Disney Hit With Copyright Lawsuit For Moana 2 In The Middle Of Awards Season

Below, see a breakdown of story elements that are present both in the Moana movies and the Bucky screenplay:

• The setting of an ancient Polynesian village
• A teenager goes on an ocean adventure that involves the spirits of ancestors manifesting as animals
• Said adventure begins because of a turtle
• A symbolic necklace is important to the story
• A supporting character is a hook-wielding demigod with tattoos
• A large creature is hidden in a mountain
• The crew is sucked into a whirlpool portal

I hate to defend Disney here, but based on the evidence presented by this article (maybe the actual filing is better) this is hard to see as plagiarism.

Both stories are based on the same cultural stories, so they automatically have similarities there. Maui typically uses a hook in those stories, so of course that is a common element. A portal in a whirlpool is a known trope: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PortalPool

Monster in a mountain is obviously a trope (e.g. Smaug, etc).