One of Moana’s biggest challenges is totally understandable

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

You wouldn’t think that the key to Disney’s success in the animation realm would be clothing. But apparently, they’ve been using the casual excuse of “characters can’t be naked” for years. As a result, they weren’t exactly 100 percent ready to take on one specific challenge in their new movie, MOANA.

During the Comic-Con panel for the new Disney movie, Animation Supervisor Amy Sneed talked about the difficulty of animating Dwayne Johnson’s character, Maui, given all his massive muscles and overall exposed amount of tattooed skin:

Maui you'll notice…he's not wearing a shirt. Usually on our films, the characters, the clothing hides a lot of their muscle and skin and anatomy, so we spent a lot of time, our supervising animator Mack Kablan, spent a lot of time with the rigging supervisor and created all the muscle shapes so as Maui's moving around different muscles are engaging.

In the above image it’s pretty obvious Maui is exactly what he's described as in the movie: a hulking demi god. So I’m sure all the work Disney has done on the movie won't be for nothing. But I can sympathize with the crew of the film, basically having to create the animated version of the living god that is Dwayne Johnson. I mean, that man actually exists, and I have a hard time accepting he actually exists.

We will get to see Maui in all his muscle-bound glory on November 23.