“Moana 2″ premieres Nov. 27, and just like every other parent in America, I’ll be seated in the theater with my three children on opening night. But I’m apprehensive.
I saw the trailer for the long-awaited sequel over the weekend and realized that I will need to prepare myself, logically, for another Disney movie with a completely arbitrary animal fluency hierarchy.
If the trailer is to be believed, Moana’s pet pig Pua will have a more significant role in this film. The primary animal sidekick in the original “Moana” was Hei Hei the rooster who could not speak and was very dumb. Dumber than the average rooster, if I may be so bold. Pua the pig also could not speak, but could understand Moana. More than say, the average dog understands its owner. Pua comprehended every word, but was unable to respond beyond humanesque gestures and knowing smiles. A villainous giant crab, however, not only spoke, but sang.
So, one would assume, this means that in the Disney cinematic universe, crustaceans can speak, mammals can understand but not reply, and birds are stupid. But in “The Little Mermaid,” both Sebastian the crab and Scuttle the seagull can speak while Max the dog cannot speak nor understand.
Also, Disney’s most famous bird Donald Duck is not only conversant, but is the sidekick to Mickey Mouse, a mammal, who is arguably Disney’s most eloquent character. Donald may not speak especially well compared to his girlfriend, uncle and nephews, but there’s no doubt Donald can talk. So why can’t Hei Hei? And Mickey rules the entire Disney Kingdom with his words but Max can’t form a single sentence?
I’m not the first to trip over the Disney talking animal conundrums. For as long as I can remember, society has asked why Goofy — a dog — wears clothes, owns property and pals around with Mickey, while Pluto — also a dog — cannot speak, is naked, and sleeps in a dog house. Minds much greater than mine have been driven to the brink of insanity trying to understand why.
And yet, I believed, foolishly, that if I put in the time, did some categorization and really thought it through, I could decipher Disney’s animal fluency hierarchy.
I started by placing the Disney/Pixar films I’ve seen (between my childhood and my children’s, I’ve seen MANY) into the following categories:
Human main characters who can speak with animals:
“Alice in Wonderland”
“The Jungle Book”
“The Little Mermaid”
These films feature human protagonists who can speak with animals and the animals can respond. Often these speaking animals play significant roles in the story, like Alice following the white rabbit into wonderland and Baloo nearly leading Mowgli down a degenerate, lazy bum path. “The Little Mermaid” is a bit squishy, because, as already discussed, Prince Eric’s dog Max cannot speak, but that might be a land vs. sea issue or a merperson versus normal human discrepancy.
Human main characters with pets or animal sidekicks that cannot speak:
“Aladdin”
“Hercules”
“Peter Pan”
“Pocahontas”
“Sleeping Beauty”
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”
“Beauty and the Beast”*
“Frozen”
Each of these films feature humans at their center. Some of those humans have animal sidekicks, like Sven the reindeer in “Frozen,” who do not speak but seem to comprehend English, much like Pua the pig in “Moana” and Nana the dog in “Peter Pan.” Sometimes these animals further the plot, like Abu the monkey in “Aladdin” when he touches the lamp and causes the Cave of Wonders to collapse in on itself. Then some animals are complete tertiary, like the melodic birds in “Sleeping Beauty” that do nothing for the plot.
*”Beauty and the Beast is the one head-scratcher in this category because the Beast is not human but is he an animal? Or some sort of missing link cryptid? And where am I supposed to place talking household appliances in these categories?
Animal main characters that can speak with humans:
“The Rescuers”
“The Rescuers Down Under”
The two films that feature Bernard and Bianca from the Rescue Aid Society are the only two Disney movies I can recall wherein anthropomorphic animals are the stars of the film and are able to communicate with humans. That communication is absolutely essential to saving the children in peril in both Rescuers films. Importantly, however, the villains’ animals — swamp gators and Joanna the monitor lizard — do not possess the ability to speak.
Animal main characters that cannot converse with humans:
“101 Dalmations”
“Dumbo”
“Lady and the Tramp”
“The Aristocats”
“The Fox and the Hound”
This category might be one of the easier ones for me to wrap my head around, because it supports my long-held belief that animals communicate with each other using a specific language that I am simply not able to understand.
I don’t just believe this about the animals in Disney movies. I believe it about my dog, the birds in the trees outside and every animal on nature docs, which is why I’ve never been able to watch “Planet Earth” without attributing human emotions to baby elephants and therefore getting too sad to complete one single episode.
Talking animal main characters in a movie without humans:
“A Goofy Movie”
“Bambi”
“Lion King”
“Robinhood”
“Zootopia”
In some of these films, humans are glimpsed briefly, and in the case of “Bambi,” are responsible for major plot points but the movies’ lines belong only to animals. Some of these animals live alongside humans and live like animals, but in the case of “Zootopia,” animals seem to be a replacement for humans, like on a separate animal-centric planet.
Human characters who transform into speaking animals:
“The Emperor’s New Groove”
“The Princess and the Frog”
“The Sword in the Stone”
Disney loves to make a movie about a person turning into a talking animal. Sometimes the animal can talk with other human characters in the movie as is the case in “The Emperor’s New Groove,” when Kuzco turns into a llama and travels across Peru with Pacha. Sometimes the human-turned-animals can talk with only other human-turned-animals like Merlin and Arthur in “The Sword in the Stone.” When they are fish, they can only speak with each other, not other fish, and when they are squirrels, they can only speak with each other, not other squirrels, even though the buxom lady squirrels seem to be picking up on subtext.
Human main characters who can talk to only certain animals and those animals can respond:
“Moana”
“Mulan”
“Pinocchio”
“Cinderella”
This category is the one that keeps me up at night, and not just because I’m unsure whether or not Mushu the dragon in “Mulan” counts as an animal, but also because why can the mice in “Cinderella” speak but the birds who help her get dressed every morning and Lucifer the cat cannot? Why can Jiminy Cricket sing but the cat and the whale in Pinocchio are silent?
I thought my categorization exercise would offer some clarity as to why there are such vast differences in animals’ ability to use language but instead I’m left more confused than I’ve ever been.
“Maybe it depends on the class of animal,” you might say, to which I would tell you “no! That’s not it! Cats and mice are both mammals! Goofy and Pluto are the same species!”
“Maybe each movie has its own hierarchy,” you might suggest, unhelpfully. To which I’d yell, “Then explain it to me!” Because Hei Hei is dumb and Pua can’t speak but a crab is a singing sensation!
This is all made exponentially more complicated by the “live action” remakes of the animated classics. Many of the reboots feature hyper-realistic CGI animals, some of whom can speak and some of whom cannot, and I just feel like if you’re going to flirt with realism, you should adhere to the rules of nature instead of suggesting some animals in the actual world can talk. Contemplating that suggestion makes my brain feel fuzzy. Like it’s full of cotton candy.
I’m so grateful to Disney for consistently making quality films that my family can watch together, and I very much look forward to “Moana 2.” But I am begging for some sort of reasoning behind why some animals in their films can speak and others cannot. Maybe there’s a memo from Walt in a vault somewhere that explains all this. Have we checked the underground tunnels at Disneyland?
I’d love to arrive at the “Moana 2″ screening with reasonable expectations for what to expect from the film’s animal fluency hierarchy. But if there’s another verbose crustacean while the pig is rendered mute and the bird is an idiot, I just might lose my mind. More than I clearly already have.