It’s hard to know what the correct response should be, each time Disney announces another live-action remake of one of its cartoons. Anger seems like too much – after all, they’re just films and can be easily avoided. But at the same time, it’s hard to be truly happy about such baldly calculated financial tactics. Apathy, maybe? A grunt of defeated acknowledgment?
Whatever response you decide on, now is the time to roll it out. Disney, having released live-action versions of 101 Dalmatians, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty (as Maleficent), Cinderella, and announced live-action versions of The Jungle Book, Dumbo, Mulan, Winnie the Pooh and Beauty and the Beast – has also just announced a live-action version of Pinocchio. Evidently, Disney is eating itself, and it won’t stop until every cartoon in its catalogue has been commemorated with a live-action remake.
This, obviously, is a huge mistake. As wonderful and remake-ready as many Disney cartoons are, there will come a time when the company will find itself forced to scratch around in the dregs, among cartoons that are either unsuitable or unloved. Disney, you need to know that you don’t have to make these films. You can just leave them as they are, and nobody will mind. In fact, here are four of your cartoons that, in the politest possible way, you shouldn’t touch with a bargepole.
Bambi
It’s been 73 years since Walt Disney broke the heart of every child on the face of the Earth by murdering Bambi’s mother – and yet the scars are still fresh. The only way a live-action remake could possibly be a worse idea would be if a real deer gets killed by a real bullet. And the only thing worse than that would be if someone let Michael Bay direct it, and if they gave him a bazooka budget. Please Disney, don’t hurt us again.
The Lion King
Visually and narratively, The Lion King has proved resilient enough to live on in many different forms. However, remaking it with real animals could only end in disaster. If the fight between Mufasa and Scar doesn’t get wildly out of hand and end up taking out half of the second-unit crew, the opening scene, in which a monkey grabs a lion cub and prances around with it on the ledge of a cliff, sounds like a fairly solid recipe for a Peta intervention.
Basil the Great Mouse Detective
There are too many Sherlocks around at the moment. There’s Cumberbatch Sherlock. There’s Downey Jr Sherlock. There’s McKellen Sherlock. There’s the 2006 VeggieTales DVD Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler Sherlock, starring an animated cucumber. We do not need any more Sherlocks, especially not rodent ones who specialise in crimes involving disabled bats.
Brother Bear
Ask yourself this: you’ve already sat through one film about a man who is turned into a bear in order to learn hard-hitting lessons about bereavement, and it had a soundtrack written and performed by Phil Collins – do you really want to sit through another? Really?
