Live-action Disney remakes

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""I want new stories..AT ONCE!! Sadly, they're so devoid of ideas, they only have enough talent to ruin old classics with political correctness. GODDAMMIT!""

— Hitler Rant Parodies' response to the new live-action "Little Mermaid" teaser trailer.
And here is why Disney is losing their magic, thanks to the huge success of the live-action remakes.

In the 2010s, after the success of Alice in Wonderland, CEO Bob Iger has started green-lighting live-action remakes for Walt Disney Animation Studio's 2D animated movies, due to their unprofitability, poor marketing and possible negative response regarding their live action adaptations of their original franchises.

Note that this list does not include remakes of live-action/animation hybrid films (such as Pete's Dragon), animated films that were produced by another studio and later adapted as live-action films by Disney (such as George of the Jungle, Inspector Gadget and their sequels), live-action films another studio made based on the same story as a Disney feature (Such as Peter Pan by Universal/Columbia/Revolution) and films that were solely acquisitions for certain territories (such as MDP Worldwide's The Jungle Book which Disney distributed in certain countries in exchange for co-funding its budget, and Pathé's The Wind in the Willows, which was renamed by Disney on home video in North America as Mr. Toad's Wild Ride), the direct to video release The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story, or based on animated television shows (such as Kim Possible or Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers).

Movies that Got a Live-Action Remake

Upcoming Remakes

  • Lilo & Stich (2025)
  • Snow White (2025)
  • Moana (2026)
  • Hercules
  • Bambi
  • Robin Hood
  • The Aristocats

Scrapped/Cancelled Remakes

  • Hunchback (remake The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), but was cancelled due to creative differences)
  • Pocahontas (remake of the 1995 film, but was cancelled due to modern sensibilities)
  • The Chronicles of Prydain (remake of The Black Cauldron (1985), cancelled due to the film's obscurity)
  • The Sword in the Stone (remake of the 1963 film, reworked into the book "Set in Stone" due to the COVID-19 pandemic)

Why It ReMakes Fun of Walt Disney's Legacy

  1. They just serve only to exist as an example of Hollywood's lame "everything old is new again" mindset, and also to show that history is repeating itself.
  2. In many remakes starting from 2017's Beauty and the Beast, their plot points end up as being exactly copied footage from the original to the point where such movies end up being more like copycats. The worst offender being The Lion King remake where it is just a shot-to-shot remake with nothing new and original elements added.
  3. Their characters have badly butchered where they went to underused or out-of-character as they barely act like their animated incarnations.
  4. They highlight the societal stigma further that "animation is strictly only for kids" (which is absolutely NOT true) to an extent where it gets extremely irritating as if they did not learn that films like Sausage Party or Fritz the Cat even existed.
  5. The animals in the 2019 remake of Dumbo don't speak at all, resulting in lack of charm and the humans substituting for them so they can make fun of Dumbo.
    • In the same movie, treatment of circus animals plays a big role, which some may view as preachy and/or pointless.
    • In addition, Casey Junior (The train seen at the beginning) is non sentient and also doesn't speak at all.
  6. Overuse of CGI, with the designs for the anthropomorphic characters looking uncanny, like the enchanted objects and wolves in the Beauty and the Beast remake and Honest John and Gideon from the Pinocchio remake.
  7. Poor acting, with the main roles having wooden and inferior performances of the original animated movies.
  8. They butchered the iconic musical scores, with "Be Prepared" from The Lion King being the worst offender where it has been given new lyrics but is far too short compared to the original. Not even the new songs could've escaped from the mediocre writing and are just shoehorned for the sake of it.
  9. The characters rarely have any emotion while speaking, with a few exceptions.
  10. Poor editing in the Disney Renaissance remakes as they put in pointless changes, with some scenes being cut for no reason.
  11. They serve as pointless nostalgia pandering, ending up as more of a trademark renewal than an actual movie. For example, in The Lion King, Mufasa is voiced by James Earl Jones for the sake of it, instead of the new voice cast.
  12. The remakes also lack the charm, depth and emotion that made the originals memorable and iconic.
  13. On that same topic, Disney apparently doesn't understand that it's the animation what makes the original movies so special, and when you move it to live-action type, then all of that magic is lost. For example, in the original 1994 The Lion King, the characters show more emotion and expressions thanks to the animation and the character designs. But in the remake, it doesn't work as all the characters look realistic and they're not expressive in the slightest.
    • Think about The Lego Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (ironically both are directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller) Arguably the best aspect of those movies is their visually striking animation; if you do those movies in live-action, the story still works but it just wouldn't be the same as the animation what makes it special. This could be the reason why every animated film wouldn't need to be photorealistic.
    • If you want to see a non-realistic version of the characters, well then check this out.
  14. Unnecessary padding: They tend to have their runtimes needlessly extended by an additional 20-minute minimum, extending most of their films' runtimes to between 100-125 minutes as opposed to their animated originals' standard runtimes of between 65-80 minutes, thus making these films drag on for way too long to where it could come off as boring to some audiences. And what make matters worse is that most of these "extended scenes" serve no purpose whatsoever in their respective films since they often have no impact on the films' respective main plots and therefore serve as filler in general. Heck, you can cut out these "extended scenes" from these live-action remakes and their films wouldn't be any different whatsoever.
  15. It feels like they were trying to cash in on the popularity of movies from the 80's and 90's, like Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), and Beauty and the Beast (1991), which is the same thing that it is the soulless cash-grab from Disney.
  16. They sometimes have certain characters race-swapped for the sake of diversity, with the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio, Ariel from The Little Mermaid, and Tinker Bell from Peter Pan being the biggest offenders as they've been blackwashed. This is not only racist to white people, but also a huge disgrace to the original characters.
    • To rub salt into the wound, Disney even made a CGI animated series based off The Little Mermaid simply titled Ariel. The series itself is very unnecessary as it was clearly made to cash in on the movie.
    • Tiana from The Princess of the Frog was meant to promote diversity, but this concept of race swapping female characters all for the sake of diversity proves Disney ignores what made Tiana diverse.
  17. The main characters have a terrible chemistry.
  18. Extremely poor taste: The Mulan remake was infamously filmed in Xinjiang where all Uyghurs were wiped out by the Chinese government after the Chinese invaded the region in the 1950s. This received heavy backlash because it completely disrespects the dead!
  19. Some remakes can flanderize characters like King Stefan in Maleficent, the Grand Duke in Cinderella, and King Louie in The Jungle Book (2016) who all became villains.
  20. Three of the remakes have an abysmal grasp on the source material, which are Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid, and Mulan.
  21. Overall, the live action remakes have caused the start of Disney's domination over the film industry in the worst possible way, and it really shows!

Redeeming Qualities

  1. They all used to be good before Alice Through the Looking Glass released in May of 2016. For example, Cinderella (2015) and The Jungle Book (2016). And a small portion can be good after May 2016, like Pete's Dragon (2016) and Christopher Robin (2018).
  2. Like most remakes, they serve to introduce the Walt Disney Animation Studios movies to a newer generation.
  3. They managed to correct some criticisms like the plot holes and the inaccurate costumes of Lumiere and the male villagers from the original Beauty and the Beast.
  4. They did at least add several elements that the original films never explained in the remake, like in Beauty and the Beast where we see how Belle's mother died (despite her actual name never said onscreen) and how the Beast turned into selfish jerk.
    • Another example in the original Pinocchio film, the Coachman never interacted with Pinocchio, and never notices Pinocchio's escape. Here in the remake, the Coachman does interact with Pinocchio and sends his minions to chase them after seeing Pinocchio.

Reception

While many people love the live-action Disney remakes for the depth they consider they bring to the older Disney films (oftentimes disliking them for what they see as being corny, outdated and having slightly sexist/racist elements), there are many fans of animated Disney who absolutely hate the live-action Disney remakes for what they consider to be soulless imitations of the movies that they loved for years, and feel like Disney is running out of ideas and are just producing them to rake in money via nostalgia pandering. They also feel that it's another attempt to minimize 2D's influence in current Disney, considering how as of yet there's no word of live-action remakes of the Pixar, current CGI Disney movies or 20th Century Fox Animation or Blue Sky Studios movies (despite Fox's own 2D animated movies like Anastasia).

After Cinderella (2015), the remakes tended to have scenarios very close to the original animated movies, rather than being sequels or new takes on the stories, which have garnered a negative reaction as well.

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