I think Ciana Pelekai has youth written on her voice and it just screams Moana to me so I'm rooting for her to get it. Makamae Auwae's voice is powerful but it's heavily accented for me.
"Disney’s first Polynesian princess movie is a musical in the tradition of “The Little Mermaid” or “Pocahontas.” It opens with a song number with Moana’s birth that brings to mind “The Circle of Life” from “The Lion King.”
So far the plot didn't really grab my attention but I'll reserve judgement at least until the trailer hits. I am here for the fact that it will have a Polynesian (?) female lead. Hopefully Disney doesn't do this movie dirty like they did to Princess and the Frog.
I doubt Lin will have to miss much of Hamilton, if any. He's not the only songwriter and he doesn't need to leave his home to write. It's also possible that he might have already left the show by the time the movie comes out.
Disney casting a teen pop star that's not one of their own seems like a stretch to me.
^I think it's a straight up lie created by some of her fans. They used a fake twitter made to look like a popular Disney blogger's account as their source.
I was watching the live tweeting during the panel. She has some pretty, let's say... devoted fans. They were spamming the D23Expo hashtag with congratulations messages and "official" announcements throughout the whole Moana portion of the panel. When no official announcement was made they all either raged for Disney 'wasting their time' or just kept retweeting the fake announcement over and over. I even saw a few of them get super nasty with the people who were tweeting from inside the panel who were just relaying the infomation being said because it wasn't what they wanted to hear.
I am not familar with her to give an opinion on if she should or should not be cast but after seeing how rabid her fanbase is, it's not gonna be pretty on social media if she isn't Moana.
^Yesterday, I wrote that my friend, who works with Disney Animation told me that Dinah isn't Moana (seriously). And BOOM! Death threats, getting my name screen capped by random people and getting posted it everywhere, insults about my face etc.. My friend was called the N word. it was ****ing nuts.
I totally agree with FireBolts. I really hope Ciana Pelekai gets the part, she's amazing and has such a beautiful voice and has a Hawaiian/Polynesian accent.