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Sunday, 3 November 2019

The Morning Show "In the Dark Night of the Soul It’s Always 3:30 in the Morning" Review


Movie and TV fans we are now living in a world where every network or company is making a streaming service (remember when Netflix was the only streaming service) well now Apple of all people have thrown there hat into the ring. So I thought i'd take a look at the first episode of one of their debuting shows and I picked a good one and so here are my review of the pilot episode for The Morning Show.

The plot of the episode is after being work colleagues for fifteen years Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) finds out that Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell) has been fired Alex now has to deal with the reason as to why he was fired all the while she starts a rivalry with Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) who's looking to take Mitch's place. I'll admit I was looking forward to this show when I first saw the trailer and the first episode didn't disappoint me the story was understandably a little lacking since it's the first episode but it did a good job of making want to watch more.


Starring in this episode and the rest of the show is Jennifer Aniston as Alex Levy , Reese Witherspoon as Bradley Jackson , Billy Crudup as Cory Ellison , Mark Duplass as Charlie "Chip" Black , Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Hannah Shoenfeld , Néstor Carbonell as Yanko Flores , Karen Pittman as Mia Jordan , Bel Powley as Claire Canway , Desean K. Terry as Daniel Henderson , Jack Davenport as Jason Craig and Steve Carell as Mitch Kessler.

In terms of what I thought about the acting for a pilot it was honestly really good and that's not something that I get to say that often. With acting being this good in the very first episode it does make me wonder if the acting will only continue to get better or get worse as the show continues since at least if the acting is bad in the first episode then you know it's going to get better as the show goes on but here I have no clue and that makes it more interesting at least in my opinion but that's something that only time will indeed tell.


The show is inspired by the book Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV by  Brian Stelter and I say that because it's not an adaptation which I believe was planned by Lifetime a few years ago. Due to the fact that this show is inspired by the book I cannot say for sure if anything that happened in this episode actually happened in the book but I will say based on the brief read of the synopsis it does sound like an interesting read.

I'll admit when I first saw the trailer for this show I actually thought it was a comedy altho a very bad one because there was no jokes. Which now makes sense because I found out it's a drama so shame on me for thinking it was a comedy but in my defensive when you see Jennifer Aniston in a new project you straight away think that it's a comedy even more so when you see that it also stars Steve Carell.


Now this show is listed as a satire and I have to say I have no idea what they are meant to be satirising since everything that they mention in this episode could also be true for any TV show or film. So it would have been better if they only satirised things that happen on morning TV shows instead of having things that could effect any show but this is just my personal opinion there might be others out there who get what the satire is.

I have to say that based of this first episode alone I really like the character of that Reese Witherspoon plays. I think that she's a spunky character who doesn't take c**p from anyone and will openly call people out when there not being honest that is something that I very rarely see on any kind of show and it honestly made me excited for her scenes because I was in love with her character and I wanted to see what she'd do next.


As you'd expect from a drama there is alot of dramatic scenes but I honestly didn't feel that they became the focus of the episode. Which for me is always a good thing because i've seen things where there's drama every few minuets and it gets overbearing here the focus is more on the characters with a small hint of drama every now and then which is great because it's more like real life in that regard but it is something that I could see people being put of by as well as TV is a form of escapism for many people.


This is one of the first shows made for Apple's new streaming service the aptly named Apple TV+ and I think they are copying the Netflix route of releasing all the episodes at one time. I personally don't think that this will work for them especially since they haven't really announced any shows that will get people excited unlike Disney+ which announced a tone of shows and films that people are excited for so I think it would be better if they released the episodes weekly for now just to build up a fanbase.


Overall I do think that this was a solid debut episode for the show and I do think that Apple was right to have this show be one of the first shows launching for their service. Since I don't give out ratings for pilot episodes i'm going to do the same here and I will be checking out the rest of the series over time i'm just not quite sure when since there's a lot of stuff coming out that I want to see from other studios.  




   

Saturday, 2 November 2019

Comparing Ghost In The Shell 2017 To It's 1995 Original


Anime fans as some of you will have worked out by now i'm a huge fan of Ghost In The Shell i've seen every single film in this franchise and i've seen the original film more times then i care to count. So I thought instead of reviewing the film again which is what I was planning to do by the way i thought i'd do something a little bit different and that's compare the original 1995 film to the 2017 live action American remake since both use the same story elements it only makes sense.

Before I do that tho I want to lay down some ground rules and they are that I will judge things that both films could help so I won't be judging the visuals because of the limitations of the 1995 film. Secondly I will only be including the first movie so you won't be seeing me make any kind of references to any of the series that came after it nor will I be mentioning the animated sequel this is just the original film and remake only.

Major Motoko Kusanagi


Let us start with one of the characters that is pretty much the mascot for this franchise that being Major Motoko Kusanagi or in this film Major Mira Killian. Now while The Major in the live action film isn't that and of a character by any means in fact the same can be said for any version of the character I personally feel that the original film's take on the character is better because I honestly believe that she could kick all of our a**es where as here that's not the impressions that I get.

The impressions that I got from the live action version of the character is that she will punch you in the face but she'll ask you nicely first. Which to me doesn't seem like something any version of The Major would do she's the type to punch first ask questions later and nowhere is that more evident then in the sequence where she snaps arm she doesn't ask why he's shooting at them she just starts shooting.

WINNER: GHOST IN THE SHELL (1995)

Opening



I know that this is a weird thing to bring up here but I have to talk about the opening to both movies and that's because the opening does play a part in the whole robot theme that both films have. I have to be frank I like both openings because of how visually stunning they both are however the original does have one thing that the remake doesn't have and that's Kenji Kawai's hauntingly beautiful "Making of a Cyborg" which really does help set the mood.

That being said the remake does have a pretty sweet remixed version of it playing near the end of the sequence. While the remakes opening is pretty faithful to the original opening that is also it's biggest downfall because we've already seen it before so why should we see it again however I will admit that the CGI is pretty decent in that scene and is most likely in the whole film but I would have preferred a more original opening sequence.

WINNER: DRAW

Acting


One of the things that I liked about the remake and that was the acting which I honestly feel was better then the original. I'm saying that because i've only seen the original dubbed i've never heard it in the original Japanese and so I can only judge it based on the dub and that's why i'm saying the remake has better acting just because the dub is never going to be as good as the original Japanese dub.

I will say that the acting in the original film is indeed good but and while I do prefer those actors i'm trying my best to be fair. I will also like to say that Scarlett Johansson didn't deserve the hate she got for being cast in this film if the Japanese public are happy with her casting then it's good enough for me and to be honest she's one of the only people who could have played this character and yet still got people to see the film.

WINNER: GHOST IN THE SHELL 2017

Secondary Characters


It's all well and good having The Major but she wouldn't get very far with the rest of Section 9 and so we have to talk about them. I honestly feel that the Section 9 characters were better handled in the original film then they were in the remake mostly because I could actually tell them apart in the original which is something that I could barely do in the remake and that takes me out of the film because i'm trying to work out who's who.

Also adding to why i'm picking the original film here is the fact that i feel they were honestly used better in the original film. In the remake the Section 9 characters feel like side characters with alot of the focus going to The Major which is fine since she is pretty much the mascot for the franchise however she works better when she's with the other characters and not when she's on her own like she is alot of the time in the remake.

WINNER: GHOST IN THE SHELL 1995

Overall Quality Ghost In The Shell 2017


As an adaptation this film does a good job of representing what Ghost In The Shell is the issue is it waters down alot of things. There's no philosophical speech's from any of the characters which was a stable of the first film , the action while indeed entertaining also feels watered down and it's due to that that iconic tank scene looses alot of it's impact but it is still a good scene to see in live action tho because in the original you see alot of The Major's blood and I think some bone thus telling us that she's human here all of that removed.

Overall Quality Ghost In The Shell 1995


Without this film there would be know Ghost In The Shell franchise this is an iconic film and it's iconic for a reason. The characters are so well defined in this film it also has some great animation which still holds up to this very day. Where as some of the CGI in the remake looks really bad no joke during one of the early scene there's some CGI on screen which is so bad it caused me to yell out how bad it is plus it has a ton of iconic scenes.

OVERALL WINNER: GHOST IN THE SHELL 1995






Wednesday, 23 October 2019

My Thoughts On The Whole Francis Ford Coppla And Martin Scorsese Marvel Situation


Comic Book fans this is a post that i've been sitting on who a few days now because I wanted it to really sink in and give myself time to find away to put it into words. I did tweet about this situation a few days ago and yes I will be included the tweets which i've learnt to edit for this post (guess who learned to screen shot on a computer) and so even you don't like the MCU here is my take on the whole situation.

For those that don't know on October 4th directing legend Martin Scorsese gave an interview to Empire Magazine which I cannot find on Empire's website but it was picked up by pretty much every news site over the next few days. He was asked by the interviewer if he had seen a Marvel movie (why he was asked that I don't know) and he gave the response "I tried, you know? but that’s not cinema.”.

He would also go on to compare them to theme park attractions by saying “Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.” Which I feel is a fair statement since comic book movies aren't for everyone just like theme park rides aren't for everyone.


This is wear the "controversy" really kicked into high gear because Francis Ford Coppola got involved and he said something which not only made and possibly hundreds of fans he called them despicable. His full actual quote is "Martin was kind when he said it's not cinema. He didn't say it's despicable, which I just say it is." and that right there is something that not only myself but a ton of other fans take issue with.

Since while Marvel movies are not great cinema by any stretch of the imagination they are still movies and not every movie is going to be great cinema Denis Villeneuve's 2016 film Arrival is an underrated film. While Francis just like everyone else is entitled to their own opinion to out right say that they are despicable to me says that your someone who is stuck in there ways and believes that certain things need to do certain things (notice how ironic his statement sounds with a picture of him from Comic-Con 2011).




When the news broke of what Francis said as you can see in the above pictures I went on a Twitter rant which is something I never do let alone then go on to bookmark them so I can use them in a future post. However I want to hit home some things the kind of cinema that Martin , Francis and now Ken Loach like can still be found in cinema's because they like the kind of films that make you think well as you can see in this post there was one of those in 2016 and I think 2018 when the Blade Runner sequel came out.

So those types of films are still being shown and are still being made for cinema's and you don't even have to look hard for them because they get a wide release alot of the time. I do admit that comic book movies are now pretty much the norm that's not due to Marvel that's due to the fact that the directors were fans of what ever comic book there adapting for the screen and they nine times out of ten do a good job because there fans and they know how to adapt these characters and still keep them true to their comic book counterparts.


Coppola's most famous work is The Godfather well here's something that make his comment seem even more ironic because for a long time gangster films were seen as despicable. So what does Francis do he makes what many consider the best gangster film of all time and so I have to wonder why he's calling Marvel movies despicable when the genre he helped popularise the gangster was also seen as such.

Every single genre from drama to horror will at some point be seen as despicable but you know what neither a drama nor a horror movie has even come close to making me cry. You know what did a superhero movie more specifically 2014's Guardians Of The Galaxy that help made me care for a tree and it came close to making cry when Groot sacrificed himself for his friends and the same goes for Endgame I cried during that film.


Now I mentioned him very briefly before but director Ken Loach has now come out and added in his two cents or in his case two pounds. He said "They’re made as commodities like hamburgers, and it’s not about communicating and it’s not about sharing our imagination, It’s about making a commodity which will make a profit for a big corporation – they’re a cynical exercise. They’re market exercise and it has nothing to do with the art of cinema. William Blake said ‘when money is discussed – art is impossible’.”.

He would go on further to say "I think reflecting the world we know can make beautiful cinema because it can celebrate who we are. It can laugh with us, it can cry with us, it can learn about our deepest feelings and what it is to be human – you find that in the everyday” I want to say that what Ken is possibly trying to say is that he doesn't like superhero films which is fair enough there not for everyone but to call Marvel movies cynical when that might even be the case isn't good at all.

To say that you can only make beautiful cinema by reflecting what's going on in the real world also doesn't make sense. Since there was a beautiful film out four years ago which didn't reflect the real world at all and if you've seen any my reviews for Makoko Shinkai film's you'll know that his film's don't reflect the world world at all and there beautiful so the fact that Marvel films don't reflect the real world is a none issue.


Every superhero movie just like any movie could be seen as a work of art literally the only thing that changes is the medium in which that art is presented. In stereotypical art it would be on a piece of paper well here the canvas is the location with the camera and the actors being the pencil or whatever art tool you want with the artist being the director or directors and while some pieces of art are better then others it doesn't mean that it's not art 

Logan and Avengers: Endgame could be seen as art just like any other art piece as could any of the films that these directors made but for some reason these guys are choosing to act like snobby art critics. By that I mean that instead of seeing films like Logan or Avengers: Endgame as a work of art they are seeing them as nothing more then a piece of film that will be forgotten about and while some of these Marvel films will indeed be forgotten about that doesn't mean that there not a piece of art and should be treated as such.


Steven Spielberg once said that superhero movies will go the way of the western and by that he means they'll be forgotten about and very few will get made. What he and many of the older directors fail to realise is Marvel movies already started out like that like think about prior to X-Men being released in 2000 there were very few Marvel movies being made and now they are more popular then every before so it's a reverse of the western genre which started out popular and then faded when the opposite happened here.

The one thing that all great films should be able regardless if you consider them great cinema or not is they should be able to make you feel something be it joy , sadness or anger. They should be able to make you feel something just like a painting should be able to do and i'm using the art analogy because to me that's what film is it's art and regardless of the genre it is something to be admired and without Marvel movies being as popular as they are that now means that we now could have more film makers being inspired to make there own films and that can only be a good thing.


Like i've said i'm not going to pretend and say that these films are great cinema because that would be stupid but what they do is they make you believe in the impossible. These films are also a great way to escape the problems of the real world and honestly sometimes that's more important then being a truly great piece of cinema because do need to escape from the real world from time to time and what better way to do that then putting on a Marvel or DC Movie.






Monday, 21 October 2019

Watchmen "It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice" Review


Comic book fans we are living in an age we're living in an age where every comic book is getting some sort of adaptation. Now HBO is throwing there hat in the ring with an adaptation / sequel to a classic Alan Moore comic book and knowing how much of an a*shole that guy is it really wouldn't surprise me if he hates this version and so ladies and gents here is my review of the debut episode of Watchmen.

The plot of the episode is a little hard to describe but i'm going to try and do me best basically police officers have been getting killed by a white supremacist group. Yeah that's really all the plot I got out of it and that's also why it's so hard to describe what the plot of the episode is because there barely is any plot to speak of but given that this is the first episode I can kind of forgive it for not really having a story but that said the rest of the episodes better have a plot to them.


Starring in the episode is Regina King as Det. Angela Abar / Sister Night , Don Johnson as Chief Judd Crawford , Tim Blake Nelson as Wade / Looking Glass , Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Cal Abar Sara Vickers as Ms. Crookshanks , Dylan Schombing as Topher Abar , Jacob Ming-Trent as Panda , Frances Fisher as Jane Crawford , Louis Gossett Jr. as Will Reeves and Jeremy Irons as ?????????????.

The acting in this episode for a pilot is actually really good which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone given who's in the show. That said they do run into the same problems that you have with pilot episode and that's the fact that the actors are still trying to find their characters and are still developing chemistry with each other but both of those things will continue to develop over the course of the show.


This show does act as a sequel to the comic book while at the same time trying to be an adaptation of the film. As a sequel it does a good job establishing itself as it's own thing while at the same time catching up with a certain character while also referencing others but as an adaptation of the film (yes this was billed as an adaptation) it fails because it has nothing to do with the film outside of the name Watchmen so basically you could see this show without seeing the film and still understand what's going on.

If you want to know what it is that makes this a sequel it's that it takes place in an alternate 2019 so it's set nearly forty years after the original and a character from both the film and comic book does appear in this episode with I believe at least one more due to appear. I can't really say if this has anymore connections to the book since i've not read it and no i'm not going to either just because both the book and the show should be able to stand on their own.


I will fully admit to forgetting that this show was even coming on but tho that was also because there was a lot of films and other shows coming out. However I was excited for this show when the first trailer and teaser dropped just because I liked the movie and so getting a chance to revisit that world but now in a weekly show was more then enough to get me excited but I do wish there was more going on in this pilot tho.


Now i shouldn't really do this since both of these shows are different beasts entirely but I want to take a second to compare this show to the recently debuted Batwoman show. In my opinion while Batwoman had the better pilot because that pilot actually told a story I feel that this will be the better show overall and I feel that way because Batwoman is your typical Batman show with nothing new to add to is.

Where as Watchmen while being set in the world of the both the film and I assume the comics is telling it's own story. Which in the longer run is going to allow them to kill of major characters and thus add more drama which is something your not going to get in Batwoman because that show is a prequel and so we now that Kate is going to make it at the end of each episode which isn't the case here because alot of the main characters aren't from the comic book and so they could die in any given episode.


This is a show that I can honestly see Alan Moore hating because if you've noticed he hates anything that's good and this is a good episode. So therefor logic dictates that he'd hate this show as well and i'd be really surprised if he didn't hate the show or if he didn't do something that made him look like even more of a*shole then he already is and incase you don't know this show is based on the comic book he helped create which was published by DC Comics.


Overall while this will turn out to be better then Batwoman in my opinion the pilot wasn't that good and while it does set up a possible storyline for the show it's going to have to rebound from this episode. Since this is a pilot and I hate to give those ratings i'm not going to give this pilot a rating and i've tried to keep this as spoiler free as possible because I want you guys to go and check the show out and make up your own minds.





Friday, 18 October 2019

Some Disney Films Being Released Over The Next Year By A LOT Of Disney Owned Studios


Disney is a company that alot of us hold near and dear to our hearts and it's not hard to see why since they were responsible for alot our childhood classics and well since they do have a new film out today it made sense for me to take a look at some of their other upcoming films. Since Disney does own alot of studios i'm going to limit myself to just a small handful and I will try to include some films from the studios that Disney own as they do fall under the Disney umbrella.

Walt Disney Pictures

Lady And The Tramp (2019)


Where better to start this Disney themed post then with Walt Disney Pictures and what I assume to be the next big release from them another freaking remake. I give the remakes a lot of hate and rightfully freaking so but at the same time you can see the logic behind it since they do make money and Disney is a business after all but even so I have to ask who in there right mind was asking for a Lady And The Tramp remake nevertheless November 12th is when it comes out.

Frozen 2


This is a film that like many of you i'm both dreading and looking forward to at the same time i'm excited to return to this world and seeing these characters again however the fanbase for Frozen can be quite bad and that's why i'm dreading it also the fact that it's fanbase is mostly little girls who will except anything as long as it has the Frozen name regardless of the quality is also a bad thing. However based of what i've seen from the trailers this does look really good and I have a feeling that the company will have a monster hit on there hands with this one like they did with the first one but I just hope they don't have another "Let It Go" because I cannot go with hearing that song on the radio all Summer or Christmas again.

Noelle


This is Disney's first christmas movie in over a decade and like with Frozen 2 I actually can't wait to see this film. Which is rare for me because I don't like christmas films that much to me there boring and predictable that's also why I don't like romance films either but this film actually looks funny and it looks like it might be trying to do something different with the christmas setting weather or not it does is something we'll have to wait and see to find out but luckily we won't have long to wait as the film comes out on Disney+ on November 12th the exact same day and service as Lady And The Tramp incase any of you didn't know.

Disney Channel Original Movies

Zombies 2


I'll admit i've never seen the first Zombies film and i'm most likely never going to call me crazy but making zombies sing and dance just makes them less scary. Which for me is a big thing because there meant to be scary there not meant to be happy go lucky teens who sing and dance about there problems but for some reason this film was a hit and so we're getting a sequel next year and I just hope that Disney don't make other horrific creatures start singing and dancing COMING 2021 V-A-M-P-I-R-E-S.

Upside-Down Magic


Your guess is as good as mine as to what this film and the book series it's based on is about but apparently it was popular enough to be given it's own Disney Channel Original Movie. The only thing I know about the book series is that it's published by Upside-Down Magic and is written by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins and that's really it you could make up a fact about this book series or film and i'd ave to believe you.

PIXAR

Onward


I honestly feel that this will be the best animated film of 2020 and i'm saying that with a lot on confidence because it's got a great team behind it and it's freaking PIXAR. Like many of you i've seen the trailer for this film and I think that it looks really good of course only time will tell if it's going to be a great film but so far the signs are looking good for this film at least in my opinion anyways.

Soul


The only other film that might became animated film of the year at least in my opinion is Soul and honestly that's because the director of this film Pete Docter also made Inside Out. Unlike Onward there hasn't been a trailer or a teaser released for this film but after reading the plot summery on Wikipedia it looks like the film will have some dark undertones which I do think is going to be rather interesting in my opinion.

Lucasfilm

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker


I'm a huge Star Wars since i've been born i've seen as many of the films in theatres as I possibly could that does include the mad ones as well. However i'm not really excited for this film at all infact this whole sequel trilogy has been one big let down in my opinion in my opinion the only good story thread they had they wrapped up badly in The Last Jedi and Snoak was a wasted character so yeah i'm not hopeful for this film being good but at this point i'll settle for just ok.

Marvel Studios

Black Widow


 I wasn't kidding when I said i'll try and do every Disney owned studio that I could think of and would you believe that i'm not even close to finishing yet. Black Widow is a movie that i'm both excited for and nervous for at the same time excited because I like Black Widow and I think she deserves her own movie and I like Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh but nervous because the last time we got a female led movie from Marvel we ended up with Captain Marvel the worst MCU movie in my opinion but only time will tell if this is bad or not.

The Eternals


The second and last film from the MCU to come out in 2020 (altho if New Mutants finally get's released who knows) this is honestly the one which I feel has to succeed the most. I say that because nobody outside of the comic book world knows of these characters and that right there means that if Marvel want to do sequels with them or have them in other films then this film needs to be a hit but it's Marvel so we all know that regardless of the film's quality it's going to make money.

20th Century Fox

Terminator: Dark Fate


Now i'm including this here because it is being released by Fox internationally so technically it's Disney. We won't have long to see this film is any good or not because it starts releasing next week and like alot of the franchises mentioned here i'm a bit of a Terminator fan and like alot of you I to felt let down by the recent sequels and I cannot wait for this one since the original creator James Cameron is back producing the film and Linda Hamilton is back as Sarah Connor so so far so good.

 Bob's Burgers: The Movie


I'm not that big of a fan of Bob's Burgers I don't find it that funny and I don't see the appeal of it what so ever. However it's always a good and interesting thing when a TV series gets turned into a movie because not the creators have to turn something that would normally fit a twenty two minuet time slot into an hour and a half movie and it would be interesting to see what they do with these characters in my opinion.

Death on the Nile


I Loved 2017's Murder on the Orient Express and so you can bet that i'm excited for the sequel and i'm not a big mystery lover either. I honestly can't wait to work out who did because that's always the best part in a mystery movie. On top of that the great Sir Kenneth Branagh is returning as Hercule Poirot and the guest cast for this film sounds amazing with the likes of Jennifer Saunders , Dawn French , Gal Gadot and Rose Leslie all being cast in the film.

The New Mutants


This is a film that's had several release dates since it was due out in 2018 and has had several push backs with the current release date being April 2020. At this rate i'll start to get excited about the film when i'm actually a few minuets away from watching it be it on the big screen or on a streaming service because yes that was rumoured at one point and the lack of marketing especially given the new date is slightly worrying since there should be at least another teaser by now but nope nothing beyond the initial teaser we got in 2018.

The King's Man


Finally the last movie i'm going to be talking about and it's another prequel (the first one being Black Widow) and like Black Widow I can't wait for this one. I've seen all of the Kingsmen films and so it would only make sense that I not only be excited to see this prequel but also go and see the movie whenever it comes out the only thing I can see being a drawback is that it's a prequel and so you know who's going to come out on top.

There we go guys there's alot of movies from alot of different studios all owned by Disney and as you can tell the studio is going to be releasing alot of films be it from from Walt Disney Pictures to 20th Century Fox. If you think I included alot of films I didn't even scratch the service of the Fox film slate I even had had to narrow it down to next year just to keep myself from going insane and I know that chances are i've missed of alot of Disney owned studios but given that they own so many can you really blame me for missing of one or two.












Tuesday, 8 October 2019

Why The Live Action Disney Remakes Don't Work In My Opinion


Guys and girls lets be honest with ourselves Disney is going to be pumping out alot of remakes in the coming years regardless if we want them or not. However where as before it was one maybe two every few years it's now up to five in just this year alone and yes I was counting the upcoming Maleficent in that and well I thought that instead of telling you some fluff piece about why the live action Disney remakes are better then the original i'd go the opposite why and tell you why they don't work

To start of this recent trend of live action remakes is nothing new in fact the studio have been doing it since the nineties with a live action remake of The Jungle Book and again a few years alter with 101 Dalmatians and it's sequel four years later 102 Dalmatians. So the company has been doing these remakes for a long time but i'd say that things really kicked into high gear with the release of 2010's Alice In Wonderland.


Since ever since then they've been churning them out of the regular and alot of them have the same problem or sometime problems in common. The first being they have nothing to do with what ever film there remaking the 2010 Alice In Wonderland has nothing to do the 1951 original outside of the title and a few characters and that's an issue here because when going into this film and given who the director is people wanted to see weird imagery but instead what we got was something dark and depressing and that's not Alice In Wonderland at all.

The second issue that alot of these films have is that there more interested in cashing in on the name rather then fixing any issues with the previous film. If you look at films like Beauty And The Beast and The Lion King those remakes are more bothered about telling the exact same story in the exact same order then they are about fixing any issues that the original film had which to me defeats the purpose of a remake in the first place however to Beauty's credit it does at least try to solve some of the original films issues but it also creates more issues and those are issues that the original film never had.


These films have no idea what to focus on for every film that trys to do something new like the first few minuets of Maleficent there are several that are more interested in telling the same story. That to me says that even Disney have no idea what there doing and picking these films not because the original was flawed and could be fixed but because the original was a hit and so by that logic the film should be a hit as well.

Since she has a new movie out next week let's take a look at Maleficent from 2014 that film was promoted as being a story all about Maleficent and for the first ten to fifteen maybe even twenty minuets it was all about her. However it soon became apparent that this was in fact a remake of Sleeping Beauty so it took what could have been a cool idea how Maleficent became evil and turned it into something that we already saw so it wasted a good idea for the sake of telling the same story over again.

Which is a shame because telling a Maleficent origin story does sound like a good idea and it could very easily have held it's own film. Imagine if the opening of Maleficent was the whole film they spent time making us fall in love her and wanting to her succeed wouldn't that make her downfall more tragic and more heartbreaking but because Disney only cares about remakes rather then fresh ideas instead we get a sloppily told remake of Sleeping Beauty.


Now like many of you I was pretty excited that they were doing a Kim Possible movie however it lacks two things that the show had. Those being charm and identity because this is a remake it has no identity of it's own so it's always going to be tied to the Kim Possible brand name and it doesn't help that the film did nothing to at least make an effort to carve an identity of it's own since it's more focused on shoving iconography from the show down your throat.

The show was full to the brim with charm heck outside of the action it's charm was one of the things that made it standout. So you;d think that the movie would honour that and have plenty of charm as well and well you'd be wrong just like alot if not all of the remakes that have been released so far this one feels soulless it feels like the only reason it was made is because Kim Possible is now considered nostalgic and not because they had a good story or something new to say.


Two of these films do try to keep things fresh by adding in new characters which wouldn't be a bad idea if all of them added to the actual story. When we go to see Dumbo we want to see a heartwarming tale about an elephant just trying to get back to his mother and nothing more we don't however need nor even wanted to see a bunch of drama with a bunch of characters that we don't even know that's not Dumbo to anyone really.


Now I will state right here and now that Aladdin 2019 is the best of the live action Disney remakes but even so the character of Dalia was pointless. She adds nothing to the overall story and her whole romance with The Genie could have been dropped from the film and nothing would have been lost and the same could have been said for her. If your going to introduce a new character then make that person relevant to the plot don't just have them in a few scenes and stick them in a side plot that doesn't connect to the main one.

The original Aladdin while it most likely didn't have to create original characters and I say most likely because i've not read the source material. It at least makes all character main or not important to the overall plot and I don't honestly feel that Dalia is important to the plot of this remake and so you have to wonder why they even went to the trouble of creating a new character when they could have just picked a character from the original and gave them her role in this film.


I will never doubt this alot if not all of these films look visually stunning even if you hate every live action Disney remake that's out that is something that you have to admit to be true. However the issue is at least for me there's no meat to them there just focused and dazzling you with the visuals that they don't even bother in telling a somewhat decent plot and while it is important for a film to be visually stunning it also needs a plot.

Now getting things to look like the animated film isn't a bad idea since that's how people expect certain things to look. However that to has it's faults since it doesn't allow the film to have some sort of identity which is already going to be hard considering it's a remake and so it needs every little chance that it can get but when things look exactly like the cartoon it makes people wonder "why don't they just watch the cartoon" instead of keeping them focused on this newer version.


I noticed this with both Beauty And The Beast and The Lion King but those two films were telling the exact same story in the exact same order. Which yes I know I touched on it before but it's a huge issue because instead of being creative and telling a new story with these characters only now it's live action. There more interested in giving us the animated films story which only makes people want to watch the animated film.

Due to the story being the exact same alot of the surprise and tension is now lost because we know what's coming and what to expect. Honestly both remakes would have faired (might be spelt fared) a little better with fans if they changed the story up enough that way even the fans of the original wouldn't know what to expect and thus could be taken on this ride the same as the new fans but nope Disney just cares more about cashing in on nostalgia then actually doing something that makes sense.


Disney cares about cashing in on nostalgia so much that they are now in the process of remaking a film that's not only important to animation but also important to them. That film being Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs it was the first animated film to be released in North America and it was also the first film to be released by Walt Disney and it absolutely shouldn't be remade because of how important it is. 

Could the original be improved upon yes of course but that doesn't mean that it should he remade classic films like this should be preserved the way they are. Snow White is a classic in every sense of the word and the fact that Disney have decided to remake this over a film like Home On The Range which could do with a remake to fix it's issues to proves what i've been saying all the time in this post they only care about nostalgia and making money from it.