Did I miss something, or did the ocean basically just punk Moana and Maui into running around and annoying each other?
The ocean shows consistently that it can put the heart anywhere it wants, is omnipresent, and can touch the lava thing briefly enough not to kill it.
Why did it need M&M at all? School me, I obviously missed it.
It's the nature of stories... this is a Hero's tale, which means things can't just be fixed, they must be put right. Maui had to be redeemed. Moana had to take the heroes journey to bring her people back to the life they had stopped living. None of those things would have happened if the ocean had just picked up the stone and replaced it. In other words, the ocean had more than one problem to fix.
Also, as my father would frequently tell me when I asked "Why didnt' character X just tell the secret to character Y?" or whatever about easily solved problems in movies:
"Well, that would be a really short script, wouldn't it?"share
The ocean's main goal was to get humans sailing again.
That's why it brought Moana and Maui together, so that he could teach her to be a master wayfinder and she could go back and teach her people. If the ocean did everything for her she never would have learned.
Also, the ocean can't put the heart back into Te Ka's chest because Te Ka can just retreat back inside the barrier islands anytime she wants to. Moana had to lure her to get close enough to restore the heart.
Now you mention it, Maui did say something very close to that (getting people exploring) when they got to Boss Island. Thanks!
share