By Benny M.
On April 3, 2023, Disney announced the production of a live action version of Moana, a movie released in 2016. Then, not even a year later, on February 7, 2024, Disney announced Moana’s sequel (which would still be animated), Moana 2, which released on November 27, 2024. The remake of Moana is slated to be released in 2026. That’s 3 movies in a saga that, when the remake is released, will only be 10 years old.
10 years sounds like a lot of time, but The Lion King (1994) was given the live action treatment a full 25 years later, in 2019. On the other end of the Disney spectrum is their first feature-length film. The upcoming live action remake of Snow White is set to release in 2025, a massive 88 years after the original release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937.
And it’s not just Disney.
On November 19, 2024, Universal Pictures officially confirmed rumors of a new, live action How to Train Your Dragon remake with a teaser trailer. The community, so used to live action remakes being either flops or just not as good as the originals, has had mixed views on the trailer, balancing the constant worry that it will turn out poorly and just end up frustrating long-time fans with the fact that the trailer just looked so good. The music, the CGI, the near shot-to-shot perfection with the original film. Personally, I have high hopes and expectations for this film. But I know a lot of people who are simply frustrated that studios seem to be stuck on sequels and remakes.
The problem isn’t, in my opinion, that the big studios are focusing on adaptations, remakes, and sequels so much. The problem for me is how those studios are handling these.
For example, video game adaptations. In recent years, there has been a rise in video game adaptations being filmed, whether that is in film form or series. In terms of series, there have been fantastic adaptations like the Fallout series (2024), which was both nominated for and won several Emmy awards, and had an IMDb rating of 8.3/10. Compared to the Resident Evil adaptation from 2022, which only received 4.2/10 on IMDb and had generally low to medium reviews. Show adaptations have had generally higher reviews, however, like The Last Of Us (2023) at 8.7/10 on IMDb and the League of Legends adaptation Arcane (2021-2024) which 9.1/10 on IMDb and a whopping 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. In general, the more faithful adaptations receive higher ratings and are enjoyed more, as well as the adaptations which, if different from the games, stick to the themes and general storytelling like Arcane.
In movie game adaptations, things vary much more. In terms of critic reviews, the Five Nights At Freddy’s adaptation received lower ratings, due to the niche amount of references and accuracy to the games which made it hard to decipher for a lot of people, such as the IMDb raters who scored it at 5.4/10 or the Rotten Tomatoes score of 32%. However, the community were major fans, and loved the fantastic practical effects and references which made the movie so confusing for others. On the other hand, adaptations such as the Borderlands movie (2024) received low reviews all around for not representing the games well, such as their 4.6/10 IMDb and 10% Rotten Tomatoes scores. With even more upcoming adaptations of games looking worrying, such as the upcoming Minecraft adaptation, A Minecraft Movie (2025). The community has generally been worried about this adaptation for the same reasons which most adaptations and remakes have been problematic.
Live action does not equal better. More CGI doesn’t make a movie, good CGI makes a movie. This is something visible with both A Minecraft Movie and the upcoming Disney remake, Lilo and Stitch (2025). In the video game Minecraft, the art style is insanely significant. The entire world is made of blocks, and characters are voxel based designs with decently pixelated and stylized textures. However, the trailer shows us highly over complicated and hyper realistic creatures that instead of looking fun and voxel based, are incredibly cursed and in some cases even uncomfortably inaccurate to the game. While this isn’t the only reason that the community has been worried by the trailer, it’s a pretty good one. When the initial trailer dropped, the community asked for a fix, like Paramount Pictures did with the adaptation for Sonic the Hedgehog (2020). When it was first announced, the CGI version of the fan-favorite hedgehog was incredibly cursed, and was an attempt to make a human-like hedgehog. The studio took the community’s advice and fixed the character, reanimating the entire film to make it a more stylized, cartoony style reflecting the character in the already existing franchise.
Most studios aren’t doing this though, and are instead taking every opportunity to show off how much fur they can render in animation, or just how realistic they can get. In many cases, this just ends up damaging the significance of the character designs, making them too focused on graphics and less on accuracy to the character themselves.
What’s the point? Major studios like Disney, Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures, and Paramount Pictures need to make a decision when it comes to adaptations, remakes, and sequels. Take a break from revisiting ideas and create something new, or stay faithful to original concepts instead of just relying on nostalgia to sell tickets to movies which are not well produced or animated. While there are some revisits which have been fantastic, or at least well done, the problem also lies in the sheer number of revisits.
Will we all still go to see them? Of course. The nostalgia is strong with these movies, and the studios are counting on our nostalgia. Should these studios change the prioritization of these films? Probably. It absolutely depends on the user, but I, for one, am tired of the apparent lack of good, new ideas.