Disney+ Mulan (2020) (1 Viewer)

[Jake Lipson]

To be fair, most of those posts are from months ago.

They are, but they're also still there, and many of them still represent the most accurate information we have about the film. I'm not admonishing anyone for posting, just pointing out that the thread is three pages deep now and does have a fair amount of valid discussion that one might benefit from going back and reading.

I just hope they give us some more news, I feel like I still know so little about this remake.

Again, that's because of the timetable they are using. Disney is going to do their usual full promotional blitz -- when it's actually time for the movie to come out. I understand being excited for Mulan, but don't feel like the film is in any kind of trouble because they haven't been more forthcoming on news yet. It's not coming out for over a year

You asked in one of your previous posts about the delay in the release date and if that meant they would add songs. I don't think the delay in the release date has anything to do with songs. They did not have the cast set, and they were not filming, in time to make the original release date, so they moved it back. That's not cause for alarm; it just means the film took longer to get ready than they were originally anticipating. If anything Disney should be applauded for not rushing an inferior product to make the release date.

If Mulan is your childhood, that means you grew up in the '90s, so you probably also saw Aladdin, The Lion King, and Toy Story. All of those are getting new films next year, so go see those, and I promise Mulan will work itself out. By this time next year, we'll know a lot more about Mulan than we do now.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Ming-Na Wen (the speaking voice actress of Mulan in the animated film) is being honored as a Disney Legend at this year's D23 Expo in August.

https://d23.com/2019-disney-legends/

It would not surprise me at all if Disney also used the Expo to debut the first footage from the remake, as they did two years ago for The Lion King (although whether non-attendees will get to see it is an open question.)

 

[Jake Lipson]

There's a new rumor going around the internet from someone who claims to have seen the new Mulan film. According to this anonymous source. Mushu -- whose casting was never announced for the new movie -- will be replaced by a phoenix, which is backed up by an image of crew jackets with a phoenix on them. Also, the songs are not included and the only music will be the instrumental score.

https://thedisinsider.com/2019/06/2...hu-in-mulan-cast-will-not-sing-classic-songs/

 

[Sam Favate]

There's a new rumor going around the internet from someone who claims to have seen the new Mulan film. According to this anonymous source. Mushu -- whose casting was never announced for the new movie -- will be replaced by a phoenix, which is backed up by an image of crew jackets with a phoenix on them. Also, the songs are not included and the only music will be the instrumental score.

https://thedisinsider.com/2019/06/2...hu-in-mulan-cast-will-not-sing-classic-songs/

Okay, I can at least get behind that as the film makers doing something different, instead of the faithful retellings of Aladdin and (I presume) Lion King. Remains to be seen if it will work, but it sounds like they are trying.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Obviously, I can't speak to the legitimacy of the source, so I put this in the "grain of salt" column for now. But since the film is out next March, it seems reasonable to believe that there is a rough cut version of it that the right source could have seen.

If this rumor is in fact true, I think the removal of the songs, especially, would be a mistake.

Putting aside the creative aspects for a second, these films tend to do well when they include the elements of the original that people like, whether or not they are actually any good. I think the new Aladdin is garbage, but it kept the elements that people wanted o have there from the animated film and as a consequence it is doing extremely well.

As much as I think that The Lion King looks exactly the same and that's pointless, if they were going to make it again regardless of what I think, I would prefer that to a remake that significantly messed wit the story for no reason other than an obligation to be different.

Dumbo (which was in the same release slot this year as Mulan is occupying next year) took more liberties with the source material and was not as successful.

The songs from Mulan are iconic to the generation that grew up with the film (and, to be clear, I am in that group.) I do not think we will take kindly to a version which removes them. That doesn't mean that the whole rest of the movie has to be a carbon copy of the animated film, but that there are certain elements that are expected, and the songs are among those expectations.

If this were an Alan Menken musical like so many of the other '90s movies, there would be no discussion about whether to keep the songs; they would just be in. Why is Mulan any different just because he didn't write it?

I like Nikki Caro as a director, and I'm all for letting directors do their take on their film. But if I were Disney and I were taking meetings with directors to make a remake of Mulan, no one would get that job without agreeing to have the songs in there. Period.

On another note, Pixar has a trailer in theaters right now for Onward, which is out next March. Beauty and the Beast had a trailer ten months early on Alice Through the Looking Glass. If Disney wants to do an early trailer for Mulan, it wouldn't surprise me to see a brief teaser on the front of The Lion King.

If that does not happen, then the first footage would almost certainly drop at D23 (which will have something from it whether the public sees a trailer this early or not.) So we should be getting more details soon, I think.

 

[Jason_V]

From everything I understand, Mulan won't be based strictly on the animated film, but rather be an amalgamation of version of Mulan through the years. In that regard, I don't see a single problem with the direction this is rumored to be going. It's something new and the big knock against some of the live action films is they're remakes and don't add anything new to the story.

 

[AshJW]

So there’s no singing in the movie? I’m in!



Or did I misread something?

 

[Malcolm R]

To be honest, I don't even remember any of the songs from Mulan. For a brief moment, I was thinking "Colors of the Wind", but that's Pocahontas.

 

[Citizen87645]

Yeah, the only songs that I consider memorable are "Reflection" and "I'll Make a Man Out of You." But I think that either could be done without making it a musical number sung by the characters.

 

[Jake Lipson]

either could be done without making it a musical number sung by the characters.

What would be the point of that?

 

[Citizen87645]

A nod to the past without the repetition of it.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I'm speaking generally here -- for myself and for others who I know who have strong feelings about this I don't claim to be the voice of every fan, but I know there are lots who feel like this.

Fans who really want the songs to be in there would also want the songs to be sung by the characters. We want it to be the musical that it is.

If Disney is not going to do that, they're not. But it wouldn't satisfy me to have the songs but not have them performed by the cast as part of the movie. They should be there because they're making a musical, not because they want to halfway do it.

This rumor, taken in combination with Nikki Caro's previous statements about the songs, indicate that she is not interested in making a musical. Like I said before, if I were Disney, I would not have hired anyone who didn't want to make the musical. However, they did hire her, so now they should let her make the movie that she wants to make, which means not shoehorning the songs in there. That might not be the movie I want to watch. But like it or not, it appears to be what she wants to make.

 

[Jason_V]

I said this in other places and I'll say it again here: the studio simply can't win with these live action movies. They can't. And here's why:

If the new version is a shot for shot remake (more or less), with the same story, songs, characters and plot, a contingent of "fans" yell and moan Disney is creatively bankrupt.

If the new version takes the animated and adds to it (like Dumbo), a contingent of "fans" yell and moan that they destroyed the integrity of the original by changing it.

If the new version uses the animated version as a springboard for a new story (a la Maleficent), a contingent of "fans" yell and moan no one cares about this story and a prequel/sequel/whatever wasn't needed.

No win scenario. So it's best for the creators of this version to do what they think is best for their interpretation of this story and forget the naysayers. Just like Guy Ritchie and his co-creators did for Aladdin. And Tim Burton and his gang did for Dumbo. Some will be home runs, some will be solid doubles. And some will be strike outs.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I said this in other places and I'll say it again here: the studio simply can't win with these live action movies. They can't.

You're right. But it doesn't matter to Disney if they win or not because either way, they get money.

I think the new Aladdin movie is terrible. I think Guy Ritchie is an incompetent director for a musical. But I still paid $15.98 to see it to find that out.

I don't really think The Lion King needs a remake. But I care so much about the original that I feel like I have to see it to know what they did. So I'm going to pay for that too.

As long as the collective "we" keep turning up to see these movies, they're going to keep making them. The response after they've gotten our money doesn't matter as much because they still got paid.

 

[Jason_V]

The only way they get the point, as you very correctly pointed out Jake, is for people not to see them. That's the power we as consumers have. The only way Disney or any other company "doesn't win" is by the movie-going public to not go to the theater or buying the product. I'm happy to continue showing up because I've enjoyed every single one of them. Once that stops, I'll stop. (Same goes for anything else I follow: Apple products, Star Trek, Flav City on YouTube...and the list goes on.)

 

[Citizen87645]

I don't think my family has seen a single one of the live action remakes, and that includes Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland from 2010. Obviously, we are outliers within the moviegoing public.

I'm interested in seeing Mulan, but it might take some convincing for my wife to go.

 

[Jake Lipson]

There's a rumor going around that a teaser trailer will air on TV tomorrow night during the soccer final. If so, then I'm sure it will screen theatrically with The Lion King and I would be correct in my speculation about that a few posts ago.

In the meantime, I'd like to reiterate that Disney has not yet released anything for this film and the poster associated with the first post, as well as in the thread list, is fake/not a genuine Disney promotional image.

Is there a way to remove it until Disney releases an official poster?

 

[Jake Lipson]

 

[Jake Lipson]

This is the just-released official poster. Is there a way to change the poster associated with this thread to this? The one it has used is fake.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Looks better than Dumbo and Aladdin. They at least took the time to make a real movie, as opposed to just a corporate product. I was worried that Liu, at 31, wouldn't be able to pull off playing a teenager. But the character does read younger in that trailer.

The material is right in Niki Caro's wheelhouse, having made Whale Rider which is a very similar story.