Adele Lim Don Hall & Qui Nguyen Interview Raya and the Last Dragon

Adele Lim, Don Hall & Qui Nguyen Interview: Raya and the Last Dragon

Adele Lim, Don Hall & Qui Nguyen chat about making the magic of Kumandra before Raya and the Last Dragon’s home release on May 18.

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Adele Lim Don Hall & Qui Nguyen Interview Raya and the Last Dragon

Raya and the Last Dragon is finally arriving 4K, Blu-ray and DVD on May 18 after garnering effusively positive reviews earlier this year. The animated fantasy film follows heroine Raya (Kelly Marie Tran) as she seeks to unite the five divided lands of Kumandra in order to save her people from the plague known as the Druun.

Drawing from various Southeast Asian cultures for inspiration, the Disney movie not only modeled the “last dragon” Sisu (Awkwafina) after the water-based nāga but also researched various customs and traditions that find their way into the story. The end result is a rich array of characters from different backgrounds – albeit fictional ones – that could all warrant their own heroic journey.

Screenwriters Adele Lim and Qui Nguyen, along with director Don Hall, spoke in-depth to Screen Rant about the creative process that led to the birth of the film – and shared some of their favorite deleted scenes in anticipation of the home release.

Qui, coming from a playwright’s background, what is the biggest shift for you in joining Disney animation?

Qui Nguyen: There’s a lot of shifts in coming from theater to Disney Animation. The fun thing about theater is how there’s obvious limitations to what you can do on stage, and it’s about the creative ways of telling a story in the most exciting and surprising way that you can; how you physically realize those moments on stage. Animation is the opposite: the limitations are your imagination, because you can literally do anything and everything. Then it’s a question of how you stay disciplined enough to not just go bananas on it, but that’s the joy of animation.

My favorite thing about making plays was always being in the room. The writing part is fun too, but what I really enjoyed was being in the room with actors and directors and designers. That’s what I was always rushing towards. But when it comes to Disney Animation, that collaboration happens on day one. At the very beginning, you’re in a room full of artists, and you’re there all the way to the end. That is actually my very favorite thing about joining the Disney family and making a film like this; being in a room with Adele and Don and making each other laugh and daring each other to make something as silly as Raya and the Last Dragon.

The collaboration process sounds really amazing and intensive at the same time, but would you say there’s any part you take credit for or feel most protective over in terms of the story?

Adele Lim: Honestly, no. Because we put so many screenings out and built this beautiful baby, even if there’s something that you are specifically responsible for, it gets taken apart and comes back to life in all these different forms.

Just to echo what Qui was saying: writing in television, so much of the burden feels like it’s on us. You’re pushing this rock up a hill on your own. And the wonderful thing about Disney is that you’re working with some of the best, most talented people on the planet who are helping you carry that load. It’s like you plugged your brain into this imagination machine that spins out the story, then artists come back and say, “Okay, we took the pages and added this sequence with these monkeys this baby, and these are the things that they’re doing.”

It’s not all on you to come up with every single little thing but, at the end of the day, you feel like you’re all the parents of this insanely glorious baby.

Qui Nguyen: I will add one little thing, though Adele doesn’t want to take credit for this. Maybe she can’t take all credit for it, but I will say she is a major voice in why it happened this way. Benja being a hot dad exists because of Adele, and her voicing when the character design came out that, “Uh-uh. No, I would not lose my life for that dude. Make him hotter.”

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Thusly began a redesign to basically match a character in CG that was as handsome as the actual Daniel Dae Kim.

Speaking of Benja, I was told he was one of the characters that you really like to do the scratch voices for, Don?

Don Hall: I don’t know that “really like” is the way to describe it. It was easy to say, “Hey, can you record these lines?” knowing that nobody will ever have to hear them but a handful of people, and that they’ll be re-recorded by Daniel Dae Kim but I don’t know if I’d say I really liked it. I was forced into it and begrudgingly accepted.

Does it help you approach the character from a different angle or understand them anew when you do scratch voices?

Don Hall: Actually, that is true. All joking aside, it does help. Even directing scratch does. Sometimes it’s like, “Ugh, I don’t want to do scratch,” because while I love working with actors, scratch feels sometimes like it’s a chore. But then when you get in there and you start working scenes, it almost gives you a practice run of how you’re going to approach it when you work with the real actors. So, it’s actually extremely valuable, but that doesn’t stop me from whining about it.

Is there any character that you’d want to follow beyond Raya’s story, either in a Disney+ series or future sequels?

Qui Nguyen: Namaari. I feel like that’s the low-hanging fruit, because she’s so fascinating. In a lot of ways, she’s kind of the character that has an equally dramatic journey as Ryan herself. You just want to see what happens beyond that.

She didn’t get a magic dragon to save the world, she had to just do it via trusting, so what that means beyond that and how these kingdoms really come together is interesting. And obviously this budding friendship between her, Raya, and Sisu – I just think that’s a story that I would love to see, if we had all the time and the money in the world.

Don Hall: Maybe like an Ocean’s 11 thing with Noi. Now that she’s reunited with her mom, she’s just going through her normal life just being a toddler. But then maybe she gets called in, like, there’s a need to break in somewhere. So, they get the band back together.

Qui Nguyen: Her skills are needed.

Adele Lim: This is one I wouldn’t have thought of, but I saw all these posts on social media about the other dragons. We just got a glimpse of them, and people were obsessed with them. They’re also obsessed with Pengu’s hair, so there were strong vibes right there. What’s their jam? Are they just like hanging out in Kumandra? I’d love to see that on the Disney+.

Qui Nguyen: They start a garage band. “The world’s all fixed, so I guess we’re just gonna rock out.”

Adele: Sisu and the Water Dragons.

For my own edification, Noi is the most adorable baby and yet she’s surprisingly skilled. how much did you go into her backstory outside the script? Did her Ongi friends teach her or does she have innate talents?

Don Hall: Yeah, I guess we didn’t really delve too deep into that. But her mother and father presumably were turned to stone, and she was essentially orphaned in the streets of Talon. The Ongis struck up a friendship with her, and then they became this little team.

How do we explain her amazing physicality without gamma rays or getting bit by spider? I think it’s just from hanging out with Ongis.

Qui Nguyen: She’s basically Tarzan, right? And because she’s Asian, she’s an overachiever. So, she just got to Tarzan level really quickly.

I am really excited for the Blu-ray, because I love deleted scenes and I am obsessed with going through what almost happened. Is there any aspect of the extra bonus footage or any deleted scene you’re most excited about?

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Don Hall: Hmm, that’s a good question. I’m not sure if it actually made it into the cut, but there’s one scene that I love. We all became fascinated with Namaari over the course of the movie, and this was an example of where maybe it went awry. After that encounter with Raya in the Tail ruins, she goes back to Fang. And we had a scene in there that was amazingly boarded by John Ripa, our co-director, of Namaari escaping and saving her gang of Fang folk from a Druun.

It was a chance for us to show the physicality of Namaari in a really cool way, but also show that she cares about her people. And man, it was cool. It was really, really cool. But it worked too well, because at that point in the movie, she needs to be bad guy; she needs to be the villain and the antagonist. But we all just started to swing over to the Namaari side, so unfortunately, we had to cut it for that reason. But it’s pretty cool, so maybe in the future, we’ll be able to show that.

Adele Lim: I think one of the things you will see in the extras is Boun, since we talk about the evolution of our characters and how they ended up where they are. Before Boun was a shrimp boat captain – and even that was a cool story in visual development, because they came up with all these different boats you could have in the world. And one of them was a boat with a massive prawn on it, so we’re just like, “Obviously, he’s on that.”

But before that he was working in a shipwrecked tavern, and there was a version where he was working in a blacksmith workshop. But the spirit of Boun was still very much the same, even though his settings change. What didn’t change was that sort of smart-aleck hustler part of him that always shone through.

Qui Nguyen: This isn’t a deleted scene, it’s just a character that I really like. He had a very small part, but I would watch a whole movie of Chai the flower guy. I could watch that guy all day long, as voiced by Dumbfoundead [Jon Park], this amazing rapper and actor. I could just watch that character in many different adventures, mainly just trying to do simple tasks. But it’d be really fun to watch him live his life: Chai the flower guy tries to get a mortgage, and he’s dealing with his escrow.

Is there any other Disney property or character that you would love to take part in or be part of?

Qui Nguyen: It’s one of those things. I love Star Wars movies, but I think I’m better equipped to be a fan of Star Wars than a person who make Star Wars. I’m good at maybe the Star part, but the Wars part may be too intense.

There’s so many characters in the realm of Disney that I love. I love Lion King, but I should not be the person working on Lion King, you know? There are characters I feel like I would love to dig my hands in and mess with, but I think they’re already so good.

Finally, have you guys seen Us Again? I love that it’s going to be on Blu-ray and was wondering how you felt about the pairing of these two stories?

Don Hall: Oh, I love it. [Director] Zach Parrish was my head of animation on Big Hero 6, so I know him well. I saw it periodically as he was making it, and it is exactly the vision he pitched. It is almost beat-by-beat exactly what he had in his head, so it’s really cool to see it on screen. I do think it complements our film wonderfully, and it’s just a really beautiful and gorgeous short.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/raya-last-dragon-lim-hall-nguyen-interview/

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