curious.

Obviously, I wasn't mentioning this as a scientific proven data point, although for whatever it is worth, the Rotten Tomatoes audience score is 49%. More specifically, though, my circle of friends disliked it. And as Malcom pointed out, it flopped in China, the one market for which it was specifically designed. I'm sure some people somewhere liked it, because preference is personal and almost every movie is going to have somebody that likes it. But from my personal experience in discussing Mulan, it does not seem to be particularly endeared to anyone I know.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Obviously, I wasn't mentioning this as a scientific proven data point, although for whatever it is worth, the Rotten Tomatoes audience score is 49%.

Yeah, I mentioned that it got a bad RT audience score - and also the reasons I tend to feel suspicious of RT audience scores!

 

[Walter C]

I got to catch this in theaters today, which was my first time going to one since December 2019. And luckily, I was the only one there, though I did wear 2 masks, just to be safe.

And have to say, I'm glad to have seen it on the big screen. Really liked the film, as it just looks gorgeous. I thought I was going to hate the side characters, like Baby Noi, but ended up liking them. And Sisu did take some time for me to warm up to, but definitely did not grate on my nerves either.

Also thought the short "Us Again" was very entertaining, and definitely a very good start to my theater experience.

I wish that I can watch it again in theaters, but in these times, I am lucky enough to have seen it once, in an empty theater. Not sure if that will happen again for me, until I get vaccinated. And certainly glad to have chosen this over "Tom & Jerry", which I hear, is terrible.