Stop Taking the Nostalgia Bait

We can stop bad remakes and reboots from getting made. Here’s how…

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“Someone got paid to write that?”

I asked this question aloud to my Mom and Grandma as we watched the credits roll on the truly uninspired “live-action” version of The Lion King. As I watched three screenwriters get credit for rehashing the original script from the groundbreaking 1994 animated film so that it was less funny, less poignant, and just less altogether, I felt a sense of loss.

When The Lion King came out, I was 9 years old. I can’t count the number of times my sister and I went to the theater to see it. My Simba stuffed animal held pride of place for years in my prolific collection of bears, rabbits, lambs, and other assorted animals.

When I was 9, Disney was the pinnacle of cinema. My classmates and I waited breathlessly for their next, inevitably brilliant release every summer. Even our parents often didn’t mind bringing us multiple times to see these particular movies. That’s because, aside from being entertaining for kids, they were also just really well-made films. The stories were original (even if they were based on fairy tales, there was something different about the Disney version), the animation was beautiful, the songs were catchy, and the humor was on point.