[Moviegoing has unquestionably changed a great deal in recent years, but there is still a place for the summer blockbuster, and I believe there always will be. So for the unofficial kickoff of another summer season, I wanted to AmericanStudy a handful of recent such blockbusters!]
On three
ways to explain the large and growing corpus of live-action
remakes of animated films (besides, y’know, the oodles and oodles of
money they make).
1)
Nostalgia: I began this week’s series with a
post on sequels/reboots/new entries in franchises and nostalgia, and it seems
entirely clear to me that that widely shared and very human emotion is also a
primary motivation for remaking beloved animated films, often in ways that hew
quite closely to the original despite the shift to live-action. Not sure I need
to say too much more about this item than that!
2)
Disney and IPs: I don’t want to sound entirely
like one of those old dudes yelling at the clouds about this, so let me start by
saying that I’ve enjoyed a number of the Disney-funded films and TV shows in
both the Star Wars and Marvel Universes. There’s no necessary reason why
works that are part of existing intellectual properties can’t also be enjoyable
and engaging and even interesting cultural texts, after all. But nonetheless,
the Mouse’s trend of squeezing every last drop out of every IP they own is, at
the very least, exhausting, and I don’t think we can minimize that goal when we
consider these remakes of prior Disney projects.
3)
Artistic Vision: Tim Burton. Kenneth Branagh.
Jon Favreau. Bill Condon. Marc Forster. Guy Ritchie. Robert Zemeckis. Barry Jenkins.
Those are just some of the talented directors who have made live-action Disney
remakes over the last couple decades. I’m sure they were well-compensated for
their efforts, and I’m also sure that none of them would list the Disney remake
at the top of their career achievements. But that doesn’t mean that they didn’t
bring their own artistic vision to the projects, and make them significantly
more unique than they might otherwise have been. If we’re going to have such
movies—and it seems clear that we’re going to—they might as well be made by
talented folks seeking to do their own thing while still (of course) operating
within the project’s parameters. Which, ultimately, describes the ideal summer
blockbuster, no?
May Recap
this weekend,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Summer blockbusters, recent or otherwise, you’d analyze?
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