Worst Disney live-action remake thread - It deserves its own thread

I'm kinda cheating a little since I haven't actually seen this one, and the source material isn't animated, but I'm going to say Race to Witch Mountain. I've actually seen the original Escape to Witch Mountain willingly. There was an commercial for a TV airing on the original Escape to Witch Mountain (probably on Triple Feature Friday), and the clip had me hooked. An RV being chased by a car and a helicopter on a mountain road? How exciting! Spoiler: by the time that chase happened I had mentally checked out over an hour and half before then because goddamn that was boring.

So of course they had to remake it in the 90's, which I've also seen (unwillingly this time). Spoiler: it's also boring and not good in general (and also has almost nothing in common with the source novel). Neither movie, nor the sequels to the first movie, are any good, why did they think the third time would finally be successful?
 
TLK. All the characters were 3D animated to be sanitized rotting corpses that didn't act like zombies. It didn't make Scar look any more evil or the hyenas any more worthless.
 
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Looking at this, and surprised no one mentioned The Alice in wonderland sequel or Marry Popins sequel. Does anyone think those are bad?
 
Introvertigo89 said:
Looking at this, and surprised no one mentioned The Alice in wonderland sequel or Marry Popins sequel. Does anyone think those are bad?
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Not to PL but my Dad, sarcastic old lovable asshole btw that hates being pandered or talked down to, said that the Mary Poppins sequel was worse than syphilis. Everyone else I know seems to love it but can't really come up with reasons why other than "it looked pretty" or "it had Mary Poppins in it" or "it had callbacks to the original". I actually found it rather insipid and I hate those cliche "We need to find the macguffin or else we'll lose the rights to the house/farm/park/etc." kinds of stories.

Even with that said, it's at least a sequel and not the same movie shot for shot (even though it feels like a cheap retread of the original with a different coat of paint).
 
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I've never in my life heard anyone talk about the Dumbo live action film, whether before or after release.
 
not necessarily disney but I'm still pissed they canned galavant after 2 short seasons while giving fucking once upon a time 7 seasons + spinoff.
especially since it was basically what a good "real disney" version would look like (on a tv budget, but still). great songs, likable actors that can actually sing, lot's of fun and passion while making it. as a palate cleanser for bad disney remakes I can only recommend it.

RumblyTumbly said:
Alice in Wonderland = This is when I started to accept that Burton had lost his magic touch.
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I remember losing my shit when I read burton's gonna do alice and pictured a rival version of american mcgee's, but then noticed it will be disney's alice and basically abandoned all hope right then and there. also didn't help that the plot was kinda stupid (or at least felt that way) and "johnny depp playing wacky johnny depp" had lost a lot of it's fun at that point. didn't even bother with the second but now kinda curious how bad it would be; probably more "why did I waste 2 hours on this" bad

RumblyTumbly said:
Aladdin = This was the one that broke me.
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haven't watched it yet but from what I heard it turned out as expected. what personally irks me is them wasting guy ritchie on it, but at least the movie made bank so he won't get ghosted completely after king arthur and men from uncle (liked them, sequel never. fuck modern audiences). also any new version of aladdin without iris is not worth watching.

friedshrimp said:
I get the feeling the Little Mermaid is gonna be the worst of them yet, add in "shot by shot remake" alongside with woke mentalities (even harder than before, blariel yo), and you've got a disaster brewing.
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personally can't wait for woke mulan, where they either turn her black and piss of every chinese on the planet or make Li black and trigger them even more by pairing them together.

EDIT: oh ffs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulan_(2020_film)
 
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The Aladdin remake was pretty bad, it was like watching high school kids putting on a play of the cartoon. The Lion King was so bad I turned it off after the first 20 mins of that shit.
 
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averagejane said:
Malificent and Beauty and the Beast for me.
They both suffer from the same poor writing gimmick that I hate: making surrounding characters look bad, dull, stupid to prop up the main character.

This is inexcusable writing for me. The best writers can have hero's while still having believable (and even LIKEABLE!) supporting and villain characters. Hell if any of these were true to the spirit of Disney they'd have that concept nailed, seeing as how 80% of Disney enjoyability is the charisma of their villains and yes even the annoying comedic relief stoog.

Maleficent made Aurora dumb as nails and she lacked any personality. The fairies were jarring and unlikeable. The king was bland and edgy for no reason. If they could have fixed the surrounding cast, you could still keep your stupid 'shes a victim' take and Maleficents character would have remained likeable, but the writers clearly thought their audience was a bunch of brain dead for morons.

Beauty and the Beast was this but worse. The village people were supposed to be ignorant, easily riled up and judgemental but not down right cruel for no reason. They were so spiteful to Belle despite in the original they more or less thought she was just a weirdo that they shrugged at. They took Maurice's talent and switched it to fucking Belle because you know, she has to be able to do EEEEVERYTHING because NO ONE is allowed to outshine her, god damnit. Reeks of spoiled white liberal girl entitlement, oh-- well no shit. This is Emma Watson. Who, by the way, wanted Belle to be just like her. What a sperg.
But BATB's biggest sin is that Gaston lacked the charisma and fun of the original. Hard act to follow, maybe, but once again these writers forgot to realize that even the children who drag their mom to watch these films understand that even the funnest of bad guys are still evil.

I just really hate this. These two movies are a cautionary tale of how not to prop up your heroes.
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For me Maleficent ends after she curses Aurora.

Aurora had no personality in the original film to begin with btw.
 
I'm bored so I'll personally rank all of the remakes that I've seen/know about with #1 being the worst of the lot. If I left any out it's because it either wasn't shitty enough or I simply didn't have the heart or energy to slog through.

8. Jungle Book: Decent special effects and Shere Khan was okay. Overall pretty lazy effort though with a lazy theme about Mowgli wanting to do things "the human way" instead of being torn between the jungle and civilization. He doesn't even go to the man-village in the end.

7. Cinderella: Not a fan of the original so I didn't feel strongly about this one to begin with. This one at least tries to add more complexities for the stepmother but is mostly just kind of vapid and boring.

6. Alice in Wonderland: The beginning of the end for Burton doing anything remotely creative with his career. Had decent trippy visuals but they tried to turn it into an edgy Hot Topic rebellion story and make the Mad Hatter all sexy for the kiddos. Wonderland suddenly has waaay too many forms of rules and logic which makes no sense considering the whole thing is supposed to just be a fun stoner story and coming across random creatures while slowly going crazy.

5. Aladdin: I'll give it credit in that they TRIED to add a couple of new things in it. Said things mostly amounted to nothing though from giving Genie a girlfriend to Jasmine suddenly being a boring feminist icon. The Alan Menkin instrumentals were actually really solid though, even if all the vocals sound autotuned and insincere. Replacing Robin Williams is enough of a massive sin though and worthy of eternal punishment as well as a massive fuck you to the people that animated his character back in the day.

4. Dumbo: Another bungled attempt by Burton to stay relevant after he's lost all his creative mojo. CGI Dumbo has creepy anime eyes and the plot is a complete bumbling clusterfuck to the point where you have no idea what's going on. The so-called "Pink Elephants" scene is so lazily rushed and I laughed my ass off the first time I saw it because of how tame and hackneyed it was. Also no crows.

3. Maleficent: This one was hard. I ALMOST put it at number 2. It's a massive steaming ripoff of Wicked but without the heart, pacing, or soul behind it. Maleficent is turns from a badass spiteful queen-bitch to a scorned lover that raises the girl she cursed. The fairies, who in the original were fun, loving caregivers are given the re.tard treatment in order to make Maleficent look good. The backgrounds and CG all look like vomit and there's a cheap, laziness to the film and you can see it so wanting to be so much better than it really is. In the end, it's pure schlock.

2. Beauty and the Beast: Takes the #2 slot solely for being irredeemably corporate, woke, and desperate to update the original that never needed an update in the first place. Beast looks terrifying in CG and Emma Watson and her "singing" needs no explanation. The pandering to the gay community was a funny marketing flub though considering what it amounted to. The original film is so timeless and, dare I say, perfect that it never needed a remake. Which brings me to...

1. Lion King: Not gonna lie, TLK was my personal fave Disney film as a kid. The technology in this one IS impressive, but not when you see what it has lent itself to. This is literally the same movie shot for fucking shot, only without expression, emotion, or soul. All the lions can't emote. Be Prepared is cut disappointingly short. James Earl Jones sounds dreadfully bored and Scar's new voice actor is a far cry away from Jeremy Irons. It's a perfect storm of watching all the things you loved about the original slowly dying in front of you.
 
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I love when people call The Lion King a "live action" remake.

Alto said:
Not to PL but my Dad, sarcastic old lovable asshole btw that hates being pandered or talked down to, said that the Mary Poppins sequel was worse than syphilis. Everyone else I know seems to love it but can't really come up with reasons why other than "it looked pretty" or "it had Mary Poppins in it" or "it had callbacks to the original". I actually found it rather insipid and I hate those cliche "We need to find the macguffin or else we'll lose the rights to the house/farm/park/etc." kinds of stories.
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That was somehow the plot for the second part of Nanny McPhee which is a terrible but yet wholesome movie.
 
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RumblyTumbly said:
Yes! Little Indian, Big City was the French movie and was apparently super successful in France, leading to it getting a release here and the Disney remake starring Tim Allen, Jungle 2 Jungle.

I never saw the French film, but I remember seeing a trailer for it, and I also remember the Sisken and Ebert review of Jungle 2 Jungle, where they were amazed that the original film was popular in France and that it would even warrant a stateside remake.

I remember liking Jungle 2 Jungle when I was young, but I have no doubt that it holds up about as well as hard boiled eggs left out in the sun.
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Most of the comedies from Touchstone Pictures, Disney’s label for PG-13 and R material in the 80s and 90s, were adapted from French movies, and their version of My Father, The Hero even had Gérard Depardieu playing the same leading role in the English remake as the franchise original. Three Men and a Baby, Three Fugitives, Outrageous Fortune and I forget the rest, all remakes of French comedies.
 
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Idiotron said:
The thing about those is, even if they were bad, at least they had to write new stories.
The live action remakes are just the same thing that's already written so it's even lazier.
All those CGI effects and especially the green screen will age horribly (Disney often has horrible green screen in their movies because they rush the effects artists), especially since their goal seems to be realism and realistic effects age the quickest.
Meanwhile, at least a fraction of those sequels will stand the test of time, simply because those original designs are timeless.
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Ironic, given that the chroma key effects in Mary Poppins were groundbreaking for the time.
 
Mulan's trying something different at least, even if it's patently obvious that it's to appeal to China, since the original didn't do well there due to inaccuracies. I'm going to skip it, though, no music is unforgivable.

So far, it's Maleficent. I'm not going to claim that Sleeping Beauty is the pinnacle of storytelling, but it's a great classic Disney story. It feels like a fairy tale put to screen. When Maleficent was announced, I was excited because she's my favorite Disney villain. I thought it was going to be a dark tale about her turning evil and then showing parts of the original story from her perspective. But nope, it's straight up alternate continuity "Maleficent dindu nuffin" bullshit. Her being the one to wake up Aurora after the Prince gives a #MeToo speech was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Lana Del Rey's Once Upon a Dream was pretty good, though.

The Little Mermaid is probably going to take that spot, though. I just know it's going to suck. The only worthwhile remakes are Jungle Book and Cinderella. They were alright.
 
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It's a tie between Burton's Alice in Wonderland and Beauty and the Beast for me.

I hate Burton. I hate how he and his butt buddy Depp constantly keep catering to 12 year old Hot Topic consuming emos. I hate how he tried to do a PG-13 grimdark Alice. I hate how absolutely re.tarded and lolleiksorandumb! Depp's hatter was. Cheshire Cat was the only think I liked about this turd. No real reason beyond I think Tim Burton has become a pandering hack and all his movies have become the same brand of tripe.

I'm not a big Disney fan, but I still very much enjoy the animated Beauty and the Beast. The live action remake was just a soulless cash grab that didn't even pretend to be anything else. It completely spit on Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's music, completely misunderstood the character of Belle, Gaston, the Beast, the villagers, everyone. I went into it interested and somewhat optimistic and left completely disappointed at how empty the whole thing was.
 
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