Moana 2

『モアナと伝説の海』は、壮大で美しい海が広がる南太平洋のポリネシアにインスパイアされた楽園のような島々で語り継がれる神秘的な伝説を基に、海を愛する少女"モアナ"が傷つき悩みながらも、自分の進むべき道を見つけるため冒険に出る物語。前作で壮大な冒険の末故郷の島を救ったモアナの新たな冒険を描く続編、『モアナと伝説の海2』のサウンドトラック。

Released eight years after the original and set three years later, the Disney animated musical Moana 2 returns composer Mark Mancina and composer/songwriter Opetaia Foai to the fold but replaces Pulitzer Prize-winning songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda with Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear. At the time of its release in November 2024, this made Barlow and Bear the youngest songwriting team and the first female songwriting team to write for a Disney film. After setting the scene with a new version of the brief "Tulou Tagaloa," performed by Foai with his group Te Vaka (who appear on and off throughout the track list), Barlow and Bear get the song list started with "Were Back," which was co-written by Foai. When Moana -- performed again by Aulii Cravalho -- eventually sets out on another life-threatening adventure ("Finding the Way," "What Could Be Better Than This?"), she has a plan to raise the sunken island of Motufetu in order to reconnect area island communities. Along the way, she encounters an old friend, the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson, who speak-sings the motivational "Can I Get a Chee Hoo?" and plaintive group song "Mana Vavau"). Later, Moanas deep connection to the sea and land is represented by Te Vaka’s "Nuku O Kaiga," a minute-long entry sung in Samoan and set against their modern take on traditional Polynesian music. Without giving away any more of the plot, suffice it to say that the soundtrack closes on a series of transformed reprises, and that the tweaked songwriting team get large assists from the returning Cravalho and the distinctive sounds of Foai and Te Vaka. While the film did well at the box office, and the soundtrack to the 2016 original went as high as number two on the Billboard 200, with no "How Far Ill Go" or pop-star appearance, Moana 2 failed to crack to the top half of the chart. ~ Marcy Donelson