#‘​this is a cool build! where are the npc houses tho’ ‘i honestly forgot about them during planning’

[kotalefanzu]

[daeva-agas]

I just watched Raya and the Last Dragon. I second a lot of my original criticism of the “culture inspiration” (TM) from the trailers/teasers, heh. Context doesn’t make them better. 

It’s really all feel like it’s just thrown together without thought. The little tidbits such as food is ok, the wayang-esque puppet show is ok. I had liked the Sisu summoning ritual thing. The folded dragon map does resemble a “lontar” too, which is what people used to write on. But the overall set and costume design looks so hodge podge and visually odd. 

Like, somehow I almost feel that I’d be less baffled if they DIDN’T advertise the research and just let it be fantasy. I would be more “ooh I recognize this reference” at the good refs rather than just feeling confused and upset over what ends up being weird/wrong/less than ideal.

For example, uh... forgot what Namaari’s kingdom is... the architecture looks borrowed from Thailand but the Queen and Namaari’s hair is like... eh?? Everyone else are wearing more traditional/ethnic looking hairbuns, but the royalty are just randomly different. It’s pretty common in anime or Sengoku games, where the random NPCs are era-appropriate but the player characters and/or heroes has wild and fancy anime hair. It’s WEIRD here, though.

The kingdom with the purple theme. The purple is so overwhelming and it just looks comically absurd. The stilt houses on the river is okay, it’s a thing shared across the different SEA countries, but the lanterns felt weird. Like, it just felt a bit... “too Chinese”? I know some mainland-SEA countries like Vietnam has stronger Chinese influence thanks to proximity, but you know...

Speaking about “too Chinese”, the jade coins are a bit ???? too. Like, of all things, why? What part of SEA culture was that inspired by? Or is that part of the fantasy? Why not metal coins? In old Indonesian kingdoms they had gold coins. Honestly I’d almost prefer plain rock coins than jade, because it just looks funny.

Still don’t like the furry dragons. Like, seriously, why tho? You can make furry plushies if you want to, doesn’t mean the actual dragon in the movie has to be furry too. And the water-jumping. Okay, those aren’t ice, just “magical solid water” that can be jumped on. It still is very reminiscent of Elsa’s ice jumping, and they really shouldn’t have made that a thing. What is even the purpose? There’s nothing sitting on some high, fragile precipice of a mountain that requires that technique to reach. Sisu and the other dragons just do it for aesthetic shots. What, did you think SEA dragons aren’t cool enough if they can’t fly?

I mean, see, this is what makes the weird “Chinese” stuff feel very bizarre is because... the real SEA has always had trade relations with China, India, and Arab. THAT’S where the shared culture and tradition come from. Whereas Kumandra... well, maybe there is a pseudo-China or pseudo-India in the universe there that lent them the influences, but since we’re not told, it’s just there for visuals that ends up feeling out of place.

Also, a bit of a shame that the kingdoms are inland, and there’s a lack of seafaring cultures. The island nations of SEA has very strong seafaring traditions. See, the story of Makassar trepang fishers who sailed all the way to Australia back in the ye old days. I guess they don’t want to overlap with Moana? Since “seafaring” is the theme of that movie. 

I guess the question is how to build a fantasy universe with ethnic influences that doesn’t just end up looking super wrong, huh? Where and how do you put the fantastic spin, without bastardizing the original inspirations or butchering them in the “fantasification”? Like... there’s definitely shared culture among nations, but how much mix and match is ok? Can you even do that at all? Or do you have to actually map each fantasy culture to a real life equivalent, or else it would be disrespectful? I honestly don’t know either.