Last October, Disney revealed the first trailer for Raya and the Last Dragon, and it looked pretty swell. What was revealed was an Asian-inspired fantasy movie felt very Avatar: The Last Airbender, minus bending but plus dragons. This new trailer, however, takes Raya out of Avatar’s shadow to reveal what makes it special, and there’s a lot, including the greatest new character find of 2021: the con baby.
Raya, if you don’t remember, is set in a fantasy world named Kumandra where dragons sacrificed themselves to save humanity half a millennium ago from a mysterious evil. Now, that evil is back, the dragons are missing, and humanity is divided into four nations which can’t get along in the slightest.
Somehow Raya (voiced by Star Wars’ Kelly Marie Tran) gets the job of finding the titular last dragon (Awkwafina) and fixing Kumandra, which probably won’t be as easy given that 1) a warrior named Namaari (Gemma Chan) seems bent on stopping her, and 2) certain babies are already making her life extremely difficult.
Full disclosure: Ever since Tangled, I’ve preferred Disney’s CG movies over Pixar’s as they’ve seemed more interested in being funny and entertaining instead of ruthlessly trying to make me sob hysterically. But the trailers for Moana, Frozen, and Wreck-It Ralph weren’t nearly as delightful as this Raya trailer, so I could not be more excited for this film, which will be available on Disney+ (as part of the streaming service’s “Premier Access” program, like Mulan before it.) on March 5.