Live Action Remakes of Animated Films The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Now I won’t lie, I have never been and will never be a fan of Live Action Remakes of animated films. I’m putting my bias out there right now. With that said, I will now try and convince any of you on the other side of this matter or on the fence about it that animated remakes are redundant, unnecessary, and disrespectful to the original work.

Before I get into how I thing Live action remakes of animated films are bad, I will start off by presenting how I tend to view remakes in general and whether or not they can be considered a good film. I judge them based on three categories, Quality, Originality, and Accuracy. Quality is pretty self explanatory, is it a well made film. Originality as to if it brings anything new to the table. Accuracy is how accurate it is to the original source material. Now with that said, I’ll move on to what I think are the good, the bad, and the ugly side of live action remakes.

I will acknowledge the good that comes from these types of movies. They will oftentimes draw new eyes to a series or franchise that may not have had all that much attention before. This can be good for the original, as it could result in people who enjoyed the movie to go back and try and find the original movie to watch and enjoy. Media companies may also use Live action remakes as sure fire ways to ensure reaching a large audience of people so they can make money. This can help fund studios to make more risky ventures that may not make a lot of money. I by no means think all remakes are by nature bad. Sometimes a movie is a bad movie and a remake can give it the second chance it needs to be successful.

As much good as a remake has the potential to do, I feel as though they more often than not do more damage to the original movie then do it good. When I mentioned the remakes having the potential to draw new eyes to the movie as a good thing, this is very much a perfect scenario deal. If the remake that is produced is well made and accurate to the original, then when people go back to watch the original they will be able to experience the thing that they love again but in its original medium. However, if the movie that they saw was far inaccurate to the source material, when the audience member goes back to watch the original they will not find the movie they love but something else. Worst case scenario say I had a friend that I rant and rave about how good Ghost in the Shell is and they decide “hey I’ll go watch it” but they watch the live action movie. If they find that they hate the live action and think it’s bad, they may assume the animated movie is the same, because why wouldn’t they. It’s a remake right, it should be the same. But often times it’s not, the changes may sometimes be small like removing a plot element, or sometimes may be big like changing the race of the protagonist. All of this has to do with the perception of the audience member to the work itself, however i believe that their is a much bigger issue with Live action remakes.

When an animated movie is remade into a live action film to perpetuates the stereotype that animation is an inferior form of media. It gives off this feeling that the animated movie wasn’t good enough and for people to enjoy it, it has to be live action. Even when something isn’t even live action they will still toat it as live action for fear that people won’t go see an animated film. The new “live action” animated Lion King movie is going to be made with CGI, and yet they are still advertising it as live action. Some people may say, “oh well of course they are remaking it, the original movie came out so long ago”. This is often not the case, Kimi no na wa (Your Name) came out this year and is already slotted to have a live action remake to be directed by J.J. Abrams. Kimi no na wa is the highest grossing anime and despite the world wide reception of it, it is going to be remade into live action. It’s as if to say “ya that movie was good, but you know what would make it better… real people.” It’s disrespectful to the artists who created the movie, and the medium itself. Animation is not a genre, it’s a medium. The lack of respect animation has in hollywood can be seen by how the movies Shaun the Sheep and Anomalisa were both put in the same category in the oscars under Animation. The two films couldn’t be more different, but because they are animated they are viewed in the same light. Animation deserves better than this.

Is there anything that we can do however. Us little movie goers. YES we can decide to not see these movies. When we see that Disney is putting out another Live action remake of one of its classic movies we can choose to not go see it. When we see that another anime is being given a westernised adaptation we can put our foot down and say no. These movies already exist and they wont be improved by simply making it live action.

10 Replies to “Live Action Remakes of Animated Films The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”

  1. I agree that the remake of animated films into live action is rarely ever a necessary or positive change. The issue that I have with it is that it implies that animation is not good enough to stand the test of time. Disney is redoing many of their movies and I don’t get why. The beauty of much of the films is the life that animation brings to it.

  2. I actually just covered some of this topic in my final. It is perplexing that animated movies are rebooted as live action films several years after their splashing debut (Disney…) but there is a reason for it: profit. Most of the animated movies that are being redone were made before most of us were born. The style is old. The format for which they are available is outdated, and Disney is pulling away from Netflix. So, these newer versions are a fresh look at the story without taking away the original magic. Yes, it takes away the expressions and technicolor fun we were used to, but it also adds a new element for new audiences.
    In the case of some of the cartoon>video adaptations…Yeah, those should have been left alone. Way alone. But hey, Transformers worked at least.

  3. The “inferiority” that has been associated with the animation medium is honestly one of the things that infuriates me to no end. However, the points that were given I think makes sense on why it’s done. For the Jungle Book, it made sense because there has been already countless adaptations of the Jungle Book that making a new one and using it do push new technologies and also a newish story I think is okay. However, for something such as Beauty and the Beast and some other Disney Classics, I think that there can be better stories to tell.

  4. Yeah I remember I talked to you, Cid, about this before. Specifically the Beauty and the Beast remake which felt like it did nothing new. It seemed like some shots were taken strait from the animated movie which highlights the idea that live action is somehow superior to animation. I agree with Greg that there must be better stories to tell and Disney should be using the money they make from live action cash grabs (because for the most part that seems to be what these are) and use it to fun good, original, content.

  5. I completely agree, however I do think that bad live-action movies can make the animated versions look even better. Potentially this could lead to studios picking animated ideas over live-action ones because of all these shitty live-action reboots. But I will continue to not support these movies because as long as they make money these studios won’t stop.

  6. I totally agree, especially when people think live action remakes are better than animated version even though most of the time the remakes are almost the same with animated version shot to shot. Just because it has real people in it, does not make it better. I have heard people say that, which is so disrespectful. I think people still have this stereotype for animated films that “animation are for little kids. its childish.” I wish if they do more remakes, even with the same story, maybe try to elaborate it or try to come up with a back story like what they did with Maleficent.

  7. I’m glad you mentioned the positive aspects of remakes. I haven’t thought about how they could use the remakes for extra cash for a riskier film in the future. Who knows how often that actually is the case, but it’s nice to know that it could be true. In addition, I know a lot of people who watched the new Beauty and the Beast remake (who aren’t in animation or film) and they were talking about how they went back and watched the old film and forgot how much they loved it. So while I’ve always had a large bias against remakes to live action, it’s nice to know that there are some benefits to making these. Ideally I still believe there should be more original content coming out than remakes and adaptations, but oh well. The world isn’t perfect.

  8. I’m always for giving a new director a chance to reshape someone’s old material, however treasured it may be. It’s just sad to see animated remakes into live action have such a bad track record. Still, as you said there are positive things you can get out of a remake, though hopefully people can handle animated remakes with a bit more grace.

  9. You already know I agree with you about many of these points. And in addition to what you have said, something that often deters me from seeing a live-action remake is often the track record for how grossly different and often worse the remakes are. There are a few exceptions, and even then, making remakes still continues to send a message that it HAD to be remade. And in some ways, that might be ok. But then why is there not similar treatment to live action films – say, a remake of a live-action film into animation? Definitely a huge part of that answer is because of because of production costs but can’t we dream of equal treatment? I guess maybe not.

  10. I totally agree with you about the problematic nature of live-action remakes of animated films. It feels to me like an insult to the art form– particularly when Disney, which to many members of the general public is synonymous with animation, begins to remake their work. Were these pieces not good enough on their own?

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