(Washington Insider Magazine)—I have heard over and over again how people despise the live-action Disney remakes as many people deem them as soulless cash-grabs. It’s always people saying that they aren’t as good as their animated counterparts, they lack heart, they lack substance.
What people fail to realize is the fact that these movies are not because of Disney’s doing. Admittedly, the mouse house did make them but ever since these movies first came out in the 90s (1994’s The Jungle Book), people have been divided on them for quite some time or have just absolutely expressed their disdain for them. However, audiences are missing the point of who is really at fault here.
Consumers Are to Blame for the Remakes
Whether you like it or not consumers are responsible for these movies existing in the zeitgeist of the 2010s and beyond. Why do I say that? It’s simple. It’s because the people asked for it. What do I mean by that? What do Alice in Wonderland, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King all have in common? They are all live-action Disney remakes and they all made over a billion dollars at the box-office because people happily spent their hard-earned money to go and see them.
If people did not go and see these movies and they all flopped at the box office, Disney would have swiftly course-corrected and put out something différent but the people gladly gave Disney their money and incentivized the Mouse House to continue to make more of the remakes.
Let’s put it into more real-life terms–no pun intended. If I’m a rich billionaire and my son is addicted to drugs. He tells me that he will do everything he can to get off said drugs. He just needs some money to get back on his feet, but he goes back to buying drugs and the cycle continues. At what point am I enabling my son by giving him money to get his life together but he uses it to buy drugs? In that same vein, audiences paid for these remakes and incentivized Disney to make more.
Biased Hatred
Most people will hate the remakes simply because they came after what the people were so used to watching when they were kids and they unjustifiably compare them with the animated movies rather than seeing them as movies unto themselves that are able to stand on their own two feet. Everyone is going to have différent tastes and opinions in something but don’t trash a movie before it’s even released because that’s what most critics and audiences do. They make preconceived notions about certain things and go in with a bad attitude forgetting that their viewership is why these movies exist in the first place.
Whether you like it or not, these movies still have a certain audience that are still interested in how they turn out, even if they are not met with critical acclaim. They may be derided by critics and audiences for now, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t find a better viewing audience with years to come.
