A lot of people have a cynical attitude about Disney remaking their older animated movies in live-action. It’s really just part of the larger cynical attitude against remakes in general. I give my thoughts about them in this episode.
…About Live-Action Disney Remakes
My negativity towards them isn’t due to the fact that they’re remakes; it’s due to the fact that I believe it dismisses the medium of animation. I feel when they make these animated films into “live-action”, it’s like they’re saying a film isn’t a “real” film unless it’s live-action. And most of these “live-action” remakes have a lot of animation in them anyway, so it’s like they’re hypocritical.
I don’t believe anyone’s dismissing animation. Disney still makes animated movies. But when you remake something, you really do need to bring something new to the table. By remaking them as live-action, there are whole categories of filmmaking added to the experience, whether animation is part of it or not. It’s not hypocrisy, nor a dismissal of the original medium. I think Disney is the *last* studio you could accuse of not appreciating animation.
I don’t fully agree. Many times when the filmmakers refer to these remakes, they make comments about how they’re “fixing problems in the cartoon version” or that live-action can explore areas that animation cannot or just talk about animation in a disparaging way. Mena Massoud did this, whether purposefully or not, before Aladdin came out.