What Makes a Good Disney Live-Action Remake?

Scene from Dumbo (2019)

This week marks the release of the latest live-action Disney remake. This time the studio is rebranding and updating the beloved elephant with big ears named Dumbo who could fly. With Tim Burton (?) behind the camera, it's his second go around at bringing the animated cells to life in new and exciting ways. With that in mind, what exactly makes a live-action Disney remake worth seeing. They haven't all been hits. In fact, most of them seem like dull retreads of more iconic tales. However, there's still something exciting about revisiting the studio's past and grappling with its past. While it does seem like they will run out of ideas eventually and find a new trend to hop on, Disney's filmography has led an interesting recent trend of hits and misses, but for those willing to look beyond the canned lack of originality, there is sometimes something worth checking out.

This does seem like a banner year for Disney. Along with the 20th Century Fox merger, they are planning on releasing their own streaming app Disney+. They also are dominating the box office with Marvel movies as well as four live-action remakes released throughout the course of this year. There is, of course, Dumbo, but keep an eye out for Aladdin, The Lion King, and the most recently announced Maleficent sequel. There's a lot going on in the future as well, and it only makes sense that they would try and make these films, for lack of a better word... good. Why wouldn't audiences get movies that are elevated off the page and improved by live-action counterparts with groundbreaking technology? Sure, it's all part of the grand scheme known as brand deposits (getting audiences to revisit old properties for double profit), but as a form of generic art one has to wonder... what good do these films actually have?

To some extent, it's all a cynical cash grab. As mentioned, they exist solely to make money and remind audiences why they love these classic movies. However, there's a certain genius that comes with doing them very well. With limited exception, most of the films have faltered from the original enough to have some charm. The premiere entry, 101 Dalmatians, was more comedic and slapstick than the original. When the trend picked up full steam in 2010 with the one-two punch of Alice in Wonderland and The Sorcerer's Stone, audiences weren't aware that this was the start of something old AND new. They were going to get classic updates for a modern sensibility.

While one can argue that this is just a lazy act by a multi-billion dollar studio, one has to consider that remakes are as old as the film industry. Films like Frankenstein (1931) and Ben-Hur (1959) weren't the original takes on popular stories. Even in a modern sense, 21 Jump Street has subverted common trends in a manner that shows a property updating its sensibility. Much like comic book stories (notably Batman and Superman), characters and stories are so prescient that they have to evolve with the times. There's nothing wrong with that, especially given that each take gives a perplexing wrinkle to the equation. To go back to Disney, it's hard to not note that certain ideas (such as Alice in Wonderland) is a property that has been revisited many times before turned into the 1950's classic. Sometimes it takes a certain sensibility to get right or do something interesting. 

Scene from Alice in Wonderland (2010)

So, what's so interesting about a Disney live-action remake? For one, a remake is a deal that's easy to buy into. Because you know who Maleficent is, you're going to want to see Maleficent. There's almost no need to make a story around it. However, there's something effective about the Disney remakes that do something with their material. Alice in Wonderland attempts to turn Alice into a feminist icon while updating Wonderland into a CGI Tim Burton-esque landscape. It plays with perspectives and warps the story from whimsical into something dark and dreary. Similarly, Maleficent is a story about step-mothers, and Christopher Robin is about rekindling your childhood. There's actual substance underneath the imagery that comes with any halfway decent story. Even The Sorcerer's Apprentice choosing to imagine the Fantasia segment through a modern lens shows some effort that is greatly admired.

But what makes these films feel like they stand upon their own? In the grand scheme of things, the answer is that they don't. However, there's a need to separate yourself enough from the original that it becomes a unique experience. An example of this working is Pete's Dragon, which took one of the goofier stories featuring very silly songs and removes everything hokey about it. In its place is this character drama about a boy bonding with a dragon as the world doesn't understand him. There's actual emotion and depth to the story that works because of director David Lowery making a film that is geared towards young boys who like adventure. Where the original was hokey and featured a song where the dragon whoomps through an entire song, there's a sense of bonding in Lowery's vision that shows a boy dealing with the divides in his life. It took the text and made it different enough that it became viable to a modern sensibility. That and Pete's Dragon is far from the most sacred text Disney had - even if it garnered a Best Original Song Oscar nomination while others didn't.

Scene from The Jungle Book (2016)

On the flip side is films like Beauty and the Beast (2017) and The Jungle Book (2016). While these films get touted for something different, there's often not enough substance beyond that. In the case of The Jungle Book, the film would receive an Oscar for Best Visual Effects deservedly for bringing the cast to life in breathtaking fashion. The film would even get points for being darker and scarier, adding peril to another film that could be described as being goofy. However, there's something that keeps the film from reaching its true potential. Just as things get dark and different, The Jungle Book decides to pay homage to the sillier version, such as throwing a kooky rendition of the jazz-style song "I Wanna Be Like You" into a scene that's supposed to be intimidating. Those familiar with the story will be confused because it doesn't update the music into the context so much as remind audiences of a more fun film. It's a story at odds with itself as it wants to be dark and captivating but also reminds audiences of something more light-hearted. It's a tonal mess and one that juxtaposes the success of Pete's Dragon reshaping its atmosphere entirely with The Jungle Book never deciding to be totally committed to one type of story.

Beauty and the Beast gets more of a pass in that it adds depth of character that complexes the personal story of Belle. However, it also suffers from the reality that it's reminding audiences of the 1990's film, of which earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination. The critically acclaimed film puts a big shadow over it (not to mention that there's been better live-action takes on the story already, such as one by Jean Cocteau). There's even weight in the idea of modernizing the subtext by adding gay characters and making the film feel modern. While that idea was infamously maligned as pandering, the bigger issue was that the film's reliance on what was familiar comes to odds with itself. Every song from the animated film is here, and they are given live-action covers that never quite match up, and it adds unnecessary personality and reflects how poor some of the singers are in this new setting. It feels like a carbon copy and the fact that half of the significant cast is CGI (not to mention sometimes horrifying) makes one wonder why this even needs to be live-action. The set design is fine and the addition of the song "Evermore" gives it some weight, but there's not enough here that makes it stand out from its animated counterpoint.

Scene from Maleficent (2014)

So, what is the ideal way to remake a Disney film? For the most part, the dozen or so takes on the film have been fine. Their worst issues come with CGI that in some ways negates the purpose of even adapting them. As it stands, the upcoming The Lion King has received flack for having an entirely animated cast. While this will always be an issue, the heart of what makes any remake more essential than unnecessary is giving depth to the characters or emphasizing something about this world that can be better done by live actors as opposed to cartoons. There is a need to find human emotion within these characters, and films like Beauty and the Beast fail in large part because few of the characters are actual or produce human emotion in part because they don't exist as more than computer images. Meanwhile, Pete's Dragon works because it relies just as much on the supporting cast as it does the protagonist Pete, whose journey has a lot of warmth to it.

To produce something halfway decent, one has to understand characters on a deeper level. For instance, Maleficent is a remake of Sleeping Beauty in an abstract sense. It's more of a perspective shift to the animated film's villain. It asks: "Why do we hate Maleficent?" and then proceeds to explore a unique perspective. She is vulnerable and looking to find some acceptance in the world. It adds depth to the lore and in some ways makes Maleficent more of a three-dimensional character. She wasn't that way in Sleeping Beauty, and the addition of Angelina Jolie in one of the live-action's most memorable performances gives weight. Similarly, the choice to explore Cinderella's (2015) personal life works in a live action environment in part because the conflict between Cinderella and her step-mother is given deeper weight as well as excellent costume design by Sandy Powell. It also helps that most of the cast understand the silliness of the premise without giving into the hacky side of things. Also, Lily James and Cate Blanchett play very well off of each other.

Scene from Cinderella (2015)

While they're all subjective and determined by how much each audience member likes the original, the remakes will have a charm that is immediately nostalgic. The better films expand the world and give human depth to the characters. These characters have been part of pop culture, sometimes, for decades with some being closer to a century now. It makes sense to remind audiences why they love them. Sure on some level, it's still a boring retread. However, the choice to go into character and add emotional weight gives the best of the films a permanence to a new generation. By finding the drama in Pete's Dragon, the story gets to be reborn. By finding the humanity in an adult Christopher Robin, the characters get to analyze how people age while still having that childhood curiosity. There's a lot that works and one can hope that the upcoming ones will. Sure, there's a level of distracting artifice to trailers for films like Aladdin and The Lion King, but there's still room for them to get new angles on beloved characters. With Mulan on the horizon being more of a martial arts film than a musical, there's evidence that Disney is starting to get ambitious.

It's still too early to determine how well Dumbo will be as a live-action remake. However, it does look like it will be another curious oddity from Burton returning to the world. Where his Alice in Wonderland was too rooted in artifice to be great, the choice to set Dumbo in a more realistic world at least promises to be a more gripping tale. There's even something morbidly compelling about the film being an hour longer than the original that makes one wonder what was added. Will it be worth the experience, or is it just another mark against why these movies shouldn't exist? It's hard to say though hopefully, it will give audiences a chance to visit the original and understand what made it great. As cynical as that sounds, it helps to raise awareness of what Disney did right, whether that means the older or newer films. The cartoons have plenty of warmth and humanity, to begin with, though the best of actors make these remakes work on a personal level. Even those quasi-live-action remakes (Mary Poppins Returns) have something affecting to give the franchises. Will they replace the originals? Not ever. However, the best will make audiences understand characters on a deeper level and make them more, for lack of a better word, human.