When I was really young there was a period of time when my dad took me and my brother to watch old Disney movies at a nearby theater every Sunday. Each week we'd watch things like Snow White,...
When I was really young there was a period of time when my dad took me and my brother to watch old Disney movies at a nearby theater every Sunday. Each week we'd watch things like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, The Jungle Book, Pete's Dragon, Song of the South, Robin Hood, 101 Dalmatians, The Rescuers, Lady and the Tramp, Mary Poppins--all the old classics. Later on when I was a little older our whole family would go out to theaters for all the new hype Disney animated movies, like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and The Lion King. And we bought many of those on VHS later when they became available, so I've probably watched them all more times than any other movie I've seen.
I wonder if there's a generation of kids right now who'd form the same kind of memories around these live action remakes. It certainly feels to me like they're all pointless trash that do nothing other than come dangerously close to tarnishing my own memories associated with the original films, but I wonder if it's just because I'm overly nostalgic or if these new films actually do have some kind of value or merit beyond being lazy cash grabs. The only one I've seen is The Jungle Book and, while still kind of pointless, it wasn't awful, but I hear that most or all of the others so far are much worse.
Can't speak for everyone, but my 10yo nephew has loved all the recent live action movies he's seen. And they have all done quite well at the box office too... So all the people disappointed with...
Can't speak for everyone, but my 10yo nephew has loved all the recent live action movies he's seen. And they have all done quite well at the box office too... So all the people disappointed with and complaining about the live action remakes (which has included myself, to be clear) are clearly not the target audience, nor do our opinions matter all that much to Disney, or to the new fans of these movies.
The Lion King remake is the highest grossing animated movie of all time (if you count it as animation). So by all accounts modern audiences seem to love them. Probably mostly old man yells at cloud.
The Lion King remake is the highest grossing animated movie of all time (if you count it as animation). So by all accounts modern audiences seem to love them.
Its box office returns (1.65 billion) actually didn't surpass the 1992 original animated movie, which grossed 1.78 billion in 2019 dollars...though the stage musical is even bigger....
EDIT: I expect the 2019 movie had lower profits too, as the 1992 was the Disney equivalent of a 'B' movie - a stopgap while their intended big hit, Pocahontas, was in production. As such, it probably had far lower production costs than the remake which was targeting several Academy Awards, used production values as a selling point, and featured celebrity voices in major roles (compare Rowan Atkinson and Matthew Broderick in 1992 to Beyonce in 2019).
People were complaining that it didn't match the original animation. But (IIRC) it was actually based on the Broadway play that they did from the animation, which had more songs in it.
People were complaining that it didn't match the original animation.
But (IIRC) it was actually based on the Broadway play that they did from the animation, which had more songs in it.
I think the criticisms of the animation were principally that the attempts at realistic animals made them look emotionless -- which is not something that can remotely be said of the puppetry used...
I think the criticisms of the animation were principally that the attempts at realistic animals made them look emotionless -- which is not something that can remotely be said of the puppetry used in the stage musical.
I was actually super into the visuals up until the point I saw the dwarves. It’s not so much that it’s in the uncanny valley insomuch as they come across as cartoon characters. Once you get over...
I was actually super into the visuals up until the point I saw the dwarves. It’s not so much that it’s in the uncanny valley insomuch as they come across as cartoon characters. Once you get over it, their designs are quite good and match the aesthetics perfectly, but it’s just as jarring as if they were 2D animated. Maybe more so, actually because they aren’t immediately identifiable as animated. The short scene where they are in a CGI mine cart ride actually looks like a different movie. I would have much more preferred if they did puppets. They would have been much more real-feeling.
I swear that Jim Henson’s death must have put puppetry as an art back by a few decades. It seems that there are so many movies where puppets would be better than CGI but CGI always wins.
...isn't snow white's name based upon her preternaturally pale complexion?..i don't take issue with diverse casting on principle but in this particular instance it feels like the chosen actress...
...isn't snow white's name based upon her preternaturally pale complexion?..i don't take issue with diverse casting on principle but in this particular instance it feels like the chosen actress misses that mark...
Well she's a white Latina, so she's got the "white" bit down But no Snow White has actually lived up to the description of her, except the one in Indexing by Seanan McGuire - where she literally...
Well she's a white Latina, so she's got the "white" bit down
But no Snow White has actually lived up to the description of her, except the one in Indexing by Seanan McGuire - where she literally has a face as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair black as ebony... And it's not an appealing look.
I think this is like being upset about HTTYD casting.
Gail Carson Levine also did it with Fairest! That was a Snow White telling where her salient features were definitely described as ugly. Although I have to admit, I was not as fond of that one as...
Gail Carson Levine also did it with Fairest! That was a Snow White telling where her salient features were definitely described as ugly. Although I have to admit, I was not as fond of that one as I was of the first book, Ella Enchanted, which was a take on Cinderella. (If you have seen the movie... please do not judge the book based on the movie.)
I do keep being told I should read Seanan McGuire, and every tidbit I hear piques my interest more.
Personally, I am always a fan of breaking down the "default human" status quo, to give us a protagonist who isn't white/straight/etc. The more it's done, the less anyone will think there is a "default" at all. (And I definitely am not a fan of saying the ideal beauty standard is to be as pale as possible.) I'm just puzzled how they're going to explain the name, in this case. I feel like it's going to be some shoehorned in-joke she had when her father when she was young, or something. Hopefully they'll have some clever reason, though.
Ah I haven't read Fairest but I do love Ella Enchanted. Indexing is about fairy tale police who try to keep the Narrative from sucking the world into fairy tale scenarios. The main lead we follow...
Ah I haven't read Fairest but I do love Ella Enchanted. Indexing is about fairy tale police who try to keep the Narrative from sucking the world into fairy tale scenarios. The main lead we follow is a Snow White that managed to not bite the apple. It was released as a serial story on Kindle at some point so not sure where it lives now.
I highly recommend Seanan, she has a folklore degree and a penchant for cats, lizards and mantises. She's incredibly prolific
Yes, but the way she's described in the original story would be kind of horrifying on screen, and changing her skin color a bit so she looks human isn't a big deal since it has no impact on the...
Yes, but the way she's described in the original story would be kind of horrifying on screen, and changing her skin color a bit so she looks human isn't a big deal since it has no impact on the plot. The animated movie did this too, she did not have skin "as white as snow". In the Shawshank Redemption, Red's name is based on his "carroty red hair" (he's Irish), but they ignored that in the movie since it's unimportant and they just wanted to cast a good actor who could play the character.
I also don't think it makes sense to describe an individual actress as "diverse". The whole cast might be diverse, but one person can't be.
To your second point, @myrrh was describing the casting as diverse, not the individual actress. “Diverse casting” as a broad initiative means Disney wants to cast minorities in lead roles to...
To your second point, @myrrh was describing the casting as diverse, not the individual actress. “Diverse casting” as a broad initiative means Disney wants to cast minorities in lead roles to categorically increase the diversity of their film protagonists. I think OP was accurately using the word “diverse.”
Apart from that I think you’re spot on. I didn’t know Red was Irish in the Shawshank novel! I don’t have a problem with casting Snow White as non-Caucasian (though I’m imagining the internet meltdown if someone very dark had been chosen).
The better question is if this is even a good story to be doing anymore. I’m not familiar with the original version… how heavily did it actually lean into the “lighter skin == more beautiful” trope? Disney skirted around that reasonably well the first time, by ‘30s standards. But the new movie also has to contend with including realistic “dwarves” that aren’t offensive to little people. It feels like they’re walking into a minefield that could’ve been avoided if they just let this story remain a historical work and chose something else to make. Nobody asked for this.
Or any of the other creatively bankrupt remakes of late, but that’s another conversation altogether.
Not very. In the original story (https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type0709.html#snowwhite) being beautiful and gullible are literally her only character traits, but her skin is only explicitly...
how heavily did it actually lean into the “lighter skin == more beautiful” trope
Not very. In the original story (https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type0709.html#snowwhite) being beautiful and gullible are literally her only character traits, but her skin is only explicitly mentioned once. Obviously it is implied that white skin is beautiful, but I think the original German did not have the same "fair=white" connotation that the English has.
I do think Disney should use the end of the story, where Snow White and the prince murder the queen by forcing her to dance in shoes of molten iron. I also like that the prince doesn't kiss her to bring her back to life. Instead he brings her corpse home and becomes obsessed with it, and eventually one of his servants gets annoyed and manhandles her dead body a bit until she spits out the poison apple and comes back to life.
The Grimm's tale says she has "face as white as snow" so like, imagine that. It's not clear that "fairest" is about skin tone vs beauty (and obviously it wasn't originally written in English)...
The Grimm's tale says she has "face as white as snow" so like, imagine that. It's not clear that "fairest" is about skin tone vs beauty (and obviously it wasn't originally written in English)
In addition to what others have said it’s probably a bit outdated to be including skin color among the qualities that make someone “the fairest of them all”
In addition to what others have said it’s probably a bit outdated to be including skin color among the qualities that make someone “the fairest of them all”
I honestly don't remember too much about the original versions, but snow white always seemed like a pretty shallow character. So from this trailer, it seems like they are making the characters...
I honestly don't remember too much about the original versions, but snow white always seemed like a pretty shallow character. So from this trailer, it seems like they are making the characters more dynamic, even if the broad strokes are the same? As opposed to Beauty and the Beast, which was (as far as I remember) almost a shot for shot remake of the animated version.
Tbh though, I'm pretty out of the loop on Disney films. When my daughter was born, I made a concerted effort to keep The Mouse out of my house. No dolls, no movies, no clothes, no books. Although the Disney princesses have improved as role models, I felt like there were better choices for her to grow up around.
You do not remember it well, because imo they made far too many changes to the plot in the live-action Beauty and the Beast that imo weakened the story quite a bit. They also added in an original...
As opposed to Beauty and the Beast, which was (as far as I remember) almost a shot for shot remake of the animated version
You do not remember it well, because imo they made far too many changes to the plot in the live-action Beauty and the Beast that imo weakened the story quite a bit. They also added in an original song iirc (which was fine but imo not as good as the equivalent song that was added for the stage musical).
The trailer looks like they reimagined the whole thing from the start. It might work or it might not. What I can be absolutely sure about is that The Internet will lose their collective minds over...
The trailer looks like they reimagined the whole thing from the start. It might work or it might not.
What I can be absolutely sure about is that The Internet will lose their collective minds over this and the rage content will flow (and make money for people creating it).
When I was really young there was a period of time when my dad took me and my brother to watch old Disney movies at a nearby theater every Sunday. Each week we'd watch things like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, The Jungle Book, Pete's Dragon, Song of the South, Robin Hood, 101 Dalmatians, The Rescuers, Lady and the Tramp, Mary Poppins--all the old classics. Later on when I was a little older our whole family would go out to theaters for all the new hype Disney animated movies, like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and The Lion King. And we bought many of those on VHS later when they became available, so I've probably watched them all more times than any other movie I've seen.
I wonder if there's a generation of kids right now who'd form the same kind of memories around these live action remakes. It certainly feels to me like they're all pointless trash that do nothing other than come dangerously close to tarnishing my own memories associated with the original films, but I wonder if it's just because I'm overly nostalgic or if these new films actually do have some kind of value or merit beyond being lazy cash grabs. The only one I've seen is The Jungle Book and, while still kind of pointless, it wasn't awful, but I hear that most or all of the others so far are much worse.
Can't speak for everyone, but my 10yo nephew has loved all the recent live action movies he's seen. And they have all done quite well at the box office too... So all the people disappointed with and complaining about the live action remakes (which has included myself, to be clear) are clearly not the target audience, nor do our opinions matter all that much to Disney, or to the new fans of these movies.
The Lion King remake is the highest grossing animated movie of all time (if you count it as animation). So by all accounts modern audiences seem to love them.
Probably mostly old man yells at cloud.
Its box office returns (1.65 billion) actually didn't surpass the 1992 original animated movie, which grossed 1.78 billion in 2019 dollars...though the stage musical is even bigger.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markbeech/2019/10/30/lion-king-tops-116-billion-on-anniversary-most-successful-franchise-ever/
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
EDIT: I expect the 2019 movie had lower profits too, as the 1992 was the Disney equivalent of a 'B' movie - a stopgap while their intended big hit, Pocahontas, was in production. As such, it probably had far lower production costs than the remake which was targeting several Academy Awards, used production values as a selling point, and featured celebrity voices in major roles (compare Rowan Atkinson and Matthew Broderick in 1992 to Beyonce in 2019).
People were complaining that it didn't match the original animation.
But (IIRC) it was actually based on the Broadway play that they did from the animation, which had more songs in it.
I think the criticisms of the animation were principally that the attempts at realistic animals made them look emotionless -- which is not something that can remotely be said of the puppetry used in the stage musical.
Aladdin and Cinderella were both quite good. The rest I would say are just "inoffensive".
I don't know, dwarfs in a trailer have very strong uncanny valley vibes for me.
Curious, its only me?
Yes, it is one thing to have animated animals, but it is a weird mix of real human actors and CGI dwarfs.
I was actually super into the visuals up until the point I saw the dwarves. It’s not so much that it’s in the uncanny valley insomuch as they come across as cartoon characters. Once you get over it, their designs are quite good and match the aesthetics perfectly, but it’s just as jarring as if they were 2D animated. Maybe more so, actually because they aren’t immediately identifiable as animated. The short scene where they are in a CGI mine cart ride actually looks like a different movie. I would have much more preferred if they did puppets. They would have been much more real-feeling.
I swear that Jim Henson’s death must have put puppetry as an art back by a few decades. It seems that there are so many movies where puppets would be better than CGI but CGI always wins.
...isn't snow white's name based upon her preternaturally pale complexion?..i don't take issue with diverse casting on principle but in this particular instance it feels like the chosen actress misses that mark...
Well she's a white Latina, so she's got the "white" bit down
But no Snow White has actually lived up to the description of her, except the one in Indexing by Seanan McGuire - where she literally has a face as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair black as ebony... And it's not an appealing look.
I think this is like being upset about HTTYD casting.
Gail Carson Levine also did it with Fairest! That was a Snow White telling where her salient features were definitely described as ugly. Although I have to admit, I was not as fond of that one as I was of the first book, Ella Enchanted, which was a take on Cinderella. (If you have seen the movie... please do not judge the book based on the movie.)
I do keep being told I should read Seanan McGuire, and every tidbit I hear piques my interest more.
Personally, I am always a fan of breaking down the "default human" status quo, to give us a protagonist who isn't white/straight/etc. The more it's done, the less anyone will think there is a "default" at all. (And I definitely am not a fan of saying the ideal beauty standard is to be as pale as possible.) I'm just puzzled how they're going to explain the name, in this case. I feel like it's going to be some shoehorned in-joke she had when her father when she was young, or something. Hopefully they'll have some clever reason, though.
Ah I haven't read Fairest but I do love Ella Enchanted. Indexing is about fairy tale police who try to keep the Narrative from sucking the world into fairy tale scenarios. The main lead we follow is a Snow White that managed to not bite the apple. It was released as a serial story on Kindle at some point so not sure where it lives now.
I highly recommend Seanan, she has a folklore degree and a penchant for cats, lizards and mantises. She's incredibly prolific
Yes, but the way she's described in the original story would be kind of horrifying on screen, and changing her skin color a bit so she looks human isn't a big deal since it has no impact on the plot. The animated movie did this too, she did not have skin "as white as snow". In the Shawshank Redemption, Red's name is based on his "carroty red hair" (he's Irish), but they ignored that in the movie since it's unimportant and they just wanted to cast a good actor who could play the character.
I also don't think it makes sense to describe an individual actress as "diverse". The whole cast might be diverse, but one person can't be.
To your second point, @myrrh was describing the casting as diverse, not the individual actress. “Diverse casting” as a broad initiative means Disney wants to cast minorities in lead roles to categorically increase the diversity of their film protagonists. I think OP was accurately using the word “diverse.”
Apart from that I think you’re spot on. I didn’t know Red was Irish in the Shawshank novel! I don’t have a problem with casting Snow White as non-Caucasian (though I’m imagining the internet meltdown if someone very dark had been chosen).
The better question is if this is even a good story to be doing anymore. I’m not familiar with the original version… how heavily did it actually lean into the “lighter skin == more beautiful” trope? Disney skirted around that reasonably well the first time, by ‘30s standards. But the new movie also has to contend with including realistic “dwarves” that aren’t offensive to little people. It feels like they’re walking into a minefield that could’ve been avoided if they just let this story remain a historical work and chose something else to make. Nobody asked for this.
Or any of the other creatively bankrupt remakes of late, but that’s another conversation altogether.
Not very. In the original story (https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type0709.html#snowwhite) being beautiful and gullible are literally her only character traits, but her skin is only explicitly mentioned once. Obviously it is implied that white skin is beautiful, but I think the original German did not have the same "fair=white" connotation that the English has.
I do think Disney should use the end of the story, where Snow White and the prince murder the queen by forcing her to dance in shoes of molten iron. I also like that the prince doesn't kiss her to bring her back to life. Instead he brings her corpse home and becomes obsessed with it, and eventually one of his servants gets annoyed and manhandles her dead body a bit until she spits out the poison apple and comes back to life.
The Grimm's tale says she has "face as white as snow" so like, imagine that. It's not clear that "fairest" is about skin tone vs beauty (and obviously it wasn't originally written in English)
She'd look more like Pennywise than a princess
In addition to what others have said it’s probably a bit outdated to be including skin color among the qualities that make someone “the fairest of them all”
I honestly don't remember too much about the original versions, but snow white always seemed like a pretty shallow character. So from this trailer, it seems like they are making the characters more dynamic, even if the broad strokes are the same? As opposed to Beauty and the Beast, which was (as far as I remember) almost a shot for shot remake of the animated version.
Tbh though, I'm pretty out of the loop on Disney films. When my daughter was born, I made a concerted effort to keep The Mouse out of my house. No dolls, no movies, no clothes, no books. Although the Disney princesses have improved as role models, I felt like there were better choices for her to grow up around.
You do not remember it well, because imo they made far too many changes to the plot in the live-action Beauty and the Beast that imo weakened the story quite a bit. They also added in an original song iirc (which was fine but imo not as good as the equivalent song that was added for the stage musical).
The trailer looks like they reimagined the whole thing from the start. It might work or it might not.
What I can be absolutely sure about is that The Internet will lose their collective minds over this and the rage content will flow (and make money for people creating it).