Recently, Disney has a new and repulsive adoration to not making new stories and original characters and instead remaking (along with butchering) their classics in live action. You may have not asked, but boy do I have opinions on it.
Some of these remakes are okay, and by that I mean The Little Mermaid, but the rest are just… trash. I don’t like them, I don’t think anyone should, I think they should stop making these cheap excuses of a cash grab. You’re Disney. You have enough money. Now pay your writers to come up with something fresh!
First of all, the live actions remakes, or at least the ‘retellings’ often butcher characters, specifically, the villains. I do not carewhy they’re evil or their sad traumatic back story.
One example of this is, while not originally a remake, it’s the same premise, the Cruella movie. In its own right, it’d be a great show if it wasn’t specifically about Cruella. It would be so much better if it was it’s own original show about some other fashion designer, but no, Disney doesn’t trust it’s fans to be interested in their products unless it’s tied into some ‘classic’ product.
Villains don’t need back stories. They’re not back stories actually, they’re just sob stories. Stop trying to make your villains justifiable, their job is to be evil. Some people are just like that! Oh no, it’s totally reasonable that Cruella wanted to skin one hundred puppies to make a coat because some lady was mean to her and had a couple of dalmatians! Okay? Shut up. What’s next? Gaston’s like that because his dad was killed by Bigfoot? Claude Frollo gets to be like that because a Romani woman actually killed his whole family and kicked his dog?
Honestly, I don’t think I’d care as much about this if they didn’t act like this was the plan the ENTIRE TIME. Oh yeah, ever since 1959 it’s been the plan for Maleficent to actually be the real hero of sleeping beauty! The Maleficent movie was a good movie, I’ll give it that, but if Disney just didn’t act like this has been the truth all along, if they just said, ‘oh it’s a character exploration’ or anything else.
Beauty and the Beast was the worst. The Beast did have a pretty solid song, but honestly I just think it was brought down by Emma Watson. Boring dress. Aladdin? Average. I didn’t like Jasmine’s song, I think they should’ve left it untouched out of respect for Robin Williams. Cinderella? Good. Fabulous dress. Camila Cabello’s Cinderella? Horrible. Don’t get me started. Lady and the Tramp? Yikes. I could keep going. So I am.
The Lion King. Terrible CGI. Stop with the photorealism; let these animated cats show actual emotion. I wouldn’t just look a little surprised if I just watched my uncle kill my dad, and then frame the child, a six year old , for his murder. They just ripped all of the character away and emotion because of what? Realism? I’ve seen photos of cats on TikTok that show more emotion than every animal in that movie combined.
Mulan. Nope. They got rid of Li Shang. Because it wasn’t ‘feminist enough.’ Let girls be in love. That’s a topic I’ll get into later. Great that they filmed in China, but positively crediting the government agencies in Xinjiang… Disney strikes again.
The new Snow White movie? Rachel Ziegler needs to shut her mouth. Apparently to Disney and Rachel, Snow White isn’t feminist enough, and weak. This is another new trend with these live actions. Snow White was someone who went through years and years of abuse and still found herself to be soft, and hopeful, and loving. She wanted to fall in love and it’s a good thing she did. She fell in love with her prince charming, like she deserved. Feminism isn’t about being some tough boss babe dressed in leather and being a wannabe Robin Hood. They shouldn’t demonize being in love. They’re going to completely tarnish her character for what? Because she didn’t fit someone else’s agenda? Allow little girls and women fall in love. Let them find their prince who will treat them like a princess. It’s not a bad thing.
Now they’re planning on revisiting the brand new movies like Moana and Rapunzel. Stop. Not everything needs a live action. Stop. You sick freaks at Disney. Just Stop. You already killed 2D animation, so please stop with your weird killing of things, like your own company at this point.
I will say this, not all remakes have been bad. The Little Mermaid was a fantastic movie. Why is this specific remake better than the others? Halle Bailey was phenomenal, Jonah Hauer-King was fantastic. They both respected their characters and their story, unlike Rachel Ziegler. It was a fun light movie that guess what? Instead of ripping the love from the movie, they expanded on it. They made the characters into believable people. They didn’t change the story to fit their new agenda of the week. They did live action right. They took an already phenomenal movie and made it not, a ‘better’ version that meant you should totally forget about the original, but they made it a homage to that incredible movie.
What they need to do is just stop trying to fix what isn’t broken. Do something new for once, or is that too hard, Disney?
