Pushing boundaries the key to making Disney’s ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’
For Don Hall, co-director of Disney’s latest animated extravaganza, “Raya and the Last Dragon,” the key is always to push boundaries.
“Raya,” a fantasy set among multiple Southeast Asian cultures, must appeal not just to little kids but teens and adults as well.
“We get delegated as a children’s medium and I get it on one level,” Hall, 51, said in a phone call. “But we don’t think of it that way.
“We’re making movies for everybody and they have to work on all these different levels. But not wanting to keep doing the same film, we’re also pushing the boundaries of what constitutes a Disney film.”
The Iowa native’s entire career has been at the Mouse House. He won an Oscar — and a Golden Globe and an Annie — for “Big Hero Six” (2014) and made mighty waves worldwide with “Moana.”
“Raya,” with its troubled heroine accompanied by Sisu, the titular last dragon, is a story that revolves around the notion of trust.
It began, Hall revealed, with: Let’s explore the theme of unity. “That felt overly broad, so we asked,
What prevents that — if unity is the goal?
“It felt like trust was a theme we could explore, one you could justify on both sides. A very rich theme because Raya has grown up in a world that is already distrustful.
“Her father has looked at the world and said, ‘We can’t keep going like this. Somebody’s
got to take the first step. I’m going to invite all the other lands to break bread and try to start healing these ancient wounds.’
“As a result Raya takes a leap — and is betrayed. She loses her father because she trusted — and what we like about that from a story point of view is that really pushes our main character to one
end of the spectrum.
“But it’s justified. If you’re an audience member you’re, ‘Right, I wouldn’t trust. Because the one time I did, look what happened.’
“It gave her a strong point of view: In a broken world, you can’t trust anybody.
“Then you pair her up with a character who is going to push on that in a
pretty extreme way.
“That is Sisu, the last dragon, who has the opposite point of view: The world is broken because you don’t trust anyone. Their push and pull forms the foundation of a really great relationship.
“That theme is explored in every scene in the film — and gave us a really rich way to get to unity.”