https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4WTBCr3hdI
It’s like when they took the “Walt” out of “Disney” they took everything he wanted to do and replaced it with corporate nonsense. Ever since Michael Eisner’s direct-to-video sequels that were not good continuations of the original movie, Disney has made bad decisions. And Walt’s name was still on the company at the time. Walt was an animator and despite having released live-action movies without animation he never forgot the power of animation. If anything he was responsible for showing the power of animation when it comes to storytelling, the ability to do things in cartoon form that were impossible to pull off in live-action due to the unreality of the cartoon world versus the regular human world.
Now the trend of making live-action remakes to “fix” the dirty cartoons and make sure they can win an Oscar from the Academy Awards, forced to shove animation into it’s own category so the “real” actors wouldn’t have a fit over a cartoon being nominated for Best Picture, has set it sights on Bambi. Mostly based on Felix Salten’s 1923 novel Bambi, A Life In The Woods, with whatever changes Uncle Walt would do because they’ve never been completely accurate to the source material, and you may not want to look up Salten’s history because…the dude was not a well man. The 1942 film left out a lot of animal vs animal violence and a scene where Bambi’s dad shows him a dead hunter, murdered by another hunter. Walt had considered adding it according to The New Yorker but the test audiences didn’t really go for it. All we actually got is Bambi’s mother dying, which became an issue for hunters and conservationists alike.
However, it’s the death of Bambi’s mother that appears to be the big complaint against the movie. Some kids are really sensitive and can’t handle it. That’s fine and I’m not going to call a kid out or a parent over-colliding for keeping a sensitive kid from it. These things happen. On the other hand, with a director coming from the remake of Pet Cemetery coming you’d think they wouldn’t be against that scene. In the case of Lindsey Anderson Beer you’d be wrong.
The following video, an interview from Collider which has a bunch of swearing in it, gets into the live-action Bambi remake that isn’t really live action as they’re doing the photorealistic CG among real backgrounds nonsense that Jon Favreau did for The Lion King at around the 14 minute mark. However, adding in what she says about adapting Steven King’s novel, which already had an adaptation, I have more questions.
It seems odd having a horror director (and given the movies listed in the full video that’s how she appears to me) comment against a death in a movie Stephen King called his first horror movie. The death of Bambi’s mother is a significant part of the movie. Sensitive parents I’m not too worried about. The kids on the other hand… I can see sensitive kids not responding well to the moment and you can debate whether kids today are too sensitive and why on your own. My point is there’s a reason Walt Disney left this scene in over the protests of his daughter.
The biggest complaint about this scene is that it transition to full spring, time passing, and a lot of happy music, leading to a tonal whiplash. We don’t see a body, presumably because the hunter took it. We don’t even see her drop since she’s shot off screen, just a gunshot to let the audience know that last shot got some venison on someone’s table that night. Interesting note about that: apparently, if that was the first grass of spring they found before she sensed the hunter then said hunter is actually a poacher because it’s illegal to hunt deer in Spring.
Death is a part of life and this is a lesson that hits both Bambi and the viewer. It has led to people being against hunting because they see animals as sentient because of Bambi, the dirty cartoon without the more important live actors I remind you because Walt understood the power of animation. As noted earlier the movie drops all the animals attacking each other, including Thumper’s book counterpart, Friend Hare, losing his son to crows as well as his wife to the same hunting party though I couldn’t tell you if it’s Watership Down levels of violence. Bambi’s cousin Gogo is injured by the same hunting party but is found and nursed back to health, leaving him a target the next time humans show up because he can’t tell hunters from healers. The story is a lot darker, but not the only time time Walt Disney and The Walt Disney Company lightened up an old tale. Look at the original versions of Pinocchio and The Little Mermaid sometime.
Not that I’d be surprised that the current Disney Entertainment would have an issue with this, considering all the trigger warnings and editing they’ve been doing to their libraries of shows both created and acquired as of late for Disney+. I also have this cynical voice in my head wondering if, had this been Bambi’s father, would the same concerns apply given the companies’ history of dead parents in these old movies? It used to be a joke that in Disney films at least one parent was dead or will be by the closing credits. This is what the modern culture has caused me to think about. Is it the death or which gender did the dying? So does Bambi’s mom live? Does she pass from old age? Is this the only change or are some of the harsher media and culture critics right that this may take the usual “modern audiences” tag and alter character for a false sense of (token by way of stereotyping) “representation”? Given Disney Entertainment’s own actions and comments both leaked and official there’s already some negative worries that supersede wait and see notions because modern Disney has a history of adding things to stories whether it needed to be or not. It’s a reputation they’re already up against when it comes to opening weekend, along with pushing their stuff in China leaving to that same representation being repressed in China and other countries that aren’t into LGBT+ or multiracial characters, which just makes them look like hypocrites. It’s only a good thing when it makes them money.
What, you think they care about your sociopolitical affiliation? Sorry, they’re not even in this for creativity anymore. They just want the money, which is a bad thing for a company producing a product that requires creativity and a certain level of freedom. They only join “the cause” because they’re convince a loud Twitter minority and their echo chamber friends in Hollywood say it’s the current cause du jour and thus where the money is, even when the box office numbers disagree. That said, if Beer is as honest as she says about the source material, and given all the backpatting she did about changes to King’s novel in her last adaptation I have doubts, we don’t know for sure that it will be “SJW trash” despite their current reputation like the upcoming Snow Whiteish And The Seven Magical Creatures Because Peter Dinklage Thinks He Speaks For All Short People. A questionable adaptation? I’m more ready to believe that. For the record, my money’s on Flower if they do go that route.
Whether or not modern culture alters the story for “modern audiences” and “the message” as Critical Drinker calls them, the big problem is still replacing the animation with photorealistic animals who don’t have the same lack of physical restraints. You can make a cartoon deer do things that will look weird in a real looking deer. Walt Disney put out a series of nature documentaries back in the day with real animals. Just make more of those if you want real animals. It’s tougher seeing your fake animals pretending to be real animals as sentient creatures on the level of humans and the end result is going to chase people out of the uncanny valley. Modern Disney needs to stop hating animation and take the goals the company was founded on to heart. Walt Disney pushed animation to show it wasn’t just “kids stuff” and could stand alongside live-action works, which they also made. Modern Disney seems to hate the very medium their company was founded on, which is just another reason why they’re failing.
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