The Original Idea

The original ideas are dying. Think of the movies, the real classics: Footloose, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, West Side Story, A Star is Born they all have one thing in common they were all remade, remodelled and done again and again. All the Batman movies, all the superman, Spiderman were re-done different storylines, different telling but all the same. When did we run out of original ideas, Disney has stooped down the levels instead of making new movies, they are taking their classics and making them into live action films. Cinderella was a hit with that and Disney just continued down the rabbit hole. Mulan, Snow White, Little Mermaid, Lion King movies that made Disney Disney are now being repeated. What happened to good original thoughts like Toy Story what a creative, imaginative idea but now they've made a fifth or sixth I cannot keep up with it all. Toy Story 2 was great and the 3rd was a perfect ending to the series. The Incredibles, what a great movie and years later they had to come out with a second? leave them alone. Cars 1 was great and classic story, but then they got ridiculous with Cars 2 if fans like it stick to making small television shows for children stop making really bad sequels.

Hollywood seems to have developed an obsession with revisiting stories that have already been told, repackaging old movies and presenting them as something new. Remakes, reboots, sequels, and reimagining's have become such a prominent part of the industry that it sometimes feels as though originality has taken a back seat to familiarity. And I understand the appeal of nostalgia; there's comfort in revisiting a story you already know and love. But there's a difference between paying homage to a classic and trying to recreate its success. Too often, these films rely on the audience's emotional attachment to the original rather than offering anything genuinely interesting of their own. They borrow the characters, the dialogue, the memorable scenes, and sometimes even the cinematography, but rarely capture the intangible quality that made the original worth remembering. I'm not against revisiting an old story if there's a compelling reason to tell it again, but I wish Hollywood would spend less time looking backwards and more time taking chances on something we've never seen before. After all, we don't need the same stories told over and over again with a bigger budget and better special effects. I loved all the Star Wars and all the Back to the Future movies, but it won't be long until they find an excuse to remake them. Sure, there is a lot to unravel in the Star Wars universe and all the new shows in that world are relevant and good, but we still need new stories that give us a reason to fall in love with the movies all over again.

There was something Disney was remarkably good at: taking something dark, sometimes even downright disturbing, and turning it into something light, whimsical, and seemingly innocent. Take The Hunchback of Notre Dame, for example. As a child, I remember the music, the colourful characters, the talking gargoyles, and the overall magic of it all. It was just another Disney movie. But rewatch it as an adult, and suddenly you're confronted with a much darker story than you remember. Themes of religious hypocrisy, lust, persecution, prejudice, isolation, and the abuse of power are woven throughout the film. Things that once went completely over your head now sit right in front of you, and you begin to wonder how much of it you actually understood as a child.

Disney had a particular talent for breathing life into the old Grimm fairytales, taking stories that were often filled with death, cruelty, heartbreak, and rather grim endings, and transforming them into something a child could enjoy. They got rid of the edginess, added humour, colourful sidekicks, memorable musical numbers, and, of course, the promise of a happily ever after. They took the darkness and wrapped it in a beautiful little package of magic.

I think Frozen is a particularly good example of why original storytelling still matters. When it first came out, it wasn't simply another princess movie following the familiar Disney formula; where a princess falls in love with a prince and then the villain tries to tear them apart only to bring them together. In fact, it almost deliberately stepped away from it. But Frozen gave us something different. At its heart, it wasn't a love story between a man and a woman; it was a story about two sisters who had become strangers to one another, about loneliness, resentment, sacrifice, and ultimately rediscovering the bond they shared. The idea that an act of true love didn't have to come from a romantic partner was a refreshing departure from what we'd come to expect from Disney. It was funny without trying too hard, had genuinely memorable characters, wonderful music, and a story that managed to appeal to children and adults alike. It felt fresh.

And that's what makes the success of the original so interesting when you consider the sequel. Frozen II had an enormous audience waiting for it before it had even established whether there was another story worth telling. People were invested in Elsa, Anna, Olaf, and the world Disney had created. They wanted more because they loved what came before. But I think there's a distinction between wanting more of something you love and actually needing another instalment.

The overdone movies need to stop give audiences something new, dynamic, something so good we forget about the bad sequels or the bad remakes.