History YMMV / DisneyLiveActionRemakes

** The remakes have been accused of becoming [[HistoryRepeats the new version]] of the [[Creator/DisneytoonStudios Disney direct-to-video sequels]] -- redoing the original story while [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks changing few elements from it]] or [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks changing too much to the point it bore little resemblance to its source material]]. Even with the vast differences in budget in mind, audiences proved to be [[SoBadItWasBetter far more forgiving of the DTV sequels]] (at least in later years) given that it was an ''attempt'' to expand upon the existing worlds these movies had created, [[VindicatedByHistory and those efforts did get better over time]], whereas the Disney Remakes have been experiencing a far worse reception over their retellings of these worlds and how little is done to differentiate it from what came before.

* HardToAdaptWork: The Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon by nature was built from its inception to achieve what live-action film couldn’t, with very [[TheTwelvePrinciplesOfAnimation deliberate and important choices]] when it came to animation cels and how the characters look and move. All of which is difficult if not outright impossible to replicate in a live-action remake, despite 3D animation improving all the time (e.g ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing2019'' can make the characters look photo-realistic to their RealLife animals, even though the intention of the [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994 1994 film]] was to give a stylised and human-like appearance to the animal cast). Even classic live-action Disney films like ''Film/MaryPoppins'' and ''Film/BedknobsAndBroomSticks'' understood the limitations of what could be done in live-action and used 2D animation for some of the more fantastical set pieces. Another problem is that animated films are so beloved often precisely because they’re simplistic in nature, while the remakes especially ones like ''Film/Cinderella2015'' or ''Film/BeautyAndTheBeast2017'' feel obligated to expand upon or address plot points from the originals and often just raise more questions in the process.

* TaintedByThePreviews: ''Snow White'' gets a lot of hate for the massive changes.

** ''Film/BeautyAndTheBeast2017'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing2019'' proved to be highly divisive films, in part for making changes to [[WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast the movies]] they were [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994 adapted from]] that many fans saw as unnecessary. While those changes wouldn't necessarily be bad by themselves, some saw them as gratuitous [[PanderingToTheBase pandering]] to "bad-faith critics" who had trivial complaints about the originals. [[note]] Just to name a few: ''Beauty and the Beast'' goes out of its way to justify the Beast's servants being transfigured alongside him, it explains why the local villagers don't remember who the Prince is, and it gives Gaston and the Beast {{Freudian Excuse}}s to "explain" their personalities; ''The Lion King'' inserts a scene of Nala sneaking away from the Pridelands to find Simba, explaining how she ended up in the jungle with him; and both movies play up the feminist themes to a degree that many people saw as forced and {{anvilicious}}.[[/note]] To a degree, this was also true of ''Film/Cinderella2015'' and ''Film/TheJungleBook2016'', which were much more widely acclaimed. Among other things, ''Cinderella'' gave Lady Tremaine additional backstory to explain her hatred of Ella (which not everyone liked), and ''The Jungle Book'' changed King Louie into a ''Gigantopithecus'' to placate people who complained about [[MisplacedWildlife an orangutan being in India]] (never mind the fact that ''Gigantopithecus'' are extinct). But even if those small changes weren't exactly ''necessary'', they were easier to tolerate because they were mostly overshadowed by larger changes that actually made for stronger stories: ''Cinderella'' gave the Prince, previously a FlatCharacter, considerable CharacterDevelopment to make his relationship with Ella more meaningful, while ''The Jungle Book'' added a great deal of actual drama to a story that was originally pretty light on emotion. Furthermore, both ''Cinderella'' and ''Jungle Book'' were released nearly 50 years after the original animated movies debuted, so the numerous changes made sense to keep up with modern tastes and societal changes. ''Beauty and the Beast'' and ''The Lion King''[='=]s changes, on the other hand, mostly just added additional weight to the movies rather than actually making them better, since the originals already had well-paced stories with rich themes and strong characters, and there wasn't a lot of room for improvement. Not to mention that they were based on films that were less than thirty years old when they were remade (both having been released in the 1990s), and generally agreed to have aged pretty well--making the changes seem even ''less'' necessary.

** The adding of feminist subtext to the originals started with ''Cinderella'', which there amounted to developing Ella's romance with the prince a little more and incorporating the themes of emotional abuse into the story. ''Beauty and the Beast'' amps up the feminist themes to the point of parody, turning Belle into an AdaptationalBadass and giving her a scene where she tries to escape the castle alongside making her essentially the smartest person in the film to emphasize how amazing she is (although this ends up causing her to run into the remake's version of the [[SavageWolves wolf encounter]]). ''The Lion King'' amped up Nala and Shenzi's roles, culminating in a DesignatedGirlFight, and ''Film/Mulan2020'' made Mulan an overpowered fighter who can best everyone on top of having no real flaws. All of these felt like excessive pandering to appease feminist critiques of the originals ([[NarrowParody that weren't really criticisms]]), which made it where many of the intended audience felt it was missing the point, while others disliked being beaten over the head with the message. While this feminism was also in ''Cinderella'', it wasn't viewed as a problem there because the movie provided a different interpretation of a familiar character[[note]]Most of the later live action remakes increased the action the females could do, but Cinderella was made an ''AdaptationalWimp'' instead of an AdaptationalBadass[[/note]] while also expanding on the original in a way that still kept the spirit of the original film without coming across as pandering.

* CriticProof: A mild example. While the remakes in general have been given a mostly positive reception by critics despite an emerging consensus online that the films have overstayed their welcome[[labelnote:*]]Only ''[[Film/Dumbo2019 Dumbo]]'', ''[[Film/Aladdin2019 Aladdin]]'', ''[[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing2019 The Lion King]]'', and ''[[Film/Pinocchio2022Disney Pinocchio]]'' (as well as the [[Film/AliceInWonderland2010 two]] ''[[Film/AliceThroughTheLookingGlass Alice in Wonderland]]'' and ''Film/{{Maleficent}}'' [[Film/MaleficentMistressOfEvil movies]], if one counts [[LiveActionAdaptation Live-Action Adaptations]] that aren't straight-up remakes) have gotten critic scores on Website/RottenTomatoes designating them as "Rotten" and also hold below average Metacritic scores, but ''[[Film/Cinderella2015 Cinderella]]'', ''Film/TheJungleBook2016'', ''[[Film/PetesDragon2016 Pete's Dragon]]'', ''Film/ChristopherRobin'', ''[[Film/BeautyAndTheBeast2017 Beauty and the Beast]]'', ''[[Film/LadyAndTheTramp2019 Lady and the Tramp]]'', ''[[Film/Mulan2020 Mulan]]'', ''Film/{{Cruella}}'', ''Film/PeterPanAndWendy'', and ''[[Film/TheLittleMermaid2023 The Little Mermaid]]'' have been more well-received, although Metacritic's professional reviewer scores for ''Lady and the Tramp'', ''Cruella'', and ''The Little Mermaid'' are a bit more mixed[[/labelnote]], even the ones that ''are'' much more widely considered to be polarizing still end up being pretty successful at the box office, primarily because of the nostalgic value attached to them. Of note, ''Alice in Wonderland''[[note]]Tomatometer: 51%. Metascore: 53[[/note]], ''Aladdin''[[note]]Tomatometer: 57%. Metascore: 53[[/note]], and ''The Lion King''[[note]]Tomatometer: 52%. Metascore: 55[[/note]] were able to pull in more than $1 billion worldwide. ''The Lion King'' in particular scored, at the time, the biggest opening weekend for an animated movie with a domestic total of $191 million (also breaking this record in its first weekend internationally at $246 million), and then went on to become the highest-grossing animated movie ''ever made''. That being said, not all of the remakes have been smash hits. ''Alice Through the Looking Glass'' and ''Mulan'' bombed, while ''Dumbo'' and ''Maleficent: Mistress of Evil'' barely broke even. ''Pete's Dragon'', ''Christopher Robin'', and ''The Little Mermaid'' were modest hits, but not to the extent of other remakes.

* SoOkayItsAverage: Popular consensus is that Disney has yet to release a remake that is both a good movie on its own ''and'' absolutely necessary. The closest movie to achieve this so far is ''Film/{{The Jungle Book|2016}}''[[note]]while ''Cinderella'' was very well-received, even its fans don't think it entirely fulfills the second criteria[[/note]]. If you count ''[[Film/PetesDragon2016 Pete's Dragon]]'' as part of the lineup, it's the only remake to have a higher [=IMDb=] score than its original counterpart.

* CriticProof: A mild example. While the remakes in general have been given a mostly positive reception by critics despite an emerging consensus online that the films have overstayed their welcome[[labelnote:*]]Only ''[[Film/Dumbo2019 Dumbo]]'', ''[[Film/Aladdin2019 Aladdin]]'', ''[[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing2019 The Lion King]]'', and ''[[Film/Pinocchio2022Disney Pinocchio]]'' (as well as the [[Film/AliceInWonderland2010 two]] ''[[Film/AliceThroughTheLookingGlass Alice in Wonderland]]'' and ''Film/{{Maleficent}}'' [[Film/MaleficentMistressOfEvil movies]], if one counts [[LiveActionAdaptation Live-Action Adaptations]] that aren't straight-up remakes) have gotten critic scores on Website/RottenTomatoes designating them as "Rotten" and also hold below average Metacritic scores, but ''[[Film/Cinderella2015 Cinderella]]'', ''Film/TheJungleBook2016'', ''[[Film/PetesDragon2016 Pete's Dragon]]'', ''Film/ChristopherRobin'', ''[[Film/BeautyAndTheBeast2017 Beauty and the Beast]]'', ''[[Film/LadyAndTheTramp2019 Lady and the Tramp]]'', ''[[Film/Mulan2020 Mulan]]'', ''Film/{{Cruella}}'', ''Film/PeterPanAndWendy'', and ''[[Film/TheLittleMermaid2023 The Little Mermaid]]'' have been more well-received, although Metacritic's professional reviewer scores for ''Lady and the Tramp'', ''Cruella'', and ''The Little Mermaid'' are a bit more mixed[[/labelnote]], even the ones that ''are'' much more widely considered to be polarizing still end up being pretty successful at the box office, primarily because of the nostalgic value attached to them. Of note, ''Alice in Wonderland''[[note]]Tomatometer: 51%. Metascore: 53[[/note]], ''Aladdin''[[note]]Tomatometer: 57%. Metascore: 53[[/note]], and ''The Lion King''[[note]]Tomatometer: 52%. Metascore: 55[[/note]] were able to pull in more than $1 billion worldwide. ''The Lion King'' in particular scored, at the time, the biggest opening weekend for an animated movie with a domestic total of $191 million (also breaking this record in its first weekend internationally at $246 million), and then went on to become the highest-grossing animated movie ''ever made''. That being said, not all of the remakes have been smash hits. ''Alice Through the Looking Glass'' and ''Mulan'' bombed, while ''Dumbo'' barely broke even. ''Pete's Dragon'' and ''Christopher Robin'' were modest hits, but not to the extent of other remakes.
* EpilepticTrees: A lot of theories about the "Disney Universe" come to fruition with these remakes, considering even though most of the time periods don't match, the movies still can be considered to all exist in the same universe due to similar aesthetics, writing, etc etc.

* CommonKnowledge: In 2019, rumors that the line was going to include a remake of ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'', with Creator/GuillermoDelToro directing and Creator/TomHolland starring, popped up on the internet. Despite the fact that the rumors were discredited (by del Toro himself, no less), many people still believe that it's going to happen, if only because an ''Atlantis'' reboot with del Toro at the helm would be ''[[SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome amazing]]''.

* FleetingDemographicRule: Being remakes produced by the same company as the originals, this could be said to apply to all the films, but the one that got real backlash for Disney supposedly running out of ideas was the announcement of a remake of ''WesternAnimation/{{Moana}}'', which came out less than a decade before said announcement.

* FleetingDemographicRule: Being remakes, this could be said to apply to all the films, but the one that got real backlash for Disney supposedly running out of ideas was the announcement of a remake of ''WesternAnimation/{{Moana}}'', which came out less than a decade before said announcement.

* FleetingDemographicRule: Being remakes, this could be said to apply to all the films, but the one that got real backlash for Disney supposedly running out of ideas was the announcement of a remake of ''WesternAnimation/{{Moana}}'', which came out less than a decade ago before said announcement.