Once Upon A Time, animation was considered the pinnacle of artistic expression but, unfortunately, has recently become something people believe is made only for children. This degradation is an insult to all who worked so hard on it, spending hours on end to make it appealing to all ages and demographics. To reduce their hard work to something made just for children, which usually suggests less effort is put into it, disregards all of the effort put into these passion projects.

Unfortunately, many companies have fallen into this mindset, including Disney, which once led the way in animation in the early 1900s. For example, the creator of the now-infamous company, Walt Disney, was awarded the first Oscar for an animation for Flowers and Trees in 1932. Additionally, Disney created first feature-length animated film in 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and was heralded for its award-winning animation that broke the standards of films for the time. These achievements, which set a high bar for the animation companies that would follow, demonstrated just how valued animation was by not just its creators, but by those who watched it.

However, in recent years, it appears as if both the company and the audience have grown disinterested in the medium, as it is no longer perceived to be as groundbreaking as it once was. Now, companies, especially Disney, have begun to shift toward live-action films, with almost all of its recent live-action films being adaptations of their once-worshiped animated movies.

Disney began to experiment with this shift to live-action as early as 1994, with the company releasing a live-action adaptation titled Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book in theaters, which made $70 million at the box office. However, the first ground-breaking live-action adaptation, and also the film that can be blamed for starting this trend, is Cinderella in 2015, which made $524 million at the box office.

Of course, adaptations had been made before this, such as Maleficent (2014) and Alice in Wonderland (2010). Most of these movies made more than enough money to cover their production cost, and had the added benefit of being stories with thought and passion behind them. However, Cinderella, which was the first adaptation of Disney’s classic Disney Princesses brand, was the film that revealed the true monetary worth behind live-action. 

Though these films might have initially been made with love and nostalgia in mind, it didn’t take long for monetary gain to outweigh any and all other motives. This can be seen in show but sure quality drop of the films that followed Cinderella, such as Beauty and the Beast (2017), Dumbo (2019), Aladdin (2019), and, most recently, The Little Mermaid (2023). In addition to this, Disney seemed to take the phrase “quantity over quality” to heart with these films, as sixteen of these live-action adaptations have been released in the last ten years. This number is nearly three times the amount of the six that had been in the almost twenty years between Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1992) and Maleficent (2014). During this same ten-year timeframe, only nine animated films were released solely by Walt Disney Animation Studios, few of which could be argued to be on the same level as the Disney Renaissance movies.

Disney is not the only company to go down this route, as Netflix has followed a similar path with their adaptations of two popular animated series: Avatar: The Last Airbender and One Piece. The general success of these adaptations sends the message to other companies that uncreative adaptations will still generate viewership and revenue, regardless of the quality. This is a dangerous rabbit hole to go down, as it sets the precedent that companies can pump out countless cheap pieces of media made only for money instead of being the passion projects made for entertainment that they should be.

Of course, this isn’t to say all live-action is bad, far from it. There have been countless spectacular movies, films, and other pieces of media that have existed only in live-action. However, it is the adaptation of animated media that puts a bad taste in the mouths of many. In a world where most recent animated films are getting the short end of the stick in terms of funding, time, and overall creative license, live-action adaptations that have more money backing them with much less passion feels, to most, like a slap in the face. With future plans of adapting more of their classics, such as Snow White set to release later this year, it is clear that Disney has no intention of slowing their adaptation-making machine. Maybe somewhere in the far future, they’ll hear enough cries to return to their glory days of animation. But, for now, it appears as if most audiences will have to settle with scraps of the past we are being tossed.