Live action remakes are fine if they bring something new to the table that brings a new perspective to the original.
Like the upcoming "Barbie" movie, for example.
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
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Thank you Margot Robbie. Can't wait to watch you on the big screen in the upcoming "Barbie" movie
Never heard of it.
A lot of people seem to think The Little Mermaid is doing quite well and if you're just reading the headlines from all the major reporting groups I could see why. If you look at the box office numbers, it is a different story. Many sources state the break-even point for it to be north of $500 million and after almost a month in theaters it still hasn't made the mark.
Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and their animation studio have produced a lot of content since 2020 with most of it losing money, barely breaking even, being critically panned, or having terrible viewership. Disney is in turmoil financially and it's clear that their current pool of talent isn't delivering what fans want to see. Elemental just released to the worst opening weekend for a Pixar movie ever. They need some changes to right the ship. Chopping some live actions from the line up may be something we see if they dry up as a major cash source as is indicated by The Little Mermaid.
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Some of their movies work okay as live action, they weren't great, but with the context of the story being human centric, making a live action version is understandable. But when they make "live action" versions of something like Lion King, then just use CGI to make the lions anyway, wtf disney. Plus when they used CGI and made realistic looking lions, it removed the expressiveness the cartoon versions of the lions had.
The absolutely hard stop for me is fucking Lilo & Stitch, my favorite disney cartoon movie, and the movie that will lose the most in translating it into live action. Fuck disney, they actively make the world of media worse. They own too much, and pump out mediocre workshopped slop.
I would have liked The Lion King a lot more if it had somewhat matching voices. The least they could have done is bring back Jeremy Irons opposite James Earl Jones and do Be Prepared. But as is, most of the voices were just jarring.
Nah. The Little Mermaid live action was pretty good. There are many kids I know that prefer the remakes than the original cartoons. I’m okay with letting them have their own movies that us old folks maybe don’t like as much
What if we tried coming up with new stories instead of giving our kids the same reheated leftovers from yesterday?
“Capitalism breeds innovation”. The “innovation”: Entertainment executives too afraid to try out new ideas for the absolute dread of commercial failure, so they'd rather give us Despicable Me 8 and Toy Story 6 instead
These remakes feel like a copyright extension as well as a cash grab for Disney. Win win for the mouse
It's one of those things you can't un-see
What if we tried coming up with new stories instead of giving our kids the same reheated leftovers from yesterday?
All of theater is basically a nostalgia game. Shows and Operas have been playing for hundreds of years, and that's fine. Even something like "Lion King" is a not-so-subtle replay of the incredibly traditional Shakespearean play "Hamlet".
And plays like Peter Pan were going on for decades before Disney's cartoon edition.
Sometimes, its nice to just lean into the nostalgia. A changed song or two with a new set of actors is ... fine? Its how its been done for decades, or even centuries of theater.
I'm well aware most of the themes and plots in literature are an exercise in “Can I copy your homework?” “Sure, just change it up a bit so it doesn’t look obvious”.
But there's “original”, and then there's “are you even trying?”. We all know the current live action remakes were done for copyright extension reasons and little to no effort was put into refreshing up the stories, giving them a nice twist, nada.
If Sophocles was able to do retellings of ancient myths, which his audience already knew in full, and still could keep people interested in the play and even introduce enough innovations to earn the praise of his peers, then so can we even if we start from a material that's not truly original.
Actually, Lion King is a testament Disney knows how to do this. When it came out, nobody was saying “This movie is trash. It's just Hamlet with talking animals”, even though when you're told you can clearly see it takes lots of themes and character archetypes from said play. But it also changed things up a bit to warrant being it’s own thing, and praised accordingly.
Its how its been done for decades, or even centuries of theater.
Trying to compare mediums like animation movies to theatrical plays is bound to make for some strange comparisons. With movies if I want to take a stroll down memory lane I can just replay the old ones, even show them to my kids for them to see what I liked when I was their age.
On the other hand, it's in the very nature of theatre to redo the same plays over and over by one same company, sometimes in an itinerant fashion sometimes not. Because it's a live spectacle, that's the only way for new audiences to actually watch the play.
Trying to compare mediums like animation movies to theatrical plays is bound to make for some strange comparisons. With movies if I want to take a stroll down memory lane I can just replay the old ones, even show them to my kids for them to see what I liked when I was their age. On the other hand, it’s in the very nature of theatre to redo the same plays over and over by one same company, sometimes in an itinerant fashion sometimes not. Because it’s a live spectacle, that’s the only way for new audiences to actually watch the play.
Except you know as much as I do that "The Great Gatsby" and "A Star Is Born" is remade every 20 to 30ish years. That's well within movie/cinema tradition.
When I look at the good remakes, like Aladdin, I can easily point out that all the songs have changed significantly. Will Smith is more of a rapper than a singer. As such, the Genie songs were closer to rap. And that's an interesting change.
The stunts in the live-action version of Aladdin are real. The actor they chose was an expert parkour guy with incredible moves: able to leap, roll, climb, and descend on-par with Jackie Chan. These stunts hit in a way that a cartoon-movie could never do.
Finally: each Live-action remake is ~2 hours of runtime rather than ~1h 30m. There's at least 30-additional minutes of script in all of them. Its not always used effectively, but I think its safe to say that Cinderella, Aladdin, and The Little Mermaid all did a good job with the additional 30-minutes. (Other movies: Dumbo or Mulan, did not do a good job).
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I thought Aladdin was good too.
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As long as Disney fanatics continue to buy anything $DIS, then they will continue to pump out these cash cows.
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They all just feel so…..lifeless and uncanny
I’ve tried to avoid the new ones, but with kids I inevitably end up at one. They are all so bland and boring. They don’t even try to be there on thing. I guess if you’re hungry potato chips work, and there’s an entire aisle at the grocery store to choose from, but if you want something decent, you gotta look somewhere else.
But wait. Did the kids like it?
Aladdin was one of my favorite Disney animated movies and I also enjoyed the live action version. Was it something I was asking for? No, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with making a live action version just as long as it is well done.
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It's infuriating how many of the biggest media releases these days are either re-release, remakes, or very stale additions to long standing franchises.
I hate how much Hollywood is relying on pre-existing stuff, it's incredibly lazy.
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The Little Mermaid was good, they put more effort into the casting this time I think which helped, nothing against the other actors, but Halley can sing like an angel and Melissa McCarthy did Divine proud. I think a lot of it has to do with copyright more than anything else. While they don't reset the copyright, they give Disney vast new swaths of copyrightable material on the same subject with the same name. But lord they totally do NOT need a new version of Moana yet.
But Moana's animation was so beautiful...it was one of the best parts of that movie.
Moana might be pushed by Dwayne Johnson since he's still playing Maui and has a pretty huge ego and influence
I literally just posted if Dwayne plays Maui, I'm in, lol. And I haven't had much interest, none lately, in the remakes. I love Dwayne, though.
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I think there's something to be said for accepting that we're old and what our kids get excited for and enjoy isn't going to and doesn't need to make sense to us.
It would be nice if they used more practical effects though.
The new Little Mermaid was fantastic. Hard disagree, as long as they keep the quality. I didn’t care for most of the other live actions.
The only live action remake I would approve is a remake of 1979 movie The Black Hole.
Do it you cowards
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20,000 Leagues under the sea could be a cool remake.
I'd love to see a good modern CG 20,000 leagues movie
I’ll know they are serious when they remake Song of the South. All live-action segments are now animated, previously animated segments are now live-action.
You know what, let’s not stop there. Live-action remakes of the Don Bluth movies, starting with The Secret of NIMH, then All Dogs Go To Heaven, An American Tail, then Land Before Time. Shit, let’s do Rankin, too! Who’s up for a live-action The Last Unicorn?
They would never do it, but I think an honest remake of Song of the South would be absolutely amazing.
Leave the rich white people out, have the characters be entirely made up from the ex-slave sharecroppers. Show the miserable conditions, and show their escape into the fantasy of Uncle Remus.
Maybe make the reflection of the real-life antagonists a bit more clear with the characters of Br'er Bear and Br'er Fox, and maybe stir in some revenge fantasy while you're at it.
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I hope they quit this fad and get back to the direct to video sequels. The Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea was the bomb!
Yes! And Cinderella III is one of disney’s best sequels!!
It's a "safe bet". I agree with you btw.
If they do make them, they should at least make them incredibly good. The new Peter Pan and Wendy movie SUUUUCKS. Not because there are black actors in it, at all. It sucks because it's very bland and just boring.
Also that movie didn't need to get made, because the 2003 Peter Pan (NOT by Disney, which is probably why nobody knows about it) was AWESOME. Seriously, see that one.
oh no not Moana 😔
Fewer remakes period would be nice. Fewer CG blockbusters with ridiculous casts of overpaid actors and more fun stylised CG/animated movies would also be nice and probably tempt me to go to the cinema more often, but I know I'm not the target demographic. Although it's a Sony movie, Spiderverse is a great example of this being done well, although they are also making more regular Spiderman. I've not seen a regular Spiderman movie since the old ones from the early 2000s, back when there weren't 10 superhero movies a week.
Splitting movies into parts is another emerging trend I'm not a fan of. If you are going to do it, make each movie feel satisfying in itself instead of finishing out of nowhere with an unsatisfying non-ending or cliffhanger. I'm kind of shocked so many people are OK with these bullshit endings.
I've always wanted the opposite to happen. I want to see live action movies made as cartoons. Mostly with sci-fi/fantasy stuff where the impossible is made possible, and animation would make visualizing some of the fantastic things a lot better and ultimately easier. I mean if 90% of the movie is already animated with CGI, why not just also animate the last 10%, too? 🤷🏻♂️
I do agree. But least Moana is mostly humans and can mostly actually be live action, and not CGI. I've seen a couple of the remakes, but they impressed me so little I haven't watched the others. But, if Dwayne plays Maui, I'm in.
The Little Mermaid was a huge hit. So huge in fact, that they greenlit Moana as a result so I don’t see them changing their minds. I liked Moana, but to be honest I think it probably works best as an animation. What’s exciting about it though, is that there hasn’t been a huge CGI-fest movie about Polynesian myth that takes place in a time without any colonization. It’s exciting.
There has been talks of a Moana remake before the little mermaid cast choices were released. As far as I can tell, support was there if auli'i cravalho maintained her role but that is not the case. And a "CGI-fest" about Polynesian myth is a bit insulting if the cast, writers, and directors are not Polynesian. Or don't respect Polynesian culture like the original Moana production team did. I am not looking forward to this film.
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