“The Princess and the Frog,” one of Disney’s last 2D animated films, was released in 2009. While it’s not the pinnacle of what the studio has put out, the film still holds a special place in my heart, being a great example of creative storytelling and expressive animation.
While it hasn’t even been 16 years since then, most aspects of modern Disney films present a stark contrast, especially with the high output of live-action remakes.
The most recent of these live-action remakes comes with the adaptation of “Snow White.” Released in theaters on March 21, the film retold the original 1937 “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Unfortunately, yet not entirely unexpectedly for Disney, the film has turned out to be a commercial and critical failure, with a current score of 1.6 out of 10 on IMDB and a 40% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes.
This movie is the final straw for me. I’m sick of this formula.
Since the success of Jon Favreau’s live-action adaptation of “The Jungle Book” in 2016, Disney has refined its method to steadily release multiple of these remakes yearly.
At this point, they’ve shifted to quantity over quality. At least with Favreau’s reimagining, the film made multiple creative narrative choices to support a longer runtime and to further flesh out the original characters.
This live-action epidemic seems to stem from two main factors, the allure of nostalgia and the lack of innovation.
One of my main criticisms of Disney’s live-action remakes is their lack of creative risk-taking. While films like “Maleficent” and “Cruella” attempted to offer fresh perspectives by focusing on the respective villains and their origin stories, most of Disney’s adaptations follow the original script practically scene-for-scene. This approach makes most of these films feel redundant rather than imaginative.
The final nail in the coffin for most of these remakes comes with the heavy, almost excessive, use of CGI animation. There are hundreds of examples of movies over the years with revolutionary or creative uses of CGI. I cannot say the same about any of the recent remakes from Disney, with them using it as more of a crutch rather than a tool.
These films overhaul the designs of various beloved characters, ones that were clearly only meant for 2D environments, and try to force them into a different visual style. The most egregious example of this, to me, comes with the 2019 remake of “The Lion King.” The hyper-realistic character design leaves the cast smack-dab in the middle of the uncanny valley, lacking almost every hint of any expression.
Besides making an easy profit, I ask: What’s the point? Is making a quick buck at the expense of beloved stories and characters worth it at the end of the day? It serves to only fill Disney’s modern catalog with shallow imitations of their older works under the guise of reimagining them for a new generation of audiences.
At the very least, there seems to be a sliver of light at the end of the tunnel. According to Variety, Disney has put its upcoming production of their live-action remake of “Tangled” on hold. This news comes after the underwhelming box office reports for the live-action “Snow White” after the film’s first two weeks in theaters.
I hope that this can serve as a wake-up call in some sense. I hope the upcoming remakes of “Lilo and Stitch” and “Moana” lead to similar outcomes.
If we see further backlash and uproar from younger audiences, it might make an impact in making Disney return to its roots.
With the incoming revival of Big Rapids’ movie theater, I look forward to supporting more original and indie films in person, as I hope others in my generation do too. Films are supposed to be a showcase of creativity, not corporate and mass-produced.