Destructive Disney.

I'm 30 years old and still have much growing up to do, for better or worse. That's almost immediately reflected in my cinematic taste; even now I go to see a great deal of family films, especially Disney ones. Hell, my current top ten of this decade includes Big Hero 6, and my #1 of 2017 was Coco! I just believe that while maturity is definitely important, if you disconnect with your inner child all your optimism and impressionability will go with it.

I should also stress now that I will really struggle (even more than usual) to be objective in this post, so I won't even bother trying. All movie studios have been guilty of regurgitation to some degree, whether by rehashing previous concepts or making blatant remakes. Those are nearly as old as cinema itself, in fact. But Disney's latest projects have increasingly stuck in my craw: remakes of their massive hits from the 1990s known as the Disney Renaissance (although to be pedantic which I apologise for, 1989's The Little Mermaid began that). I was down for 2017's version of Beauty and the Beast because I actually wasn't that fussed on the 1991 version (although, admittedly, I somehow never saw it as a kid). I'm also interested in the upcoming new Dumbo because that has Tim Burton involved. But when they announced a remake of The Lion King, which is like a sacred relic of a movie to me (I still have my VHS copy), I was naturally livid. Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, who directed the original, I think should pulled all the stops out to veto that. Then when they announced an Aladdin remake, which is surely disrespectful to Genie Robin Williams' memory, I was also annoyed. God forbid if they dare to do a new Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs...

I would be all for them re-releasing these classics (albeit not in 3D), but in most cases not remaking them. Not to mention (and come to think of it I can actually say this objectively), Disney insisting on remaking these animated movies in live action is arguably patronising to their target audience. If children can still become obsessed with cartoons (both hand- and computer-animated) on TV and in print, I have no doubt they could still enjoy such feature-length cartoons however they saw them. Just don't hype said flicks up too much for them. The famous Disney Vault policy, whereby the studio repeatedly re-releases their animated films briefly before taking them out of print until a new generation of kids come along, always gave me cognitive dissonance, but at least it shows respect for the company's heritage and key demographic. I don't think remaking their animated movies, particularly in live action, does that one bit. And I daresay I think Walt would have concurred.