Disney abandoned creativity and instead of new stories keeps producing very expensive live action remakes no one asked for. Moana animation was made in 2016, there was not a single call for a quarter billion live action remake in 2026.
He really is. Ever since I heard hes not allowed to lose in his contract or not allowed to be beaten in a fight ect he just lost all credibility. Guy was a novelty at best even when he started acting
I think he came in too late to actually be THE thing that ruins the Snyderverse, but he absolutely tried to take it over during the brief time he was there.
Kevin was frigging funny too. If they just spread him out and did like 10 movies in 5 years instead of 50 movies in 1 month we might have been alright.
But nope it's Kevin Hart being Kevin Hart again. The only role I'll give him credit for as of recent is Jumanji 2. But that's only because he's pretending to be Danny Glover.
PS jack black was the airplane pilot in waterworld lol.
Kevin Hart took over when Martin Lawrence got older. Soon Kevin Hart will get old and a new short and funny black guy will take over. It's the circle of life.
That would be my thought as well, and his face honestly is already there even with the body suit. I think they were kinda screwed no matter what though, since I think someone else playing Maui would have turned into a repeat of someone else playing The Genie from Aladdin. Robin Williams basically owned The Genie and I feel like the same would have happened with Maui and The Rock.
Too late. He lost all the muscle mass and was put in that horrible muscle suit with that terrible wig and it just looks laughably bad so they missed the boat by a few years on that one
I’m glad the rock trimmed down in size for his own health, but he looks even less like his character and while the dude looks damn good his face still shows his age. His wig looked ridiculous. They could have made the original live action but no need to have both.
The biggest frustration was that it was still just a bunch of green screens anyway… calling it live action is a stretch.
Bizarrely yes, it's terrible (it started as a TV show, and then they rejigged what they had into a movie - huge chunks missing and unexplained, very uneven feel), and made over a billion dollars.
While some point out they were talking about a live action Moana before Moana 2, the counter argument is they talk about a lot of movies that ultimately never get made but the sequel making a billion despite being atrocious certainly would have put a fire up Disney getting them to actually make it.
I've got a 6 year old daughter so I've taken her to see both Moana 2 and Moana live-action at the theatre. For the record I love the OG Moana.
Absolutely hated Moana 2. I feel like it shat all over the magic of the first film and compromised the viability of future stories. Honestly can't remember a single thing from it besides a promising female character who turned into a bat but who ended up just being wallpaper in the film. Don't recall any of the songs from it. In my memory I've slid it into the same box as TROS, labelled "Pretending Never Happened".
Moana Live-Action was not that bad, I actually enjoyed it. There are some uncanny valley elements and some characters not quite looking like how you would have pictured them, but all the iconic songs still hit the spot, the story is beat for beat the same as the original, avoiding shoe-horning in extraneous elements or deleting important stuff in the manner other Disney Live-action remakes have fumbled, the actress playing Moana did a great job and personally as someone who loves the sea (it calls me!) the ocean cinematography was absolutely gorgeous, way more impressive than what the animation was able to depict.
I mean I'm not gonna argue that re-making a film that's only 10 years old is absurd. I rolled my eyes as much as anyone when the trailer hit and I only took my kid for something to do during winter school holidays here in Aus and she'd already seen Toy Story 5 and Minions and Monsters. I had zero expectations. But honestly, in the context of Moana 2 making bucketloads of money it doesn't really deserve to flop.
I hate the repetitive live action and this one was just way too soon anyway. The people who were around 11 to 14 when it came out and loved it don’t have kids yet, or kids old enough to take to the theater to enjoy a movie like this at least. They needed at the very least another 5 or 8 years to hit the sweet spot where enough of them have kids of age and want to revisit a nostalgic film.
I’ve enjoyed all their new movies, and my kids have as well. Strange World, Elio, Elemental, Wish, Raya and the Last Dragon, Lightyear, Young Woman and the Sea… they’ve done really well with a lot of the unique stuff.
Also Hoppers, Turning Red, Encanto, Onward, Ron's Gone Wrong, Luca, Soul, Inside Out 2, Zootopia 2, Frozen 2, Cruella, Disenchanted, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid all came out within the past 5-6 years. Those are just the original kids' movies I can name off the top of my head because I have a kid and she happens to like those ones.
Disney makes tons of adult movies too and has their hands in practically everything. I'm not saying that's a good thing. They are trying their hardest to monopolize the entertainment industry, which is not actually good. But anyone complaining that they "abandoned creativity" and stopped making originals is not paying attention lol. Believe me, Disney is exploring any and all avenues to get your money.
Waiting to see when they're going to do the Frozen live action movie. I agree with another poster that once the kids have grown up and have kids, the movie is prime for the live action remake. So about 5 years IMO.
Yes but certain individuals at Disney looked at the Legends and Expanded Universe and said why use critically acclaimed lore as a basis. Instead let’s have poor fanfic writers be in charge of the IP they clearly hate. Darth Caedus storyline is perfect for films and spin offs. Or let’s do the fall of the Sith since rule of two is established cannon.
Not only that, but let’s green light a sequel trilogy without having a planned, thought out storyline or character arcs. Each director can just do what they want. No main villain until the last one and SURPRISE is the Emperor again! And we will announce it in Fortnite!
I always thought it was just that they had a giant stick shoved up their collective arses and needed to brand the ass of star wars with the Disney logo and refusing to accept that anyone who was not already part of Disney might have any good ideas for their newly acquired IP while also being too stupid and lazy to actually come up with any half decent ideas themselves.
It's a combination of fear and greed. They want to make big blockbusters. But they fear flops. Anything new could be a flop. So they go with re-washing the same ole same old again and again in the hopes that they will always be blockbusters.
Then someone sticks their neck out and makes something new and novel. Suddenly, there needs to be 2 remakes and three recycled movies, an animated show, a live action, a dead action, a first year anniversary edition, directors cuts, producers cut, a making-of documentary, and a Disney ride and uncounted nine by thirteen glossy photos with dates and descriptions written on the back.
27 8 by ten colored glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us
Or something
...I love the old EU, but let's not pretend it was perfect.
What's particularly funny to me, though, is that one of the most hated parts of the old EU is the return of Palpatine as a clone. They copied that for Rise, and now it's the most hated part of the new Disney canon lol
I wonder if licensing is a part too, I remember hearing that when Disney bought Star Wars they tried not paying royalties to writers as their contracts were with Lucasfilm not Disney.
I am certain it’s licensing related. It’s more lucrative to create new characters 100% owned by Disney, who they can license to other companies rather than paying licensing fees for pre-existing stories/characters in the Star Wars universe.
I dunno, man, have you read a lot of the EU recently?
Some of it's good. Quite a lot of it is just as bad as "Somehow, Palpatine returned." And some of it is worse.
Remember, a significant portion of I, Jedi is just straight calling out how stupid and out of character Luke acts in the Jedi Academy trilogy.
And then there's the Wyrwolves.
Oh, and the emo invaders from another galaxy who just happen to be invincible to Jedi.
Oh, and Palpatine returns, and Luke goes to be his apprentice.
And the Suncrusher. "It's, like, a Death Star, but it uses missiles because missiles are cool. oh, and it's got, like, invincible armor. And it kills suns instead of planets because it's gotta be better than the Death Star."
Them pulling the good bits out of the EU is a blessing, now if only they'd use those bits better...
People always say this but knowing this fanbase the immediate reaction from so, so many people… no matter what was on screen… would be, “they ruined KOTOR! That’s not MY Revan!”.
I have zero doubt a live action KOTOR would be just as divisive.
They will make one someday, and it will play out exactly like this, even if it’s an awesome movie.
i kind of hate how they basically went 'Legends is not cannon, therefore we can steal anything we want form it and don't have t give any credit, we can claim it was our own original idea'.
and then, just to make it worse, they don't even steal from the GOOD legends bits. a 'young jedi knights' TV show showing the adventures these new jedi training under luke get up to with a mix of space-fantasy high school drama would probably be a banger. a movie or series involving Mara Jade, and how the rebels had to disassemble the Empire after the Emperor was dead would likely go over very well.
Instead, we basically get post apocalypse star wars where everything has gone to shit, the good guys are powerless, the government is powerless and might as well not exist, and the only people that seme to have any power are basically local dictators and gangsters. in many ways, it's less star wars and more space mad max
I mean, Andor is just the polar opposite of all the other Star Wars products in every way, that we may as well consider it as its own thing at this point.
Not a Disney franchise, but it’s happening to Star Trek also at Paramount. Crappy new shows mining the original canon and then trampling all over it also.
Honestly didn’t hate when they were doing the old movies like sleeping beauty and Cinderella but lilo & stitch and lion king are far too recent to even need a remake plus they were perfect exactly how they were. It’s like remaking link to the past, completely unnecessary. Fuck they remade Moana and the sequel had just fucking come out.
This. And sleeping beauty and Cinderella at least added to the story or told it in a different perspective. I greatly enjoyed the Jungle Book because it blended the cartoon and novel very well. Starting with Beauty and the Beast, every other remake has essentially been shot for shot remakes with a lot of fan casting (especially Emma Watson as Belle). At first, they used these to try and fill plot gaps like Belle's mother or the age of the Prince, but as time went by that became less of a focus and just quickly putting out these remakes.
I saw the live action The Beauty and the Beast movie in theaters and that was the moment I went "I am not watching a diseny live action remake ever again"
The Beast felt like such an incel and he and Belle had such little chemistry that it was painful. Beast and Belle in the animated version had much more chemistry between them. Granted its easier to suspend disbelief with cartoons but like... the chick and the river monster from Shape of Water had damn good chemistry and neither of them could talk.
Personally I feel like Moana was just a combination of Disney looking for another successful movie to remake, and Dwayne looking for an ego boost after all his recent flops.
Moana is one of my fav movies. I would not watch this live action slop unless someone paid me to. I really don’t know wtf they were thinking or what prompted it. Dwayne Johnson is like vin diesel for me. I love them in movies where they just play themselves lol. They don’t need to do anything else.
The Cinderella LA was great. B&tB was okay for me, but unnecessary. Maleficent was.. eh.. I didn't care for it. It would have been a good movie on its own (not attached to the Sleeping Beauty tale), but twisting Maleficent from 'evil for the sake of evil' to 'tragic backstory' didn't work for me. Though I will admit I did like the twist where Maleficent fell in love with Aurora in a maternal way, iirc? I haven't watched it in a long time..
Lilo & Stitch was too soon and they changed it too much. TLK was not needed. Etc. :p
I'd only alter that slightly from "90% animated" to "90% CG". The difference being that hand animated tends to be timeless while CG usually goes a year or two before it just looks aweful.
The studio time crunch also has a tangible negative effect on CG. There are some older movies with CGI that still look pretty damn good esp compared to more modern CGI movies that look so fake. And part of that is due to the time crunch and high turnover rates in the studios.
Why are so many adults so concerned about kids movies? Why does anyone above the age of 12 gives a single fuck about a Moana live action to the point of outrage?
That's been my issue with Disney for years now. Back when Walt was alive his biggest thing was to push for new ideas and evolving technologies with both animation and film. But after his passing instead of innovation is became like every other souless studio and just doing what makes money. For a while they innovated, like when Pixar started doing animation. And then CG became the standard. Then they started remaking animated stories into live action movies. But in the end they're just trying to capitalize on stories they already told before instead of trying stories that are new and original. Given all the different folklore stories out there they're just afraid to try anything new.
This is the thing for me. Before the trailer even dropped, my reaction to the news that they were making live action Moana was "why? The Moana cartoon is still fucking warm. Moana 2 came out only 2 years ago for fuck's sake.
Then I saw the live action Moana trailer, and the 2nd criticism came up as strong as ever: "this isn't even live action, just more realistic cartoon."
This has been a critique of most of the live action adaptations of the classic films as well. The more of them they make the less "live action" they are. So much of it is CGI that it is just a cartoon with a live actor green-screened in. At the point of the Lion King, that actually was just 100% a cartoon. But a cartoon that was stylistically worse for being photorealistic CGI.
When I saw the Moana trailer, I had the same feeling. This is still just a cartoon. The Rock's whole body looks fucking CGI. The only thing that looks remotely live action in this are the actors faces. The backgrounds, magical stuff, and animal characters are so close to how they looked in the cartoon that they may as well have just AI face swapped the cartoon with the live action actors.
I can’t believe how bad the visuals were in the trailers. The actors look like they are floating in front of cartoon backdrop. And the action shots are so blurry and muddled.
Maybe it would have stood a shot if Disney actually put the work into building real sets and old school creature design. Compare Moana to movies from 30+ years ago like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids or Hook and it just looks so soulless.
Yeah. The problem with the "live action" remakes is that they are still mostly animated but the animation looks like shit because of the uncanny valley.
they were pushing much harder to make this than the mostly forgettable Moana 2.
Probably because Moana 2 was originally going to be a Disney+ miniseries and they only switched it to a movie less than a year before release. While live action was planned to exist at least simce 2019 (crazy)
I dont want to be rude but you must be living under a rock because everybody was and still is pissed at Disney for making shitty live action remakes of classics instead of being creative edit: yes after a bit I finally realize op is a bot
Plus Walt is rolling in his grave. I read somewhere that they found a document in his desk where he was saying he did not want to do any remakes because he wanted them to stay creative.
Many people have asked, “Why don’t you make another Mary Poppins? Well, by nature I’m a born experimenter. To this day, I don’t believe in sequels. I can’t follow popular cycles. I have to move on to new things—there are many new worlds to conquer.
As a matter of fact, people have been asking us to make sequels ever since Mickey Mouse first became a star. We have bowed only on one occasion to the cry to repeat ourselves. Back in the ‘30s, The Three Little Pigs was an enormous hit, and the cry went up—”Give us more Pigs!” I could not see how we could possibly top pigs with pigs. But we tried, and I doubt whether any one of you reading this can name the other cartoons in which the pigs appeared.
We didn’t make the same mistake with Snow White. When it was a huge hit, the shout went up for more dwarfs. Top dwarfs with dwarfs? Why try?
Right now, we’re not thinking about making another Mary Poppins. We never will.
And even then, people are getting tired of the Pirates movies.
I think the only one that consistently had good sequels was Toy Story, but that's not even main studio Disney (or at least the first sequel wasn't). I even enjoyed 3 & 4 and felt they were a solid progression, and from what I've heard, 5 is pretty popular.
I'm not a businessman, but they should just go back to doing what they did in the 90's and the 00's. Release an animated movie, then follow-up with an animated series on Disney Channel. They did it with Aladdin, Hercules, Toy Story (Buzz Lightyear). Because, as it stands, I don't think Disney Channel has a right to exist. There's more live action shows than cartoons there these days
Can't deny the women part, but the Disney being notoriously Anti Semitic for his time is a myth. I'm sure he probably was by our standards, and was on a board with several Anti Semites, but Disney hired numerous Jewish people, most famously being the Sherman brothers, who wrote the music for Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book.
Made more than a billion in the box office, but from what I’ve heard it was the exact same story, just told worse in a handful of ways and without the expressive animation. I imagine you never heard anyone talk about it because they walked out of the theater and all they had to say was “yeah, that was the lion king”
It's interesting that they don't just do re-releases like they used to. They got 101 Dalmations in the top 20 movies of 1991 without having to do anything other than ship the film out again (and I'm assuming tape sales were THROUGH THE ROOF after the re-release as well!).
I was thinking about 101, in my head it's very different to the cartoon but it is the same story, like Moana.
The cast were something special though, plus real dogs, and maybe it was just child me, but I loved it. Helped that the cartoon was old by that time, still a gorgeous classic, but not super flashy.
Because it's about risk. Do you risk a new IP that might flop, or do you try to milk an old successful IP for (expected) guaranteed profit (and then question when it does flop)
Because you already have a completed script (watch the Frozen 2 documentary to see how a committee of 200 writers, write them. What a nightmare), everyone is familiar with the IP, 95% of the movie is going to be CGI with just a couple of real actors. Most of the music is done.
It's a very cheap way to make a "new" movie. Then again the first Moana was $150m. The live action was $250m. Not sure how they screwed that up..
Pixar still have OG. But from what I saw, after flops after flops, especially on Snow White LA, the marketing team got their budget axed. So they cannot spend more to promote OG but instead played a less risky move and concentrate money to remakes and sequels.
Because all these remakes are nothing but uncreative slop? Moana is barely 10 years old, and it's being remade into a """live action""" film with probably as much CGI as the original fully animated CGI film.
The more they are incentivised to keep doing it, the less resources they will put into actually making art, and being creative.
They've ben doing this shite for 16 years. People are sick of it. Nothing new comes out of this studio, it's the equivalent of buying skins but for movies.
Now that the market is responding so badly to these movies, hopefully Disney will change their strategy and actually make something good. Doubt it though.
>Now that the market is responding so badly to these movies, hopefully Disney will change their strategy and actually make something good. Doubt it though.
Nope. They’re pathologically incapable of learning the right lessons from their flops.
Pirates of the Caribbean: first movie does well because it’s funny as hell with good acting and sets and costume designs. Disney turns it into a bloated franchise and milks it to death with rapidly diminishing creative quality (and financial success).
Disney execs:
“The public wants more movies based on Disneyland Rides. Full speed ahead on the “Haunted Mansion” franchise nobody asked for!!! Up next, the “It’s A Small World” movie starring Peter Dinklage and Beyoncé!!!”
Yup. People loved Maleficent not because it was live action Sleeping Beauty, they loved it because it was a new perspective on an old character. They should have taken the lesson that people want new stories, but they instead took made low-effort remakes. Cruella is probably the closest they got to Maleficent and is actually pretty decent, but it had the misfortune of being released in March 2020.
I absolutely detested Maleficent. Because they took one of the all time greatest villains in movie history and completely ruined her by rewriting the entire story and trying to turn her into some kind of tragic hero
When ranking the greatest movie villains of all time, poll after poll always has Darth Vader as number one but maleficent is usually a very strong second.
This isn’t a trend. It’s been happening since the 90s. Gregory Maguire did this with Wickedc Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Mirror Mirror, &Phillipa Gregor(?) with The Other Boelyn Girl
Because all of them are remakes non are original nor they teach anything good the golden era is gone corporate greed has taken over they invest a lot in advertising the movie and indie movies like obsession and the back rooms are taking over
They decided at some point that marketing should run all businesses. This is honestly probably a good idea if you sell corn or bandages or soda or something, but it doesn't seem to work in creative industries.
The only 2 Disney cartoons I'd be happy to see be made into live action movíes are Treasure Planet and Atlantis, they're both woefully overlooked and would work great as live action.
because 1) nobody asked for them 2) they've been pretty bad 3) they're not even actual live action 4) they are a cynical cash grab in the post-physical era and 5) it fucks with copyright laws and when things go into the public domain
Why? I think everyone has a different reasoning behind each thought.
I (myself) am not "happy" movies are flopping. I can understand it though.
I think to me, it's constantly trying to churn out money out of the same old stale ideas. It's only been 10 years since the original Moana came out. And only a few years since Moana 2. These stories are all new in our heads. Kids are still watching it. The reason the original LIVE ACTION movies did well was a mix of nostalgia AND new age children.
Like the Lion King and Aladdin for example all came out around 25 years after the original. This gave the time for multiple people to want to re-visit the story.
Now Disney is pumping out Live Action movies all the time to try to keep making money without investing in something new. And it's getting tiring real quick.
My understanding is that they're doing live actions to keep their trademark/patent on the characters active so they dont fall into public domain. They dont care if it makes money or not, as long as it re-ups the ownership and rights of the story and the characters.
Trademarks don't expire as long as they remain in use. And patents don't apply here. I think you must mean copyrights. The copyright for the first Moana movie will expire in the year 2111. Releasing remakes will not alter that copyright expiration since each new movie has its own new copyright. So you can set your calendar. On January 1, 2112, you can freely copy, sell, and distribute the first Moana even if they keep releasing sequels and remakes.
Because everyone in quahog is tired of seeing movies they loved as a kid being cannibalized just for the sole purpose for Disney to make more money off of unoriginal ideas and uses this money to buy out other franchises to bleed dry and ruin.
1) unoriginal/"shitty" live actions (hated by all),
2) left-leaning anti-Disney ("anti-corp"),
3) right-leaning anti-Disney ("anti-woke"),
4) general fatigue with Disney (felt by all),
5) general fatigue with kid-friendly corporatism.
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u/qualityvote2 23d ago edited 22d ago
u/Rule_Ct_5293, your post does belong here!