by NABIL BAKRI
Disney Should STOP Making Rapid ‘Live-Action’
Remakes of Their Animated Classics
 |
| Pictures belong to Disney, picture source: YouTube FilmBuff06 |
When
I heard the news that Disney was making a live-action movie entitled ‘Maleficent’, I was ultimately
speechless, because Sleeping Beauty
is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen and Maleficent is like the greatest Disney
Villains of all time. I thought that it’s going to be a live action version of
the classic Sleeping beauty or, just
like Star Wars prequels (or Tinker Bell, at least), telling the
origin of said lead character and give
us the explanation of the motives or reasons that make Maleficent the ultimate
villain. I mean, even Walt Disney himself wanted the ultimate villain for his (then)
newest movie Sleeping Beauty, a
villain so great that will be so different and unique from previous Disney
villains (source: the Backstage Disney feature of Sleeping Beauty, Platinum Edition). Then I saw the movie. The first
twenty minutes of the movie works as I predicted, telling me the origin of
Maleficent, I was super excited, it’s as if the movie elevated me high to the
sky. Then, after the beautiful ‘kiss’, the story becomes a complete mess and it
disappoints me as if after it takes me high to the sky, it smashes me to the
ground that broke everything of me including my heart. People who haven’t seen
the animated classic or have no knowledge about the history of Disney and the
story behind the classic animated feature, praise the plot, saying that it is a
brave and brilliant move to make the story so different from the ‘fairy tale’.
But then again, that’s the point, Maleficent is NOT based on any fairy tales,
it is based on Disney’s Sleeping Beauty,
and by making it so contradictory to the source is like making Spider Man is a
bad guy and Venom is the good guy. This kind of change in character happens
also in Terminator franchise, but Terminator 2: Judgement Day does not contradict
the established story of the first movie, similar to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland contradicts nothing
to the Disney’s animated classic, but taking on the next level in the form of
continuation.
 |
| Maleficent DISNEY |
If the live action remake is supposed to renew the acclaimed classic, messing up with the story is not a good idea and therefore, presenting a new version with too many differences that contradict the original source (or inspiration) is a wrong move. It has the similar logic as you wanting to see a Harry Potter movie that is faithful to the novel and hating an Eragon (Inheritance Series) movie that is unfaithful to the novel. Since critics ‘usually’ learn about important knowledge needed to fully understand a certain movie, many critics negatively criticized Maleficent for its story, and again, they are people who know the classic story and the story behind the movie. So, Disney learned from the mistake and made newer ‘live-action’ versions that are faithful to the sources. In 2015 and 2016, Disney released Cinderella and The Jungle Book, respectively. Unlike what I said to Maleficent, I praise both movies, because I see there’s no contradiction to the original, and the changes they made are easily justified. But then there’s downside coming from people who haven’t seen the original version or who hate the original. That doesn’t change anything, though, because it is safer for Disney to play safe and just copy everything straight from the original classic to life with Beauty and the Beast as the proof. The majority of the people say that by stick to the safe zone, Disney is not their enemy because the company does not ruin their childhood. It’s funny because many people who hate the live action versions, claim that Disney has single-handedly ruined their childhood. Well, to me, no, it’s not about ruining my childhood.
 |
| DISNEY picture source: www.rotoscopers.com |
As
I said before, I do not hate the live action of Cinderella and The Jungle
Book, they do not ruin my childhood because they are not part of my
childhood (I grew up with the 2000’s Disney movies: Treasure Planet, Chicken
Little, Brother Bear, etc), I just
hate the fact that Disney is making the sole intention to suck your money from
selling tickets and toys even more obvious. No, it’s too obvious. And yes, that’s
a problem to me. First of all, Disney is making the remakes the way McDonalds
make burgers…or, they way Toyota make cars while they supposed to make movies
the way Rolls Royce make the Phantom cars. And why it bothers me? The
entertainment business should has the purpose to make money, similar to Rolls
Royce, they want to make profits, but that doesn’t mean sacrificing quality,
that doesn’t mean, to Rolls Royce, downgrading their pride to their superior
quality to then downgrading the Phantom owner’s experience in driving the elegant
car. And a Rolls Royce Phantom is so good, that car is similar to the word ‘timeless’
that even the Royal Family of England has one that’s over 50 years old. And my
point is, if the movie, the original, is so good and becomes synonymous to the
word ‘timeless’, why making a new version? If the classic is still relatable
and entertain new generations, what is the need to make a new version? What’s
the urgency? What is the purpose of the new version? And the proof? The talks
of the classic Cinderella and The Jungle Book continue while the talks
of their live action versions are going nowhere but down. And it becomes a ‘new
marketing design and demand’ to make ‘live action’ versions that are NOT even
live actions. We cannot call The Jungle
Book as live action the way we cannot call Disney-Pixar’s Wall-E as a live action. We cannot call
the ‘live-action’ version of The Lion
King as a live-action the way we cannot call A Christmas Carol and Mars
Needs Moms (both from Image Movers Digital) as live action movies! What!?
They don’t even make live action anymore, just presenting the movies in
different formats and let the widespread perception that these ‘cartoons’ are
essentially ‘live-actions’ ignoring the fact that they actually are not.
Indeed
I’m angry to Disney to the point that I want to take over the company and bring
it back to the right track and no, it’s not because Disney ruined my childhood,
it has nothing to do with my childhood or any past memory of mine. Disney is so
all about business and money, which is okay, as long as they make it less
obvious by maintaining the spirit of the name they bear: Walt Disney. I’m happy
to see more theme parks, resorts, and cruise ships, but when it comes to
creative productions, I want the spirit that makes Disney, Disney, obviously
running around the movies they produce. First of all, who said that we CANNOT
make everything a live-action? That’s correct, it’s Walt Disney himself who once
said:
“The first duty of the
cartoon is not to picture or duplicate real action or things as they actually
happen — but to give a caricature of life and action — to picture on the screen
things that have run thru the imagination of the audience to bring to life
dream-fantasies and imaginative fancies that we have all thought of during our
lives or have had pictured to us in various forms during our lives [...] I
definitely feel that we cannot do the fantastic things, based on the real,
unless we first know the real. This point should be brought out very clearly to
all new men, and even the older men.”
-Walt Disney in 1935
“Animation can explain
whatever the mind of man can conceive. This facility makes it the most
versatile and explicit means of communication yet devised for quick mass
appreciation.”
-Walt Disney, as quoted in OpenGL Shading
Language (2006) by Randi J. Rost, p. 411
“Animation offers a
medium of story telling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and
information to people of all ages everywhere in the world.”
-Walt Disney
 |
| DISNEY picture source: D23.com (as seen on the watermark) |
Now,
I simply want to say that in order to convey a story, a specific device is
needed, and not all story is best told through live-action. The funny attractions
of the mice in Cinderella and the ‘evil-ness’ of Lady Tremaine, the happy
moment of Balloo and Mowgli singing Bare Necessities and how Shere-Khan ‘acts’
as the villain (much like Ratigan in which Vincent Price who was lending his
voice for the character said that the villain is not just a villain, he ‘plays’
the role of a villain) that’ll look ridiculous in live-action, the indescribable
look of Beast that captures the fairy tales perfectly and the enchanting scene
in the ballroom, the Beast-to-Prince transformation scene that looks amazingly
beautiful in the animation compared to the live action, and many more. Now,
imagine a ‘life-action’ of Spongebob
Squarepants or Po the Kung Fu Panda.
As I said, some stories are better told in animation and let’s just keep it
that way because changing the medium or the format will just distort the
uniqueness and complexity of a story thus making it less special. Even in the
realm of animation, certain story is better told in a certain way, just like Naruto and One Piece are great in anime while Tom and Jerry and Hey Arnold
are great in cartoon. Some stories, like Miyazaki movies, are told through the
best animated medium that suits the story which is traditional animated feature
instead of 3D or CGI animation like Toy Story.
There, I spent the whole paragraph to tell you my first point.
Is
that all? Of course not, are you kidding? I learned about Disney the movies,
the company, the founder, and the history since I was in 5th grade,
so I’m using my schemata to judge new Disney movies, analysing not just its
story, but its spirit, its technology, basically everything that makes a movie
a Disney movie, and it is important since Disney is always different from any
other film company (“We are not influenced by the techniques or fashions of any
other company,” Walt Disney, in an Interview with David Griffiths (1959); as
quoted in Walt Disney : Conversations (2006) edited by Kathy Merlock Jackson Paraphrased variant: I am not influenced by
the techniques or fashions of any other motion picture company). But for my
second point, I won’t drag you way back to the 1930-something, but to the year 2007.
Remember Disney’s Meet the Robinsons?
Noticed a quotation in the end of the movie?
“Around here, however, we don't look backwards
for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new
things, because we're curious...and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
-Walt Disney
There
you go. Walt Disney was not someone who’s nostalgic to the obvious level and
his vision of ‘moving forward’ is clearly represented by both his movies and
the story behind his movies. When Disney felt the need to make the scenes of Pinocchio and Bambi even deeper and more vibrant, he asked the studio to develop
the famous multiplane camera. When
the world of cinema-screen became larger, he released his movies in CinemaScope
and Technirama-70 with the promise of larger screen with more detailed
background. Disney patched the change of time perfectly that makes the company
relevant through time, but never through a way of ‘looking back’. The new
live-action remakes contradict many of the spirits of Disney, because first of
all, they all fuelled by nostalgia. The theatres were filled with people who
were growing up with the original classics wanting to fill their nostalgia chalice
even more and that’s pretty much what the studio can offer, the fulfilment of
their nostalgia. That’s so not Disney. Plus, Disney was always trying to be
different from other companies he once said (as I quoted previously), “We are
not influenced by the techniques or fashions of any other company,” Walt
Disney, in an interview with David Griffiths (1959); as quoted in Walt Disney :
Conversations (2006) edited by Kathy Merlock Jackson).
 |
| DISNEY/MARVEL picture source: ComicBook.com |
Making
profits by making remakes and nonstop sequels or extended universe are the
trend of today’s era. Many companies are not willing to end their profitable
stories that newer movies become commercials to even newer movies. A story, even
though it is made for profits, should end whether people like it or not. In
order to make the ending natural, however, the studio should let the story to
end when it is time to end the story instead of prolonging the end (cough Star
Wars, Disney again, cough). It’s extremely difficult today to make a trilogy
(or to ‘keep’ a trilogy) remains…well, a trilogy, for when a story should meet
its end in the third film, the studio will find (no, they will force) a
somewhat related story to prolong the dead of their profitable story. How many Fast and Furious movies do you see? Can
you tell that the intention of the movie has shifted along the way? Now try to
compare it with stories like Harry Potter
which has a clear end point even before the movies were made. But then again,
studios can still screw the supposed-to-be-ended movies or trilogy, just like
Star Wars. Return of the Jedi is the
ultimate conclusion of a saga and ‘storytically’
we do not need any story following the end of the movie. But as we can see on
how The Force Awakens invited so many
audience fuelled by nostalgia could actually bring profits, more Disney movies
are following the same path. And once again, fulfilling my third reason,
becomes the contradictory point of Disney live action remakes. Well, it’s easier
to give you the quotations:
“I do not like to repeat successes, I like to
go on to other things.”
-Walt Disney, as quoted in Success (2003) by
Ariel Books
“Do a good job. You don't have to worry about
the money; it will take care of itself. Just do your best work — then try to
trump it.”
-Walt Disney in the book How to Be Like Walt : Capturing the Magic Every Day of Your Life
(2004) by Pat Williams Ch. 6 : Triumph to Tragedy)
A remake or ‘reimagining’ of a
classic is not a bad idea. Heck, it’s actually interesting. But when the studio
‘suddenly’ make remakes of its beloved classic in a super-rapid timing
following huge ‘financial success’ of previous rapidly-released remakes, then
people should be worry and suspicious instead of excited. As time goes by and
Disney releases more remakes and announce even more remakes from movies that we
never even think nor wish to see in live action, the loss of creativity becomes
too obvious, the rise of nostalgia-fuelled movies becomes too obvious, the sole
intention to make money without considering the importance of art, artistic
intention, and creativity becomes too obvious, and the fact that The Walt
Disney Company does not care about you and ‘the child in you’, I’m afraid, also
becomes too obvious…
What do you think, Guys?