DVDizzy Forum

Q: Do you have a favorite part of the movie you're looking forward to seeing in the live-action movie?

Christina Aguilera: In the beginning! Of both the original animated Mulan and this one, when Mulan is being “made up” to be mated. It is a fun visual scene & telling moment. I love a good makeover/ glam moment personally. But appreciate Mulan’s desire to remain true in to how she feels.

Q: What was your reaction when you got the call for Reflection 2020?

Christina Aguilera: I felt a new sense of pressure of course to challenge myself in adding new elements to the song vocally, but in a great way- being as this song holds so much meaning and importance to me & was the start of my career.

Q: What was the best part while making the music?

Christina Aguilera: Recording the new Reflection was actually very emotional for me. I teared up many times (had to swallow the emotion because I’m not an accurate singer while crying). I realized & appreciated how much has changed from the original place & time I recorded this song. Back then, I was so nervous & young. I wanted so badly to please & be heard, unsure of any future in the business. Now 20+ years of hard work later, I felt blessed & humbled to see my Grammys in view while recording in my own home studio. At my own pace & on my own terms.

Q: Which is your favorite version of Reflection? Can you pick between your babies?

Christina Aguilera: I am partial to the new version of Reflection for sure. Although I look back and smile at the version I did as a teen...I can hear the youth of a girl who doesn’t fully know herself or the power of her instrument yet. I’ve gotten to know myself better over the past 20 years and I am more aware of what I am capable of- having developed a deeper and more self assured tone, owning my voice now as a grown matured & experienced woman.

Q: Any special memories from recording Reflection back in the '90s?

Christina Aguilera: It’s funny I remember the label (my A&R guy at the time Ron Fair amongst others), freaking out as I had cut my hair RIGHT before shooting this video back as a teen just wanting to “experiment”. Little did we all know the power of a wig or extensions back then! An easy fix AND a discovery I’d have fun playing with the rest of my life! Just the start of realizing you can’t please everyone with the decisions you make & how image-conscious this business makes you. But that never stopped me from experimenting with endless looks for years to come.

Q: Do you and your kids have a favorite Disney film?

Christina Aguilera: Summer’s favorite movies right now are the Toy Story series. We particularly love to cozy up and watch old Disney classic cartoons — there’s one about “Bongo the Circus Bear”... it’s on Disney+!

Q: If you could sing any Disney princess songs (besides Mulan), which would you sing?

Christina Aguilera: Well I love the songs from Alice & Wonderland but I guess she’s not really technically a “princess” — I love the song “Once Upon a Dream” from Sleeping Beauty and “A Dream Is a Wish your Heart Makes” from Cinderella.

Q: What are your top 3 Disney movies?

Christina Aguilera: Alice in Wonderland, Sword in the Stone, original Mary Poppins with Julie Andrews.

DisneyFan97 wrote:So i am not the only one who misses the grandmother ?!

If you're upset the film did away with most of the original film's music, that wasn't always the case. Disney considered adding musical montages for some of the film's hits, including "Reflection" and "I'll Make a Man Out of You." They just couldn't find a way to make them work. "They were trying to figure out how best to honor the songs from the animated version, but they were struggling," Matthew Wilder, the animated film's composer, told Insider in March. "They were playing with the idea of creating montages for the movie to include song moments against picture, without the characters breaking into song," Wilder said.

Wilder wrote all of the songs to the 1998 animated film along with lyricist David Zippel. While Harry Gregson-Williams composes the live-action movie, both Wilder and Zippel returned for the 2020 film after pushback from fans at test screenings about the lack of music in the live-action remake. Wilder said he was invited to collaborate and try to weave some of the film's original songs into the score. Wilder had his first discussions with director Niki Caro and Zippel about the music direction of the film in late summer 2019. "I was working with Niki, one-on-one primarily to try to land the moments that she was looking for, focusing on 'Reflection' and 'I'll Make a Man Out of You," Wilder said.

By the time Wilder had joined, Disney had major successes with "Aladdin" and "The Lion King" back-to-back in May and July 2019. Both of those movies brought in well over $1 billion at the box office worldwide and may have placed an immense amount of pressure on what "Mulan" should be. Should "Mulan" have more music? Should it have a more serious tone? "We were there to experiment and [Caro] didn't really know what she wanted," said Wilder. "It was up to me, to a large extent, to try to understand how best to put into play the notes that she was giving me. She knew in her heart of hearts that she just wanted this movie to be different and not necessarily be a rubber-stamped version, if you will, of the animated film." "The conversations, as you can imagine, were very animated," he continued. "Things are being put up and discarded very quickly. No, that's not it, that's not right. That's not it. It's trial by error. I had my frustrations in that process, but, I was there to serve the film."

Wilder didn't know when he joined they would forgo a lyrical version of 'Reflection.' "I didn't know that," Wilder said, noting that the version of the film he saw when he first joined was different from where it wound up. "David rewrote the lyrics to 'I'll Make a Man Out of You' and rewrote the lyrics to 'Reflection' to try to accommodate this updated version and the context in which the song needed to exist." Wilder said, similar to the 1998 film, "I'll Make a Man Out of You" would have played along with the training sequence. Mulan and her comrades are seen fighting, shooting arrows, and in formation. "Then there's a very long scene with Mulan doing the sword training by the water and then carrying the pails up the mountain. We were using 'Reflection,' with lyric as scoring," Wilder said. "The collective decision was that it wasn't working in the film that [Walt Disney Studios motion picture president of production] Sean Bailey and Niki Caro really wanted to make," he added.

Wilder said they made several demos of the songs that were never utilized in the live-action movie. They also pitched an all-female version of "I'll Make a Man Out of You" for a possible end title to the film. "They didn't go for it. They felt it was not part of the fabric of what they wanted to convey in the mood of the new Mulan," Wilder said, adding, "And it kicks ass. I'll tell you."

The final version of the film, uses the "Reflection" theme in a few different moments, including the bucket scene. "I'll Make a Man Out of You" is referenced in a moment of dialogue. "Honor to Us All" can be heard when Mulan prepares to visit the matchmaker. "You can imagine after all of that work, the songs being placed in that context with no lyric and just melody, it had a very different impact for us as songwriters and the way that it plays in the movie," Wilder said of how the songs exist in the live-action film.

When asked how he felt, knowing only the melodies for some songs would appear in the movie, Wilder took a moment to respond. "I don't want to imbue this interview with any kind of negativity, but emotionally, it's difficult because we worked so hard on the '98 version," Wilder said. Wilder added, "For me to tell you that I wasn't disappointed that we didn't get the opportunity to really fly our flag, if you will, as songwriters, I'd be lying if I told you that there wasn't an element of disappointment there."

Marce82 wrote:Ooooh... Fareb...


I can TOTALLY see what you mean about certain elements "borrowed" from Wonder Woman and Star Wars.... and they don't fit here.

And I agree, this one is one of the better live-action remakes... but to me, that is a pretty low bar, cause I think most of them are terrible. And I agree, this is like another adaptation of the source material, not an adaptation of an adaptation. I just wish they had made better choices, cause I felt this movie had REAL potential.

But yeah, I don't think I'll revisit this movie... like most of the live action remakes. I recently saw the live action Jungle Book, and it was one of the better ones, but still mediocre.

Is it weird that the only live action remake I truly enjoy is the first half of 101 Dalmatians?

Sotiris wrote:Apparently, Disney considered putting the songs back in after the film tested poorly in late summer 2019 (The film currently sports a mere 56% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes which means audience's feelings haven't changed since then

DisneyFan09 wrote: But the very worst part of the movie was Liu Yifei, who was a complete miscast as Mulan! Besides looking much younger than her actual age, she was completely absent of any charisma, spark or appeal! Everything about her was completely bland, wooden and stilted and didn`t put any emotion whatsoever into her acting. None of the other actors were particularly memorable, either, but Yifei was completely unbearable at her part! It was just painful to watch her!

Disney's Divinity wrote:]I guess those rumors about her terrible acting that came out several years back weren’t too off. To think they kept a bad actress who did nothing but bring political baggage to the film. Too bad they didn’t re-cast back while they still had the chance. But on the bright side I guess it’s another thing that will harm the likelihood of the sequel having much success at the box office; I always thought the girl who played Alice in the AiW re-make was pretty meh, and then ATtLG bombed way more than anyone could’ve expected. Is this actress worse than Alice’s to you, DisneyFan09?

estefan wrote:I get the sense it's frustrating being Disney and hearing different audience demands for the remakes. "The Lion King" and "Beauty and the Beast" were knocked for being too close to the animated film, while before release, there were already complaints of "Mulan" lacking songs and Mushu. And there also seems to be a divide with "Mulan" from critics who are pleased it's not a carbon copy and audiences who are underwhelmed at the lack of elements from the animated film. If I was running Disney, I would be thinking "So you don't want the same movie? But you also want the same movie?"

This weekend, Mulan began a soft theatrical rollout in the markets where Disney+ is not a factor. The live-action update on the animated classic grossed an estimated $5.9M from nine hubs, landing No. 1 in the UAE, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. In both Singapore and Thailand it scored the best opening weekend of 2020. The UAE weekend was 6% ahead of Cinderella. In Taiwan, it bowed No. 2 with $1.2M.

Disney’s Mulan arrives in China next Friday. It’s going to be a crowded market leading into the National Day celebration.

Disney hasn’t reported Mulan Disney+ revenue figures, and I imagine they won’t until an earnings call, together with the pic’s overseas box office. This weekend, the Niki Caro-directed movie opened to $5.9M from Croatia, Czech Rep, Middle East, Slovakia, Turkey, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.

Rival industry sources with knowledge of PVOD are figuring that Disney may not have earned great presales on Disney+ for Mulan, where the pic was available for $29.99. The studio quickly announced it would be free in early December on the service, and all eyes are watching to see how quickly the film floats to Amazon and GooglePlay services before that free-date.