Disney has been a classic family movie company, with movies like “Toy Story” and “Beauty and the Beast.” The brand definitely has rewatchable films, with IMDB stating that “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and “The Lion King” are in the top 20 most-watched movies of all time. Recently, however, Disney has been coming out with less and less quality content along with making the same movies over and over or adding sequels.
The Rolling Stone’s top three highest-rated Disney movies are “Bambi,” “Pinocchio” and the original “The Little Mermaid.” The top ten movies in this list came out before 2012, making it no surprise that Disney has been trying to recreate their older movies or create spin-offs. But sequels are never as good as the original movie, and spin-offs are almost always bad.
The reason for this is that it’s always noticeable when the sequel or spin-off is just created as a cash cow and most of the time they are. “Lightyear,” the “Toy Story” spin-off, is one of the lowest-grossing Disney movies of all time, and ScreenCrush estimates that the movie cost Disney around $100 million. The movie shows the little effort put into the film, and so does a new sequel, “Moana 2,” with it basically recreating the first movie.
In total, Disney has recreated 12 movies, with nine more remakes expected in the next couple of years. The remakes expected, such as “Bambi (Live Action),” “Lilo and Stitch (Live Action)” and “Tinker Bell (Live Action),” you can already tell will just be moneymakers.
Similarly, most of the newer Disney movies that aren’t sequels or spin-offs, as of the last five to ten years at least, have been terrible. Disney fans requested a hand-drawn classic-style movie, and so Disney created the movie that certified their downfall: “Wish.” This movie so clearly shows a lack of effort, with the lyrics to the songs making no sense, and the fact that instead of actual hand-drawn animation, they used computer animation that tried and failed to copy the style.
With computer animation already being used in all Disney movies, and the rise of artificial intelligence it’s hard to imagine Disney will be able to come back from their downfall. So when Disney comes out with their remake of “Snow White,” I’ll be at home sticking to rewatching those old Disney films that will always be ideal for a movie night.
