Line #16 YMMV/DisneyLiveActionRemakes


1	* AnimationAgeGhetto: Many critics, including ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'' co-director Creator/DeanDeBlois, criticize the remakes for further perpetuating the notion that animation is a lesser medium. From Matt Zoller Seitz's [[https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/aladdin-2019 negative review]] of ''Film/Aladdin2019'':
2	--> '''Seitz''': As is often the case with the recent Disney remakes, this one seems to adhere to the same misconception that affects the rest of the film industry, particularly where science fiction adventures, superhero narratives, and fairy tales are concerned: that if it’s animated, i.e. a “cartoon,” [[NoTrueScotsman it’s somehow not a “real movie,”]] and thus not worthy of the automatic respect bestowed upon the most expensive and heavily promoted motion pictures, and not as validating to the people who’ve paid to see it. All of which is also strange, considering how CGI-dependent these sorts of movies are, even when they’re trying to make the mountains and buildings and tigers and parakeets made of ones and zeroes look as “real” as possible.
3	* BileFascination: A few moviegoers have admitted that the only reason they paid full price for the live-action remakes was just to see how bad they were. ''Film/Aladdin2019'' became perhaps the most notable example of this, when Genie's UnintentionalUncannyValley redesign underwent MemeticMutation that made it a ''huge'' target for mockery.
4	* BrokenBase: 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depth they consider they bring to the older Disney films (oftentimes disliking them for what they see as being corny, outdated and having [[ValuesDissonance slightly sexist/racist elements]]), there are many who absolutely ''hate'' the live-action Disney remakes for what they consider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 most of the remakes are of handdrawn animated films, with the upcoming ''Moana'' remake being the only one of a CGI-animated film.
5	* CompleteMonster: See [[Monster/{{Disney}} here]].
6	* 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'', ''Maleficent: Mistress of Evil'', and ''The Little Mermaid'' barely broke even. ''Pete's Dragon'' and ''Christopher Robin'' were modest hits, but not to the extent of other remakes.
7	* CommonKnowledge: Many fans have assumed that Disney is remaking their animated works just [[AshcanCopy to extend their copyright]]. [[https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2019/04/09/why-disneys-remakes-dont-rest-its-copyright/ But many copyright lawyers have corrected that that's not the case.]]
8	* 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.
9	* FandomRivalry:
10	** ''Film/{{Tron}}'' fans are not pleased on how Disney has approved of over ''20'' live-action remakes while they're left in the dark because of ''Film/{{Tomorrowland}}'' bombing at the box office. The failure of Creator/SanzaruGames produced ''RUN/r'', which also caused ''VideoGame/SlyCooper'' fans to resent the remakes[[labelnote:*]]Sanzaru developed ''Thieves in Time'', which most fans [[FanonDiscontinuity disowned]] for its [[LeftHanging end]][[DownerEnding ing]][[/labelnote]], [[FranchiseKiller did not help]].
11	** ''Franchise/StarWars'' fans also have some resentment after more live-action remakes were approved in the wake of ''Film/{{Solo}}'' failing as well, and several ''Star Wars'' projects were also canceled or indefinitely postponed.
12	** A small fandom rivalry has emerged between Disney fans who adore the remakes for the nostalgic value and the fans who adore Disney but really dislike the remakes, thinking they're just a continuation of a "creatively bankrupt" era that began with Bob Iger where Disney's preoccupied less with producing original, groundbreaking animated movies and more with selling and focusing attention on franchises, sequels, ''Star Wars'' and Marvel-related content [[labelnote:although]]even ''they're'' likely to be ScrewedByTheNetwork in favor of live-action remakes, as shown with ''Solo''[[/labelnote]]. There's also the fact that traditional animation at Disney is mostly dead, which sours the opinion of many fans — though Jennifer Lee, the head at Walt Disney Animation Studios after John Lasseter left, ''has'' said they're open to doing 2D animated films again in the future, so there is hope.
13	* FleetingDemographicRule: Being a series of 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.
14	* FranchiseOriginalSin:
15	** The films have gotten criticism for their occasional instances of StuntCasting from the very beginning, but it didn't lead to major backlash until a few years down the road. In ''Film/TheJungleBook2016'', many critics felt that Creator/BillMurray's performance as Baloo was the weak link in an otherwise strong film -- partly because Murray had minimal experience in singing and voice-acting, and partly because Baloo's personality (as a laid-back [[DeadpanSnarker wiseass]]) was mostly just a riff on Murray's actual public persona. Most of them were willing to forgive it, though, since newcomer Neel Sethi's acclaimed performance as Mowgli largely made up for it. ''Film/BeautyAndTheBeast2017'' similarly got some flack for casting Creator/EmmaWatson as Belle, since Watson had minimal experience in singing, making her a questionable choice for a character with so many musical numbers. While her acting was widely praised, critics generally felt that her singing was one of the weakest parts of the film, which was all the more glaring since she was the ''protagonist''. But when ''Film/Aladdin2019'' cast Creator/WillSmith in the role of the Genie, the choice proved so unpopular that [[TaintedByThePreview it was already generating bad publicity long before the film actually came out]]. Not only was Smith [[IAmNotLeonardNimoy such an instantly recognizable public figure]] that his presence came off as ''distracting'', many critics and viewers felt that his distinctively contemporary style of comedy was horribly ill-suited to an epic period fantasy. It didn't help that the Genie was a far more iconic character than either Baloo or Belle -- and unlike them, he was already permanently associated with an iconic performance by [[Creator/RobinWilliams a completely different actor]]. Taken alongside the films' previous casting choices, Smith's performance has led to the accusation that the filmmakers care more about snagging big-name actors for publicity's sake than appropriately casting characters.
16	** ''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.[[/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.
17	** ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing2019'' was criticized for its over-realism sucking out the movie's emotions and soul. The use of hyper-realistic CGI can be traced back to ''Film/TheJungleBook2016'' (both films being directed by Creator/JonFavreau). However, this wasn't viewed as a problem in ''The Jungle Book'' because the animators gave the characters facial expressions that conveyed emotions, which, alongside the amount of changes to the story compared to the original, gave it some degree of its own magic. ''The Lion King'', on the other hand, felt too much like a ShotForShotRemake to many critics, where the characters had very little emotions in their facial expressions, sending the animals down the UnintentionalUncannyValley in the process of them seeming empty.
18	** 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]]. Disney Remakes, on the other hand, 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.
19	* ItsNotSupposedToWinOscars: The criticism the remakes get for [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks basically repeating the plot points that moviegoing audiences who grew up with the animated originals are very likely to know by heart]] has, in some cases, been met with defenses invoking the "it's just for kids" excuse -- arguing either that the remakes are geared toward nostalgic adults who ''want'' a faithful recreation of the emotional experiences they had when they were children watching the animated originals, or that the remakes are simply meant to be for the new generation of children. Of course, the movies that these remakes directly borrow from ''have'' won Oscars ([[WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast one of which]] was even nominated for Best Picture, which is no small feat) and are widely regarded as having memorable characters and thematically resonant stories, so it's only natural that more critical fans would go into their remakes expecting this same level of quality.
20	* ItsTheSameNowItSucks: While still a mostly beloved approach by general moviegoing audiences due to its nostalgic appeal, the fact that the live-action remakes created from ''Film/Cinderella2015'' on bear many similarities to the original animated movies is also the most common complaint reviewers and some fans have brought up with them. Some, most notably the aforementioned ''Cinderella'', ''Film/BeautyAndTheBeast2017'', and ''especially'' ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing2019'', are even point-by-point rehashes of the originals, with the few things that they do add tending to not actually contribute anything to the plot.
21	* MemeticMutation:
22	** Facebook comments around the 2010's had people replying on how Disney will remake ''all'' of its animated films in live-action, even unpopular ones such as ''WesternAnimation/ChickenLittle'', impossible to adapt films such as ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'', and unreleased ones, given there are 55+ movies, and over 20 confirmed remakes as of 2019.
23	** "I love the part where [X] says [X]. Gave me chills." [[labelnote:Explanation]]For trailers of ''Film/TheLittleMermaid2023'' and ''Film/PeterPanAndWendy'', comments quickly began claiming the remakes had their characters saying a famous line from another movie before following up with saying how it gave them chills to hear it.[[/labelnote]]
24	* OlderThanTheyThink:
25	** ''Maleficent'' may officially be treated like it's the first Disney live-action remake, but 18 years before that, another animated Disney film came to real-life: ''[[Film/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians1996 101 Dalmatians]]'' (1996), with Creator/GlennClose as Cruella De Vil. It's a well-known film that became one of the highest grossing movies of 1996 and even got a sequel, but it tends to get forgotten when talking about remakes. This is probably because ''101 Dalmatians'' was a one off remake, rather than a trend starter.
26	** ''The Jungle Book'' also got a remake in 1994, two years before ''Dalmatians''
27	%%* TaintedByThePreviews: ''Snow White'' gets a lot of hate for the massive changes.
28	* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: While critics usually accuse the live-action adaptations, particularly ''Film/BeautyAndTheBeast2017'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing2019'', of being inferior rehashes that don't need to exist, a lot of the changes haven't exactly been welcomed either. Fans of the [[Franchise/DisneyPrincess Disney Princesses]] who are sick of the NotBadassEnoughForFans treatment they have received from movie critics, feminists, parent groups, and the general public ''really'' hate what they see as the remakes needlessly indulging their complaints and playing into the FlawlessToken trope[[note]]Emma Watson, the actress who played Belle in ''Beauty and the Beast'', co-opted Maurice's inventing skills for her with the excuse that "[[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer there was never very much information or detail at the beginning of the story as to why Belle didn't fit in, other than she liked books]]", even though it was made very clear that it was because Belle didn't conform to the town's idea that women shouldn't read and constantly brushed off the advances of local hero Gaston. Also, Naomi Scott, the actress who played Jasmine in ''Film/Aladdin2019'', said that the character's motivation was changed to a desire to improve her people's lives as Agrabah's first female sultan because "[[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer her one goal [was] to fall in love [and] get married]]" in the original, even though Jasmine explicitly ''didn't'' want to get married because she was bound by the law to do so even if she didn't really like the guy[[/note]]. With that said, the live-action adaptations that ''are'' more well-received, such as ''Film/Cinderella2015'', ''Film/PetesDragon2016'', and ''Film/ChristopherRobin'', respect the elements audiences connected to and loved about the original stories while being far enough removed from what they're based on that they can stand on their own merits, [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools so it more depends on how much of an insult fans feel the changes in the remakes are to the animated originals]].

Context YMMV / DisneyLiveActionRemakes