You are walking into a movie theater 20-25 years ago and see upcoming Disney films such as Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, and Tarzan. These movies are original and were very inspirational to kids in that generation. Switching back to today when you see upcoming movies it has recently been mainly live action remakes of classical Disney movies and sequels. I’m all for their new way of bringing their films back, but what fans are looking for are new and original animated content. 

Today remakes are becoming huge in this new generation and people aren’t as in love with them as they were the originals. The recent live actions are discouraging particularly if you grew up during the golden age of Disney films like The Little Mermaid (1992), The Lion King (1994), Aladdin (1992) all influenced childhoods all around. Particularly the Aladdin (2019) live action that made fans furious when the original plan was to not make the genie blue because it’s not like the original, further making Disney change their minds.  

Many of us grew up watching original Disney movies that aren’t that old, so why are is Disney rushing to make all these live action films? It feels like they know that they can make an abundant amount of money recreating their most famous films to draw in a new generation of children. These films are all still available for all generations so not all Disney movies need a remake or live action. 

Disney tried the sequel route towards their popular films, but fans didn’t have the same energy for them or didn’t like them as much because the story didn’t relate to its viewers. The Little Mermaid ll: Return to the Sea, was not respected by its fans because of its not as an appealing story line where Ariel has children. Another is Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, which had a terrible rating of 29% on rotten tomatoes. Anytime they seem to make a sequel, those films are usually ignored. 

The reality is that Disney needed a way to gain more money and they wanted to do that by using their proven successful films. The goal was to draw in an audience that mixed both old and younger children while keeping those adults who grew up with Disney feeling like a kid again. 

The start of live action films was introduced to us when the 101 Dalmatians movie came out in 1996. This film proved to the to the higher ups of the company that there was another way to make profit while sticking to their beloved movies.  

The content that Disney has been producing is not necessarily terrible, but its fans are still waiting on that brand-new original movie that has that a new life lesson to teach our new generation of children. These recent live action films are more about their esthetic than the actual story.  

The live action game for Disney has never been this strong and the movies are getting more advanced as time goes on. It gives the new generation a chance to experience these films that older audiences grew up watching and show them in a more visual pleasing way towards audiences in 2019. Even though Disney hasn’t created any new original content for new viewers I think that these live actions of past movies are great, but it seems like they have run out of ideas.