The art and ire of a live-action remake
Photo courtesy of Bollywood Hungama/Wikimedia Commons
Neel Sethi did a truly incredible job playing Mowgli in the The Jungle Book (2016) at only 10-years-old.
Many have become familiar with the idea of “live-action remakes.” Big studios, typically Disney, take an animated film that had a ton of success in the past and recast, rewrite, and rerelease it, making what was formerly animation a collection of CGI and filmed shots of real people, like any live action movie. Whenever movies like these are announced, they are usually faced with a heavy amount of backlash, with people using them as proof that Disney does not make original stories, calling these remakes “cash-grabs” or even “soulless.”
However, Disney has never made original stories—or at least, it has been pretty rare. The most famous and well-received movies that Disney has ever made are usually based on novels or book series, such as Pinocchio (1940), which is an adaption of The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883). Then, there is obviously the formula that Disney uses, which involves taking a classic fairytale and turning it into an animated musical. This was where it all started, with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) being based on the famous Grimm Brothers fairytale, all the way up to Frozen (2013) acting as a retelling of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen fairytale from 1844. Even The Lion King (1994) is often considered to be a retelling of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” written 1599 to 1601. So, are these not already “remakes” in a way?
One may say that it is because these earlier movies were not “remaking” anything. They adapted the original source, used it for inspiration, but made their own story of it. However, it is not as if the live-action remakes are shot-for-shot copies of their animated counterparts…or at least, they did not start out that way.
Disney’s earliest live action remakes included the likes of Cinderella (2015), The Jungle Book (2016), and Pete’s Dragon (2016). These movies are actually quite spectacular, with The Jungle Book (2016) earning a whooping 94% Critic Score on Rotten Tomatoes. If the author may include her own opinion, I daresay that this remake far exceeded the original. Cinderella (2015), too, gained a 84% Critic Score and Pete’s Dragon (2016) earned an 88%. This proves that there was a time when these live-action remakes did not inspire a collective groan amongst the masses, but, still, were actually an enjoyable audience experience. How did we get from here to the newest live-action remakes, which are lucky to reach above a 70% percent on Rotten Tomatoes?
Well, there are several advantages that the earlier remakes had. The most obvious is that the audience had not grown tired of them yet. There was not a new remake instead of a new story every year, but rather it was something new and exciting that Disney was trying, releasing alongside brand new animated films.
Second off, and more importantly, these original three were not held back by their animated counterparts in the slightest. The Jungle Book (2016) had a significantly darker tone with almost completely different messaging, Cinderella (2015) focused more on characterization of each and every character, and it was not even a musical. Pete’s Dragon (2016) is hardly even comparable to its original beyond the names of the two main characters. These movies made the conscious effort to create something the audience had never seen before. These were not remakes, they were what Disney does best— adaptations.
Something changed around the release of Beauty and the Beast (2017). This movie is not bad by any means, and it was not even that poorly received. However, as what was arguably the most iconic movie Disney attempted to revamp at the time, it set a precedent. The audience went into the movie with expectations—they wanted to be blown away by the ballroom dance, by the spectacle of “Be Our Guest,” and the live-action movie, foolishly, tried and failed to deliver. It may have been saved by the moments where it tried to be unique, such as the attempt to emphasize the tragedy of those cursed being isolated within the tower forever with the two original, beautiful songs, but tried too hard to be something rather than create something. This is the trap so many films would fall into later, especially those like The Lion King (2019).
With all of that being said, there could also be a point where some Disney movies are simply too beloved for the audience to accept anything but the original. The three early remakes mentioned earlier did have one last advantage—they had never been “classics” the same way movies like Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994) were. You may not have even heard of Pete’s Dragon (1977), and the classic Cinderella fairytale has been retold in so many different ways that Disney could get away with giving a second try. If certain movies had been a part of so many audiences' hearts, replacing them would never work.
Remakes are not necessarily a bad thing; they can be incredible if done right. As long as there is a conscious effort to create something new, to adapt instead of copy, then Disney may just create their next masterpiece.