If I had to pick just one word to describe Disney’s live-action remakes of the studio’s beloved classics, it would be lackluster. The House Of Mouse has remade a bunch of its old animated movies, and started remaking them in earnest with 2010’s Alice in Wonderland from Tim Burton, though the current project effectively kicked into high gear with 2015’s Cinderella (Maleficent released the year before, but was more of a spin-off than a remake of Sleeping Beauty).
Previous films like 101 Dalmatians came out before there was any real organized effort at Disney to remake everything. There have been over 20 remakes all told at this point, the last of which—The Little Mermaid—hit theaters in 2023. It was actually better than I expected, but still felt lifeless and drab compared to its animated counterpart. And good luck humming any of the new tunes. As much as the live-action fails to live up to the original animation, the music has been even more of a disappointment.
This is the running theme with Disney’s live-action remakes. Even the better ones fail to capture the magic of the animated classics. Beauty and the Beast is one of the better remakes, but it sits in the shadow of what is perhaps the greatest of all of Disney’s animated princess films. Others, like Mulan, are genuinely embarrassing. I couldn’t even bring myself to watch Peter Pan & Wendy.
Now, behold this incredible new trailer for Moana 2:
I liked Moana quite a bit, though it’s far from my favorite Disney princess movie. I still rank Tangled as the best of the “new” Disney animated princess movies, though I like Moana better than the wildly overhyped Frozen movies.
That’s all beside the point, which is simply that animation is where Disney shines brightest. This looks better than any of the live-action remakes, simply because it actually uses color and and feels (perhaps ironically) so much more alive. The Little Mermaid replaced all those colorful singing and dancing fish with fish that basically looked like real fish and the results were pretty terrible. All the joy that burst forth from the screen during the original film’s Under The Sea was gone in the live-action version.
I suppose Disney is probably starting to realize this to some degree, which is why the first trailer for Snow White is so much more saturated and animated looking, but then why not just make a new animated Snow White instead? I’d be much more excited about animated remakes of these films, even if I’m generally pretty happy with the originals. An animated Peter Pan could get rid of the ‘Why Is The Red Man Red’ stuff. Snow White was one of the weaker animated films, so a really gorgeous remake of that would be great. Others, like Robin Hood, are just so perfect just the way they are—but would still make better animated remakes than live-action. And why make The Lion King look “real” when you could make a new animated version using modern technology that was every bit as colorful and alive as the original?
Disney is one of the most baffling studios out there. I do not understand so many of their business decisions, including basically their entire plan with Star Wars, which is just such a mess. Marvel has been a huge success but in recent years that success is slipping. The company needs to lean into its strengths: The MCU and Star Wars are most popular with boys—focus on that demographic when you create your projects. Disney princess stuff is most popular with girls and families, and most successful when it’s animated (while it’s not a princess movie, the massive success of Inside Out 2 should remind Disney that quality storytelling trumps all other considerations).
In any case, I’m just blowing against the wind here. Such is the fate of the lonely critic. On my tombstone, write “Old man shook fist at clouds.”
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