https://asateriale.blogspot.com/2017/03/movie-review-beauty-and-beast-2017-part.html
Anyway, let's go over the nine Disney remakes over the years!
This
whole craze of live-action Disney remakes began in 2010, with Tim
Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Despite receiving very mixed reviews, the
film earned over a billion dollars worldwide! While I don't hate it like other people do, I find it crazy that it earned so much money at the box-office. I have yet to see the sequel, and I don't plan to in the near future.
The
next live-action Disney remake was Maleficent, released in 2014,
starring Angelina Jolie as the famous wicked sorceress. It was meant to
tell the story of Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty through the eyes of
Maleficent, as well as how she became evil. Instead, we got a mess of a
film in which Maleficent is the hero and King Stephan (Aurora's father)
is the villain. To make matters worse, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather,
the Three Good Fairies in the original film, were demoted to female
equivalents of The Three Stooges.
The
third live-action Disney remake was Cinderella, released in 2015. It
stuck faithfully to both the Disney and Charles Perrault versions of the fairytale, and added a deeper backstory to Cinderella (whose real name is Ella this time around). When I first saw this film in theaters, it was right after
one of the most insane ideas ever for a crossover episode: Steven
Universe's 'Say Uncle', a crossover episode of Steven Universe and Uncle
Grandpa. What's next? A crossover episode of Star vs. the Forces of Evil
and Pickle & Peanut? Or a crossover episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles (the CGI turtles) and Fanboy & Chum-Chum?
The
fourth live-action Disney remake was The Jungle Book, released in 2016.
It had a young boy, Neel Sethi, who plays Mowgli in this version, in a
CGI jungle with hyper-realistic CG animals voiced by celebrities like Bill
Murray, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Walken, Idris Elba, and Scarlett
Johansen. Only two of the songs from the original film returned: 'The
Bare Necessities' and 'I Wanna Be Like You'. It's a very enjoyable film,
but I feel sad that the vultures, nor Shanti, the human girl Mowgli
falls in love with at the end of the original film, don't return. However, director Jon Favreau stated in the audio commentary that he didn't like the ending of the original Jungle Book, so he decided to make a new ending with Mowgli staying in the jungle and becoming more mature.
Also
released in 2016 was Pete's Dragon, based on the 1977 film of the same
name. I actually talked about this film back in August 2016, and I think it's
a near-perfect live-action family film.
In 2017, the tale as old as time became new again with the billion-dollar winning Beauty and the Beast. The reason why this movie exists was to 'improve' on the original film and 'fix the plot-holes'. There are many changes to the original film, such as the household objects getting unappealing character designs, some of the songs being expanded, Prince Adam receiving a book that could teleport him anywhere in the world, and the enchantress who was mentioned in the original film physically appearing. I personally don't like this movie as much as other people do because I felt that a lot of the humor has been drained out of the original film, and Emma Wattson's singing voice can get on your nerves.
I also find the book to be pointless: The only reason it exists is so Belle can find out why her mother died. Adam could've used it to escape from his castle when it starts falling apart!
The following year, Disney released Christopher Robin, based on the beloved Winnie the Pooh stories by A A Milne. I actually reviewed this movie last year, and looking back, I feel I was a little too generous on it. As Rachel said in her review...
I also find the book to be pointless: The only reason it exists is so Belle can find out why her mother died. Adam could've used it to escape from his castle when it starts falling apart!
The following year, Disney released Christopher Robin, based on the beloved Winnie the Pooh stories by A A Milne. I actually reviewed this movie last year, and looking back, I feel I was a little too generous on it. As Rachel said in her review...
Christopher Robin was a bit of a jerk. She also points out that it would've been better if the film had more whimsy and wasn't as depressing. I would've rewritten the script to make Christopher a more likable character.
As for what I think of Christopher Robin, it's okay, but if you really want a live-action Winnie the Pooh, I recommend the preschool series The Book of Pooh. It aired on Playhouse Disney (a predecessor to Disney Junior) between 2001 and 2003, and faithfully stuck to the source material while teaching very young kids important lessons on friendship with Henson-quality puppets. Quite a few episodes of The Book of Pooh can be found on YouTube.
Before I talk about the next film, here's my review of Christopher Robin from last year.
 |
| The little blue bird on Rabbit's hand is Kessie, who originally appeared in an episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. |
There were three live-action Disney remakes released this year, two of which I will talk about: The first was Tim Burton’s Dumbo. As well as avoiding the usual Tim Burton art style, this retelling of Dumbo also has a bit of a different story from the original, somewhat similar to Free Willy. Also, the animal characters don’t talk, so characters like Timothy Mouse, Mr. Stork, the Nanny Elephants, and the Crows got removed. Instead, Dumbo is guided by human children Milly and Joe Farrier and their widowed father Holt. Unfortunately, Tim Burton’s Dumbo didn’t meet box-office expectations, perhaps because it had to compete against How To Train Your Dragon 3 and Avengers: End Game.
As for what I thought of the movie, I liked it more than Maleficent and Beauty and the Beast, but less than The Jungle Book and Pete's Dragon.
Aladdin, on the other hand, proved to be very successful, earning over a billion dollars at the box-office and even green lighting a sequel. Some of the changes that were made to this film include Jafar not only being power-hungry, but also war hungry, Jasmine having a song that has little impact on the story, Iago (Jafar’s parrot) behaving more like a real parrot, and Genie being played by Will Smith instead of Robin Williams, with mixed results.
Unfortunately, the film itself is less engaging and less enjoyable than its 1992 counterpart. Much like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin drained much of the humor and charm out of the original film. It also hurts that Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, screenwriters of the original film, don’t return, despite working on the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
Of all the remakes talked about here, the only ones here that I truly recommend are Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and Pete's Dragon. As for the rest, it's all up to you.
If you're wondering about what I thought of Jon Favreau's The Lion King, I will review it some time in January.
No comments:
Post a Comment