In light of the movie we recently watched, I think I just found the most adorable rendition of Carl you'll ever come across:

Adult remakes of Disney movies?

The most recent episode of Saturday Night Live featured a mock advertisement for a live remake of Bambi, featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Bambi, Vin Diesel as Thumper, Tyrese Gibson as Flower, Michelle Rodriguez as Faline.  While this comedy sketch was not meant to be serious, it is interesting to think about the possibilities of turning some of Disney’s feature films into serious adult films.  This is actually something that I could see being done, for example, with the princess stories, considering that many of the original stories that were told in Europe in the Middle Ages were not intended for a young audience.  Instead, they had deeper meanings and significance that could only be understood by adults.

Despite this possibility, I do not see Disney making films intended for an older audience anytime soon.  After all, their main goal is to provide entertainment that is suitable for the whole family.  However, it would be interesting to see other film production companies, or even one of Disney’s subsidiaries, take up this challenge.  Those are films that I believe a lot of adults would be interested in seeing, considering so many grew up watching the originals over and over again.

The link to the article with the video clip is below:

http://deadline.com/2015/03/the-rock-bambi-remake-saturday-night-live-1201400655/

Where is The Incredibles 2?

One of my favorite animated films of all time, The Incredibles (2004), has now been out for over a decade, and somehow a sequel has not yet been released.  This has left me dumbfounded, considering how successful the original film was.  The general consensus, even among my friends today, is that The Incredibles 2 would be, quite frankly, “incredible,” and we would all definitely go to watch it in theaters.  Hopefully the sequel, which was finally announced as under development last year, will live up to our almost impossibly high expectations.  Possible dates for its release are November 22, 2017, or June 15, 2018, dates that Pixar has already revealed are release dates for future, unnamed films.  Watching this film would be an “incredible” experience to have during my last year in college!

The link to the article where I found this information is below:

http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-incredibles-2-release-date-news-plot-rumors-two-mystery-dates-penciled-in-for-sequel-136537/

Coasting on Previous Successes

As we saw with Alice in Wonderland (2010), or as we have sees this year with the remake of Cinderella, Disney has started to turn their animated films into live-action movies, allowing them to recycle storylines and characters and still get away with it.  In fact, they are becoming very successful doing it, too.  The remake of Alice in Wonderland, directed by Tim Burton, made over $1 billion in the box office around the world.  Maleficent (2014), the remake of Sleeping Beauty, grossed $758 million, despite mixed reviews.  We will also soon see other Disney remakes, such as The Jungle Book in 2016, starring Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson and Idris Elba, and Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens.  This, in my opinion, is a brilliant financial move.  I just hope that these new films are not bland, boring remakes of Disney classics.

The link to the article where I found this information is below:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/disneys-lucrative-long-term-creative-plan-focuses-on-human-remakes-of-cartoon-classics/articleshow/46722041.cms

It’s All About the Money

While critics argue back and forth about symbols and meanings of Disney films, and classes such as this one are devoted to analyzing them, we sometimes forget to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.  In this particular case, the bigger picture is that Disney has one goal: to make money.  I have already discussed this in previous posts, but I found another interesting article titled “3 Reasons Why The Walt Disney Company Is Brilliant,” which highlights how Disney shareholders have received a 221% return on their investment in only the past five years.  Despite the controversies brought up with many of their films, Disney executives can still go home at the end of the day knowing that their company is and will continue to make billions of dollars each year.

The link to the article is below:

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/28/3-reasons-why-the-walt-disney-company-is-brilliant.aspx

Despite claims that there are racial and gender biases portrayed in their characters, this map proves that there is diversity in the backgrounds of characters in Disney and Pixar films.

Response to Up

I first watched Up when it was released in theaters in 2009; however, I found that I had forgotten a lot of the plot when rewatching the film for this class.  Overall, I felt as if Up did a good job of breaking down stereotypes, and the story was definitely one that both children and adults would enjoy watching.  It addresses some serious issues, such as death, infertility, and the inability to fulfill childhood dreams, which give it a serious undertone, while characters like Russell and Dug lighten the mood.

One aspect of the film that I had forgotten about was that Carl and Russell arrive near Paradise Falls towards the beginning of the film, since that, I thought would be the main conflict in the film.  The middle part of the storyline, with the addition of the talking dogs and Charles Muntz, to me was a deviation from the main point of the film, which was about Carl fulfilling Ellie’s childhood dream and in the end finding happiness in spending time with Russell.  The conflict with Charles Muntz, and his Spirit of Adventure, and the chase from talking dogs added a science fiction aspect to the film that I enjoyed, but it did confuse me a bit, as I was not sure of the reasoning for them being an integral part of the story.  I wonder if Up would have been as successful if Carl and Russell had embarked on a “typical” journey through South America, and then finally found the falls at the end of the film.

One aspect that surprised me, especially with regards to the popularity and box office success of the film, was that Carl, of all people, is the main character.  In most other animated films, the main characters are young, or filled with energy, adding life to the scenes.  This is the case with Disney princesses, who are bright and cheerful, or with superheroes, who are strong, powerful, and very active.  However, Carl is none of these things.  He is old, grumpy for most of the film, and requires a cane to walk.  Except for the beginning, there are no particular parts where he adds life to the scene, but rather the film relies on Russell, Dug, and Kevin to do this.  This, to me, proves that Disney and Pixar do not have to follow a generic formula in order to create blockbuster hits, but can experiment with new ideas and still come up with great films.