With the recent release of the remake of Aladdin and the remake of The
Lion King in the wings, I think now is a good time to say it: I absolutely
detest those constant remakes of Disney classics.
I know that's a strong word, but that's how I truthfully feel about it. Those
remakes are lazy, unnecessary and nothing more than a cash grab. This is the
equivalent of those sequels of older films, mostly direct-to-video, but a few
theatrical, from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. And there's more to come,
given a live-action remake of Lady and
the Tramp on the Disney+ streaming service (to say nothing of a remake of Mulan).
They use these remakes to profit from nostalgia rather than create new things to be nostalgic about. Those
remakes of Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and even the Tim Burton
versions of Alice In Wonderland and Dumbo were all I could bear. At least
Tim Burton films are different by design. I saw them all once, and I don't need to see them again. Granted, it's not a new phenomenon, as there was another live-action version of The Jungle Book released in the mid-1990s (which is radically different from the first movie, and probably more in common with the original Rudyard Kipling), along with a remake of 101 Dalmatians later that decade (which later spawned a sequel in 2000). But now, it's out of control.
My mother's favorite Disney movie is Sleeping Beauty, and she was utterly horrified by the live-action Maleficent movie, which had the absolute
worst choice to play one of the greatest Disney villains ever, Angelina Jolie.
Even worse, they had to make her a good person, even though she's the mistress
of all evil. Really?! My mother saw the ads for the sequel coming out later
this year, Maleficent: Mistress of All
Evil, and she's steering clear of that one. Furthermore, Mary Poppins Returns is technically a
sequel, but really in name only, as it was basically a rip-off of the original Mary Poppins at every turn.
Whenever I see ads for these things or promotions of any kind, I recoil
or look away. I know one thing: I absolutely refused to see the remakes of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, and I will definitely steer
clear of The Lion King as well. And besides, the attempts at making non-human characters, like the inanimate objects in Beauty and the Beast and the animals in The Jungle Book or The Lion King, come to life and to talk comes across as really creepy. It works well in cartoons, but not in live-action. On top of that, I'm told that their villains (Gaston, Jafar, etc.,) are even worse (that is, all the more monstrous) in the remakes than in the original cartoons.
I don't get it. I even thought that these remakes may even usurp the
original classics. Although I was informed that this was not likely to be the
case, it still makes me wonder, why bother making them at all if they are
inferior? The original Beauty and the
Beast was the first animated movie to win the Golden Globe for best musical
or comedy feature, as well as the first animated film to be nominated for Best
Picture at the Oscars, to say nothing of the ovation it received at the New
York Film Festival. The 2017 remake, on the other hand, not only received
nothing of the sort, but it came and went, with few people talking about it
now. And their aggressive marketing campaigns don't help matters much, either.
The only reason it and all these other remakes are made, it seems, is
to make money, nothing else. Like I said, it's a way to exploit nostalgia. It's
an easy way of doing it, too, since most other original live-action films, like
John Carter, The Lone Ranger, Tomorrowland
and A Wrinkle In Time, among others,
all seem to be box office flops. Original ideas are difficult; remakes seem to
be easier. However, it doesn't always seem to be right. As Albert Einstein once
said, "What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not
always right." These films are decidedly unpopular, and that they were
made at all is not right.
To close my rant, in addition to my one last reiteration of my resolve
never to see these sequels, my hope is that, like the sequels of the '90s and
2000s, these remakes will soon become forgotten, nothing more than a footnote
in Disney history, and in time, they probably will become just that. However,
that does not erase the fact that they were done, and as such, they won't be completely forgotten.
