Which are worse: Direct-to-Video sequels Vs. Live-Action Remakes?

[Farerb]

Direct-to-Video sequels Vs. Live-Action Remakes, which are worse?

[Sotiris]

The live-action remakes, hand down. The direct-to-video films actually have artistic merit to them. Personally, I would rather re-watch the "worst" DTV film over the "best" remake, any day.

[PatchofBlue]

I have actually given this question A LOT of thought.

What it really comes down to for me is which one leaves a greater wake of destruction. We're living in the shadow of the DTV sequels whereas it's not entirely clear yet what the repercussions of the remakes will be.

I hold the DTV sequels primarily responsible for the death of hand-drawn animation, which is a pretty heavy casualty. But the remakes are often billed as corrections or apologies for their animated source material, and I can't even begin to imagine what the long-term effects of that will be.

I'll give the edge to the sequels because most of the remakes actually had decent production value, but we'll see.

[blackcauldron85]

I think the live action remakes are worse. Disney already told us these stories, please move on and tell us new stories.

Yes, some DTVs are derivative of the originals (I love it, but L&tT2 fits here), but they still have new characters and songs and they are different stories.

Live action remakes = same characters, same stories, often same songs.

[Disney's Divinity]

I think both are a mixed bag. I went with DTV sequels though. I think of the remakes much like a I think of musical versions, and the films can be remade again and again, these won't be the only versions--in fact, I expect the process to begin again with Cinderella, Alice, Sleeping Beauty, etc. somewhere in the next decade. Whereas the sequels are semi-attached to the originals, often packaged with them and so on.

EDIT: I accidentally voted for remakes. Oh, well, like I said, they're about even, so no big deal. I guess the DTV sequels--aside from hurting hand-drawn animation in their past--are mostly harmless, like long TV series episodes.

[Kyle]

The remakes are worse for the simple fact that they are higher budget, heavily marketed affairs. as bad as the Direct-to-Video sequels were, the casual disney viewer doesn't know half of them exist. They are easily ignored for the most part. With the remakes you now have to specify which one.

[Vlad]

The remakes, simply because their sole purpose is to "correct" the originals' "errors", and because the studio kinda wants them to replace the originals. Something which has never happened so far.

[Sotiris]

But the remakes are often billed as corrections or apologies for their animated source material, and I can't even begin to imagine what the long-term effects of that will be.

Well, for one it tarnishes the reputation of the originals. Disney is saying to the world "yes, we agree with the criticisms; these movies are indeed problematic, outdated, and morally questionable". There's no way that won't affect how they are perceived by people, and especially by future generations, or how they be treated by pop culture.

I hold the DTV sequels primarily responsible for the death of hand-drawn animation, which is a pretty heavy casualty.

A lot of people think that, but I honestly don't believe they had that much of an impact. If anything, it was Pixar and CG animation who did the killing.

I think the live action remakes are worse. Disney already told us these stories, please move on and tell us new stories.

Agreed. They're inherently less creative and original.

The remakes, simply because their sole purpose is to "correct" the originals' "errors", and because the studio kinda wants them to replace the originals. Something which has never happened so far.

They're really trying with The Little Mermaid though.

[The_Iceflash]

The remakes, simply because their sole purpose is to "correct" the originals' "errors", and because the studio kinda wants them to replace the originals. Something which has never happened so far.

It truly is a shame that the remakes are being created with this purpose. It’s undermining the artistry and talents of those who made the originals the classics that they are. What Disney should be doing is celebrating their legacy instead of acting embarrassed by their past. The remakes have been of originals that don’t need correcting. I think we can all think of better ways of celebrating Disney’s vast library of classics than to remake them.

Look at his video. It’s Howard Ashman painstakingly going though how exactly he wants Part of your World to sound. The run-through we hear, good enough for most, isn’t good enough for him. He pushes until we hear the perfection that we hear in the film. I can’t understand why someone would try to remake that and “fix” or “correct” what Howard worked hard to perfect. That’s not a knock on the efforts of the talented cast of the remakes. It’s questioning the motives of those in charge of greenlighting and creating these remakes in the first place. The second video shows Pat Carroll recording the voice of Ursula. Again, perfection is the goal and I don’t know why the need to redo that.

https://youtu.be/AWTJkyLWgrk

https://youtu.be/W9NWt3yViJ4

[PatrickvD]

The DTV’s. And it’s not even close. I can still get physically angry when I think about how piss poor the animation is in most of them.

They have diluted Disney animation as a brand and it never recovered.

[Warm Regards]

I voted for remakes being worse.

Disney themselves doesn't treat the sequels as canon (ex: I've never seen a Princess Melody meet and greet).

Compare this to the feeling that the live action remakes are trying to make the animated films more "realistic." Because somehow being an animated film is thought of as a flaw and not a feature.

Also - there are really good editors online that can use the footage from the Disney sequels to tell their own stories. I'm fondly appreciative toward fan works and creatives who can take a dumb film and make something endearing.

[Marce82]

Darn... what a cruel thread. It's like:

QUICK! What would you rather drink? Bleach or turpentine!?!?!?

[Vlad]

The remakes, simply because their sole purpose is to "correct" the originals' "errors", and because the studio kinda wants them to replace the originals. Something which has never happened so far.

They're really trying with The Little Mermaid though.

Yup, this is the first time they put the character's version in the live action as meet and greet in Disneyland. To be honest, I can totally see a kid asking his mom who that character is, and the mom would say Ariel, and the kid would say "That's not Ariel!"

[UmbrellaFish]

It has actually happened a few times, I know Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent met guests when the original movie premiered. Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland has had the most staying power at the parks— not only is there a walkthrough attraction based on this version at Shanghai Disneyland, but Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter has appeared as a face character for Halloween events at California Adventure and Tokyo Disneyland (look up the Tokyo event, it is quite deservedly infamous!). And not quite the same thing, but the “Lightyear” version of Buzz Lightyear met guests at Disneyland last year when the movie premiered.

Anyway, I will vote that the DTV sequels were worse! Neither trend has produced great movies, but if I’m honest with myself I enjoy a lot more remakes than DTV sequels. I think the only advantage the DTV sequels have over the remakes is they are no longer being produced! haha

[The Disneynerd]

I find the remakes 100% worse. As some of you have said here, Disney is trying to replace the originals with the remakes, which then speaks against it, with their talk that they want to make a tribute to the classics or honor them. Instead, the DTV sequels do the opposite and embrace the original films (for cheap revenue, of course) but for that they don't endanger the films, since the films don't have to be considered canon (which I do with most of them). Besides, there's nothing new about the remakes and that rewatchable feeling the classics deliver isn't there either. (After seeing the remakes in theaters, I had mostly never watched them again and dont plan to do so). The DTV movies seem to be mostly boring or don't make sense, but atlest they expand somehow the stories, and there are still 2 or 3 very good movies that have animation that is almost as good and that have a good plotline and expansion, like Cinderella 3 or Lilo and Stitch 2.
The only remake that was acceptable was Cinderella, but that's it.

[Vlad]

It has actually happened a few times, I know Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent met guests when the original movie premiered. Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland has had the most staying power at the parks— not only is there a walkthrough attraction based on this version at Shanghai Disneyland, but Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter has appeared as a face character for Halloween events at California Adventure and Tokyo Disneyland (look up the Tokyo event, it is quite deservedly infamous!). And not quite the same thing, but the “Lightyear” version of Buzz Lightyear met guests at Disneyland last year when the movie premiered.

I did not know that. But predictably, the remake versions of the characters would never replace the original. It seems to me, as Sotiris said, that Disney is pushing this with The Little Mermaid...harder than ever before. I don't know why. Ariel is very iconic, and as talented as Halle Bailey is, she is no Jodi Benson. I'm looking forward to next year, when Snow White comes out, to hear Rachel Zegler gloat at how better her version of the character will be compared to the original one. I had a good opinion on her, I liked her in West Side Story, but after hearing what she had to say about the original and her hypocritical comments on the Lilo & Stitch casting, I like her less and less.

[Disney's Divinity]

Darn... what a cruel thread. It's like:

QUICK! What would you rather drink? Bleach or turpentine!?!?!?

[DisneyFan09]

They're really trying with The Little Mermaid though.

You know, despite how this remake tried to fix some of the criticism, surprisingly enough it didn`t try to fix all of the issues lobbed at the original that naysayers have whined about (and just to be clear: I`m going to mention what the purists have said, not me): How Ariel gives up everything for a man she`s barely met, how Ariel never interacts with Eric before saving him, how Ariel and Triton never apologizes to each other for what they`ve done to each other, how Ariel has a naive outlook on the human world, how there`s never a backstory to show how Ariel gets her fascination for the human world and Triton`s hatred for them.
In fact, this remake even messed up the latter reason by making the same mistake that Ariel`s Beginning did: How Ariel`s mother gets killed by humans. Which I`ve always dreaded, since it has no logical resonanse towards Ariel`s fascination (as it should`ve had an opposite effect on her). At least Beginning had a logical devise for it, by making Ariel forgetting what happened to her mother. But in the remake it was mentioned barely once and never dwelled upon again. In fact, it was never ever revealed what connection Ariel truly had to her mother and how old she was when her mother died, which was lazy writing.. In fact, the remake who was truly trying to fix all the issues lobbed at the original, was Beauty and the Beast. Which seemed to be obsessed with fixing every single scrutiny the animated predecessor had.

[PatchofBlue]

I feel like Disney's motivations behind pushing LA Ariel are 1. Pushback against the racist backlash toward the movie, and 2. They can tell they're running short on reliable remake properties (the Moana remake is still kind of a wild card right now) and so they want to get as much as they can out of this one.

I would probably feel different if The Little Mermaid wasn't one of the rare remakes I didn't hate, but I'm kind of okay with them giving LA Ariel as much real estate as they are now. It's unusual for them to feature a LA version of the character in the parks (unusual, not unprecedented), but I think it's a special opportunity both for the actress performing them and the little girls who would be especially validated seeing them. It creates a weird branding wrinkle with their being two Ariels who look entirely different, sure, but I think the pay-offs overtake the drawbacks. Either way, it's not unusual for newer properties to get a ton of promotion at the start and then fade into relative obscurity after the fact. What I think will happen is before long they'll probably return to animated Ariel as the default and only bring out LA Ariel for special events. (I'll be curious to see if they try this with Snow White next year, especially since I'm not anticipating enjoying that one ...)

[UmbrellaFish]

The Voyage of the Little Mermaid stage show at Hollywood Studios went dark with the pandemic and never returned. Apparently, it was taken off WDW’s official website earlier this year so the rumor is that it is officially, unceremoniously closed.

I haven’t heard any rumors about possible replacements and they could always just demolish the theatre if the stage show really is closed, but how wonderful would it be if they wrote a new stage show for Halle’s Ariel to go into that space? With “Voyage” closed, TLM has no more presence in Hollywood Studios besides a small segment in Fantasmic. But how fun would it be for Ariel fans to meet ‘89 Ariel at Magic Kingdom and watch a stage show about ‘23 Ariel at Hollywood Studios?? It would make so sad to see that theatre repurposed into a non-TLM attraction, or worse, demolished.