As it turns out, though, Sisu isn’t some all-powerful deity like Maui in Moana she doesn’t have much mojo left. Of course, to do this, Raya must traverse the post-apocalyptic landscape, search for the last surviving dragon, Sisu, and reunite the shards of the shattered gem. The Druun are back, and it’s up to Raya to stop them. But after Raya makes a mistake (she trusts her friend, Namaari, voiced by Gemma Chan), the gem is divided, with each land given a different chunk. And it was up to her people, in Heart, to protect a mystical gem that keeps the evil marauders at bay. As Raya was growing up, she heard stories about this epic battle between the water dragons and the Druun, and how all but one was killed.
That is until a sinister force called the Druun (the latest in a long line of shapeless, ethereal Disney baddies) turns townspeople into stone and survivors against one another. Each area is named after a part of the dragon (Fang, Heart, Tail, Spine, and Talon) and each area has a specific type of inhabitant. Raya and the Last Dragon starts in the scorched earth of Kumandra, a fictionalized Southeast Asian country shaped like a spindly water dragon. Read: ‘Flora & Ulysses’ Review: This Year’s Cuddliest Superhero Film (It’ll debut on Disney+, via Premiere Access, as well as in theaters.) And this was before the pandemic forced everybody apart, working independently to get the film completed on time. Additional writers (playwright Qui Nguyen joined already announced Adele Lim) and producers (Peter Del Vecho worked alongside Osnat Shurer) were brought on as well. Don Hall, a Disney workhorse who had directed the underrated 2011 Winnie the Pooh feature and Big Hero 6 (he also helped nudge Moana across the finish line as a co-director), was installed as a new director, alongside independent live-action filmmaker Carlos López Estrada, who had come to the studio to develop an original, unrelated project but was handed the Raya assignment (his other movie is still in development).
Weeks later Briggs and Wellins were removed (Briggs stuck around in a reduced capacity as a co-director) and the role of Raya was recast with Kelly Marie Tran from The Last Jedi. The actors and filmmakers appeared on stage together, beaming and hopeful about their upcoming animated action movie. Under the direction of longtime Disney story artists Paul Briggs and Dean Wellins (who nearly made a cool space race movie years earlier), the film would star Cassie Steele as Raya, a lone warrior who teams up with a shapeshifting water dragon named Sisu (played by Awkwafina). To explain: Raya and the Last Dragon was announced back at the D23 Expo in 2019.
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