First Teaser Drops — And It’s Stunning for All the Wrong Reasons:-
We’ve got first teaser trailer for the next Disney liveaction remake. And this one has got me stunned. All the details right here. So, we’re getting a liveaction Moana. We’ve known about this for a little while, but the very first teaser trailer has just dropped, giving us essentially our first look at what they’re doing with this thing. S
A Decade of Disney Remakes: The Good, the Bad, and the Pointless:-
So, been on the record dozens and dozens of times about my feelings towards these things. And that kind of hasn’t changed too much over the years. For the most part, really like these live action remakes. There are some that really love, , like Beauty and the Beast. know that’s a kind of controversial take, but loved what they did with that. Maleficent, Cinderella, Jungle Book, Christopher Robin. These all rank kind of really at the top of my list of these live action remakes. So, most of these have actually really enjoyed. enjoyed what they’ve done with them for the most part. Again, said over and over again over the years that enjoy these most when they bring something new to the table.
The Strange Decision to Remake a 9-Year-Old Film:-
They add some new elements to the story. They put maybe a little bit of a different spin on the story. They try to do something that is different to the animated film. And feel like when they first started doing these, for the most part, they were doing that. There was a sort of a reason for these to exist, they offered a new take on the story in a new medium with a new vision. But the longer that Disney have been doing these things, feel like they have just been doing a control copy, control paste on the animated films and just chucking them into like a a liveaction thing. That said, here’s the trailer for Moana. This has to hold the record of the shortest time between Disney animation and Disney live action. As record this in 2025, Moana came out only 9 years ago. By the time this movie comes out, it will have been out for a decade.
The Trailer Reveals a Shot-for-Shot Redo:-
So, first off, we’re off on a pretty bad footing there. t’s just it’s weird that we’re doing this so close. And not only that, but we had a sequel to the animated film last year. Literally two years between an animated sequel and then a remake, a live action remake of the original animated film. t’s wacky. This thing just never sounded right from the beginning. It’s just has sounded really weird and just so just stupid from day one. But now we have the trailer and we realize the full extent of the stupidity that is behind this movie.
Disney’s Creative Wells Are Running Dry:-
Have been very lenient on Disney over the years, not only with these live action remakes, but with so many other things that they’re doing and so many other business decisions and films and stuff that they’ve made over the years. been pretty cool with. These are movies that are there predominantly for children and families to go and enjoy. And for the most cases, you know, the these have been remakes of movies that are at minimum like 30 years old, 50, 60, 70 year old, 80y old remake. Sort of in the in the case of Snow White and Pinocchio, which was one that didn’t like at all. So,found an understanding in the reasoning for them to kind of remake these, put a new spin on them, put a new take on them for new generations, new audiences.
Visual Magic Lost in Translation:-
Stories get retold over and over again over the last 100 plus years of cinema, right? There have been so many different versions of Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast and the Disney versions is just the tip of the iceberg, you know, and that’s totally fine. But Moana, this is a original Disney story that came out at this point less than a decade ago and we’re already remaking it in live action. Now, didn’t have such a huge problem with this until saw the trailer. This is the same movie. You cannot convince me otherwise. Know this is only a 60-second trailer, and there’s so much more that they can show us. And hey, maybe they will surprise us and throw in some new stuff and do some new things. But from what seeing from this trailer, hey, look what’s coming out in a year’s time. Well, guess what? can watch the animation right now and it’s going to be exactly the same. Not only are they just redoing the story again, but these visuals are almost exactly shot forshot the animated film. know that a big criticism for these movies over the years has been that a lot of them are kind of shot forshot, but don’t think any of them have got anywhere near as close as what Moana is doing right here. Some of these shots even look animated. Like literally, the backgrounds look animated.
Disney’s Quality Decline and the Streaming Obsession:-
They look like they could have just used the original files from the animated film and made them look a little bit less cartoony. And check out the Kakamura. They look like they just come straight out of the animated movie. Like literally, this looks the same. Could have sworn until Moana came up on the screen, this liveaction human, that this was just the animated film and someone was pulling my chain. don’t understand this. don’t know what what are we what what are we doing here, Disney? What is What are we doing? think we’re at the edge. Disney have blasted through all of their classics and now they’re scrambling. Pessimist in me thinks that this is going to just tank, but the realist in me is thinking general audiences probably don’t care that much. And know children certainly don’t care that much. Feel like families are just going to swarm to see this thing.
A Call for New Stories, Not New Copies:-
Struggling to see the audience for this because we all remember seeing this movie in cinemas, right? So is this for an a is this a nostalgia bait? don’t know cuz a lot of these movies have just been nostalgia bait, right? Hey, you 25year-old millennial, remember seeing Beauty and the Beast in the cinemas when you were four years old? Now you can see in live action. But Moana is like don’t know if it has that nostalgia push. t’s it’s going for a new audience. It’s a kind of strange. So don’t know how this is going to go box office wise. Whatever. Also, this is nowhere near as colorful and as vibrant as the original animation. Um and feel like a lot of these live action things have coped this kind of um criticism over the years is that a lot of them aren’t as colorful or as vibrant as they should be. They’re certainly not going to match that colorful nature of animation um without oversaturatin everything and probably becomes a little bit more cartoony again. So think they bring the colors down to make it a bit more realistic.
The Nostalgia Bubble Has Finally Burst:-
But a big part of the allure for Moana is the gorgeous visuals and the the colors and the brightness and vivaceiousness of the whole thing. This thing just looks flat and drab. So essentially we’re getting the same movie doesn’t look as good. Um, and it’s just got some live action people in here. What can give this is that Katherine Lega looks fantastic in the role. They’ve picked a really good Moana. This movie, don’t know how much it’s got going for it.
Looking Ahead to 2026:-
Disney have officially run out of good ideas and there’s no originality left in the well. t’s time that Disney gets back on their feet again and finds it in them to get more originality. So much love and soul and blood and sweat and tears into these productions. ‘About the studio heads who are crushing down on top of them. Think it’s time that we finally go back to doing more original stuff. know Disney’s still putting out some original sprinkles here and there, but want more from both liveaction and animation. know they’ve been trying their hardest with the animated stuff lately, and it just keeps tanking at the box office, which sucks. But want more original family liveaction films. We had so many great ones when we were going growing up. Granted, some of them like The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday and Flubber, etc. were remakes to begin with, right? The Santa Claus, the Mighty Ducks, Cool Runnings, Honey, Shrunk the Kids, like real pure originality and they were just so great. And want Disney to go back to that now. had enough of these remakes. And think once Bob ger is finally out of the seat, been a big supporter of his um over the years. He did a great job in the kind of early 2010s in reviving the company. Think Disney needs a massive shakeup at this point. So, Moana, the liveaction remake, hits theaters in 2026.