Images of classic animated tales are often the first thing to come to mind for most people when hearing the name Disney. For many, animated Disney movies were a defining part of their childhoods giving them tales of adventure, fun, and also teaching them valuable lessons along the way. Disney was once an inventive and creative company, but in recent years, they have turned to a safe and tired tactic to rake in cash with remakes and reboots.

The first live-action movie that Disney made was “The Jungle Book” in 1994. While this movie was the start of Disney live-action remakes and reboots, the concept did not really pick up steam until the release of “Alice in Wonderland” in 2010, making 1.025 billion dollars at the box office. Since then, Disney has been pumping out remakes like clockwork with the live-action “Cinderella” being released in 2015, another “Jungle Book” in 2016, “Beauty and the Beast” in 2017, and more recently, “Dumbo”, “Aladdin”, and “The Lion King” in 2019, and “Mulan” in 2020. Clearly, this strategy is profitable for Disney, and they already have several other classics in the works to be adapted including “The Little Mermaid” and “Hercules” among others. While these movies are popular, they present several issues.

These Disney remakes are simply uninventive and forgettable. What most of these movies do is rehash the same classic moments we all remember from our childhoods, and use people’s nostalgia to cause them to buy tickets. Disney makes these movies because they are safe, and almost guaranteed to make them a profit.

While some may argue that these remakes modernize the stories and add new, important elements, I strongly disagree. The classic movies are classic for a reason. There are many universal themes and messages that are timeless, hence why these movies are classics. If Disney wants to add modern themes to their movies, then create new movies instead of trying to shove these messages into preexisting stories that do not need revising or fit the new ideas Disney wishes to project.

What Disney really needs to focus on is creating new stories for this era. Make stories now that this generation will be able to look back on with fondness, rather than remakes people will easily forget. If people want to watch the classic movies, then they can watch them instead of a poor remake that has them longing to watch the original. Disney needs to take a risk and come up with new ideas that will become the classics for this generation, rather than continuing with the mediocre and lackluster reimagining of their old animations.