I kind of brought this up in the film ranking thread and ended up throwing it off topic, so I thought I’d start a new thread asking this question.
Let’s face it, as beloved as many Disney films are, some of them are starting to show their age. Many hold very old-fashioned views of love and relationships that people might find sexist today. I know it kind of goes with the territory of many fairy tales, but I feel that Disney as of late has been improving on this with films like Tangled and The Princess and the Frog, which have been giving their love interest characters much more depth than in the past.
I thought about this after watching Bambi and noticing how pretty much every single female character except Bambi’s mom only existed to be a love interest, and none of the male characters do that much to earn their love (except for fighting off the other deer, granted. But Faline was already in love with him at that time). It made me think back to WALL-E and how the central romance was presented with so much more depth there.
Also, the movie’s only 70 minutes long, and skips a pretty significant portion of Bambi’s life immediately after his most traumatic experience. I know there was a direct-to-video midquel that addressed this, but it still doesn’t seamlessly fit in with the original’s narrative (which still doesn’t make a lot of sense as neither the original movie nor the midquel explain why Bambi, Flower, and Thumper have apparently not seen each other for a while before the twitterpating scene).
I know Bambi is considered a timeless classic by a lot of people (and allegedly Walt Disney’s favorite work), but the whole time I watched it I couldn’t help feeling that it could be done so much better today. Andrew Stanton and Pixar would be the perfect match for the story, IMO, as it’s a mix of the familial themes of Finding Nemo and the near-silent but musical ambience of WALL-E.
So, there’s my little semi-review/rant. Anyone else feel this way about any Disney films?
Remakes are pretty much always a bad idea. Disney needs to keep moving forward, and make new films, not drag the old ones back from the dead. And no matter how much Pixar could improve on old films, I don’t think they would want to. Classics should just be left alone.
I would never support a remake, unless I had already seen it, and it was better than the first. I don’t think any Disney movie should be remade. I agree with Reaper that they should move on to new ideas.
See, that’s the kind of generalizing that I was trying to refute in my original post. There have been many great remakes as of late such as the Coen brothers’ True Grit as well as The Departed, and those were remakes of films that were much younger than Bambi.
Normally I would agree with you that classics should be left alone as in most cases they really are as good as they’re going to get. But I don’t think that’s the case with Bambi, whose narrative is just so glaringly flawed compared to later Disney and Pixar that I bet if it were released today it wouldn’t be received nearly as well as it was in the 40s. Heck, the only thing the film is really remembered for is its daring depiction of a parent’s death, and even then there’s a pretty jarring mood whiplash right after that scene.
If there’s one good thing I can take out of Pixar’s recent slate of sequels, it’s that they might be more willing to take on something like this eventually (and I bet Disney would too given that they’ve already done it with Alice in Wonderland and 101 Dalmatians to much financial success).
I don’t think True Grit counts as a remake, it was just another adaption of the same book, and was much more faithful than the older film (so I’ve heard, I haven’t seen it yet). Another example of this would be I am Legend, which really had nothing in common between the two movies, but shared the same source material.
I’m pretty sure 99.9% of all disney fans are opposed to the idea of remaking 2d films in cgi. And since I think most people working at disney animation are fans of older disney film, the would probably agree. The only reason this would happen would be if some executive who doesn’t know what makes a good movie thinks that this would be a good way to make money.
Good luck finding someone to agree with you though!
Exactly. Same with 101 Dalmatians and the Burton disaster that was last year’s Alice in Wonderland (that’s not a remake, in any way, of the Disney animated film).
Well, Bambi was originally a book too. I’m so keen on this idea precisely because I wouldn’t want a carbon copy remake of the original film. Now, from what I’ve heard about the source material, I’m not sure what I want exactly is a more faithful adaptation, but certainly something deeper and more focused than the Disney film.
But you (and those 99.9% of Disney fans) are making the assumption that a “re-adaptation” if you prefer to call it that would automatically be a bad film; which I disproved in my last post. Yes, Disney did screw up with 101 Dalmatians, which I will agree didn’t need to be remade, certainly not in the garish, live action format they went with. But if Disney did decide to readapt one of their films, I would much rather it be in CGI than live action, which would be more expensive and consequently would encourage a higher quality film, especially if they entrusted it to Pixar.
My point is that no matter how good of a film it could be, it would be unnecessary. It could be the greatest film ever made, and every one would still hate it for what it would represent.
Honestly, I don’t think they would, at least once it was actually released. People have warmed up to remakes in the past if they do turn out great. It happened with Let Me In, with True Grit, and with The Departed. Heck, even before True Grit was released a lot of people were excited about the prospect of a Coen brothers reimagining of the property. And did you know that the Humphrey Bogart Maltese Falcon was a remake? Even the direct-to-DVD midquel of Bambi that doesn’t follow the source material at all has gained a bit of a following just because it’s better than all Disney’s other cheap sequels.
So knowing this, why would you support such a narrow view of remakes? In reality they have about the same success rate as films in general (i.e. 90% of them are crap). If someone really had a new vision for the material and could give a good reason for why it should be remade (as I believe I have in this case), I don’t see what should keep people from supporting it besides their own nostalgia.
Except for The Departed, none of the films you name are technically remakes, and even that one, wasn’t widely acknowledged by the audiences as one, as just a few people knew it was a remake of Infernal Affairs, an obscure Asian movie for those who aren’t huge film fans. Same with the first Maltese Falcon, a film with poor reviews and not much of an audience.
But when you take a film like Bambi (which is loved by most), and you attempt to make it again, the reception is rarely lukewarm. Granted, it can be a box office success like Burton’s Wonderland, but it will be very difficult to find someone who like it.
In my opinion, there are very few films who can stand a remake. None of them is a Disney animated classic. Maybe Winnie the Pooh, and that one is already getting a reboot.
Yeah, but now it just seems like you guys are arbitrarily re-working the word remake to fit films that you either did or didn’t enjoy. And you’re also cherry-picking examples as well. There is nothing wrong with remakes, re-adaptations, re-imaginings or whatever you feel like adding re- to without saying the buzzword that’s practically become an expletive.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is much closer to the book in many ways, but it’s railed against pretty hard and only seems to have fans among hard core Burtonians and Deppster addicts.
The 1990 version of Night of the Living Dead is held to a higher standard than the original in some circles. And Dawn of the Dead pretty much split fans down the middle.
Neither version of Planet of the Apes came close to the book. And all 6 films are incredibly hokey. But for some reason it’s blasphemy to remake it.
I haven’t seen Return To Oz, but that’s supposedly the only cinematic feature that even came close to the tone and characterization of the books. Even including the one written by Baum himself. Yet people will scoff if you try to go after the 1939 version again.
We’re going to back to True Grit on this one because this one was pretty dang acclaimed. I mean huge acclaim. So this argument that says that something that was done so right the first time shouldn’t be touched again no matter how far it deviates from the source material is for the birds. It shouldn’t be brought up again in my opinion.
There is nothing wrong with going in again. It’s all in the execution. Each new version offers something new. Even shot for shot remakes like Psycho (the film was a bold experiment in how far someone would go to protect a property from re-interpretation).
Let’s not forget that a lot of Disney’s canon are based on tales that many claim have been done better elsewhere.
The only thing I agree with is that Disney should not start plundering their own past for new features. They should always look to the future. Maybe a sequel it they simply must. But never a remake. It isn’t fair to them, it isn’t fair to us and it isn’t fair to the kids of tomorrow.
Now if another studio wants to do it, they can have at it. But for Disney, just no.
Thanks for summing up my feelings on this, and I think this will be the general consensus. Wasn’t it Walt who said “keep moving forward”? And that exactly what disney needs to start doing.
Nope, I’m not arbitrary reworking anything. Here are the parameters:
When a film is based on a book, it’s simply an adaptation, no matter if it’s been adapted before (unless it heavily takes elements from the first one).
For a film to be considered a remake, it has to have its sources on an earlier movie.
I’m not sure how fairness enters into this. If you think something you did in the past can be done better today, how is it “not fair” to want to improve on it?
I’ve noticed that none of you have yet tried to argue with my criticisms of the film. So it seems to me that you all agree that it has flaws but that it should be left alone just because it’s a classic.
Its got flaws sure, but most movies do, and all of those flaws are the result of age. Those things are part of what makes it a classic in the first place. The movie is a little piece of history that should be left alone as we “keep moving forward” and make new films and keep innovating without messing with something that was done just fine the first time.
You’re right, so let’s address the two points you made:
1- The lack of female characters. You can argue that about a huge percentage of films (mainly of that era) and that’s not a reason to consider it a flaw.
Besides, it was a very realistic way to show how animals mate. They’re not “married” like in other talking animal films.
2- It’s true it makes an ellipsis between the mother’s dead and the twitterpating part, but so does the novel, and I’m not really bothered by that. It’s almost like the ellipsis on some Dickens novels, where the main character gets older from one chapter to the next.
I saw the film last week, and while I remember it not being my favorite when I was a kid, I now understand it’s one of Disney’s more mature films. Can’t say the same about Dumbo, which is very good too, anyway.
It has nothing to do with it being a classic. I’m perfectly fine with a remake from anyone else but Disney Animation.
When it comes to fairness I meant in the sense that we did not grow up watching remakes of Melody Time, Fun and Fancy Free and the Jungle Book, we got all new films from the studio. New and different films that gained their own fans despite their flaws.
I wouldn’t want some kid 20 years from now to watch a Disney remake of Aladdin anymore than a kid from the 40s wanted their kids to watch a Disney remake of Bambi. Disney had their chance. This is the film they made. It wasn’t a prototype it was the final product.
Heck, I’d be fine with another branch of the company doing the film. Pixar could do it although I wouldn’t want them to. But as for the actual studio itself they shouldn’t go back on their own canon. Not because the canon is sacred but because for better or worse the canon is what it is. A record of growth for the studio over the past 70 years. Nearly every new entry something different. Maybe if they decide to close the studio one day they could go full-circle and redo Snow White. But right now, just let things be.
And that’s why I’d rather they redo the story entirely than release some Digitally Remastered “Special Edition” every time they take it out of the Disney Vault, because all the added visual touches only make the narrative flaws more apparent to a modern audience.
As far as remakes go, Bambi’s been left pretty unscathed compared to Disney’s other fairy tale adaptations. And IMO, Disney’s already made far worse violations of the “keep moving forward” mantra this decade. I don’t see how one remake of a 70-year-old film would hurt.
I’m not criticizing the lack of female characters, I’m criticizing the fact that the ones that are there are only there to serve as love interests or fridge stuffing. They have almost no agency in the film. I would’ve liked to see what exactly drew Faline so immediately to Bambi as it seemed like it didn’t require a whole lot of effort on his part until she was already in love with him.
It probably wouldn’t bother me as much if the jump weren’t right after such a traumatic event in Bambi’s life. I need to see how he copes with it and how he becomes the much happier buck he is right after the ellipsis.
Yeah, that was actually what I was insinuating at. I’d want Pixar to do the remake, not Disney Animation, because they have a spotless track record and have experience with deep talking animal stories.
I think one of the reasons of that spotless record is that all their films are original. Don’t know why, but it adds a lot to the Pixar charm. I would never want them to do a remake or adaptation.
