What makes a great movie is originality—it’s the fresh take on a concept, the taking of an idea and acting on it. Since 1937 with Disney’s famous princess Snow White in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” Disney has had a plethora of creative, original storylines like “Moana,” “The Lion King” and others which have made them such a successful franchise.
What happened?
Since their first live-action remake of “Cinderella” in 2015, Disney has fallen in the creativity department. Instead of using the billions of dollars at their disposal, most of that money is made off of their parks and not even their movies. The idea to recycle old, popular hits and turn them into live-actions has been their go-to this past decade. Sure, we’ve had the occasional new movie like “Wish” and “Zootopia,” but Disney has lost their magic.
The whole concept of a live-action remake was made popular by the 2015 film “Cinderella” and many people adored the movie because of its accuracy to the original movie and the magic it provided audiences. Movies since then have had controversial casting and a loss of magic that the old films provided. I adore the animation of the old films, like “Sleeping Beauty” and the nature scenes with Aurora and Prince Philip, which are some of the most beautiful scenes in my opinion. The Disney animation magic is something that cannot be touched by any live-action remake, and the more Disney tries to replicate what they once produced, I think the more fans are going to be disappointed and dissatisfied.
The lowest rated movie was the new “Snow White” adaptation, where Disney CGI’d the dwarves, turned it into a musical and cut out the beautiful romance between Snow White and the prince. The Tomatometer called “Dumbo” a “dud” and what has Disney done? Not learned their lesson.
Junior Anniah Peeples discussed her opinion on Disney’s live-action remakes, and has said she agrees that they should stop doing them “because whenever it’s done it’s clear that not a lot of time and effort is put into it.” Whenever a remake comes out, it is heavily scrutinized. “Moana” for instance has a live-action now just over a decade after its original cartoon release. Isn’t that a little soon, Disney?
Now “Tangled” is being remade into a live action, with Milo Manheim as Flynn Rider and Teagan Croft as Rapunzel. It seems Disney has no legitimate ideas anymore, recycling old movies which did well instead of using their brains to create something new, something exciting, something that people will want to see.
