• Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    26
    ·
    4 months ago

    My understanding of this phenomenon is there is a committee of “You can’t eat salsa, that’s cultural appropriation” types who have the final edit on them, which is why you get movies like “What if Beauty and the Beast, but more feminist grudge porn, and a 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈GAY🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 character!” or “What if Mulan, but it’s about Chinese people so there can’t be anything fun or amusing in it, and…look we’ve got to get rid of this character arc shit. We can’t have this character be intrinsically weak and then learn to use her wits to compensate for it. She’s a girl, she has to be perfect and effortlessly better than the men from the start or we’ll hold our breath. That’s what a Strong Female Character is.”

    That’s why they’re not fun. People who are not fun are in charge of making them.

    • firadin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      24
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      4 months ago

      What a garbage answer. You can make fun content and still be inclusive, execs just don’t want to take any risks on new IPs because they can milk old ones. Stop blaming inclusiveness when the real answer is greed.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        4 months ago

        execs just don’t want to take any risks on new IPs

        We get regular new Disney IP, but they all underperform the remake slop.

        • firadin@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          4 months ago

          Inside Out 2 is the second highest grossing animated movie of all time. Yes I know it’s a sequel, but the original IP is less than a decade old and the movie isn’t a remake. Frozen 2 is third and Frozen is fifth.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        11
        ·
        4 months ago

        What about those live-action remakes are “inclusive?”

        They cast a black Ariel and portrayed Gaston’s sidekick as gay, in both cases so they could say they did it?

        From the WIkipedia article on Mulan (2020 film):

        The film received generally positive reviews from Western, non-Asian critics, who praised the action sequences, costumes, and performances, but was criticized for the screenplay and editing. It received unfavorable reviews from fans of the original animated film, Chinese diaspora, and Chinese critics, who criticized the character development, its cultural and historical inaccuracies, and its depiction of Chinese people.

        The article goes onto say there was controversy about a lack of east Asians in the production team of the film, as well as the removal of the character Li Shang as a response to the MeToo movement which was then criticized by the LGBTVNX8L community, who saw the character’s romantic relationship with Mulan’s male persona as representation of bisexuality.

        Yeah nah this sounds “inclusive” as fuck.

        execs just don’t want to take any risks on new IPs because they can milk old ones

        To my knowledge none of the “live action remakes” or the animated features they’re based on are original Disney IP; Dumbo was based on a children’s book, The Little Mermaid was a fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast was a French short story and then an old silent film, Aladdin was a middle-eastern folk tale, Mulan is based on a Chinese legend…Disney’s never not been milking old IP. They’ve been doing it consistently since Snow White. Thing is, they used to make it work. Those animated features were huge hits. These live action remakes aren’t.

        Stop blaming inclusiveness when the real answer is greed.

        Greed has ALWAYS been Disney’s motivation. To quote Disney CEO Michael Eisner:

        We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement. To make money is our only objective.

        Disney’s greed hasn’t changed since they were a reliable classic factory, only the implementation of that greed has changed.

        One way they’ve changed their implementation is to remake things they’ve already done before. The strategy seems to be to target millennials like myself who grew up during the Disney Renaissance and who now have children of their own to take to the theater. “Oh look honey, they’re remaking Aladdin! Let’s take Aiden Brayden and Cayden down to the octoplex to see it!” Honestly I think that part of the strategy is sound. I get why Disney Corporate had these movies made.

        I take issue with the idea that these remakes are any more “inclusive” than the originals. Disney isn’t being “inclusive,” they’re pandering to a very particular demographic’s taste for performative virtue signaling and grievance airing. Pissing off the LGBTQ community via censoring a character in anticipation of MeToo feminists is a rather on the nose example of this.

        Reminder: We’re talking about fairy tales for children here.

        The kind of people who add a scene to Beauty and the Beast where some of the villagers break Belle’s washing machine because “white men be oppressin’, amirite?” aren’t the kind of people capable of making fun movies for children. They’re simply too hateful.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          Honestly I think that part of the strategy is sound. I get why Disney Corporate had these movies made.

          I’m old enough to remember people complaining about the feminism in the original Little Mermaid / Beauty & the Beast. There was even a spat about Aladin being Satanist.

          The complaints about these movies are almost as old and hackneyed as the movies themselves.

        • HandwovenConsensus@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          4 months ago

          Surely there’s a difference between an animated movie loosely inspired by a traditional story with original songs, character designs, and dialogue, and remaking that movie beat-for-beat with just a few scenes changed for pandering.

          • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            4 months ago

            Which does make me wonder why not just re-release the original animated features to theaters. Surely “Returning to theaters this summer: Disney’s Aladdin!” That seems to be the lazier way to make a buck off of old properties, you don’t have to hire a cast and crew, build sets wardrobe and props, etc.

            It is my understanding that broadway adaptations of their animated features have been reliable money makers, so were the coke addled executives at Disney thinking “Let’s make Aladdin the movie the broadway show: The Movie! It can’t fail!”

        • Akasazh@feddit.nl
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          4 months ago

          It’s sounds like you’re going to disagree with the previous poster by the intensity of your wording.

          Only then to basically agree with the main point.

          It might be ‘on brand’ with a username of Captain aggravation, but it comes across ever so sightly confusing.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 months ago

      What if Mulan, but it’s about Chinese people

      No singing and dancing in what was originally a musical. A very strange directional choice.