I hate the new trend of live-action remakes of animation. Part of it is their astounding ability to exhibit every cardinal sin a movie can commit — being unnecessary, uninspired and sanitized for the widest market appeal possible. Sure, they hide behind an amalgamation of different plot beats and nostalgia. Sure, they can pretend to be socially conscious by hiring women of color to play their heroines, but the studios behind those changes don’t stand behind the actresses they’ve hired when a barrage of online hate comes their way.

Unfortunately, it seems as though every movie studio wants to get its grubby little paws on the money-printing machine that is a live-action remake. Dreamworks is remaking the “How to Train Your Dragon” series, which came out 15 years ago and is reliant on its animated style to retain in-universe realism. Netflix has been remaking the “Avatar: the Last Airbender” series, bringing the show’s count of terrible live-action adaptations to two. Disney’s count of remakes is so huge that it has its own Wikipedia page. 

Let me be clear. I am not anti-adaptation. Some of my favorite pieces of media are adaptations, and a part of the human condition is to retell stories. Every story will be influenced by every other story its author has known. 

The idea of a remake, similarly, is not a new one. However, the tradition of remakes is that they come out multiple decades after the original movie. With these live-action remakes, we’re seeing them come out after just 10 years, while the original property is still incredibly culturally relevant. 

The upcoming “Moana” remake, for instance, is a perfect example of how unnecessary these live-action rehashings are. Moana’s animation is stunning, and her curls are a testament to the work being done to 3D animate hair. The story itself highlights a community that is often under-represented in the hyper-mainstream niche Disney movies exist to fill — the Pacific Islander community. It tells a story of self-acceptance, family and breaking tradition that’s relatable to a general audience. 

I remember watching it in theaters with my parents and going home with the soundtrack playing in the car. 2016 was barely a decade ago, and “Moana” was released in the very last part of the year. It hasn’t even been 10 years. The sequel was released in 2024. There are still “Moana” toys in stores, parents still show it to their children and the story itself has no real need for an update. 

It is, however, an incredibly recognizable Disney Princess property that has a guaranteed audience of 10-year-olds who might not have ever seen the original, and their parents who grew up with it there in the cultural zeitgeist. “Moana” doesn’t need an update. 

In fact, some of these remakes completely misunderstand and misrepresent the actual themes presented in the source material. 2025’s “Lilo and Stitch” takes a story unpacking the colonialism of tourism in Hawai’i and unconventional family dynamics, strips it of all the queerness and unconventionality, and turns it into a story that (spoilers) ends in Lilo being put into the foster care system. 

I wanted to love these remakes when they started coming out. I saw “Beauty and the Beast” (2017) in theaters and remember wanting to love it because I loved Emma Watson. They made changes to make Belle more of a feminist, a #GirlBoss. Never mind that the “updated” elements are tacked on and thematically incoherent. Never mind the fact that it’s overall a less complex narrative. Never mind the fact that it looks duller, grayer, more boring. 

These remakes say that the original movies weren’t good enough or realistic enough. The medium of animation wasn’t serious enough, and now it’s time for the real movie. This delegitimization of animation is dangerous. 

Realism is only one method of art. The vastness of human experience cannot be accurately catalogued in one single style. Animation takes time and work, and while live action isn’t exactly easy to pull off either, it takes a much shorter amount of time to film and edit. 

I hate live-action remakes, but more than anything, I’m exhausted with them.