3 Animated Disney Movies Ruined by the Live-Action Remake

It’s a turbulent time for live-action Disney remakes. Even though the live-action Lilo & Stitch made a billion dollars at the global box office and has a sequel in development, the studio just announced that a live-action version of The Aristocats is no longer moving forward. Given that Disney’s animated movies tend to be formative childhood classics, their live-action counterparts have a lot to live up to when they hit the big screen. Adapting media so venerated is always a risk, and here are the 3 movies we feel Disney completely missed the mark on, when bringing these animated classics into live-action:

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3) Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast is arguably the crown jewel of Disney’s animated films. The animated movie was the first animated film to ever be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards; it may not have won, but the milestone solidified Disney as a storytelling powerhouse and propelled the dozen or so classics that followed, in what’s now referred to as “The Disney Renaissance.” When a live-action adaptation of the fairytale was announced, especially from Dreamgirls director Bill Condon, it was met with much excitement.

However, the live-action Beauty and the Beast ended up falling flat when it hit theaters in 2017. It’s never a good sign when you have to autotune your lead actress’s singing voice; Belle’s iconic yellow dress felt like a lackluster fast-fashion imitation of the original, and a lazy attempt at queer representation didn’t land. The live-action Beauty and the Beast‘s over-abundance of CGI failed to recapture the magic of the original film’s animation and doesn’t meaningfully make use of its stellar supporting cast, most of them Broadway stars in their own right. Overall, we’d stick to the animated version over the live-action any day.

2) Aladdin

Creating a satisfying live-action version of Aladdin, especially without the genius that was Robin Williams, was a pretty much impossible task. Despite director Guy Ritchie’s best attempts, his live-action Aladdin couldn’t hold a candle to the 1992 animated version. The 2019 film did an excellent job casting authentically Middle Eastern/South Asian actors after white actors had provided the voices in the animated version; both Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott feel like Aladdin and Jasmine come to life. However, Robin Williams’s version of the Genie is inimitable and essential to the animated film’s success thirty-plus years ago.

Will Smith certainly tried to bring his own spin to the character – but without Williams’s mile-a-minute impressions and references, Aladdin lost a significant element of its fun and wonder. Smith’s rapping doesn’t fill the void Williams left, and the movie’s major musical set pieces like “Prince Ali” and “Friend Like Me” don’t reach the same scale and spectacle as they do in animation. Not only did the classic songs fail to inspire nostalgia, but the new songs written by the dream team of Pasek and Paul are completely forgettable. Even though the live-action Aladdin did gross over a billion dollars worldwide and allegedly has a sequel in the works, we can’t help but think that would be better if a second Aladdin film went the way of the live-action The Aristocats.

1) Mulan

Disney committed a cardinal sin when it brought Mulan into live-action: it took away the music and so much of the magic that made the original animated film a classic. The story of Hua Mulan, a young woman who poses as a man and joins the military to save her father from certain death, is a Chinese folk tale. Therefore, to remove the songs from the film, especially “Reflection” and “I’ll Make a Man Out of You”, which have become staples in the Disney songbook, essentially takes away everything special and proprietary that Disney brought to the tale in the first place.

Audiences only felt further cheated when Mulan’s companions Mushu and Cri-Kee were also missing from the film. Eddie Murphy‘s performance as the pocket-sized dragon provides so much of the film’s pizzazz and comic relief, and without the character (who easily could’ve been recast with an all-star Asian comedic talent like Ronnie Chieng), the film feels overly serious.

While we understand the desire for female empowerment in Mulan’s story, eliminating Shang’s character and a love interest for Mulan only further sucks the fun from the story, as their attraction to one another perfectly plays into Mulan’s cross-dressing secret. Overall, the live-action Mulan comes across as a generic action film rather than a new take on the Disney classic we all know and love.

Which live-action Disney remake do you feel missed the mark? Let us know in the comments!