Changes Made That You See as an Improvement in the Disney Live-Action Remakes

[Winter]

The Disney Live-Action Remakes are nothing special. Every DLAR released over the last decade and a half is quickly forgotten a few months after it's release. They're never as good as the original and just about everyone who makes them doesn't care enough to go back to talk about them. Every time I've gone to Walt Disney World in the last 7 years Disney has done nothing to truly promote any of these films in these parks or hotels. The only thing you'll get is a posters for a film that will soon releasing but aside from that, nothing.

I went to All-Stars Movies last year and that hotels whole gimmick is that it's celebrating and advertising Disney movies. Do know how much this hotel was advertising the DLAR? There was one poster in the food court for the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. There were posters and trailers for Encanto, Raya and the Last Dragon, Moana and other films that Disney has made over the last 100 years but pretty much nothing from the DLAR stuff.

That's how little Disney cares about these things, they know what it is, a quick and easy way to make some money that will help promote the projects they actually care about. Basically, this is the new Direct-to-Video Sequels we got back in the 90's only with less heart.

But are there anything from these films that anyone sees as not only an as good but better then the original? Personally, yes I think there are a lot of things this franchise has done well and should be talked about... Not MUCH but it is there!

For starters, Aurora from Maleficent.

IMO the weakest part of Sleeping Beauty is the title character. Of the OG Disney Princesses she is the least interesting and the most forgettable. I love Snow White and I love Cinderella I think they're both really underrated characters but Aurora is dull which is not helped by the fact that she does basically nothing. Snow and Cinderella are a lot more active in the story and their relationships with the side characters are a lot more interesting. Cinderella in particular I find to be so engaging because all the friends she made in the film Immediately come to her aid whenever she's needs help, be it making a dress or freeing her from the tower. As soon as they realize she's needs help their right there for her because she treated them with kindness and they repay that kindness in full.

Aurora? She sings one song, learns she's a princess, gets cursed and is wakened up by her prince. Snow pulled her weight and created a bond with the 7 Dwarfs which we see played out throughout the film but all of Aurora's bonding with the 3 fairies is done off screen.

In Maleficent we see Aurora and the title character bond and become a mother and daughter to one another. This bond is so strong that it allows Maleficent to break her own curse and save her and Aurora gets to actually help in the final battle by freeing her mother's wings. And the scene where she learns that Malefiecent is the one her cursed her you can tell that it actually hurts her to learn this. Elle Fanning did a great job in this film and the sequel as she made me buy the premise of the film.

The next one is Bell's father, Maurice, in the remake of Beauty and the Beast. I NEVER liked Bell's father in the original, he was so annoying and acted more like a child and I honestly wondered how anyone that annoying could raise someone that was so great.

Maurice in the remake is a lot more interesting, he has the one song I like "How can a moment last forever" and the bit where he makes a run for it as soon as he realizes the castle is magic because he's not a stupid person is one of the few times the film made me laugh.

And... that's it. There are a few things I enjoy in the other DLAR but not much and even fewer that makes me feel that "This is better then what we had in the original."

And I have a feeling that the same is going to be true from everyone else here.

[McAvoy]

Only two movies I saw all the way through was Mulan and Aladdin. Seen both versions of Aladdin but not Mulan. That is on my long lost though. When it comes to Mulan I didn't mind it as I didn't see the original, nor did I pick up anything truly noticeable for it to be bad (alot of reviews find the movie to be bad).

But I did like the improvement in Jasmine. She even had a female empowerment song towards the end which was catchy enough. That is all I can remember. Will Smith as the genie wasn't bad but he had giant crator sized shoes to fill in that regard.

[hammerofglass]

I wish they'd done them all the way they did Maleficent. Just taking the basic chassis of the original and doing something entirely new with it. The rest just seem like remakes fir the sake of remakes.

I heard Dumbo did that too but I haven't seen it.

[Lazerlike42]

I'm not a person who really agrees with the general criticism (not that it's per se been offered here) that the remakes are too close to beat for beat remakes of the originals. For one thing, I don't think they are that close to the originals in many ways, but for another, even if they were I would find it interesting to see the very same thing go from animation to live action.

However, I do agree they're generally mediocre, or worse than the originals, or just plain bad.

There are things I think are improvements, though.

First, I don't think it's a controversial opinion to say that the Cinderella remake is overall a good improvement on the original. It's fine given what the original was supposed to be, but nevertheless there is an awful lot of time taken up in that film by small animals singing, and the title character of Cinderella doesn't seem to do a whole lot to advance her own cause in that film. The remake improves on this, but even moreso it adds some genuinely interesting/valuable material in terms of showing us some context on Cinderella's life before the evil stepmother came into the picture, why/how she came into the picture and why she treats Cinderella so badly. Between all of that and simply presenting a more mature take on the rest of the story, the whole thing feels a lot more well put together.

Second, I think that the Aladdin remake provides some improvements (and some downgrades). The greatest improvement to me is Jaffar and the way I have been explaining it since I walked out of the theater after seeing the film is that the live action Jaffar is an adult villain, whereas the original is a child's villain. The original Jaffar was a sort of cartoonish, "moustache-twisting" sort of a villain. This one is genuinely dark and threatening. His flavor of evil and his overall character feels very real, in a way that doesn't match but is at least similar to the way that Mother Gothel's evil is very realistic and unsettling. The film also gives his character enough background and development that it really improves the final confrontation and makes Aladdin's tricking him into trapping himself in the lamp work much better and be a lot more believable than in the animated film.

I also think that the addition of Jasmine's handmaiden and the little subplot between her and the genie is nice. I don't know if I can say it's an improvement on the original exactly, as I think the original was fine without it and it might even take a lot away from the original to have this plot inserted into it, but it is very good and really boosts up this version.

On the other side of the female character thing, I actually don't think Jasmine's character is an improvement and if anything I'd say there are ways in which the character hurts the women's empowerment idea. For instance, in the animated version Jasmine has been sheltered by her father and never been out of the palace before, so she is ignorant of some aspects of basic society like how money works when she gets into trouble with the street vendor, BUT on the other hand we see as the film goes on how quickly she learns how to handle things and displays an innate wisdom and strength that comes out as the film goes on. In the remake, the Jasmine we meet has been spending her time reading all sorts of books and has already made sneaking out of the palace a regular activity and yet in spite of all of this she still gets confused about money and has to be rescued by Aladdin. The original Jasmine didn't understand through not fault of her own, but in the remake she's had every opportunity to learn something as basic as how money works and is still confused. This does not make her look smart and empowered.

Then we have her song, which I actually like musically speaking. The problem is that it makes no sense whatsoever as a moment of breaking the shackles or whatever. This is because by the time she sings her song about how she won't stay silent, she's spent the entire movie doing nothing but arguing with every male character imaginable. I've seen the film a few times and one of the last few times I took some "stats" on this: by the time she sings the song, Jasmine has spoken up and contradicted people 15 times, which works out to about once every seven minutes of screen time, and seven of those times has been her directly standing up to someone else who has legal/societal authority over her. There's nothing wrong with this aspect of her character and it's consistent with the Jasmine of the animated film - but the film trying to create some dramatic moment of empowerment and breaking free and all of that makes about as much sense as the insistence we saw everywhere that Rey is the first female sci-fi lead character, as if Janeway, Ripley, etc. never happened.

As an honorable mention I'll throw in Beauty and the Beast, not because I think it actually does improve on the original - it doesn't and is much worse - but because I think of all the remakes Beauty and the Beast has the best argument to make for why a remake could be a genuinely valuable effort. Imagine the impact and the emotion and the visceral discomfort that the audience could get from seeing an average (that is to say, not a super buff and strong character) young woman held prisoner by a truly horrifying, realistic looking beast. Imagine the power of a story in which she was able to see through all of that and grow to love him. The original is fine, but the beast in that film is, well, only vaguely beast-like. He has fangs and a temper, but for the most part he sort of looks like a big teddy bear, and frankly this makes a lot of sense for animation - I don't think a truly horrifying creature would fit the animation style of Disney c. 1992. For a live action film, though, we could see this character as a truly scary, imposing monster and even if everything else about the entire film was literally a shot for shot, line for line remake, it would be a completely different and worthwhile experience.