On the one hand, I think the makeup/special effect is top notch. I don’t see how they could have made it look any better than it does. It’s an amazing melding of the animated movie and Will Smith. But just because he's made up and/or rendered well doesn’t make it pleasing to look at. I still feel like I’m looking at A Thing That Should Not Be. I think they should have just redesigned the genie from the ground up, rather than turning Will Smith into the bright blue 1992 genie. It’s a beautiful execution of a flawed concept.
I do think Will Smith will do a decent job. I’m sure it’s going to be an entertaining movie. But yeesh, Disney, you’re going to flood the market. According to Wikipedia, Disney has four live action remakes coming out this year: Dumbo in March, Aladdin in May, Lion King in July, and Lady & the Tramp in October. Not to mention Mulan in March next year. This is the same company that cancelled several Star Wars spin-off movies for fear of people having “Star Wars Fatigue”.
Their previous Live Action Remade Disney movies (just for fun, let’s call them LARDs) have been of varying quality. 101 Dalmatians was fun but forgettable. I thought the live action Cinderella was just plain boring. The Jungle Book was pretty good, at least it had its moments. Beauty and the Beast was… good and bad. Gaston was amazing, but the Beast was stiff and unconvincing. Given how good the CGI was in the Jungle Book, I was surprised the Beast didn’t look better. I didn’t like the character designs for some of the living furniture, and the new songs were utterly forgettable. But overall, it was enjoyable.
I’m typically of the opinion that if you don’t like the look of a LARD, just don’t see it. Don’t complain that the movie shouldn’t be made, don’t childishly tweet that Disney is "raping your childhood" or whatever. Other people are trying to enjoy these movies, and don’t need negativity from whiny bloggers who aren’t even part of the target audience. I’m just trying to figure out Disney’s game plan here. It seems like they’re in such a rush to get as many LARDs through the door as possible. It’s like they’re trying to make up for lost time somehow. I worry that they might be sacrificing quality for speed.
Arguably, the longer you wait on a CGI-heavy LARD, the better. Some of these movies require a huge amount of CGI, and those visual effects (usually) get better every year. Once you put a LARD out there, it means the movie goes to the bottom of the list for being remade again. It will probably be 50 years before they make another live action of Beauty and the Beast, which means the next couple of generations are going to grow up with the shoddy Beast in today’s version. But if they had just waited another 5 years or so, they might have been able to tweak the CGI to perfection. I don’t know, maybe they could release a “Star Wars”-style special edition with updated special effects. But that would just make people whine more.
I certainly don’t want to say it’s a bad idea that Disney is remaking these films, and I’m actually looking forward to some of them. I’m just worried that some of the movies won’t be well received, and after the first bomb Disney will throw another tantrum – sorry, I mean “rethink their market strategy” – like they did after Solo, and stop making LARDs altogether.
For the record, I'm not sure I believe in “Star Wars Fatigue”. I believe that Solo paid for the sins of The Last Jedi. Like it or not (and I didn’t hate it), TLJ wasn’t one of the more popular movies in the Star Wars series. But it still made a ton of money, because it’s one of the main films in the series. What are you going to do, skip it? It’s a series, you can’t just skip episodes. But Solo came out less than six months later, and people said, “Well, these movies aren’t very good lately, and that one looks skippable, so let’s wait for Netflix.” But that doesn't mean they're sick of Star Wars movies, it just means they want better ones.
I didn't think Solo was great, but it was a decent popcorn muncher. The numbered Star Wars movies should feel epic (which may have been another issue with TLJ), but the spin-offs should have their own feel. I don't mind some of them being mindless fun with no real point. In fact, I encourage it. If they would just put a little more time between releases, I think they'd make some pretty good money on Star Wars spin-offs.
Yeah, I wish audiences were more forgiving, but that's not gonna happen. Regardless of my opinion, the onus is on Disney to create a release schedule that maximizes their profit. The internet is full of people complaining about LARDs, so it might be a good time to slow it down a little.
I didn't think Solo was great, but it was a decent popcorn muncher. The numbered Star Wars movies should feel epic (which may have been another issue with TLJ), but the spin-offs should have their own feel. I don't mind some of them being mindless fun with no real point. In fact, I encourage it. If they would just put a little more time between releases, I think they'd make some pretty good money on Star Wars spin-offs.
Yeah, I wish audiences were more forgiving, but that's not gonna happen. Regardless of my opinion, the onus is on Disney to create a release schedule that maximizes their profit. The internet is full of people complaining about LARDs, so it might be a good time to slow it down a little.
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