Alright kids, put down your TikToks and your Roblox and your [checks notes] Skibidi Toilets. It’s time for a history lesson, because “Moana 2” isn’t just a movie. It’s a throwback to a long-lost historical era when sequels usually sucked. Why we’d want to throw back to that I have no idea, but I guess everything old is new again and Disney is, if nothing else, a nostalgia factory.

There was a time when saying “sequels suck” wasn’t just pessimistic, it was stating a statistical average. There were always noteworthy exceptions but for most of the 20th century, follow-ups to great and/or popular movies were usually less great and less popular. Often they were just shameless excuses to crank a few extra dollars out of the audience, so they fell into obscurity quickly. “Three Men and a Little Lady” did not do justice to “Three Men and a Baby.