There’s a conversation starter that has popped up in a couple of my friend groups that is similar to this, basically “what movies would be improved by all but one actor being replaced by muppets?” My answer has consistently been Face/Off with Nic Cage as the only human actor. I even threw a poster together…
So basically the Muppet Treasure Island and Muppet Christmas Carol treatment for cartoons.
Yes, that would clearly work and Disney is squandering the potential.
This idea makes too much sense and would make way too much money.
Disney board - “Pass”
imagine the merchandizing potential of a muppet Jedi, and Yoda (the only human) is Danny Devito.
Also why are these recent live action remakes so boring? Even my children couldn’t get past five minutes in any of them.
They try to go as close to the source material (their own version) as possible while following a checklist of fixes. That checklist involves things like CinemaSins-tier critiques of the original, and what corporate execs think as “good representation” (the most corporate-safe way, e.g. gay characters that can be cut out for certain audiences, because you need that money from Saudi, Chinese, Russian, etc. audiences), with the latter being the most blamed for the issues. But the actual greatest issue itself is that they try to redo even the stuff that only works within the realms of animation in live action.
Animation relies on exaggeration, which doesn’t work in real life, thus getting rid of the most fun part of the animation medium, just to win over the “cartoons are for children” crowd. This leads to stuff like The Lion King “live action” remake, with its expressionless realistic animals acting out what cartoon animals did in a previous, animated version of The Lion King. The same is in to different extents and versions in all the other “live action” remakes.
They try to go as close to the source material (their own version)
Except they changed Mulan to appease a Chinese audience. Before release everyone thought the remake would be closer to the original story because of the rumor that the movie targeted the Chinese market. But they turned it into a Marvel movie and made Mulan a superhero resulting in that almost everyone disliked the movie.
Everything about that was puzzling. They changed the story supposedly to be more culturally accurate, but what they came up with wasn’t culturally accurate at all. How did that happen?
Besides, when Chinese people want a culturally accurate Mulan, they watch one of the many Chinese-made adaptions of the story. The animated was appealing because it was a fresh take, a Disney musical that Chinese could relate to. The remake was just a huge miscalculation.
My understanding of this phenomenon is there is a committee of “You can’t eat salsa, that’s cultural appropriation” types who have the final edit on them, which is why you get movies like “What if Beauty and the Beast, but more feminist grudge porn, and a 🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈GAY🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈 character!” or “What if Mulan, but it’s about Chinese people so there can’t be anything fun or amusing in it, and…look we’ve got to get rid of this character arc shit. We can’t have this character be intrinsically weak and then learn to use her wits to compensate for it. She’s a girl, she has to be perfect and effortlessly better than the men from the start or we’ll hold our breath. That’s what a Strong Female Character is.”
That’s why they’re not fun. People who are not fun are in charge of making them.
What a garbage answer. You can make fun content and still be inclusive, execs just don’t want to take any risks on new IPs because they can milk old ones. Stop blaming inclusiveness when the real answer is greed.
execs just don’t want to take any risks on new IPs
We get regular new Disney IP, but they all underperform the remake slop.
What about those live-action remakes are “inclusive?”
They cast a black Ariel and portrayed Gaston’s sidekick as gay, in both cases so they could say they did it?
From the WIkipedia article on Mulan (2020 film):
The film received generally positive reviews from Western, non-Asian critics, who praised the action sequences, costumes, and performances, but was criticized for the screenplay and editing. It received unfavorable reviews from fans of the original animated film, Chinese diaspora, and Chinese critics, who criticized the character development, its cultural and historical inaccuracies, and its depiction of Chinese people.
The article goes onto say there was controversy about a lack of east Asians in the production team of the film, as well as the removal of the character Li Shang as a response to the MeToo movement which was then criticized by the LGBTVNX8L community, who saw the character’s romantic relationship with Mulan’s male persona as representation of bisexuality.
Yeah nah this sounds “inclusive” as fuck.
execs just don’t want to take any risks on new IPs because they can milk old ones
To my knowledge none of the “live action remakes” or the animated features they’re based on are original Disney IP; Dumbo was based on a children’s book, The Little Mermaid was a fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast was a French short story and then an old silent film, Aladdin was a middle-eastern folk tale, Mulan is based on a Chinese legend…Disney’s never not been milking old IP. They’ve been doing it consistently since Snow White. Thing is, they used to make it work. Those animated features were huge hits. These live action remakes aren’t.
Stop blaming inclusiveness when the real answer is greed.
Greed has ALWAYS been Disney’s motivation. To quote Disney CEO Michael Eisner:
We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement. To make money is our only objective.
Disney’s greed hasn’t changed since they were a reliable classic factory, only the implementation of that greed has changed.
One way they’ve changed their implementation is to remake things they’ve already done before. The strategy seems to be to target millennials like myself who grew up during the Disney Renaissance and who now have children of their own to take to the theater. “Oh look honey, they’re remaking Aladdin! Let’s take Aiden Brayden and Cayden down to the octoplex to see it!” Honestly I think that part of the strategy is sound. I get why Disney Corporate had these movies made.
I take issue with the idea that these remakes are any more “inclusive” than the originals. Disney isn’t being “inclusive,” they’re pandering to a very particular demographic’s taste for performative virtue signaling and grievance airing. Pissing off the LGBTQ community via censoring a character in anticipation of MeToo feminists is a rather on the nose example of this.
Reminder: We’re talking about fairy tales for children here.
The kind of people who add a scene to Beauty and the Beast where some of the villagers break Belle’s washing machine because “white men be oppressin’, amirite?” aren’t the kind of people capable of making fun movies for children. They’re simply too hateful.
What if Mulan, but it’s about Chinese people
No singing and dancing in what was originally a musical. A very strange directional choice.
