Tag Archives: Remake

Dumbo (1941)

Dumbo is one of the most beloved Disney animations. It was also the movie to help Disney out of its run of financial losses. This is somewhat surprising due to the team working on the film were the B-team, as the A-team was working on Bambi. Dumbo was a more economical film to make after the excessive budgets that weren’t profitable in Pinocchio and Fantasia. It helped that Dumbo was only sixty-four minutes long. Audiences loved Dumbo for its simple storytelling and emotional attachment. Considering it was a financial success without much international distribution says something to the impact it had at the time.

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Dumbo starts with a moving scene showing cranes delivering babies to all the animals, all except Mrs Jumbo. Sadly, Mrs Jumbo gets on the train the next day along with the entire circus to move onto the next location. By luck, the crane that was carrying Mrs Jumbo’s baby spots the train and unites the two. Once the bundle is unwrapped revealing the young elephant the cute ques turn quickly to dismay from the crowd of elephants once they see his ears are huge. The name Dumbo is given by those elephants quickly to the tears of Mrs Jumbo, who loves her baby wholeheartedly. The teasing soon proves to be too much for Mrs Jumbo as they open the circus at the next town and Dumbo is teased relentlessly by the visitors. Mrs Jumbo in a fit of rage tears the place down and earns herself exile from the show and away from Dumbo. Like Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio before, Timothy Mouse makes it his mission to help Dumbo through these hard times and tries to excel him. After a bad start, Dumbo ends up as the star in a clown act that mocks him further. In one of the most memorable scenes, Timothy Mouse and Dumbo try picking themselves up, however, the pick-me-up seems rather literal as they become intoxicated and see “Pink Elephants”. The morning after they find themselves at the height of a tall tree that they realise Dumbo flew up. And here our story ends with Dumbo’s ears being the most incredible trait as he can soar through the air, and finds himself in stardom and reunited with Mrs Jumbo.

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After what has come before, Dumbo is cheaply made. The story may be rich with merit, however, the animation is largely simple and undetailed. There are massive blocks of scenes that are as if they could have been coloured in by the way of a colouring-in book. For example, a scene where all the elephants are gossiping is filled with just flat grey bodies, with only minute detail on the trunk and face, leaving no detail of depth to the body. Dumbo by today’s standards would be a straight to video release, much like the Disney animated sequels that were plentiful in the 90s and 2000s.

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The story to this day has continued to resonate with audiences and just this year a live-action film was released. However, time has not been completely kind to the film as more and more critics find controversy in the crow sequence near the end (atop the tree with Dumbo), for portraying African American stereotypes. It’s easy to see why Disney is the target of this sort of thing when they are by all purposes a family-friendly company. I have no qualms with it as it is timely to that era. With the release of Song of the South only a few years later, critics have reason to criticise the scene. The scene was going to be cut or reconfigured to edit out the crows with the release of Disney Plus, and thank goodness they had the sense to not go through with it.

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Dumbo is a really short story that goes by in a breeze, but I think more could have been added to the film, so I’m curious what they added in the live-action film to almost double the screen time. Whatever the case Dumbo is a good wholesome film.

What do you think of it overall?

Previously The Reluctant Dragon

Next Bambi

Robert Ring

Splash

Quite literally a fish out of water tale.

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The classic tale “Den lille Hayfrue” by Hans Christian Andersen, or as English depicts it, The Little Mermaid is a remarkable tale beloved by children since it was first published in 1837. The story is about a young mermaid searching for a life above the sea amongst people, where she proceeds to fall in love with a prince and makes a Faustian bargain with the sea witch to continue out her days as a human. A statue inspired by The Little Mermaid story was unveiled in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1913. The statue represents a mermaid looking longingly across the land, longing to be human. It has been a subject of vandalism over the years, from decapitations to paint jobs. Like the Hans Christian Anderson story, The Little Mermaid has been retold time after time, in some respect, the vandalism represents the times of change in society and this is seen through each adaptation. The fairy tale has been retold and modernized to this day, with the most iconic being Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Before the heralded Disney animated film was Splash.

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Splash is the first Disney movie created under the Touchstone Pictures banner in 1984, as Disney wanted to produce more content for adult fare. These films would still be generally wholesome movies, however, they contained suggestions of sex, booze and sometimes drugs. You certainly wouldn’t find these ideas in the live-action Disney films before it. Splash was also the movie to get Tom Hanks out of television and into stardom.

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The movie starts twenty years in the past with a young Allen on a trip with his family at Cape Cod. Allen jumps overboard to see a young mermaid before being ripped back onto the boat by the crew. Now in the present Allen (Tom Hanks), works a successful job with his brother in the shipping of produce goods, but his love life is in shambles. Allen can’t seem to find commitment in any of the women he has relationships with and they eventually leave him because of it. After a big bender Allen decides to travel back to Cape Cod to perhaps find himself, but when he’s knocked out of his boat and drowning she finds him instead. The mermaid played by Daryl Hannah watches Allen awaken on the beach and there ignites the romantic spark Allen has been missing since he first met her as a boy. When Allen approaches her she kisses him and leaves by the sea. It later becomes apparent that Splash is The Little Mermaid story without any of the context. Instead of showing us the sea hag granting her a wish, we understand that she has been given a week’s time frame for being on land. Allen and the mermaid now called Madison experience a romantic and comical relationship as she hides her true identity from him. What may seem like a happy ending is only just the beginning as Dr. Kornbluth tries to uncover who she is, while Madison must eventually confront Allen before its too late.

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Splash was a fresh take on The Little Mermaid story at the time and is still holds up great. What works best is the relationship between Hanks and Hannah. Madison is a much stronger character than Ariel and heads towards society head-on in search of Allen. Allen isn’t a Prince Charming character either but a sweet down to earth guy that she shares a spark with. While these two carry the bulk of the film, the supporting characters in John Candy playing Allen’s brother, and Eugine Levi playing the villain brings a lot of wholesome laughs and fun to the screen. Splash is a good romantic comedy that doesn’t drown you in fantasy but makes the film feel like a believable tale in the present day.

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The ending is spectacular and I don’t think you would see it done like that today.

Robert Ring

Frozen Let Go

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first animated feature film. Everyone believed it wouldn’t work, and that it couldn’t. All kinds of rumors spread before its release. My favorite was one that said people could go blind watching the bright colors for a feature-length amount of time. Nobody went blind. Disney instead made a critical and commercial success. The movie was so successful it held the title of being the highest-grossing animated film for fifty-five years. It wasn’t until Aladdin’s release that it was overthrown in 1992. Since then the title has been passed along every couple of years, and now it has once again. This time Frozen has passed the crown to The Lion King (2019).

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The Lion King (2019) undoubtedly looks like a live-action film, so don’t feel stupid questioning it. It will even make it into the top ten highest-grossing films in the next couple of weeks. The question is can Frozen 2 take the number one spot? It’s possible, although I feel unlikely.

Disney is now king of the box office and I’m curious to see what’s in store for the future. So I want to get deeper into the storied history of the Walt Disney Company in future posts by digging into the past. I’ll start by looking at Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

For now, I think The Lion King (2019) may hold this title for two to three years.

Robert Ring

The Lion, the Mouse and the Remake

The Lion King (1994) is one of the most beloved films in the house of mouse, and for many, it is their favorite. For one it’s a great film, however, I think it also has a lot to do with the timing. The Lion King along with the other titles in the Disney Renaissance were all exceptional, and all very much BINGED.

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If you think back to the eighties when the Betamax and VHS started to take off it was still a mostly rental experience. You would head down to the local video shop and rent the movie for a night or a few days. To buy one movie outright could cost close to $100 US, and that was back then. It’s understandable as film studios were scared of home video killing the movie theater experience and named absurd costs. By the nineties, nearly everyone with a tv owned a VHS player and the cost to buy a movie was now consumer-friendly. Enter the kids of the nineties. We owned every new Disney movie, and they weren’t released as frequently as today, so we spent a lot of time binging the same VHS over and over again. We ran those tapes so often that the tapes began to deteriorate. Basically, every child of the nineties could perform these movies off script like a performance of Shakespeare in the Park.

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Twenty-five years after The Lion King (1994) was released, I can still recall every scene. To this day the movie is not dated. Sadly, The Lion King (2019) is not good, but terrible even. The movie looks beautiful, sounds great, yet what looks like live-action animals talking ruins the movie. The talking works with some of the animals like Timon, Pumba, and Rafiki. Just not the lions, not at all. Even the characters mentioned don’t quite fit because the original voices are so engrained into us that we have trouble buying anyone else in the role. Disney really needed to get this one right for the fans of the original. The Jungle Book (2016) worked well because I don’t think we collectively remember the original as well. And from memory, the animals all worked for me. With The Lion King (2019), Jon Favreau shot it to look like a nature documentary and he should have gone all the way. First off take out all the spoken dialogue. Cut it down to eighty minutes. Keep the songs and just play them over the film. Have David Attenborough, or better yet Nathan Lane, the original Timon to narrate the film. These changes would take the movie from a meh to a woah.

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I’m sure there are defenders for The Lion King (2019), but it falls in the same category as live-action movies with talking animals to me. It’s hard to not see Disney using this film as a cash grab because.. well, a billion in revenue already? That’s more than the original made. In another twenty-five years, this version will be dated and the animated will continue to be a classic enjoyed by everyone.

Long Live the King (94)!

Robert Ring

Aladdin (2019)

Classic literature always tends to stay in the vernacular. It’s usually untouched and repackaged solely with new cover art. That’s often all that’s necessary to modernize the classics. In film, it’s slightly different. Each film is constrained to a budget, a studio’s guidelines, the technology available, and finally the director’s vision. Every time somebody remakes the source material, they will be drawn to new things and give the film new perspectives and takes that were not originally there. Disney is now in a place where it can provide these new visions to new generations. It would be unfortunate if the live action Lion King is terrible, but I would move on because subjectively it may just not be for me, although it could be the favorite movie of a child today. To date, Disney has done a great job with the live action films from the animated classics.

Aladdin

Disney’s Aladdin (1992) is my second favorite Disney film right after Beauty and the Beast. It wasn’t just that original movie I fell for either. I loved the sequels and even the tv show. I was all in, and it was more to do with the characters than the story. Between Aladdin, Genie, Jasmine, Abu, Carpet, and Iago, you can’t go wrong. I wish I were going on incredible journeys with them as a kid. Seeing the movie play out in live-action was incredible; it also helped that Guy Ritchie directed it. The movie hit upon all the memorable points throughout the original Aladdin film and fleshed out other parts for dramatic effect. It all plays out like the Aladdin you know in live-action with a Bollywood flavor throughout.

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The cast at large are relatively unknown to the masses, all with the exception of Will Smith as Genie. For most, Genie was the make it or break it point because it’s unfathomable to go against Robin Williams. Tactfully, Will Smith gives nods with throwbacks to Robin and shapes his own performance into one that is more grounded. Next up is Aladdin (Mena Massoud), he is agile and charming as you would want, although it all means nothing if there isn’t any chemistry between him and Jasmine. Luckily the two are paired perfectly together. Jasmine (Naomi Scott) is the star of the film. She has a much stronger character here than just the damsel she was in the original, and I enjoyed seeing that play out for all the young girls out there that will watch it. Additionally, there is a new song that placates Jasmine as one of the biggest standouts of the live-action Disney films so far. People have had their problems with the live-action look of Jafar, but I’ll say that it works. If they portrayed Jafar like the animated film he would come off as an old creepy and perverted man.

Here is a sample of Naomi Scott’s talent as Jasmine

Unless you hold the original too close to your heart that you dare not see any interpretation, you will find something to like in this wonderful adaptation. Aladdin has been adapted in a similar fashion to Beauty and the Beast (2017). Nothing has been taken away, while some things have been added at no cost to the overall story. So I think you should take the journey with Aladdin and share in “A Whole New World”.

Robert Ring