Chalk up another win in the "Silliness" column and move on. Nothing to see here.

I tell those whiny pricks to fucking shut up. Perhaps people need to realize that this is FICTIONAL and stop applying their damn lives into everything. Disney isn't making a biography. Theyre set out to make an entertaining film.

No one cares about their self-obsessed selves. This movie is gorgeous and I'm excited for it.

The Polynesian voice actor for Maui

The animated image of Maui

Why couldn't that have simply mo-capped The Rock?

If Polynesian characters of all shapes and sizes were present a lot on movie and TV screens this would be a non-issue. But the fact that Polynesian characters are so rarely represented and even more rarely the central heroes of movies and TV puts it in a different context.

Also, pre-colonial polynesians were not fat, obesity only became significant in polynesians after western diets were introduced. So any traditional image of Maui in polynesian culture would not be of a big fat dude. So it's not historically or mythologically accurate. Obesity in the Polynesian community is a major problem. The Polynesian community doesn't need a fat archetype of it created in popular culture. Outside of Australia, New Zealand and Polynesia itself, how many people have actually met or know any Polynesians? How many people even know Khaal Drogo and the Rock are Polynesian?

If anyone has a right to be offended at the fictional portyrayal of a culture in popular entertainment it's the people of that culture. They are the ones who are most interested and concerned about the health and development of their people.

It might be minor to you, but to some Polynesian people this stuff matters.

You know this isn't totally fictional as in pulled out of the arses of Disney writers? It's based on actual mythology. If you were making a movie about the Greek gods and made Zeus a fat dude people would complain that it's not accurate to the mythology. Same thing applies here.

Google images for the god Maui and the only one you'll find who's a morbidly obese, diabetes risk is this Disney one.

Come to NZ all the polys here are fat xD

Hmm, interesting that people got pissed over people being offended and then we had quite an enlightening post about what's actually going on here.

Thanks Binary.

LOL! Have you never seen Heracles and compared it to the actual myths? 

Or the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the actual book?

Or Aladdin and the original folklore?

This is nothing new from Disney. They will take something from mythology/folklore/literature and put their own spin on it. Also, anyone seeing Maui and thinking 'obese' is looking to get offended. The dude is short and wide, but he looks built as hell, not fat.

Actually it wouldn't be. Because human sacrifice and cannibalism are historically accurate elements of many Polynesian cultures. However cannibalism wasn't a source of nutrition, it was a ritual thing, particularly the eating of a defeated enemy. So if you portrayed Polynesian's as dietary cannibals that would be racist.

Of course Disney would never put human sacrifice or cannibalism into one of it's animated movies, but that would not be for reasons of cultural sensitivity.

If you know of any hippies that have had placenta eating parties as part of the celebration of  the birth of a child, then you know someone who has engaged in ritual cannibalism.

If Maui is short, does that mean Moana is a midget?

So is Heracles not a hot, muscly dude in Greek Mythology? Pretty sure he is.

Disney's visual portrayal of the Hunchback is pretty consistent with every visual portrayal of him in popular entertainment.

Is Aladdin not a poor young Arabian man? (It's also apparently not one of the official tales from 1001 Arabian Nights, could have been totally made up by a French dude).

Fact is, all those examples you cite of Disney artistic licence are still largely based on the physical imagery of the original character. 

I had not seen the side-by-side. So he's tall and wide. That  provides even less reason to assume he's fat. Look at the people that win strength contests. It's not the dudes with pretty sculpted muscles, it's guys that look more like Maui. Just as a reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerlifting

Chuckle, seriously their physical attributes are the only things you care about? Disney re-writes significant amounts of the original material, including turning Hades (a generally good god in the Greek pantheon) into a backstabbing devil, completely altering the villain and ending of the Hunchback, and turning the genie of Aladdin into a wise-cracking comedian. Don't get me wrong, I like their movies, but pretending like they've never done this before, or that Maui being 'fat' is somehow the worst sacrilige to the original material that they've ever perpetrated is ridiculous.