Bryan Alexander

USA TODAY

** Warning: ** What follows contains spoilers about the end of 'Moana.' Stop reading now if you haven't seen it yet.

Dwayne Johnson has body-slammed, People's Elbowed, killed, impaled and crushed many foes in his professional wrestling and film careers.

But the 6-foot-5 actor voicing the demigod Maui in Moana says he was surprised and heartened to see the very compassionate ending in the animated adventure, which topped the Thanksgiving holiday box office with $81.1 million.

(This is your last chance to bail. Don't read unless you've already seen the movie.)

No deaths, no smiting. Maui doesn't finish off lava monster Te Ka with his powerful fishhook. Instead, the heroine Moana understands and sympathizes with the seeming foe, changing the villainess in the process.

"I didn't see the ending until I first saw the whole movie," said Johnson, exhaling. "It was like, wow. Powerful."

The ending starts with an epic battle, then Moana says calmly, before the looming, furious Te Ka, "Let her come to me."

The ocean parts, and Te Ka bears down angrily as Moana sings Know Who You Are, “I have crossed the horizon to find you /I know your name /They have stolen the heart from inside you, but this does not define you /This is not who you are /You know who you are.”

Moana restores Te Ka's lost heart. Te Ka presses her face to Moana's in the Maori greeting ritual called "hongi" and transforms into the island goddess Te Fiti.

The Rock, Auli'i Cravalho bring true chemistry to 'Moana'

Directors John Musker and Ron Clements say the ending went through many variations before they decided on the sympathetic, and unusually musical, conclusion.

"We liked showing Moana's empathy, which got her started on this whole journey," says Musker, alluding to an early scene in which Moana saves a baby sea turtle. "This empathy is why the ocean picked Moana out."

Musker adds that the ending allows redemption of the baddie "in a way in keeping with the movie. There's a problem between man and nature, which ultimately gets resolved when man and nature come together."

It's a far cry from historical Disney movie endings. In Musker and Clements' 1989 The Little Mermaid, the sea witch Ursula was impaled by a ship sailed by Prince Eric before Ursula could kill mermaid heroine Ariel.

"The very typical response is something is bad and needs to be vanquished. There's beauty in the empathy of Moana's response," says Alicia Lutes, managing editor of entertainment site Nerdist.com. "Moana was able to see and connect, to understand the problem. It's a powerful thing to see in a children's movie, especially between two women."

Disney previously went for a compassionate conclusion in 2015's live-action Cinderella. Director Kenneth Branagh ignored test audiences who wanted to see a "revenge and punishment" ending. He had Cinderella (Lily James) tell Cate Blanchett's Lady Tremaine, the stepmother who made her life misery, "I forgive you."

Not all Disney endings will stay on Moana's righteous path.

"It's not a company mandate that you cannot get bad guys killed anymore. You see plenty of bad guys meeting very powerful ends," says Musker. "But this ending was right for this particular story."

Johnson jokes that he's a convert.

"In Fast 8, it's going to be very similar," Johnson says of the next installment of The Fast and the Furious franchise. "At the end, I'll say, 'Come to me.' "