Now you may ask – and what about the first trailer of the ‘Mulan’
2020 remake? Since we have already mentioned the upcoming ‘Little Mermaid’
remake and ‘The Lion King’ remake is coming out later this month.
Firstly, the ‘Little Mermaid’ remake. There shouldn’t be a
problem having an Afro-American actress being the titular character – as MCU’s ‘Spider-Man’
movies and Disney’s ‘Aladdin’ remake have shown, race is by no means a defining
feature of a movie character, but! Then there was J-Ro’s ‘Harry Potter and the
Cursed Child’, remember it? Both Hermione and Rose Weasley were played by
Afro-American (Afro-British?) characters, and it didn’t work; J-Ro herself has
abandoned that aspect of her HP-verse
and is currently playing with Newt Scamander and co.; true, both movies had POC
as actors, but if you compare it to, say, ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, then you notice
that J-Ro’s movies are notably underwhelming in that department. For its’ part –
and that is just as important – Disney’s remakes are at their best, when they
follow close the original animated movies, with just some differences, as ‘Aladdin
2019’ and the previously aired ‘Beauty and the Beast’ remake showed. When
differences are much greater, as they were in the ‘Dumbo’ remake, then Disney
begins to have problems. So far, TLK seems to be like the original movie; TLM,
judging by the trailers and teasers that we have seen – not so much, (though they
were sketchy, fair enough), so we will have to wait and see. This brings us to ‘Mulan
2020’, only not.
First, there is also the honorable mention of the
Ghostbusters remake; no, Disney did not make it, but it was a remake, and it failed. It was really quite ironic – there were
all those people arguing pro and contra, if the gender-flip of the original Ghostbusters
film was worthwhile – and then the movie flopped on its’ own merit, and that’s
the end of that aspect of the Ghostbusters franchise, as opposed to, say, the
comic crossover between them and TMNT, when the Shredder had killed some rival
crimelord, and the latter’s restless spirit returned as a ghost, and TMNT had
to team with the Ghostbusters, because their skills aren’t really effective
against a ghost… the Ghostbusters’ franchise is working out quite well, thank
you very much, movie flop or no flop.
This brings us to ‘Mulan 2020’, to TLK 2019, to TLM, and the
abovementioned point – racial issues do not matter, plot matters. ‘Mulan 2020’ is
rumored to be very much reworked from the original 90s’ animated feature,
meaning that it might have problems in 2020 when it comes to the big screen.
Those problems probably will not be exclusive to racial matters or cultural
appropriation, but Disney may pretend that they are, as they tried to do with
their SW films, and that now will be
a bad idea: Disney/SW merger may end at the end of the SW9 movie…or rather, the
current incarnation of SW franchise will. The merger itself will go on for a
while, as the numerous SW comics are indicating: the juggernaut is intently
trying to change the public opinion regarding the rebooted SW before the SW9
film comes out…with mixed success. Of course, Disney princesses as a whole have
their own comic series already, but that is different – SW, proportionally, is a
much more popular and more bought franchise out of the two… but let us wait
first until TLK comes out later this month (July 2019) before we make any
assumptions…
This is it for now; see you all soon!
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