Aladdin’s Bizarre Adventure – A Short Introspective On Disney Live Action Remakes

I’m sorry,I KNOW I said today would be a weekly anime recap in yesterday’s post,but after seeing this travesty,I just HAD to talk about it.

What travesty,you ask?

Well.

Oh. Oh no.

I once had aspirations of being a 3D CGI Artist, and so I like to think I know quite a bit about the basics of how to make CGI look good within the context of the real world. I’m sure everybody here is familiar with the uncanny valley, and some of you may even think THAT doesn’t look as bad as I’m making it out to be.

Well,that’s because you haven’t seen it moving yet.

It’s crystal clear that Will Smith’s face was haphazardly grafted onto a CGI character’s body,instead of the CGI body being made to fit Will Smith’s appearance. It’s things like this that end up giving CGI a bad rap because it only distracts you from the movie when Will Smith’s face is stiffly moving along with the dynamic CGI genie body in scenes that once bought laughter and joy to us. Well,they still do here, but I’m laughing for a completely different reason.

It’s the movie equivalent of Will Smith standing behind a cardboard cutout of Genie with the face cut out. While we’re here, let’s also talk about Jafar,who I would like to assume is a WAY younger version because of how nasally high his voice is. If you compare his animated version’s “BRING ME THE LAMP!” to this live-action version’s smug and whispery tone is a bit jarring,to say the least.

To be honest,Disney live-action adaptations have been a pretty mixed bag,all things considered. I REALLY loved Jungle Book-

but pretty much every single one of the other movies ranged from “eh,it’s okay”-

Funnel gowns aside.

– to hilariously terribad.

I know it’s technically a “sequel”,but this movie is just Disney funding Tim Burton’s weird fanfiction

I have always been of the opinion that these remakes are pointless if they’re just gonna rehash everything, but my problem lies with their new twists on the old story being just plain bad most of the time. Jungle Book probably did it best by not doing an exact adaptation,but instead one that manages to capture the spirit of the original film.

I don’t want the exact same thing all over again but worse,nor do I want an edgy reimagining of it that’s done in poor taste. If you’re gonna remake something,make it have a unique identity that it can call its own instead of relying on nostalgia. I know these movies make a billion dollars because people like nostalgia,but they don’t have any staying power. I barely remember what different or interesting things happened to the ones I thought were okay,and that’s a bad thing when you’re remaking an unforgettable classic.

Do I think these shouldn’t exist?

Well, not really. People in Disney need jobs,and audiences are perfectly happy reliving the nostalgia,albeit in a slightly worse fashion and having to pay for it instead of just popping in the superior original version. I just wish that they would give these remakes more soul,so I can look back on it in the same fond way I did it’s predecessor.

I will of course hold my final judgement of the Aladdin movie until it comes out,but it’s a significantly tall order. Aladdin is, more so than the relatively obscure Jungle Book and Sleeping Beauty by comparison, an absolute classic that is EXTREMELY popular and embedded in people’s minds. It will be an uphill battle defeating the expectations of literal decades of nostalgia, and I doubt Aladdin (2019) will even meet half of them.

What do you guys think? I want to hear your thoughts on the topic.