Disney Animated Movies Aren't Made With Live-Action Reboots In Mind

In the decades since Buzz Lightyear first taught us how to fall with style, computer animation has become the predominant form of animation in the film industry. For much of its history, however, mainstream computer animation has been primarily focused on recreating the nitty-gritty details of the real world, as opposed to exploring its potential for stylistic experimentation. That's why it's been so invigorating of late to see "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish," "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," and other major Hollywood studio films push the envelope for what CGI is capable of in terms of visual expressionism, impressionism, and even abstract depictions of reality.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Disney's live-action/CGI remakes of its popular animated films, which frustratingly continue to present photorealism as being the be-all and end-all of computer animation. In fairness, the photo-real animated characters in these films are sometimes better than they look in still form. In other cases, though, you end up with 2019's "The Lion King," a movie full of animated (yes, animated) animals that are stunningly realistic in terms of textures yet unsettlingly dead-eyed and somehow less expressive than their real-life counterparts, much less those in the 2D animated "Lion King." Now, thanks to the continued financial success of those films, we all get to watch Bambi's mom die again, this time in lifelike detail. Neat-o?

Thankfully, the rapidly-shortening turnaround period between Disney's animated films hitting theaters and them becoming fair game for a "retelling" has yet to noticeably impact the way the studio's animators approach their work. That won't be changing going forward, either, so long as Disney Animation chief Jennifer Lee has something to say about it.

In an interview with /Film's Rafael Motamayor, Jennifer Lee talked about her work at the House of Mouse, which includes co-writing the studio's latest animated fairy tale musical, "Wish." The film sees the traditionalist studio experimenting in new ways by blending watercolor elements with 3D animation, which seems a fitting way to celebrate its 100th anniversary. Might this also set a precedent for further experimentation in the future? Let's not get ahead of ourselves; this is still Disney, the reigning champion of playing things safe. 

Nevertheless, mainstream animation is rapidly evolving, and the House That Mickey Built would do well to evolve with it. What they won't do, fortunately, is start making their animated films with live-action reboots in mind. Lee assured Rafael:

"No, I mean, very, very politely, we completely build these independently. We don't think ahead of the live-action. We're honored if it happens. It's the greatest form of flattery, I guess. But I do think, one of the things I love — to me, what defines animation is it is truly transportive in a way that it speaks to your imagination, not to your reality. And so I think in terms of, personally, the looks that I'm inspired by, of where I do feel I'm in a believable world and it feels alive, but it is wholly nothing of our world. It's a place that I can truly escape to. I think that means a lot to a lot of us. So to me, the easy part of it is, if the goal is reality, the technology can go that way. But animation is not about that. What I love about animation is, it starts with a dream and everything is built and the more we can be transported to something we've never seen, the more excited I get."

These sentiments are supported by Jennifer Lee's work at Disney Animation. Besides "Wish," she co-directed and wrote "Frozen" and "Frozen II," both of which emulate the hand-drawn style of Disney's animated films from the mid-20th century. By comparison, "Wreck-It Ralph" and "Zootopia" (which she co-wrote only) embrace stylized character designs to bring video game characters and anthropomorphic animals to life in a way that simply isn't feasible outside of animation. Even when Lee ventured into live-action by co-writing director Ava DuVernay's "A Wrinkle in Time" movie adaptation, the result was a sci-fi/fantasy film that embraced a much visually bolder and otherwise phantasmagorical aesthetic than just about any other live-action Disney film from the last 10 years. 

Basically, whether she's working in animation or live-action, it seems Lee is all about defying the laws of reality with her storytelling, not abiding by them. Her comments about Disney's live-action remakes are in keeping with that, if also carefully worded so as to avoid throwing shade at them (Lee's true feelings on the matter aside). More importantly, they're a gentle reminder that animation isn't lesser than live-action, it's just a different medium with its own unique goals. There's a reason once certain live-action filmmakers go animated, they never want to go back again.

"Wish" opens in theaters on November 22, 2023.