It looks like DreamWorks is following the Disney model and making a live-action remake of the animated classic “How to Train Your Dragon”. This seems like a bad trend that will continue into the future, and ultimately Universal is just copying Disney. If anyone is to be blamed for this trend, it’s Disney with their actions in the last 10 years.

Yes, there have been “live action remakes” going back decades (with the live action “Jungle Book” and “101 Dalmatians” movies in the 90’s), and the live action “Alice in Wonderland” film in 2010 (but c’mon, that felt more like  “a Tim Burton film”, rather a “Disney Live Action” film). But the trend of “live action remakes” really kicked into high gear 10 years ago, with 2014’s “Maleficent” (a retelling of “Sleeping Beauty”). Since then, there has been at least one live action remake a year, and now we’re in 2024/2025, with 3 live action remakes in the span of a few months: Mufasa: The Lion King”, “Snow White” and “Lilo & Stitch”.

Perhaps the problem has come into focus with the most recent reveal: a trailer for the remake of “Snow White and The Seven Dwarves”, the first iconic Disney animated film (and in fact the first feature-length animated film ever), has become the most downvoted Disney trailer in history. It seems like a real shame that the first animated Disney film, the first feature-length animated film, looks like it is being turned into a mediocre live-action movie almost 90 years later. Here’s the trailer (in case you want to join in with the downvoting):

I have to admit that I have not seen these live-action remakes; the only one that holds any interest to me is the Jungle Book remake from a few years back. Frankly, I am actively boycotting these films, because they look like pale copies of animated classics. I have listened to reviews of these films when they came out on websites like Double Toasted and watched Lindsay Ellis’ video essay on the failures of the live-action version of Beauty and the Beast and they usually give the same impression, that outside of the Jungle Book movie, these movies are pale copies of the original animated masterpieces. They either barely do anything new from the original animated films or what they do differently is inferior to what they did in the original animated films.

Now these films clearly do not appeal to me, so why should I complain about them? Simply put, I find these films are creatively lazy and disrespects the medium of animation. Really, if Disney spent money on making live-action movies based on an obscure work, like a sci-fi or fantasy novel that has never gotten a proper live-action adaption, I would be happier with that, than these live-action remakes. These films don’t tell new stories, they just remix Disney’s greatest hits. Also, if these films don’t add anything interesting to the original stories, why should I care about them? It’s why I like the original Psycho film from 1960 and I have not seen the 1990s Psycho remake, because it is a shot-for-shot remake of the original film, it doesn’t add anything new, it just repeats the first film.

There have been retellings of the Snow White story, with movies like “Mirror Mirror” and “Snow White and the Huntsman” and while those are hardly well-loved films, at least they are not a copy of the 1937 Disney classic. These remakes dishonor the art of animation because they feel like an attempt to replace the original animated films. Sure, they are not going to wipe away the existence of these classics, but for a younger generation, this is what is being pushed on them, these films get the new theatrical release and the big marketing push, while the original has to be sought out on Disney Plus. I also find it annoying that Disney only tries to play the big hits when it comes to these remakes. Instead of recreating a classic, Disney could have revamped a failed, but interesting film, like say the Black Cauldron. I would rather see a more faithful retelling of the Chronicles of Prydain, in live-action or animation, than this attempt at remastering the classics.

I love the big classic Disney animated movies, but part of their appeal was that they were animated and there are just some things animation does better than live action. A lot of things that look amazing in animation can look silly in live action. Ultimately, I would rather big studios make original content, rather than make shallow live-action remakes of animated classics.

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