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Disney remakes and sequels have been making an uproar in the past few years with the release of remakes like “Snow White,” “Mulan” and “Aladdin.”
Many of these franchises are beloved by families and adults alike, but these remakes have been disappointing to some fans. Rather than creating new stories, Disney has seemingly resorted to largely nostalgia-bait movies.
For example, the highest-grossing traditionally animated movie of all time was “The Lion King” from 1994, according to The Numbers. I grew up watching it throughout my childhood, and it’s my favorite movie.
In 2019, Disney remade it, and it might be my least favorite thing I’ve seen on screen in my life.
It seems that when they tried to redo the original in 3D, they misunderstood all of the minute details that went into the original being so powerful.
For example, in the second scene of the remake, the interactions between Scar, Zazu and Mufasa feel more like they’re trying to explain things to the audience rather than have genuine character interactions. It comes off as awkward, mixed with lines that don’t even make sense when following one another, and even worse, considering the direction changes the way the characters are presented.
This is strikingly different from the original opening scene, where each line smoothly follows the next, the character motivations are revealed by the behavior rather than being directly stated with lines that start with “As you know” and is already an entertaining hook for the audience. Conversely, in the remake, it’s so bad that I genuinely feel inclined to agree with Scar and would rather just eat Zazu to shut him up.
This kind of misinterpretation of what made the original movie good is a problem that permeates most, if not all, of the Disney remakes.
In the original “Lilo & Stitch,” the most striking lesson that you can learn from the beautiful and silly animation is the importance of ʻohana, which means family. Whether it’s family by blood, found family or otherwise, the power of the people you call home is profound, and it’s demonstrated by Nani doing everything in her power to stay with her little sister Lilo, regardless of what happens.
Throughout the 2025 remake, though, Nani repeatedly violates this idea, relinquishing her guardianship of Lilo more than once.
Most strikingly in the remake is the line by Nani talking to Lilo about ʻohana when she said, “I know that sounds nice; that sounds nice to me too. But that’s not the reality. This is reality. I need you to start living in it with me.”
While maybe the point of this line was intended to reflect the overwhelming amount of pressure Nani was under, the fact that she repeatedly relinquishes her guardianship in the remake makes it come across more genuine than it should have been.
It feels like the creators of the remake didn’t understand the importance and nuance of the original message and the way it was presented through Nani’s relentless effort to maintain Lilo’s ʻohana and refusal to give her up, no matter what.
These changes make the movies feel almost soulless, especially when compared to the originals.
Why is Disney doing this, then? If the remakes do not seem to reflect the original or make poor changes, what’s the point?
“We also know that the popularity of our older IP [intellectual property] remains significant, and the opportunities to either produce sequels or convert what was previously animation to live action, like we’re doing with ‘Moana’ in 2026, it’s just a great opportunity for the company and supports our franchise.” Disney CEO Bob Iger said during a Disney earnings call, according to Variety.
Iger later said the company believes that creating and developing new IP is good, but he deflected this responsibility from Disney’s animation studios and instead highlighted the efforts of Disney’s acquisitions, such as Searchlight and Marvel.
Perhaps Disney’s own animation studios have run dry of original stories, but I find that hard to believe, considering the abundance of artists and scriptwriters available out there. The results of these soulless remakes speak for themselves, though.
Disney’s 2019 “The Lion King” made $1.657 billion at the worldwide box office, and the 2025 “Lilo & Stitch” made $1.037 billion at the worldwide box office, according to Box Office Mojo. Clearly, these remakes have been very profitable.
One of the worst-performing remakes, “Dumbo” (2019), still made $353 million globally at the box office, according to Box Office Mojo.
These numbers are telling, considering one of Disney’s few new original stories and its 100th-anniversary movie, “Wish,” only made $254 million globally at the box office, according to Box Office Mojo. Disney and Pixar’s movie “Elio” was another new original story that heavily flopped, only making $154 million at the global box office, also according to Box Office Mojo.
If Disney’s new original stories are heavily flopping at the box office, then why should Disney even consider returning their focus on those stories?
There are only so many movies that Disney can remake, and eventually, they’re going to have to start making original stories, whether they like it or not.
While Disney may try to blame the failure of movies like “Elio” on fans not supporting original stories, I think it could be valuable to put even more effort into ensuring the success of these original stories and that the original stories are valuable and interesting to audiences.
Stories like “The Lion King” (1994) took around five years to finalize the script, with even more incredible amounts of effort put in by animators, voice actors, musicians and more. This diligent amount of care and the power of the movie’s story and messaging are what made it so successful.
Disney should return to making 2D animated movies as part of a refocusing on original stories. They should continue with 3D animation, but it’s been 14 years since the last 2D animated movie, “Winnie the Pooh.”
This could be a possibility based on comments from the Walt Disney Animation Studios CCO, Jared Bush, according to an interview on TheWrap.
I don’t expect Disney to entirely abandon the remake projects, but some meaningful changes to the originals in ways that are faithful to the original message would be much more compelling than what we’ve seen recently.
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Contact Noah Burton via email: noah.burton@pepperdine.edu
