We’ve heard the rumors that Disney movies are somehow all connected. With each film release comes a new wave of imaginative fans who try to convince us, say, that Tarzan and Elsa and Anna from Frozen are actually siblings separated by unfortunate circumstances. Welp, the conspiracy theorists are at it again, this time posing the question: Is Moana actually the complete opposite of The Little Mermaid?
While the films came out almost three decades apart, Disney fans on Tumblr have found some compelling similarities, Cosmopolitan reports. For example, while Princess Ariel is determined to explore land, Moana wants to explore the ocean. The Little Mermaid has a friendly little crab; Moana has a big evil crab. The hero has a magical necklace in Moana; the villain has a magical necklace in The Little Mermaid. The eerie opposites don’t stop there.
As it turns out, the singing crab similarity wasn’t an accident. Songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda purposefully paid tribute to The Little Mermaid with this tune, so could it be that all the other comparisons aren’t so far-fetched after all?
I call this Sebastian’s Revenge: a Disney crab singing about eating humans?
*whispers to 9 year old Lin*
(We did it) https://t.co/ODLfAN0XBM— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) December 21, 2016
At the end of the day, The Little Mermaid is a fairytale romance between two unlikely lovers and Moana is a culturally empowering story about saving the environment. But there’s no doubt that the plot lines have a lot more in common than expected. I’m on to you, Disney.