Film Preview: Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

Film Poster

Page Revisions:

(October 25, 2020) Original
(January 31, 2021) New Trailer (#2) — New Posters (#3-#5)
(February 28, 2021) New Posters (#6-#10) — New Release Date (changed from 3/12/21)

Release Date:

March 5, 2021

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “In a realm known as Lumandra, a re-imagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilization, a warrior named Raya is determined to find the last dragon.”

Poster Rating: C+ / B+ / C+ / C+ / C / B+ / C+ / B / C+ / C+

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Review: (#1) Very simplistic. It even looks like some strange homages to martial arts poster designs, but which is not otherwise interesting. (#2) I’m not sure How much longer we’ll get these lovely designs, but I hope it continues for awhile. Kudos for consistency.

(#3-#4) These two designs are different enough to be distinctive, but similar enough to be unoriginal. There’s lot of foliage here, but none of it feels very organic. (#5) Disney knows how to do better. This design is entirely sloppy. It does the bare minimum to look interesting without looking like a waste of time.

(#6) There are a lot of details here and it’s interesting to see Disney branch out a bit in terms of design segmentation, using creative embellishments to separate each unique segment, which certainly makes it more interesting. (#7) While it might seem like there’s a nice balance here, there’s a lack of creative depth, which leaves the background unimpressive. (#8) What design 6 does well is attempted in a little less successful way with this design, but there’s still enough here to be interesting. (#9) This familial gathering doesn’t seem to fit the tone of the rest of the film or the other posters. (#10) While the clever lifting of the gem is interesting, the remainder of the design isn’t. It all feels tacked on.

Trailer Rating: A / C+

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Review: (#1) The cuteness level of this trailer is fairly high, but it does a tremendous job suggesting the adventure in store for the audience should they give the film a chance.

(#2) Strange how an expansion of the narrative into the second trailer can make the whole film look impossibly worse. Clunky dialogue and humor, weak animation, and a premise that isn’t terribly appealing. If the studio had come out with this first, they could have course-corrected in the second outing, but instead they made the film look worse in the follow-up trailer and it may not be able to overcome that.