u/Audball9000

Hey, do you guys think Maui can speak to animals in their languages when he shapeshifts? I’m writing a Moana 3 fanfic, and whether it’s yes or no will change part of the plot, so I’d like to hear what you guys think.

Sure, he makes the noises of each animals be turns into, but we’re never seen him talking back and forth with any animals in a real conversation.

He tells Heihei and later Pua that he’d like to eat them, but it doesn’t seem like he understands them, and in the scene in Moana 2 with the derpfish, he didn’t understand they weren’t trying to help him, they only wanted to climb on him to feed.

Can he talk with animals and chooses not to, because he prefers humans, or can he just use their abilities and appearances without knowing their language?

Okay, now that I’ve seen the live action Moana a second time and taken notes on a certain crabulous crustacean, I think it’s time to talk about Tamatoa, then and now- the good, the bad, and the ugly, my honest opinion. I have a lot to say about my favorite Moana character, and I will gladly do so!

I’ll do a summary of pros and cons of the new Tamatoa, and then I’ll go into detail.

Pros: Jemaine Clement returned, both Moana and Grandma impression from Tamatoa, evil laugh included in soundtrack Shiny version, calimaui pun, alternate line in Shiny that’s true to his character, no bad changes to the accompaniment, keeps the merry melodies slide sound which I really like!

Cons: Less expressive than 2016 Tamatoa, less crushing physical blows against Maui, overall sounds less glam/Bowie-ish, singing style is different, bioluminescence wasn’t as entertaining of a show in remake, no deep voiced undertone in the bridge of the song, no end credits scene!

Let’s start with his opening scene. Before Shiny begins, it’s pretty much exactly the same, except I noticed him clarify on something: when he said, “You’re a funny looking thing, aren’t you?” I assumed he was talking about the necklace, but in the remake, he says Moana is the funny looking thing, but dat necklace tho…😯
Is this information important? I guess not, I just thought it was interesting cuz I wasn’t sure before.

But they cut out Moana’s crabulous pun for some reason. Tamatoa interrupts her in the remake before she can say it. Odd, it suits him so well.

Anyway, moving on to Shiny…

Instead of flipping a gold coin into the water above him, in the remake, he cues a bunch of oversized prawns into setting up the mood… does Tamatoa have an army of prawns at his disposal? Did he let them live without being eaten in exchange for helping him with his presentation? That’s actually a fairly big change: he’s not living all alone in the newer movie. Another Tamatoa mystery I’d like to hear more about.

Speaking of alone, where are all the other monsters in Lalotai? All I saw was big old prawns and their king (crab)!

Well, before I digress too far, onto the singing! Overall, I preferred the way Jemaine sang in the original movie. At first I thought he might’ve channeled too much Bowie in the remake, but now I think on the contrary, he didn’t channel enough in the remake!

Still, the first verse is the same melody and lyricwise, from instruments down to undersea sound effects, except for one thing…

He does a grandma impression too while he sings, and it totally sounds like Tala! I love it! I’d only heard the animated Italian Tamatoa (Raphael Gualazzi) do the granny voice, so it’s great to hear Jemaine put a bit more mocking into that verse; maybe that’s what Tamatoa’s granny sounded like too.

And I’m happy they kept the wind up sound whenever he transitions to the chorus, the one that sounds like the beginning of a merry melodies tune at the beginning of a Looney Tunes show. It suits him.

Then on to the chorus…

Here’s the first major change, babe. They replaced the “like a treasure from a sunken pirate wreck, scrub the deck and make it look shiny” to “not a blemish on the surface, not a speck, double check, is everything shiny?”

Mmm… well, the pirate line is gold, of course, but the new line is still very in character for Tamatoa, only caring about outside appearances, his insecurity over his looks and his status as a “bottom feeder,” so, I like it. It feels like an alternate line Lin Manuel Miranda had in mind for the song, like how his demo version was different from the final animated one.

Of course, LA Tamatoa doesn’t have nearly as many zany faces as the og, guess I’m not surprised since it’s made to be more “realistic,” but guys, he’s an animated mythical creature in both films! Don’t cut his expressiveness please, I see no reason not to!

“Fish are dumb, dumb, dumb, they chase anything that glitte- what, shimmers?”
Another change to the lyrics, but this is the last one, and it’s so… it’s so… it threw me for a loop. Instead of glitters, it’s now shimmers, and “Here they come, come, come, to the brightest thing that glimmers!”

I… I have mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, I’m a bit peeved because it feels like they changed it to be just similar enough to trip up the people singing the original words, but on the other hand… it’s technically a better rhyme, instead of just repeating the same word. So it’s alright.

Between those two lines, his oh🎶 was better in the original, more musically pleasant, and in the remake, he forgot to sing into Moana’s head like a microphone, so I’m deducting points for that.

For the fish dinners part, the fish don’t drop from the ceiling anymore. Instead, Tamatoa has a- a fish cannon?!? I mean, a fish cannon is cool for visuals, but wasn’t the point he was making symbolized by the fish coming to him, following the shine from the coin he tossed in the animated version? Yeah, in the remake he just pushes a button, and fish shoot out at him. The og Tamatoa lured them in, showing how his shininess was also practical, so animated wins here too!

“I just love free food, and you look like seafood!” Same, except Jemaine now fills in the musical gap with some evil laughter and a big “YUMMY!” That’s a positive from me, it was a deep powerful laugh, unlike… well, I’ll get to that later. Nice to fill in part of the non-singing part on the soundtrack version.

Maui interrupts as usual, his hook is on the fritz, there should be more of a pause after his first transformation fails, because Maui’s supposed to be confused there, like that doesn’t normally happen, but this isn’t about him. Then something new: Maui be sporting Ursula-looking squid/octo legs, which leads to a new retort from Tamatoa in the remake…

“I didn’t order the calaMaui!”

Ha! Okay, that was good. What, Mini Maui, no tally mark for that roast? He earned it! Come on!

Unfortunately, Tamatoa isn’t quite as physically brutal to Maui as he was in the animated. He sings the “You don’t swing it like you used to, man!” very well, but he DOESN’T SWING MAUI BY THE HOOK WHEN HE DOES SO!!! Nor does he yeet him hard into the wall, or the hard ceiling after that like animated Tamatoa. Remake Tamatoa gives him a light smack away and blocks his hook. Did the Rock ask the director to go easy on the Maui thrashing here? Because I wanted to see more of it, tbh. That’s no fun.

The next chorus is pretty similar. There was something very Bowie about the way he sang “Maui man” that I didn’t hear in the remake version, but Tamatoa does get to step on Maui and drag him by the foot, then smack him down with his pincer in both versions, so at least Big T gets some hits in!

BUT HE DOESN’T STRUM MAUI OFF OF HIS HOOK LIKE A GUITAR IN THE REMAKE EITHER!!! Tamatoa just shakes him off like he’s Taylor Swift or something, before he puts the hook back on his shell.

Now, the bridge. The bioluminescent glow is there, but… it seems more randomly on and off. In the animated film, he glowed when he closed the skylight in his cave, and he only turned it off when he left the darkness inside, but idk about the live action. And this part just doesn’t hit as hard as the original visually either. That villainous, condescending grin down at Moana in her cage of bones as he humiliates and dangles Maui by the hair above her, that’s peak, he took his time and really milked that punishment for all it was worth; from the big flashy grins to the intense glowers of pure animosity that showed he meant business, that was a crab out for revenge! 2026 version… it just doesn’t seem as personal.

Even his singing: in the 2016 movie, there was another identical part singing under him, a deeper part that made it sound more ominous and villainous, that you can’t even hear in the 2016 soundtrack, so I was hoping they’d put it in the 2026 soundtrack. Turns out it’s not even in the new movie. Too bad, it sounded so cool.

So back to the action. In the remake, no dragging Maui’s face against the cave walls, no toss and kneeing him like a hackysack, he didn’t even get to chomp on Maui while the demigod held on for dear life, such an intense moment! Minus three points for the live action!

Tamatoa did bash him against his shell a bit at the end of the 2026 version at least, but that was much earlier in the 2016 version, so too little too late, all in all.

There are fireworks added. Okay, it’s not really part of him like his gold or bioluminescence, but I think it makes more sense than the fish cannon. It’s for his performances that he rehearses. Still, I think his original bioluminescent show with the flashing Cheshire Cat like eyes and stripes was prettier than the fireworks.

Song’s over, Moana distracts him, same chase and escape scene. That “There is no escape! Oh, there is one escape!” line was funny, classic Tamatoa. But his laughing was… odd. Jemaine didn’t sound like Tamatoa laughing to me when he was chasing the barnacle, he sounded more like his Nigel from Rio laugh, a higher pitched laughter. I didn’t think Tamatoa laughed like that; he always had a deep laugh in both animated Moana movies, so that struck me as odd, especially since his laugh in Moana 2 was quite recent. Maybe Jemaine wanted to give his live action version more range, to broaden his character’s lovable insanity, so I won’t count that against him.

But what I will count against the remake is removing Tamatoa’s end credits scene! Why??? They had a little red crab appear on his island entrance, why no Sebastian reference from the crab’s mouth? Or really anything from Tamatoa, some silly Jemaine Clement improvising like he likes to do, something we won’t expect to hear! They got me staying through the whole remake credits for nothing! Tamatoa’s had an end credit scene in both the animated movies, why not the live action??? Not cool, Disney.

Was he still even stuck on his back like in the original, or did he get his new army of prawns to give him a little push? I guess we’ll never know.

And those are all my thoughts between the two versions. Thanks for coming to my Tamatoa Talk, watch the geysers on your way out, and catch you on the flip side!

In the Galaxy Movie, Bowser Jr recounts his dad telling him “Nothing is more dangerous than a friend! They wait until your armor is down and stab you in the back!”

That had me wondering who betrayed Bowser in the past to get that mindset in him and make him teach it to his son?

Was it another big bad Mario villain who betrayed him, like maybe King Boo or Petey Piranha?

Did Bowser ever team up with another villain in one of the Mario games? (I haven’t seen it in any of the Mario games I’ve played.)

Or maybe was it not a villain, and it happened when Bowser was more good or neutral once?

Or maybe something Bowser’s father/father figure taught him and he continued on? He didn’t seem to remember saying that until Jr reminded him, but he didn’t seem to have a problem going back to rejecting friends after Jr reminded him, so who knows?