It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

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AndyDursin
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It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#1 Post by AndyDursin »

Two fading properties join up for the latest Disney live-action remake.

http://deadline.com/2017/09/will-smith- ... 202162890/


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AndyDursin
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Re: It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#2 Post by AndyDursin »

Dude :shock:


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Monterey Jack
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Re: It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#3 Post by Monterey Jack »

Aw HA-AIL NAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :|

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AndyDursin
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Re: It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#4 Post by AndyDursin »

This looks absolutely terrible. Like a "very special episode" of ABC's ONCE UPON A TIME.



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Paul MacLean
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Re: It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#5 Post by Paul MacLean »

Hope it's as good as King Arthur.

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Re: It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#6 Post by AndyDursin »

Went looking for a review -- it's opening this week! -- and there's nothing.

Not only that but...


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Re: It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#7 Post by AndyDursin »

Evidently not "gay enough" for the Variety critics, which mention this fact repeatedly in their review! :roll:
Frankly, “Aladdin” could have used one of those “queer eye” makeovers, as the production design, costumes and choreography all look garish compared with the relatively classy and consistently elegant aesthetic that an openly gay musical director such as Bill Condon brought to his “Beauty and the Beast” adaptation.
...and on the Genie:
The character isn’t gay per se; in fact, the Genie gets a romantic subplot of his own, involving Jasmine’s handmaiden, Dalia (Nasim Pedrad). Watching Smith’s performance, however, one could certainly make the case that the closet can be even more confining than a magic lamp — although kids will see the character’s prancing as a kind of silly clowning, which it certainly is.
https://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/a ... 203223305/

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Paul MacLean
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Re: It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#8 Post by Paul MacLean »

AndyDursin wrote: Wed May 22, 2019 10:41 am Evidently not "gay enough" for the Variety critics, which mention this fact repeatedly in their review! :roll:
I guess they should have gotten Morricone to do the score...


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Monterey Jack
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Re: It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#9 Post by Monterey Jack »

AndyDursin wrote: Wed May 22, 2019 10:41 am Evidently not "gay enough" for the Variety critics, which mention this fact repeatedly in their review! :roll:
Considering the mild controversy that ensued by making Josh Gad's LeFou obviously gay in B&TB, I doubt Disney'd go down that route again. :lol:

And it's kind of mildly offensive to intimate that an openly gay filmmaker like Condon would do a better job making Aladdin, because it feeds into the unfortunate stereotype that "only gay men like musicals". :?

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Re: It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#10 Post by AndyDursin »

Precisely.

Reviews are very lukewarm, nothing horrible, but obviously this movie wasn't necessary so there seems to be little reason to check it out. That review did mention how Disney has pillaged all the hallmarks of their catalog over the last 25 years for these unnecessary remakes -- which sooner rather than later, they are going to run out of.

At least it's (barely) running ahead of DUMBO on the Tomato Meter...so far :lol:

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Re: It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#11 Post by Monterey Jack »

6/10

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Like most of these recent "reskinned" versions of classic Disney animated properties, Aladdin suffers from the lack of the gravity-defying buoyancy that great animation always possesses. Watching Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott singing "A Whole New World" during their magic carpet duet in director Guy Ritchie's new film, I was never swept away by the dizzyingly ebullient romance conveyed in the 1992 film. Hearing the lyrics, "Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling, through an endless diamond sky", all the drab visuals were telling me were, "Kneeling, stationary, on an endless greenscreen stage". This has been my biggest beef with Disney strip-mining their back catalogue for nostalgic profit over the last decade...these CGI-festooned F/X blowouts are neither fish nor fowl, lacking the pleasingly stylized artifice of their animated predecessors yet lacking the "real world" verisimilitude they intend to have. Had Aladdin been pitched more at the level of a Raiders Of The Lost Ark, perhaps even ditching the songs and playing out as a straight action/adventure movie, it would have possessed its own scrappy identity, and Ritchie -- who rose from his own humble "street rat" origins as the crafter of scruffy British crime dramas punctuated with ribald comedy -- could have been the ideal filmmaker to realize that. But here, any sense of his personality is suffocated under a mountain of elaborate yet patently fakey whiz-bang technology, costuming, and lackadaisical choreography that recalls a garish Macy's Thanksgiving's Day Parade float. And while Will Smith's ingratiating motormouth charisma is put to good use as the Genie, he simply cannot come close to hitting the Al Hirschfeldian stylization of Robin Williams' manic, pop culture-addled and yet surprisingly emotive performance in the original. Every aspect of this new version, like 2017's Beauty & The Beast, come across as weighted-down, leaden, flat-footed, and not even Scott's glowingly lovely presence as a very easy-on-the-eyes Jasmine (given, of course, her own freshly-minted "girl power" anthem) can do much to enliven the proceedings. It's all easy enough to sit through, but it's cinematic karaoke, throwaway fun in the moment but lacking the soul and heart of the original recording. If I had my wish, it would be for Disney to just STOP IT with these damn remakes and start making some original projects again, before the kids of 2045 are forced to sit through the RE-reskinned product their grandparents grew up on.

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Re: It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#12 Post by AndyDursin »

Amen to that.

I am willing to wager a large amount that nobody in 2045 is going to care about this era of Disney live-action remakes. They will still be watching the real, animated, timeless ALADDIN, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, DUMBO, LION KING, etc. -- but these remakes are utterly disposable, fast money that aren't making an impact with viewers or even kids. And more over, they're playing to diminishing returns at the box-office now. (You could make the same argument for THE FORCE AWAKENS. The fact that toy/merch sales aren't even comparable to the numbers from the Lucas era shows the appeal lies more with older viewers -- not younger ones. I doubt there are going to many getting all misty-eyed for an elderly Daisy Ridley showing up in Part XXXIII in 2050 lol)

Hell, I don't think anyone in 6 months is going to care about this version of ALADDIN from the sounds of it!

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Re: It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#13 Post by Monterey Jack »

AndyDursin wrote: Fri May 24, 2019 5:41 pm
Hell, I don't think anyone in 6 months is going to care about this version of ALADDIN from the sounds of it!
But hey, as long as Disney makes a billion+ worldwide, who cares about the long-term effects on their legacy, right? :roll:

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Re: It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#14 Post by AndyDursin »

Monterey Jack wrote: Fri May 24, 2019 9:36 pm
AndyDursin wrote: Fri May 24, 2019 5:41 pm
Hell, I don't think anyone in 6 months is going to care about this version of ALADDIN from the sounds of it!
But hey, as long as Disney makes a billion+ worldwide, who cares about the long-term effects on their legacy, right? :roll:
They don't. They care about making money.

So much of their massive corporation's output now are intellectual properties they bought, not fostered -- whether it's Marvel, or Lucasfilm, or ABC, or ESPN, or the Muppets, or Pixar...these are all companies/movies/what have you that were created by someone else, became popular, and thrived before Disney ever laid a hand on them. Exploiting their own historical productions is such a small part of their business model right now that I bet their legacy is something they really aren't that invested in. It's all bottom line.

My feeling is if the older catalog was still making money for them -- big money -- they wouldn't be remaking these. But as physical media sales have slowed down and the way we watch movies at home has changed, Disney felt they'd be raking in bigger dollars remaking them instead.

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Re: It's ALADDIN with Will Smith & Guy Ritchie!

#15 Post by Monterey Jack »

These live-action remakes are basically akin to those direct-to-DVD sequels that Disney churned out like Pringles in the late 90s and early-to-mid 00s before John Lasseter put his foot down...mercenary "product" that preys on one's nostalgia without giving them anything of genuine substance that elevates or enlightens the source material. Aside from Kenneth Branagh's lovely Cinderella and Jon Favreau's enjoyable Jungle Book, I can't think of one remake in the last decade I have any real reason to revisit. Yeah, Disney spends lavishly on these in comparison to those direct-to-DVD "cheapquels", but it still smacks of cynicism and lack of imagination. Disney got back on track in the late 80s and early 90s "renaissance" period precisely because those films were original...smart, heartfelt, tuneful movies that appealed to adults every bit as much as they did to children, and weren't slickly repackaged junk that those adults watched 25 years ago. And once Disney has run out of those most-beloved renaissance movies to remake (Little Mermaid is the last one they haven't molested yet), what's next? I doubt anyone will be lining up for remakes of Atlantis, Treasure Planet or Home On The Range. :lol:

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