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[-] carbonari_sandwich@piefed.social 80 points 23 hours ago

Here's my pitch: Let's animate the live action Disney movies. They have these properties to draw from, and instead of making a live-action remake of them like Freaky Friday or Herbie, or a sequel like Hocus Pocus or Mary Poppins Returns, reinvent it as an animated feature.

  • 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
  • The Shaggy Dog (1959)
  • Pollyanna (1960)
  • The Absent-Minded Professor (1961)
  • The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964)
  • Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)
  • Escape to Witch Mountain (1975)
  • The Cat from Outer Space (1978)
  • Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)
  • White Fang (1991)
  • The Rocketeer (1991)
  • Newsies (1992)
  • The Mighty Ducks (1992)
  • The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993)
  • Cool Runnings (1993)
  • Blank Check (1994)
  • Heavyweights (1995)
  • A Kid in King Arthur's Court (1995)
  • George of the Jungle (1997)
  • Air Bud (1997)
  • RocketMan (1997)
  • Inspector Gadget (1999)
[-] Mirshe@lemmy.world 1 points 9 minutes ago

Animation is now about as expensive as live-action, and Disney, like most studios, is still on "animation is for kids". They're trying to position these live-action remakes as somehow "more adult" because they're not animated.

[-] Pandantic@midwest.social 2 points 26 minutes ago
[-] carbonari_sandwich@piefed.social 2 points 21 minutes ago

I feel like Sony Animation would knock this one outta the park.

[-] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 6 points 12 hours ago

The Rocketeer (1991)

As much as I love good animation, nothing can possibly replace 1991 Jennifer Connely.

[-] edible_funk@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 hours ago

Remake any Disney owned movie with The Muppets. Slam dunk.

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 36 points 22 hours ago

Bedknobs and Broomsticks but the animated parts are live action…

Incidentally Bedknobs and Broomsticks is the better Mary Poppins, I know I know it’s an unpopular opinion but I stand by it.

[-] UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 6 points 16 hours ago

Thats just because of how awesome Angela Lansbury is in everything she ever did.

[-] Maestro@fedia.io 17 points 21 hours ago

I agree! As a kid I was obsessed by the final battle between the Nazis and the animated armors!

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 14 points 20 hours ago

ah, but would Di$ney risk possibly alienating a few movie goers by depicting Nazis as bad and incompetent today?

[-] Nangijala@feddit.dk 8 points 21 hours ago

Don't forget the bagpipes, laddy!

[-] Nangijala@feddit.dk 10 points 21 hours ago

I'm here to join the Bedknobs is better than Poppins-club. Not that I hate Mary Poppins. I just think Bedknobs is way more fun.

[-] kn0wmad1c@programming.dev 11 points 19 hours ago

Blank Check

Disney really wants everyone to forget this movie, wherein a thirty-something adult falls in love and makes out with a child, exists.

[-] nullspace@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago

But Disney loves groomers. They produce all their live-action teen content.

[-] UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 5 points 16 hours ago

Honestly, I would watch animated adaptations of most of these.

[-] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 25 points 23 hours ago

Honey I Shrunk the Kids would make a great animated movie, and Rick Morranis could reprise his role!

[-] carbonari_sandwich@piefed.social 8 points 20 hours ago

That one in particular is what got me started on this thought. I've been playing the game Grounded and it's really brought me back to that movie and realizing what was so evocative about the premise.

Rick Moranis is also freaking great in it. He somehow manages to come across in the movie as a cartoon character.

[-] kata1yst@sh.itjust.works 16 points 22 hours ago
[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 18 points 22 hours ago

That’s remake of The Absent-Minded Professor which is on the list.

[-] kata1yst@sh.itjust.works 11 points 22 hours ago

Oh I didn't realize they were one and the same!

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 7 points 20 hours ago

That’s an easy one to miss. Unlike The Shaggy Dog or Escape to Witch Mountain, for instance, Flubber isn’t named the same as the movie being remade.

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 8 points 20 hours ago

I came back to see if The Black Hole was on your list. That would be an interesting one too, The Black Hole was actually one of the last movies to use the hybrid hand drawn animation/live action approach. It’s hard to tell though because it’s only used for the special effects like the black hole itself.

[-] UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 2 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

There were quite a few movies that used this technique after that, including some produced by Disney (most notably Who Framed Rodger Rabbit). It was pretty common, at least for effects shots, will into the 90s and early 2000s.

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 4 points 16 hours ago

Yes and no, I was specifically talking about the practical effect of combining animation with live action. Every movie that came after had some form of computer assistance whether in camera control or in using CG for the actual combination even if the animation was still hand drawn or in some other way. The Black Hole used some computer help but at that time there were only a couple entities, like the newly formed ILM, that could do things the new way and they were all tied up with other projects like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Alien. So a bunch of the shots in The Black Hole were done using the same double exposure techniques used in Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks among others.

[-] UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 3 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

It sounds like you are trying to describe the sodium vapor process, which would be a more accurate way of saying this. Hand drawn animation was used a lot, this specific process was not, and the differentiation is not "using computers" or "CG". It was a Disney developed process that was not used by anyone else, so obviously it would only appear in Disney films or collaborations.

Its a pretty elegent way of doing this and it looks better than even a lot of modern computer equivalents because it essentially places the animated sequences on the same plane as the live action. It also required a lot of bespoke equipment and knowledge that no one was able to effectively copy.

Its why the animated sequences in the films that used it look better than a lot of the stuff that came after.

[-] carbonari_sandwich@piefed.social 4 points 19 hours ago

I'm not familiar with it, but it looks really interesting. I might have to go seek this one out.

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 7 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

It’s one of my favorites but definitely not like other Disney movies at the time or anything that came before or since really. I freely admit that I have nostalgia goggles for it and that it’s definitely one of those love it or hate it kind of movies.

One of the more interesting things for me in addition to the animation is it was planned to be their Star Wars. There was a huge merchandising push behind it that had board games, and action figures, and a novelization, etc. and there were planned sequels. Of course it went nowhere because the movie was very much a love it or hate it kind of movie.

AFAIK, they’ve actually tried to remake it two or three times in the last 30 years or so and every time it’s run into development hell because people have wildly different interpretations of what the main theme or point of the movie is just for starters.

[-] Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 15 hours ago

The real question is if these still hold copyright value for Disney.

That is why they are remaking the movies. To keep their rights on the more successful versions.

this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
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