The evolution in film has exceeded so much over the years with new technology aiding in its growth. Many remarkable movies that made thousands of people ask “How did they do that?” such as the first ever “talkie” film “The Jazz Singer” in 1972, and James Cameron’s movie “Avatar” in 2009. But as the evolution of film started to come into our modern times, the most used effect in film is CGI.
CGI stands for Computer-generated imagery, which was founded by N. Konstantinov in 1968 when some mathematicians made a cat out of a mathematical model and had it move across the screen. It wasn’t until 1976 when the movie “Futureworld” was the first film to use 3-D CGI. But as some saw potential of being able to create mountains and mountains of memorable movies, others saw it as a money-making machine and an unneeded asset just to say “Hey, look what we can do!”
Disney is known for doing what it can to make money. With their remakes of old 2-D animated movies into live action, it isn’t a surprise that the ones next on their list are being debated on whether or not it’s a good idea. As of right now, the trailer of the live action remake of “Aladdin” came out and the most notable thing that makes people react negatively about the film is the clip showing Will Smith as a CGI Genie. The CGI looked absolutely terrible, the blue skin and the wispy tail looks weird on Will Smith, making it distracting and harsh to the eye. Along with that, they are remaking “The Lion King”, which has no humans in it whatsoever, so it just becomes this CGI animated movie where they say “Look how realistic we can make these animals look,” when in reality, they are removing every bit of charm the 2-D animated movies had.
2-D animated movies have this charm to them, where each character looks different with their design and how they move along with how their voice actor has the freedom to be so expressive to fit that character. When you look at the trailer for the 2-D animated “The Lion King” the colors are so nice and vibrant, but in the CGI trailer, everything is stripped away. You can’t even tell the clear character difference between ANY of the characters because of how every single realistic animal looks the same. These movies have been killing the memorable ones that hold so much character to them.
“Cinderella,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “The Jungle Book” has been tainted by Disney making them into live actions and soon “The Lion King,” “Aladdin,” and “Dumbo” are going to follow suit. It’s sad to see this happen to these remarkable movies that have become timeless because of their lawless animation, but now children will look upon these live action remakes and not what started it all. So much heart was put into the animated movies but is being torn apart by Disney trying to make money off of what they can. Yes 2-D animation is very expensive, but maybe if they remastered the animated movies with new and fresh animation in the 3-D animated style, keeping the original style and even voice acting, it would’ve revived what they had for the newer generation to enjoy just how the older generation did when they first experienced it.
