<span>T</span><span>he Renaissance has returned. No, not that moment in European history characterised by a flourishing of art, literature and learning. The other one</span><span>, when the Walt Disney Animation Studios </span><span>rediscovered their mojo after years in the doldrums, producing misfire cartoons </span><span>such as </span><span><em>The Black Cauldron</em></span><span> (1985) and </span><span><em>The Great Mouse Detective</em></span><span> (1986)</span><span>. Then came 1989's </span><span><em>The Little Mermaid</em></span><span> and the beginning of a </span><span>10-year glory run that included such instant classics as </span><a href="https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/film-review-fantasy-takes-on-a-new-role-in-beauty-and-the-beast-1.27067"><span><em>Beauty and the Beast</em></span></a><span>, </span><a href="https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/comment/how-the-new-aladdin-stacks-up-against-a-century-of-hollywood-stereotyping-1.866664"><span><em>Aladdin</em></span></a><span> and </span><span><em>The Lion King</em></span><span>. </span> <span>A return to the acclaim enjoyed by the company in its heyday, this </span><span>Disney Renaissance was a golden period</span><span>, the last hurrah for hand-drawn animation before the advent of powerful computers changed the discipline for ever. </span> <span>Box</span><span> office returns were sizeable, while nine of the </span><span>10 films produced by Disney </span><span>during this era were nominated for</span><span> Oscars; in the case of </span><span><em>Beauty and the Beast</em></span><span>, it was the first animated film to </span><span>be nominated for Best Picture, when it was shortlisted for the 1992 award.</span> <span>Now it seems the executives at Disney are determined to see this </span><span>enaissance revived, plundering its animations for live-action remakes. </span><span>Today </span><span>marks the release of Jon Favreau's CG-rendered </span><span>Photorealistic take on 1994's </span><span><em>The Lion King </em></span><span>(see our review on page 25), featuring a suitably glamorous A-list voice cast, including Donald Glover as Simba, the young lion who flees</span><span> after his father, Mufasa (James Earl Jones), is murdered by </span><span>Simba's scheming uncle, Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor). </span><span>The cast also includes Beyonc</span><span>e </span><span>as Nala</span><span> and Seth Rogen </span><span>voicing Pumbaa</span><span>.</span> <span>It's hardly a </span><span>new ploy. Ever since Tim Burton took on </span><span><em>Alice in Wonderland</em></span><span> in 2010, casting Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Disney has been reworking its back catalogue into live-action. Burton's </span><span>zany effort, a spin on the 1951 animation that came from Lewis Carroll's fantasy tale, took </span><span>more than $1 billion (Dh3.67</span><span>bn) at the box office. udiences were more than willing to </span><span>return to classic </span><span>stories, if the right actors and director were</span><span> involved.</span> <span>The task was made easier with increasingly impressive visual effects; when Favreau made </span><span><em>The Jungle Book</em></span><span> in 2016, he won over </span><span>critics with his take on Rudyard Kipling's story of the "man cub" Mowgli and his animal friends. Without doubt, </span><span>characters such as </span><span>Bagheera the panther and Shere Khan the tiger were among the most remarkably life</span><span>like CG creatures </span><span>created for film. </span><span>Audiences didn't even seem to mind that the humour and songs that made the 1967 Disney cartoon so beloved were absent.</span> <span>But th</span><span>e original </span><span>animations were made decades ago. The </span><span>enaissance</span><span> period is still fresh in most people's minds, though that hasn't stopped Disney. </span> <span>In May, we had Guy Ritchie's live-action </span><span><em>Aladdin</em></span><span>, featuring Will Smith as the Genie so memorably voiced by </span><span>Robin Williams in the 1992 cartoon. While it's ironic that </span><span>a song from the original film, </span><span><em>A Whole New World</em></span><span>, </span><span>is given an airing when the live-action </span><span>version feels anything but,</span><span> it's been a huge hit</span><span>, with its box-office takings not far behind the staggering $1.</span><span>3bn made by Bill Condon's 2017 reworking of </span><span><em>Beauty and the Beast</em></span><span>, starring Emma Watson.</span> <span>Still, the lure of </span><span>money has left a bitter taste in the mouths of some critics</span><span>. </span><span>Film industry paper </span><span><em>Variety</em></span><span> </span><span>said</span><span> </span><span>"it </span><span>took Walt Disney Studios the better part of a century to build a library filled with what the world thinks of as animated classics, and less than a decade to pillage that catalogue in service of all these entertaining but clearly unnecessary live-action remakes</span><span>, movies that, from the looks of things, will not stand the test of time, but have proven awfully profitable in the short term".</span><span> </span> <span>Favreau</span><span> played it ultra-safe with </span><span><em>The Lion King</em></span><span>, from </span><span>bringing back the booming </span><span>Jones </span><span>to voice Musafa</span><span> (as he did in the cartoon</span><span>)</span><span> to approaching the story virtually shot for shot. Favreau is all too aware of the sacred ground he's stampeding on. "Like anything else, I think people have expectations based on what their childhood was," he </span><span>told entertainment website</span><span><em> Digital Spy</em></span><span>. "I certainly felt it when we did </span><span><em>The</em></span><span> </span><span><em>Jungle Book</em></span><span>, there are people who remember the old way that it was done."</span> <span>Stray too far from the original</span><span>, as </span><span>Burton did with this year's live-action remake of </span><span><em>Dumbo</em></span><span> when he invented a needlessly complex story involving Michael Keaton's circus entrepreneur</span><span>, and it'll leave fans craving the simple beauty of the original</span><span>. But copy the cartoon too closely and you risk sucking the life out of it. "How do you take the charm out of </span><span><em>Hakuna Matata</em></span><span>?" wrote one disappointed Twitter user</span><span> after clips of Favreau's </span><span><em>The Lion King </em></span><span>surfaced, </span><span>with expressionless animals s</span><span>inging one of the film's seminal songs.</span> <span>Nevertheless, the latest Disney Renaissance</span><span> is set to continue. Next down the conveyor belt is a live-action reworking of </span><span><em>Mulan</em></span><span>, the story of a Chinese </span><span>woman who disguises herself as a ma</span><span>le warrior to save her father.</span> <span>Abandoning the musical element of the film, director Niki Caro</span><span>, who cast Chinese actor Liu Yifei in the lead</span><span>, appears to be broaching </span><span><em>Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon </em></span><span>territory, calling the film "a </span><span>girly martial arts epic".</span> <span><em>The Little Mermaid</em></span><span> is also on the slate, with Rob Marshall directing and <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/film/us-singer-halle-bailey-cast-as-ariel-in-the-little-mermaid-live-action-remake-1.882541">Halle Bailey</a> </span><span>playing Ariel. Largely, the reaction to casting an actress of colour as a character previously depicted as </span><span>white has been </span><span>positive.</span><span> </span> <span>The concern is less about the quality of these remakes but the speed of their arrival. Even </span><span>earlier Disney films are being </span><span>raked through relentlessly. Later this year, 1955's canine classic </span><span><em>The Lady and the Tramp </em></span><span>is getting the live-action makeover</span><span>, while </span><span>Angelina Jolie reprises her role as the evil witch in </span><span><em>Maleficent: Mistress of Evil</em></span><span> (though, to be fair, 2014's </span><span><em>Maleficent </em></span><span>was one of the more original spins on a cartoon</span><span>, looking at 1959's </span><span><em>Sleeping Beauty</em></span><span> through the eyes of the antagonist).</span> <span>Then again, no idea stays original for long. Along the same lines, </span><span>next year's </span><span><em>Cruella</em></span><span>, starring Emma Stone</span><span>, will focus on the villain</span><span> from </span><span><em>101 Dalmatians</em></span><span>. No wonder the feeling is that </span><span><em>The Lion King</em></span><span> needs to roar at the box office to justify these continual remakes. But the real question remains: what happens when Disney has entirely </span><span>exhausted its back catalogue? Don't be surprised if, in a generation's time, the Renaissance happens all over again.</span> <em>The Lion King comes out in theatres across the UAE from July 18</em>