This is a modified transcription of an episode of Dyer’s Daily podcast. Between 2018 and 2023, the podcast series featured Jamie Dyer speaking for three minutes about a chosen subject, completely off the cuff. For a list of episodes on the official podcast page, see here.
This was part of the Disney100 series of Dyer’s Daily podcasts, where Jamie picked an element of Disney to discuss in their 100th anniversary year. This time, the millennial broadcaster and writer discussed Disney’s Live Action Remakes. This episode was originally released in 2022.
Please note: This transcript has been cleaned up to make it easier to read, but still maintains the same thoughts and ideas.
Disney, over the last 100 years, has told many stories and, in some cases, taken the opportunity to retell them. We all remember during the 90s there was a period where they were remaking some of their live-action films, such as That Darn Cat and Flubber. I’ve spoken about those before, but in recent years, we’ve seen them start to do live-action remakes of their classic animated films, like Dumbo, The Jungle Book, and Beauty and the Beast.
Now, this is a very controversial topic, and I would like to know where you stand on it. I have no problem with a remake because, after all, some of the greatest films of all time turned out to be remakes of a foreign language film or a film from decades earlier that’s been brought up to date. People still identify with the core of the story, and the extra bits on top just make it even more nostalgic for some.
But the thing with Disney is, their remakes are of stories that are so ingrained in our cultural landscape. A film like Pinocchio has been watched for over 80 years. So when I sat down to watch it recently, I was somewhat underwhelmed, but at the same time, I could appreciate what they were doing.
They were telling the story in some of the ways it was told originally, but then they changed some things to update it and make it a different film. The ending is different, some of the beats are different, and they’ve added new characters. Some people hate that, and I can understand—it’s one of the reasons why I refused to watch the new Aladdin, for example, or the new Lion King. I saw The Jungle Book, and to be honest, to me, Baloo, in Disney form, will always be Phil Harris.
Hearing Bill Murray do it was great, his own interpretation, but it isn’t Phil Harris, and it doesn’t have the magic or sometimes surreal scariness of those original Disney cartoons. So that is my question to you, dear listener. Do let me know via Twitter or Facebook—where do you stand on those live-action remakes that Disney continues to, as some might say, churn out?
Are they a waste of time? Are they just a corporate thing? Or is there something more there? Do let me know.
