Opinion Piece - I Refuse to be Excited for Disney's "Live Action" Remakes

I appreciate that a lot of my posts can be cynical and miserable but seriously, try not to get angry at me for this one and bear with me a bit because if you ignore me (and this absolutely isn't hyperbole) cinema may change for the worse. Disney have been on a trend recently (that I'm certain even the least cinephilic of you will have noticed) of remaking beloved animated films in live action form and for them, it's worked out brilliantly. Mostly, they've been well reviewed but they've been absolutely huge box office draws with Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast all making around $1 billion each. Which I hate. I adore cinema and it doesn't always give me delight to be angry about them but this trend really worries me and it is only getting worse with four remakes coming out next year alone. Remakes alone aren't always bad (you're reading a blog by a guy who prefers the Suspiria remake to the original for God's sake) but the way Disney are going about it is very, very worrying.

Before I head into wild speculation, I'll use the case studies that have already been given to use by Disney and I think what is important to get out straight away is that so far, none of these early remakes have been out and out bad. None of them have been amazing but none have offended me in content. Of the ones that have come out (which includes Cinderella and Maleficent) I've only seen three; Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast. Of them, the one I liked best was The Jungle Book because it genuinely felt like a different film to the original in a good way. Sure, it was essentially a beautiful tech demo for what computer rendering can do but it was charming enough that I enjoyed it until I forgot about it. Alice in Wonderland was pretty poor but I won't go too much into that because I saw it around when it was first released and so it would be unfair to discuss it just on that. Where my issues really start though is with Beauty and the Beast. I am pretty sure I saw the original as the child but I don't have any strong memories of it AND STILL it felt derrivative. It was an uninspired film in which they played the old songs and used weird character designs that only work in animation and expected you to clap. And people did. And it was one of the highest grossing films of last year. So you know, that's cool.

Which brings us to this stage of "anticipation" and my fear for the industry. Disney have a huge slew of remakes planned and as I said, that's four next year alone, in Dumbo, Lady and the Tramp, Aladdin and Lion King. Those last two are most troubling but let's start with Aladdin. It's been a very long time since I've seen that film but it is a classic (as most of these are) and in many places is pretty much perfect. Sure, there's some weird stuff in the subtext with Jasmine but on a film making level, very little to complain about, even before getting to the fact that Robin Williams gives an absolutely iconic performance as the Genie. If you want to do a story like this in live action, that could be okay but attempting to replace Robin Williams is a sin and the fact that it's being done with beloved star of YouTube Rewind Will Smith is especially troubling. It's The Lion King that made me start this post though so let's get into that. The Lion King genuinely is a perfect animated film. There's animated films I love more, sure, but I wouldn't argue against it being pretty much perfect. SO WHY TRY AND CHANGE IT? With the trailer, all we've had is the promise that it'll be basically the same shots, the same music and the same story but computer generated (because live action it most certainly is not) and with cast members we will know. This last point gets me the most and not because I dislike the cast because I love loads of them, not least John Oliver, Seth Rogen and Donald Glover. No, the reason I dislike them being in the film is that I won't go "Ah, this is Zazu" or "Hey, it's good ol' Simba". I'll think "Yup, that voice sure sounds like Seth Rogen" and that is going to distract me from the film no end.

This post is just going to be a shout into the void because 1. No one actually reads this and 2. Everyone is going to go see all of these films and I have a horrible horrible feeling that The Lion King could be one of the highest grossing films of next year, way up there with Avengers: Endgame and Star Wars Episode 9. If nothing else, this is me staking my claim now that I don't have much faith in what Disney is doing and it sets a poor precedent for just shovelling out the same old stories instead of putting in new work. I would love to love the 2019 Lion King but frankly Mr Disney, I don't feel so good about it.