The best thing about the shows and movies I love is they aren't universally adored, so nobody's coming to do remakes that people want. Okay, Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas is still working on a Last Unicorn stage show and possibly a movie. I've already ranted about how I hate musical versions of movies existing. The reports of the live action movie cropped up two years ago and there's been nothing since. 22 years ago they were trying to get another version out of pre-production hell, there were models being made and Christopher Lee was signed on to play Haggard. The Lord of the Rings movies could've bolstered more want for this version, but they didn't strike while the iron was hot. Discussing it now means you could end up comparing it to the piece of shit Lion King "live-action" remake, which when I immediately saw it I was unreasonably angry and even more unreasonably pissed on behalf of the furry community. The entire lack of facial expressions in the remake, coupled with the complete lack of energy and entertainment it offered as opposed to the cartoon, I'm still ranting about that. Disney remakes look so fucking boring. Aladdin looks like a Bollywood movie, if you're going to have a full, comical parade of pure chaos and illusion, you're not getting that much action with the live action format. It looked flat and boring and empty. Animation can offer so much dynamism, we loved the cartoons because they were fun and exciting and full of energy, the live action versions are devoid of life. I have no interest in any of them. But they do so well financially they keep making them. The Little Mermaid seemed to suffer the same fate, there are only so many fish and turtles and other marine life you can put in the Under the Sea scene before you've run out of hard drive space. 2D animation seems limited but in these instances it's not. You can be more bombastic and exaggerated, and none of that is in the live action version unless it's one character flapping around being annoying. You can fill the entire frame with zany characters and colour, you can choreograph with more imagination, be more fantastic with it. There's none of this weird negative space that the live action remake delivers.
The only remake I could get behind would be the Never Ending Story. Reboot the original and the sequel, don't bother with the third one. The book has so much in it that would be interesting to explore, the Childlike Empress has more agency in her own survival, Bastian goes on a much darker journey once he's in Fantasia. (Or Fantastica, as it's referred to in the German version). You could still marry practical effects with CGI, I think you could do something amazing with it. Maybe if that was animated, you'd have some room to do a lot with the characters. I'd even live with an updated soundtrack despite the original being perfect. You could do an updated version of the theme at least, that'll lure the kids in. You can do a slow piano rendition over the trailer, too. There's so much space for this. There's also already been a fake campaign pop up. Now I look into it, Kathleen Kennedy was working towards a new story back in 2009 but there appears to be a rights issue with Warner Bros. The author Michael Ende has since passed and he too has an estate that was interested in a TV series, again Lord of the Rings being bought by Amazon to make a new series had more to do with selling more books than getting a good adaptation. At least Ende's estate is pickier about who adapts his shit, but yeah a live action TV show might be cool, something similar to Dark Crystal, which I have fonder memories of as a kid but don't like as much as an adult.
Labyrinth comes to mind as deserving a better remake, I like this isn't based on a book but without Bowie, maybe people wouldn't be interested. Looks like a sequel is more likely. Sequels with massive time lapses from the original feel more like placating an audience that would hate you for remaking the original, so they do the soft reboot/remake instead, and they can go either way. But according to what I'm skimming over, they want a firm sequel to the original story. The manga version was enjoyable, it would make a good movie but I doubt it'll be included, so now you have a possibly non-canonical story attached.
I don't hate the idea of soft reboots but they don't thrill me much either. I had no care for The Force Awakens and I will likely go to my grave never seeing Rise of Skywalker. Star Wars has been a huge litmus test for how badly people can fuck up franchises of beloved IPs, I am sincerely sick of there being more content than ever. Another folly of Disney was getting their hands on the franchise like it was a new, shiny toy, spamming all the bells and whistles then crying when it stopped working though they have no idea they broke it. It was like giving money to irresponsible people who've never had money then being astounded when they blew it all on stupid shit and had nothing to show for it. I get you wanted an immediate return on investment, with as much merchandising and tie-ins as possible, you had no care for the fate of the story or its world. Disney can't be trusted with their own properties, they've lost Steamboat Willy, we're comin' for the rest of the Mickeys. They can't keep lobbying to protect their own interests. I'd like to see their power deteriorate one day. But the Disney adults keep resuscitating them and they'll be resurrected eventually.
The one thing to suffer under the heavy weight of expectation is Avatar: The Last Airbender. I have a huge respect for this show, I've done a full review of thoughts on how inventive it was with its story. I shunned the M. Night adaptation and I've seen enough of it through other people to know it's hopeless. So, when they were pumping up a live action TV show with the original creators back in 2017 (I think), I joked M. Night was being kicked out of the boardroom meetings after offering is "advice" on how to make it. They replaced the creators who want to work on more animated stories in the same universe, then gave it to a director who's made a worse movie than anything M. Night ever did. The TV show seems to be going for the dark drama angle and eschewed the comedy, maybe it's better written, it looks better visually, it was highly amusing they opted to go with someone who's movie making track record (two movies, both not well received) was worse than the worst person most people think of when they think of worst directors. That's not fair to M. Night, he's competent at least visually, it's his writing that sucks. I was an M. Night hater since the Sixth Sense, it's not a good movie all it's hype rested on a twist. I think we need to leave Avatar alone now, I think there should be a point where we say no to new live action adaptations of cartoons purely because we have the technology to do something with it. Let people have their cartoons.
I'm going over someone's reaction to the new live action show. It sounds like it's already been taken apart in terms of narrative. There's nothing negative to say in terms of appearance, it looks like they got the fight scenes down, so it'll get points for being better than M Night's contribution. I think fans having attractions to teenage characters isn't anything to do with them being adults now. They may have been teens when Avatar came out, had reasonable crushes on those characters, and their inner kids are the ones crushing on the characters now. I don't think it's entirely about them wanting to fuck teens. I could be wrong, I think people just misunderstand what's going on with these people. What they want is a realistic interpretation of their favourite cartoon characters and all the memberberries are being activated when they see this shit as adults. Some of us adults have very strong memories of childhood crushes, you want to nostalgia bait adults you have to appeal to the inner child you originally enthralled. That's what's really going on. And people are articulating this so badly, they should be prefacing their complaints with "Teenage me is disappointed, teenage me wanted a pinup version to crush on." People get weirded out by kids being attracted to anthropomorphic animals. They're attracted to the human aspect of the character, they don't get boners looking at actual animals. They're drawn to have attractive human qualities, the emphasis isn't on their animal qualities. Nobody who had a crush on adult Simba or Scar was jerking off to the "live action" version. It looks like this new version of Avatar has just failed in the writing/character development department. And if that was all with the creators not getting what they wanted, that's sad. It seems so stupid this was a Netflix property very early on, they were fully aware of what was in the show but then they wanted to fuck with it anyway, that seems stupid. But I guess Disney's sabotaging their own live action remakes by responding to the criticisms of the originals. I'm wondering if people making these movies forget to do more character building other than repeating motivations. They forget there were other things going on in the fucking story and they don't want to show it, they just tell it so it gets repetitive, ignoring subtext, refusing to use visual cues, because they think the audience are either dumb or ignorant about the original show, or both. And they've apparently missed the points of the characters and possibly took what was "cool" about them at the expensive of more human traits. Or they had no understanding whatsoever and decided to just make what them what they assumed they were. Which then leads you to think: did these fucking writers even watch the cartoon? I feel like they only care about it cosmetically: y'all said you want live action are we not giving you that with our cool graphics and spectacle? Are we not delivering? Yes, at the expense of good writing and story telling. Which is still important.
And you know this shit's going to continue, they're coming for Naruto, bro, so now's the time for you to be cancelling those subs and refusing to buy those tickets. Stop giving these idiots money to exploit your favourite cartoons which they treat like soggy yet undercooked pasta that just won't ever stick to the wall. And even if "ONE PIECE" sticks a little, it's still kinda peeling off, right? It's not perfect but the bar's so low, it's good. Think about what the market is like now, it's depending on remakes, we need to stop rewarding repetitive behaviours from these people. I saw it in the late 90s, I was so annoyed with adaptations and anything not based on an original property, it's getting to the point I can't remember the last original movie that got any fucking hype that wasn't an adaptation, a remake or a biopic. I see this stuff it's being buried by everything else.
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