Dominic Brown
Lantern Staff
Disney is spearheading the new age of movies, most notably by reproducing their classics in live-action films. The most notable movie coming up is a live-action version of the 1998 classic Mulan. Despite the movie being set for a date more than a year out, it’s already drowning in controversy.
The main gripes against the movie started around the rumors of a “white washed” cast, a European love interest and the most heinous of all listed crimes against cinema remakes, removing the original music.
The first of these controversies was the possibility of white washing the cast, hiring white actors to portray ethnically diverse characters. In this case, it was rumored Jennifer Lawrence was set to play Mulan. It is possible to diversify the cast in certain situations; however, for a role as important as Mulan, this would be considered culturally insensitive.
Another poor cinematic choice would be to totally change the story. A concept that was played around with was introducing a European trader as a love interest for Mulan. While this didn’t stick, the character Li Shang has been replaced with another soldier, Chen Honghui. This has enraged many fans since Li Shang has been a favorite for many moviegoers.
Finally, considering cutting out the music might possibly have been one of the worst blunders Disney could have made. Disney’s Mulan has some of the best music for an animated film. Between “Reflection” and “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” these beloved classics imprinted upon the memories of all children who had watched the movie beforehand. At the film’s conception, Director Niki Caro announced that her live-action adaptation would not include the original music. Considering many of the past movies have included the original soundtrack, it would be totally out of character for Disney to produce a movie without the soundtrack. Luckily after threats of a boycott, Disney announced that music would have a place in the movie; however, they have not decided what place it would hold.
There’s an incredible amount of hype surrounding this movie. It’s still in the developmental stage, and there isn’t even a proposed actress to play Mulan. It will be interesting to see further developments as well as the finished product. The film is billed to release on Nov 2, 2017.