This isn't exactly a new development since Disney have been announcing a live-action (or photorealistic CGI if it's an all-animal film like
Lion King) remake of their most popular animated properties one after another since the successful release of
Cinderella back in 2015. I've said it before and I'll it say again, overall, it makes Disney look creatively insipid. They have realized there's a market for playing on their audience's nostalgia for their animated classics. Nevertheless, most of these films don't need to be remade since they've become so iconic and popular that there's no need for a remake. Animation is supposed to be a separate medium than live-action that offers more cartoony approach therefore some things in animation don't translate well into live-action (or photorealistic CGI). Yes, some of those films have some flaws in it that can be revised, but for most of the part, the films are fine as they are. It's betraying everything Walt Disney stood for. He advocated "We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."
Another thing is that because some elements of the films pre-date second-wave feminism and what we perceive as the conventional norm, we think the film hasn't aged well. For example, in 1950's
Cinderella, viewers, for years, thought Cinderella was a weak, passive character and her romance with the Prince lacked development. They improved on that in the remake. Also, the remakes are changing things that didn't need to be changed. In the 2015 remake, the writers gave Lady Tremaine (the wicked stepmother) a more valid motive for her hatred of Cinderella. While this was a nice development to her character, it made her more sympathetic thus taking away what made her character seem so ruthless and cold in the original film. They did something similar in
Maleficent (which I view as more of a re-imagining of
Sleeping Beauty) by making the title character, who is supposed to be an epitome of all evil, into a sympathetically tragic character.
However, some of the remakes could open for a new re-interpretation. I personally love they are remaking
The Black Cauldron and
The Sword in the Stone because those films could have been a lot better. I do like the trend of adapting some elements of their original source material. The remake of
The Jungle Book did this by retaining the best elements from the 1967 classic as well as adapted elements of the Rudyard Kipling short stories. Also, the filmmakers created a new storyline that was more tighter and coherent because the 1967 film had a loose, episodic narrative structure. With
Beauty and the Beast, while they did adapt elements from the original fairy tale, it did not really offer anything entirely new. It followed the original film particularly scene-for-scene with new scenes inserted here and there, but they didn't take the film towards a fresh new direction.
Adding onto that, the Winnie the Pooh remake sounds interesting. Apparently, the remake is about an
older Christopher Robin returning to the Hundred Acre Woods. Yes, the premise sounds like
Hook with an older Peter Pan reconnecting with Neverland, but it's a new approach to the Winnie-the-Pooh franchise. I wish all the remakes would take an approach like this. Remaking a film isn't particularly bad, but it needs to have a reason for why it exists. It needs to offer a new spin to what we already know, but avoid anything radical like what they did in
Maleficent. If the remakes just copy the original film scene-for-scene without capturing the magic and sense of wonder, it feels dull and pointless and makes me more appreciative of the original film.