Disney Live Action Remakes

Once upon a time, we'd get a Disney remake once a year or even once every two years. Now though it seems like Disney is giving us multiple remakes in one year. I thought I'd share my thoughts on this as someone who loves a Disney movie as much as the next one. Don't worry, there will only be one spoiler about The Lion King but I will give you a warning to skip that paragraph if you don't want to hear it.

Growing up in the late nineties and early 2000s Disney was a huge part of that. We had a whole collection of Disney VHS and I remember spending lots of time just watching a lot of the animated Disney movies. I loved them and it was a real comfort to me. My favourites were definitely Beauty and the Beast as well as Winnie the Pooh. The amount of times I rewatched these two in particular might have been concerning but I didn't care I was happy. Growing up, I was blissfully unaware of what a remake was. My first memory of a remake was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which I went to watch in the cinema. Yes I feel very old. Even then I didn't think it was such a big deal. I enjoy both movies but to this day there is always that argument of which one is better. Personally I think they are both great movies but I can understand why some may prefer one over the other. It's a natural thing to compare because at the end of the day it's the same story. Told from a slightly different perspective but still the same story. Now I'm going to be mainly talking about the remakes of animated classics made into live action rather than all the remakes of films because otherwise I'm going to be here for a while. 

Now the first live action Disney remake actually came the year I was born and that was 101 Dalmatians. I think nobody had a real problem with this because it was the first of its kind to remake an animated classic and I believe while it had a very similar plot to the original, it did make a few changes that make it its own. The next remake of an animated classic came over a decade later with Alice In Wonderland. This one, while it has the same name as the original, is very different because it takes place when Alice is older and almost acts like a sequel to the original animated version. I think that's what really helped it out because it was an original story. Yes it took a lot of inspiration from the source material and the animated movie but it also had an original story behind it. Plus with a bit of Tim Burton's magical charm, it's not a bad movie and did very well in the box office. I think Disney should have taken a leaf out of this book when it comes to their remakes that even if the title is the same as the animated version, you still can tweak the story slightly with the same characters we know and still make a great movie out of it. In fact with this case we don't need to even compare the two movies because they both have different plots. It's the same characters we know and love just from a different time of their lives which I think really helped.

Following on from this came Maleficent which told the story of Sleeping Beauty through Maleficent's perspective and honestly this was a good move by Disney because it had never been done before. We were able to understand Maleficent's perspective and be able to empathise with why the way she is and the whole reason for causing the events of Sleeping Beauty. It had a great plot and again did very well in the box office. This just shows that two original live action Disney remakes so far in the space of four years did really well because they had different perspectives of the same story. Alice in Wonderland was based after the events of the original animated movie when Alice was older and Maleficent told the story of Sleeping Beauty through the eyes of its villain. 

Now it's no surprise that because of the success of these remakes so far and the excitement for them I think it gave them an idea at Disney that they should do more of this. This leads us on to Cinderella. Now don't hate me but I've not seen the live action remake of Cinderella yet but I assume it tells the story we know and love. Perhaps added a few tweaks to it. Either way though it did very well at the box office so Disney must have thought let's keep doing this. Which resulted in The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo, Aladdin and The Lion King all being remade into live action movies. Some like the Lion King are a little bit debatable because it's all CGI animals so it's technically not live action but it is realistic so I guess it gets a pass and it's a remake of the classic movie so it counts towards one of Disney's remakes. Now even though these movies did very well in the box office, I have a feeling this is where Disney started to lose its magic. 

In the year 2019, we had four remakes alone and I think this is where people started to feel like Disney was just bringing out remakes. In fact if you google the movies that Disney released in 2019 you will see the majority is either sequels or remakes. Now sequels are always a bit of hit and miss but I think remakes are another thing that is starting to put people off. Especially when it is a remake of an animated classic that has been loved for years and then they remake it with the exact same story. Now it may be the same story everyone knows and loves but when those emotional moments don't hit as well as they did in the animated one then it can be a tricky thing to do right. 

Personally, I like all the remakes but one I didn't like was the Lion King because at least with others they made some changes to the original story which helped. They added character development, filled in the plot holes the original may have had. With the Lion King, to me it just felt like the exact same story as the animated one with no real difference and less emotional scenes. Now SPOILER ALERT WARNING but I'm going to reveal one of the biggest spoilers of the Lion King so if you don't want to hear then skip this entire paragraph. One of the emotional scenes is Mufasa's death. The animated version caused grown ups to even cry. From the music to emotion on Simba's face to it being such a huge surprise at the time. You felt sad and still feel sad everytime you watch it. Yet with the live action version, I didn't feel that at all. Probably because it was expected so it was less of a surprise but even the way Simba reacted to it. I felt no emotion. Whether it was the way he was animated but it felt like the voice was sad and the face didn't carry that same emotion. Even the music adds to an emotional scene and it felt like I was hearing the same music from the animated version but I wasn't watching the same scene even though it was the same scene. I would be curious to know what your thoughts are on this. Do a comparison of the scene of the animated version and live action version and let me know which one makes you more emotional than let me know in the comments below. *END OF SPOILERS*

Now I think because we had so many remakes in one year that it felt like Disney was just pumping them out one after the other felt like we were getting so many remakes that we didn't even have a chance to fully enjoy one before we had another thrown at us a couple of months later. We can't even blame the COVID pandemic for that because this was before the pandemic had even hit us. It is probably why it feels like there are so many remakes because we have had over ten live action remakes in a decade which is a lot. Now usually these live action remakes did very well but then Disney had a movie that bombed at the box office and that was Mulan. Probably due to the COVID pandemic that people were going to the cinema less and less which was understandable but also maybe because the Disney remakes are slowly becoming less and less popular. with both the Lion King and Lady and the Tramp having a lot of negative reviews thrown at them. I think because Disney remakes are so common that we have become used to them. Now it's not a bad thing to do a live action remake of a classic animated movie that everyone loves but make a remake telling the exact same story with no real differences to the original other than it being live action instead of animation then it makes you wonder what was the point of remaking it if you're not going to do anything different. 

Now Disney must be doing something right because with the current success of The Little Mermaid, Disney still has a load of remakes up their sleeves such as Snow White, Mufasa and Moana. We shall see if this will be the making or the downfall of Disney Live Action remakes. 

Either way I love a classic Disney movie and won't be revoking my Disney Plus subscription anytime soon. Hopefully something positive will come from these remakes that Disney is producing. The Little Mermaid is a perfect example of why representation matters and just remember we will always have the classic animated versions to watch if we're not too happy with the live action versions. Those will always stay in our hearts.

Anyway, this post was my own personal thoughts and feelings on the Disney Live Action Remakes. I'm not a professional reviewer, film critic or connoisseur. I'm just someone who likes watching movies and whose opinion doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. After all, I'm just a blogger who lives in Wales. I doubt Disney has time to put my personal thoughts into perspective. Either way I've had fun sharing my personal thoughts on the Disney remakes, let me know your thoughts in the comments below. I would love to hear them. 

Thank you for reading my blog and I'll be back tomorrow with another post.

See you then.

Megan x 

*This is not a sponsored post* 

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