As we all may know, many of the new movies coming out the past few years haven’t exactly been – well, new. Every single animated movie that we enjoyed as a kid has been being re-released as a live action/CGI blockbuster. I just recently watched the new Aladdin live action remake, and while I did enjoy it, it make me realize the sheer amount of animated Disney remakes that have come out in the past few years.
On one hand, I enjoy them quite a bit – with movies such The Jungle Book, the amazing graphics can put a great spin on a classic movie. Some movies , on the other hand, I feel were much better as an animated film – I felt this way when watching the “One Jump Ahead” scene from the Aladdin remake. The film does, however, get much better with the introduction of the Genie ( in my opinion), as with him came more CGI – which is where I believe the Disney remakes truly shine. The animation that we can do with computers now is truly astounding, and I found myself in constant awe of the spectacles created by the animators during scenes such as Will Smith’s “Friend Like Me” performance.
Another thing about these Disney remakes is that I constantly find myself comparing the old movies to the original, and although it may be personal bias, I almost always find the original movies better. Maybe it’s just the fact that I grew up with it, or maybe it looks better in animation, but there’s a certain quality to the original Disney movies that , in my opinion, can’t quite be captured in the remakes.
Reliving the old fairy tales shown to us as children is great, but when it comes down to it, I would honestly just rather rewatch the originals. Some of my favourite Disney movies that have come out in the past few years have been new, original ideas such as Frozen and Zootopia, but for every new, original movie there’s been two or three remakes. Which – there’s nothing wrong with these, as I for the most part still enjoy them, I would just like to see more original movies being made as well, because old doesn’t mean bad. The classics don’t need to be reimagined to stay relevant – I will definitely still show my children the original Lion King from 1994. CGI is a great way to reimagine the classics, but I don’t think every single movie needs to be remade into a live action film. Some classics are better left just that – a classic.