In response to the linked article...
Disney remaking already extant Disney movies is hardly a new thing. They've been doing it at least since the mid-1990's, the same time frame the author complained about direct-to-video movies -- only back then, they rewrote their live action movies. It's not all that surprising that they've finally made the leap to do the same with their more classic animated material.
At least with the recent version of Alice in Wonderland, it was more like a sequel than a rewrite, and Maleficent had a slant
a la Once Upon A Time, in that we've got part of the story wrong.
Okay, that's pretty much how I feel.
Continuing from my above comments:
It's pretty much how I felt in the mid-1990's when they began to crank out
complete rewrites of older movies and slapped on the old title. To me, the writers changed more than was necessary to keep the new movie relevant to the kids of the day. They changed so much of the story that the new movies were knock-offs of the original and not really remakes. That is, the new movies clearly aren't the same story as the first, yet are obviously ripped from them. The 1998 version of The Parent Trap was fairly close to the original and, at times, surpasses it in quality (although I must ask, "why rename the twins?"). And as much as I like the
second remake of Freaky Friday, it's just not as comedic as the original movie.
), but still this is going to be a strange medium shift. Honestly I'm made uncomfortable by Jungle Book for the same reason. Let's watch a lot of CG animals! Why? The reason the animated art form exists is in part to let storytellers minds go wild. You can't afford to have an army of thousands? Paint it in. Can't travel to the middle of the Savannah? That can be drawn. Want to have singing talking animals? Easy. The potential is limitless. In the same way some things deserve to be painted and not sculpted, some things need to be animated. That's not a bad thing. It's just different.
