Film Review: Raya and the Last Dragon

This Disney film follows a recent one I reviewed from Disney, called “Soul”, and whilst this one is less philosophical, I figured I’d do it to justify the $30 I paid upfront to watch this film on Disney+.

Before the film and when I observed the early trailers, admittedly it gave me Legend of Avatar: Legend of Korra TV show vibes (don’t watch the movie rendition, please). Most people would not have picked up on the storyline resemblances if it wasn’t for the character design, skin colour, and other visuals that made “Korra” (from Avatar) and “Raya” look so similar. A Reddit user pointed out the storyline resemblances below…

RAYA: Long ago, in the fantasy world of Kumandra, humans and dragons lived together in harmony. But when sinister monsters known as the Druun threatened the land, the dragons sacrificed themselves to save humanity.

AVATAR: Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished

RAYA: Now, 500 years later, those same monsters have returned and it’s up to a lone warrior, Raya, to track down the last dragon in order to finally stop the Druun for good. However, along her journey, she’ll learn that it’ll take more than dragon magic to save the world—it’s going to take trust as well.

AVATAR: A hundred years passed and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world."

This may be a hot take, but when I watched the film and emerged out the other end, I genuinely don’t think we should be making comparisons of Raya to Avatar. I think about Raya as more akin to Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games. I wasn’t the only one thinking this, because Nicole Clark from Polygon makes this same point here in her review.

Raya gave off the same vibes as Katniss (apologies to those who haven’t watched it, but just imagine a very emotionally distant and hardened woman). Both were telling their story from the perspective of a post-apocalyptic world. I guess that difference struck me, as I was always used to seeing Disney films have a romance story to them (e.g. Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Tangled, Frozen, etc). Incidentally, Katniss had Peeta. There was no typical male love interest in this Disney film, but I suppose you could argue Raya’s love interest was towards her father Benja, who taught her how to fend for herself but also taught her the ideals of restoring harmony in Kumundra.

Anybody who's watched Raya, would know that “trust” was the central theme of the film. By extension, you could treat this post-apocalyptic world that we are living in post COVID-19 as being the same reality. How do you find trust when the world around you is now broken? This idea resonated a lot with me.

When you look at social media today, you are seeing people are either far left or far right. There is virtually no middle ground, but a lot of fracturing and division. As a side note, I think that is a function of the “splintering of media” we are seeing over the last few decades, which Digital Native explains really well.

Needless to say, however, 1 year on, Raya is a timely reminder for all of us that the only way to heal a divided world is to begin to trust each other again and recognise that we’re all together in 1 team, the team of humanity. In Raya, the only way to survive and save humanity was to bring the orb shards together and reassemble the orb, but the rest of Raya’s group does not trust Namaari (Raya’s nemesis). To show Namaari her trust, Raya gives Namaari her orb shard and is turned to stone by the Druun.

Raya exemplifies this ability to trust her nemesis Namaari by giving her piece of the “orb” needed to restore humanity knowing that it would cause her own death. The rest of the group then follow suit until only Namaari is left with all the orb shards and is able to reassemble the orb.

My Christian readers may be quick to point out that is self-sacrificial love, which Jesus did for us nearly 2000 years ago on the cross first during Good Friday (if you believe what was written in the Bible), and is a fitting plug for me writing this in the long Easter weekend break.

The other point I would make here is that the film shows us that it only takes 1 person to trust another, for the domino effect to hopefully begin falling into place. Whilst the world isn’t overrun by Druun per se with a sense of dying urgency, there is a sense of hope in suggesting it only takes 1 person to make the first step.

As the world continues to get more and more fragmented with the splintering of media, and reality is the fragmentation of the music we listen to, films we watch, cultures we relate to, and memes on social apps we look at, etc… It becomes increasingly more and more important to not forget how to trust one another and not just living in our own echo chambers hearing what we want to hear and believing it to be true.

I find my job as an investor has allowed me to exercise that muscle of venturing beyond my echo chambers and being open-minded to new ideas. Of course, that is not to say to trust everything at face value (although that is needed in the things you have conviction), but of course, exposing yourself and exploring new content, and then confirming it with different sources and coming to your own conclusions. I encourage others to consider this. I admit, there are many things that I still stick myself in an echo chamber in, but I am trying to get better myself…

I wasn’t intending on writing a review on Raya and the Last Dragon but was more inspired by the idea of finding “trust” in a fragmented world. Sorry to those who were expecting a review! The film was an 8/10 in my books if you’re interested.

Thanks for reading and happy Easter,

Michael Li