Nobody’s saying Maui, that most rascally of Polynesian demigods, isn’t strong. He once beat the Sun into submission with a jawbone and yanked the Hawaiian Islands out from the bottom of the ocean. So yes, Maui’s strong.

But big? Not so much.

In illustrated books, comics and animated films, Maui often resembles a lithe teenager on the verge of manhood. In Arman Manookian’s 1927 drawing “Maui Snaring the Sun,” he’s a typical beach boy; in Peter Gossage’s classic books, including “How Maui Found His Father and the Magic Jawbone,” he’s got enviable six-pack abs. And in more recent children’s books by the Maori artist Gavin Bishop (“Maui and the Goddess of Fire”) and the Hawaiian writer Gabrielle Ahuli’i (“Maui Hooks the Islands”), he’s slim and impish.

So when the first trailers for “Moana” were released earlier this year, many fans of Maui were taken aback. In this Disney animated film, which opens on Wednesday, Nov. 23, Moana (Auli’i Cravalho), a feisty, adventure-seeking teenager, sets off on a quest to locate the long-lost demigod. When she ultimately finds him, he looks nothing like the Maui of countless children’s books. For one thing, he’s big, really big — somewhere between Dwayne Johnson (who voices the character) and an Airstream trailer. He also has a great head of thick, wild hair (in most versions, Maui’s hair is tied back in a neat topknot) and biceps bigger around than his co-star’s waist.