Why Mulan (2020) Didn't Work

this video is brought to you by viewers like you okay so this movie sucked and it sucked because they cut the music now this isn't some oh no where's oda music when did they get rid of mushu kind of thing no there's a clear structural reason as to why this film was so poorly received and it completely revolves around the music now when i first heard that they were cutting all the music honestly i wasn't quite sure how to feel about it see and this is something that's been really bothering me about these live-action disney remakes it's how they've somehow been so incredibly financially successful but have also left almost no cultural impact like people seem to forget that the first half of these remakes cut a lot of the music out the jungle book cut out some numbers same with cinderella allison wonderland had no songs whatsoever so i figured maybe cutting the music could work especially considering how the director nikki cairo doesn't really seem to have any experience with musicals at all maybe it'd be a better fit in the end of the day if they just went with something non-musical fine but when you look up why they decided to nix the music you get some flavor of oh we were going for a more realistic tone which like okay woman that can turn into bird is fine and cloth magic with arrow kicking and little girl ninja reflexes is all realistic but heaven forbid we break into song all right so in order to explain why this film failed so badly believe it or not we're gonna have to cover opera now look i know that opera has this era of snobbery to it and everyone thinks it's super complicated it's this quantum physics of music kind of thing it's not it's just what rich people in europe used to watch before disney invented superhero movies that's it but look on the whole opera is not that complicated it can be and that's what i call a fun sunday night because i'm boring as hell but opera in general is really formulaic just let me show you how it works so in traditional western european opera you know the kind of thing that you think of whenever there's someone screaming over an orchestra on stage or the looney tunes i guess you can break all the vocal music into two categories recitative or brexitative depending on who you're talking to and arya recitative is when people sing the plot to you the story moves along when someone's singing a recitative arya on the other hand is when everything stops and someone stands on stage and screams their feelings to the back wall literally the whole show comes to a stop and one of the characters has a therapy session on stage in musical form these european operas are on the whole basically rotating between recitative and arya recitative moves the plot along and then the plot stops for an arya where a character reflects on what's going on that's it that's opera typically in a concert setting when someone's performing a single piece from an opera it tends to be arya not always but more often than not arias are kind of written for vocalists to flex it's supposed to be where the characters are at the most emotionally intense maybe they're angry or they're just so in love that they can't hold on to it anymore sometimes it's literally just to introduce themselves you get the idea so you know nessundorma you know nes and dorma that's an arya from puccini's turned out it's about this guy calif who falls in love the princess after seeing her once because of course he does but in order to marry her he has to answer three riddles if he gets any of them wrong he gets beheaded this whole piece is damn she's thick i'm totally gonna win jeopardy tomorrow literally the lyrics here are vanish oh night fade you stars fade you stars at dawn i will win i will win i will win now recitative on the other hand i'm not gonna lie it's super boring i'm convinced that recitative is why people don't listen to opera anymore recitative is performed in a half-sung half-spoken style you normally hear people saying that it's sung but in a more spoken word style just to be as confusing as possible and that's on a spectrum so some recitative are more song-like which we call recitivo compagnado or accompanied restitutive and other recitative is much more like spoken word which we call recitativo secco or dry recitative and you'll notice that the music is written to facilitate that kind of performance in a secco recitative they'll have a few chords here and there but they'll really leave a lot of open space for the vocalist to express the line how they want to without having to follow the orchestra on the other hand in a companado or accompanied recitative it's gonna feel a lot more like what you expect from you know a piece of music or like a song if you watch my video on cats and les mis this is basically how and why everything went wrong jackman talks about les mis being mostly recitative which i guess is true there's a lot of boring speak singing in les mis can it be only a day since we met and the world was reborn if i should fall in the battle to come let this be my goodbye but he thinks that that means that he can perform at secco when at best it's written accompaniano he along with the rest of the cast tried to take more liberty with their performances when the instrumental accompaniment didn't allow for it and it all backfired horribly and really that's it that's opera assuming that you only speak english the only barrier for entry now is that most operas aren't in english at least the good ones aren't now in the late 1800s with people like wagner writing these opera cycles that lasted 14 some odd hours some people were like hey what if we like don't want to spend all day in the theater to listen to an opera what if like opera wasn't like math homework or something what if instead of 12 hours maybe it was only two what if we cracked a few jokes here and there maybe add a dance number or two throw it away t-shirt contest just to make it exciting you know fun for the whole family this was the birth of something called operetta or light opera or opera buffa or comic opera depending on where you are and how badly you want to upset whoever you're talking to just a disclaimer all of these are technically different and mean different things and have appeared at different points in history but i just don't have time to go over all of it right now this is supposed to be a video about mulan and i'm ranting about opera and i'm serious about the white t-shirt contest a few of the things that they added to operetta was burlesque and cabaret they really knew how to put on a show now not everyone liked operetta one of my favorite quotes about operetta goes like this it is a form for certain dramatic oceans those miniature compositions full of which one finds only cold songs and couplets from vaudeville if you haven't figured out who said that that was mozart opera snobs have been around for hundreds of years you can look at operetta like diet opera all the fun but a fraction of the calories but one of the ways that they turned opera into operetta was they took all the rest to teave and converted it into dialogue and then they left the aryas as they were if it moved the plot along they turned it into dialogue only to stop and sing when the emotions built up too much and we needed someone to tell us how in love they were or how much they were going to kill someone instead of recitative and arya now it was dialogue and arya and over the years with some more elements of vaudeville added in way more dancing and a greater emphasis on acting we saw the genesis of musical theater as we know it today the pirates of penzance for example written by gilbert and sullivan in the 1880s is the show where we get the modern major general i am the very model of a modern major general life information vegetable animal and mineral they know the kings of england and they quote the fights historical from marathon to waterloo not a categorical it's technically a comic opera which is what the english colon apparetta but it was modernized in 1981 and won the tony for best revival this is more or less how contemporary musical theater came to be so when you look at the musical numbers of a western stage musical you're looking at something that is the direct descendant of the arya from european opera it's a moment where a character is reflecting on what's going on around them like trying to defy gravity or dreaming a dream or not being a loser it's where the character transforms their emotions into musical form and conveys them to the audience in some cases it's just them identifying themselves and what they want and who they are other times it'll be them conveying how a situation has affected them so now that i've bored you to death with opera let's do a thought experiment if we were gonna take a film and make it a musical where would you add the musical numbers and why well if the musical numbers in musicals function similarly to arya's in opera then you want to break into song whenever a character is reflecting on a particularly emotional moment and well we have a really great demonstration of that right here in the producers see the 2001 stage production of the producers was a musical adaptation of the 1967 film of the same name that wasn't a musical and thankfully in 2005 they made a film of the musical of the film that is more or less a shot-for-shot remake of the stage production for better or for worse so you can go through and compare these two and really see where why and how adding musical numbers to a non-musical film works if you pay attention this awkward film actually perfectly demonstrates how every single number in this show is about defining how a character feels toward the beginning of the original film there's a moment where max is taking leo on a lunch date to the park and trying to convince leo to go along with their plan of ripping off old ladies in the musical they split this moment into two numbers we can do it and i want to be a producer this scene serves to demonstrate what both these characters want max wants to go ahead with the plan he thinks that they can pull it off and right here during this fountain scene leo has this epiphany that his life has been terrible and he wants to change it i want everything i've ever seen in the movies and in the stage show both characters get musical numbers to give them time to define and explain exactly how they feel about the situation we can make our dreams come true cause it's everything i'm not this is a perfect utilization of the medium and the rest of the show follows suit as we're introduced to characters they define themselves through song and while you might be thinking what the hell does guten tag hop clop have to do with telling us about what liebkin wants well it actually does a really good job think about it he's an idiot liebkin is a mindless drone he's stuck in that zealous nazi mindset he doesn't think for himself at all the only thing going through his head is fascist propaganda there's really nothing else we need to know about him because there's nothing else he really thinks about we get a similarly one-dimensional albeit poorly aged and homophobic sentiment when it comes to roger debris and keep it gay we know exactly what he thinks musicals should be and he tells us what he wants a show that'll get him a tony tony tony tony i see german soldiers through france and oola gets her own number demonstrating what she thinks you're supposed to do when you've got it even the old lady investors get their own number explaining how they feel about max every character in this show gets a moment to sit down and scream to the audience how they feel why they feel that way and what they want from their own unique perspective this lays out a foundation for characters to change as things happen to and around them in the show what was a throwaway gag in the original film about max purposefully doing a terrible job at bribing a critic becomes a number that simultaneously demonstrates leo's naivety around the theater and max's hellbent determination to have this show fail paralleling the opening two numbers we can do it and i want to be a producer but this time with max and leo working together and this is where the emotional crux of the show really nails the landing at the end of the film leo makes this heartfelt speech about max changing his life for the better they still end up in prison but leo makes his feelings heard this man this is a wonderful man he made me what i am today this is exactly the kind of scene that makes for a great musical number but not only that this is where we finally hear these two characters singing in harmony when they aren't singing about hitler every number either defines a character and how they feel or demonstrates how the circumstances have changed and gives that character an opportunity to redefine themselves these songs are the heart of the show music for me anyway is information it's a way to get character and plot information across so you want music to be information you want it to develop story or character in some way so the song will carry its own weight and justify its existence in the film if you don't know who that is then hi i'm sideways and i'm going to make this joke every time i bring him up until every single human being on earth knows his name this is howard ashman the genius behind the little mermaid and beauty and the beast and the guy who brought disney out of the grave in the early 90s he knew that what you want to do is take the most emotionally significant moments of your show the times in your characters just figuring out how they feel about something and convert them into song and have the characters sing it at the audience and this is why i never shut up about these movies ashman knew he had to keep them simple and that's what these films are perfectly simple these films are a perfect demonstration of getting as much information in as few musical numbers as possible while still holding up a film with a 90-minute run time the beauty is in their simplicity they open with a number that sets the audience's expectations and establishes their suspension of disbelief okay this is a world where people sing cool then you need a main character to connect to the audience and tell them what they want then you want to do the same thing for the villain and the sidekick characters you want to know how they feel about all this too then you need a love song and that's it and if you want more about this kind of thing then go check out my video on a goofy movie just take those tent poles that are the emotional focus of the story turn them into song and have the dialogue connect everything together and you're done that's it you've gotta show maybe you throw in something for a secondary villain something about a village mob or french guy murdering a crab but for the most part your job is done they are the concentrated essence of this style of musical storytelling if musical theater was a soup that you left simmering in a pot overnight these films are what you'd wake up to in the morning they are the essential oils of musicals if you will and that's why i like them so much and i think that's why disney has struggled so much in trying to adapt them this whole live action disney remake fad started in 2010 when tim burton's adaptation of alice in wonderland accidentally almost made a billion dollars four years later in 2014 and every year after that we've gotten a live action remake of a disney film maleficent cinderella the jungle book christopher robin dumbo and while they changed a lot of the music or just cut the music out right it always seemed like they couldn't quite get rid of all of it it was too integral to the identity of these films pink elephants on parade doesn't do anything neither does colonel hothy's march if you cut out colonel hothy which you can do and still have the movie make sense there are numbers and by extension characters that you can just cut out and not change the story at all but at the same time there are some characters that are inextricably linked to their musical numbers and are crucial to the story blue is so enthusiastically carefree that he has to sing about it it's just like hakuna matata he is aggressively laid back it's also the entire focus of baby mind dumbo and his mom are the backbone of the story but in 2017 when they got to beauty and the beast all of a sudden you have a problem with the intense focus on integrating the music and the storytelling you couldn't really remake the renaissance films especially ashman's without including all the music these numbers are the soul of how these films work so you have these live-action disney remakes of the renaissance films the songs are stitched into the fabric of the story you can listen to the songs and get the story but you can't have the story without these songs howard said if you can take a song and you can remove it from the script and the script still makes sense you haven't done your job properly in the producers when max is in prison he sings a song called betrayed by golly gee whiz i wonder what he's trying to convey to the audience but in that number he's summarizing what's happened throughout the show but instead of just singing what's happened he's able to go through a medley of all the musical numbers and get the same idea across step two hire the director because the musical numbers and the core of the narrative are one and the same and that is the problem with the remake of mulan the problem with the remake of mulan is that they cut all of the music but they did not replace it if you want to make a stage musical out of a non-musical film then you have to take the most emotionally intense scenes and convert them into songs so it stands to reason that if you want to take a musical and convert it into a non-musical film then you need to take those same musical numbers and turn them into emotionally intense scenes which is not what we get in mulan it's all the dialogue of a musical but without the musical numbers it's all the connective tissue but no vital organs it's lucky charms with no marshmallows the whole movie is go to the place do the thing go to the place do the thing go to the place do the thing there's rarely a moment where the plot stops and the audience is given the chance to learn about these characters and that's the biggest complaint people have had about this film it feels soulless and hollow and that's why but really the problem is the supporting characters the charm the charisma of the general interactions with the characters one of the biggest problems with this film is that it seems to omit certain things that are integral to the story or at least to the characters and their journey through the story because lee shang and mushu and the cricket and the grandmother and mulan's three friends all had personality something this movie has absolutely none of not a single character in this movie is memorable not even the titular character we never get a moment to learn about mulan's want really think about it how does this mulan feel about having to hide her chi how does she feel about all this matchmaker stuff we don't know she never tells us and she never has a conversation with anyone about it we just get this awkward shot holding on her face where she looks mildly constipated in the original we learn about mulan's watts through one of the most awkwardly written lyrics ever help me not to make a fool of me mulan wants to be good at doing the whole traditional wife thing which is why she's willing to cheat by writing notes on her arm but she just isn't good at it it isn't who she is i mean she doesn't explicitly want to be a wife she wants to bring honor to her family but the only way she can do that is by being matched by the matchmaker but she sucks at it and even when she's trying to be someone she's not even if it did honor her family she feels like she's lying to herself so all she really wants is a way for her to be herself but also bring honor to her family and be valued by her community and i know all that because she sang it to me i would break my family's heart something that's always bothered me about the original is how people characterize shangyu as the villain of the film he's not he's a plot contrivance that moves the story along he's a ticking time bomb to keep things moving the real conflict here is mulan being able to succeed without having to compromise herself she can't keep lying to herself when is she going to be able to be herself but also succeed in the world the real villain here is let's get down to business okay chill it isn't lee shang the villain is the expectations being placed on mulan you can't make a man out of mulan because she's not a man she's gonna have to figure out solutions to what are perceived to be manly problems in a non-manly way that's what makes the arrow challenge so satisfying she's figuring out how to be successful in the world in her own way without compromising herself this is why this story works so well it's why they have to bring the music back when her friends all dress like concubines and utilize her way of climbing poles to rescue the emperor right here i'll make a man out of you isn't about literally making a man out of you anymore it's about making you the best you that you can be you can't just say a few lines from the song and expect it to have the same emotional impact that's like watching 90 day fiance and expecting everything to go smoothly that's not the point of the show okay look pay attention this song isn't just about three lonely dudes stalking around on twitch at 2am the number opens with them talking about how much they don't want to be there in a thundering hurt we feel a lot like cattle they start fantasizing about girlfriends as some kind of disassociative coping mechanism to get away from the torture of having to march for miles and miles every day in a way this number shows how they're also subjected to cultural expectations while also gracefully demonstrating that even though they're being forced to be in the military against their will and that sucks it doesn't mean that they're exempt from any criticism who always speaks her mind you can't just say lines from the song and think that that does anything i don't care if they have titties in a tube and i don't care what you're looking for in a girlfriend because the writers forgot to give each and every one of you a personality but the real death blow here is that on top of cutting the songs without even attempting to replace them with anything that's even remotely as narratively meaningful they included references to the numbers in the score now that's a huge problem so um speaking of someone who uh recently turned 30 the disney renaissance films have had a profound effect on my generation i'm driven by finding that mcnugget sauce i want that mulan mcnugget sauce morty and the disney company knows that they are very clearly marketing these films to adults who have children who saw these films when they were kids and now want to take their own kids to see the new updated versions so what's weird is that you're referencing music that you cut to an audience and a demographic that knows all of the words to all of the songs so by cutting all the songs but then including that music in the score not only are they directly referencing a better film they're also reminding us of how empty this one feels they're specifically directing our attention to the gaping holes in the emotional fabric of the film we here bring honor to us all but it does nothing to tell us about what this mulan actually wants or is trying to do and we hear reflection over and over and over again they basically play it like mulan's gonna be a part of the avengers and this is her theme but it means nothing because it only serves to remind us how little we actually know about what this mulan really wants it's astonishing to see how a film with a budget twice the size of cats somehow ended up the way that it did like i'm not one to show for companies but i'm just really floored that the same company somehow made both of these movies even if he wasn't alive to work on the original it's crazy to think about how much of a lasting impact ashman's legacy left on the company and at the same time how much disney just has absolutely no idea what they're doing anymore alright that's it this honor dishonor on your whole family make a note of this dishonor on you design on your cow thanks for watching i like to thank my patrons for making these videos possible with an extra special thank you to alec kulikowski alex klinkert always posh andy muse andreas chenier artemy hey artemy r2dan2 ariela jiglam charlie holly christian daniel johnson darren almgren don marie kieran docos dr eyebrows edith with the manhands ella raira elise and thomas constantine for the horde frean google it gregory holdenness hayden janjo huyen tu dao i don't trust anyone who isn't honest about their addiction to ice cream i want you to tell me if my fear is justified that no one will pay attention to me if i'm honest about my addiction to ice cream i worry that when i started the ice cream eaters emotional support group i would really just needed support for wanting to eat it was too long before but ice cream dude is valid jason kim jeff bridges but you can call me the dude joe engel john egbert joseph spiros josh bakte justice for the diaz erie and andrew lambert justin harley justin sargent karen rosenau knight of chaos looney majors ladwina elizabeth the fourth the lanyard gang quentin goo michael hubbard mike wisnick mr kamesama myron john tatarin nicole nicholas cohen nora konico praylock rasputin russia's greatest heat machine rachel augsburger rafael martinez arkell monterosa ravenhorn rich marzullo rick osborne rose is a secret sociopath and i'm oddly okay with that ryan vick snaps guys tell sideways to stream more sideways tastic mr ben stupid dog tabitha aquaford take that rewind it back cider's music theory make your brain cells go clap tara femira power hour vox wisdom minari you are loved you are valid you deserve to live you are not the exception you shall call me the pumpkin queen and a new symbol that uh google translate cannot tell me how to pronounce i'm very sorry please tell me how to pronounce your name and baconlisk fenwise and tom gable larson and justin sargent i'd also like to thank everybody who requested they talk about mulan this was actually a lot of fun i finally got to talk about opera so that's nice uh if you like what you saw here be sure to subscribe and check out my other videos follow me on twitter and twitch to have musical questions answered live and if you really like what i'm doing then consider supporting the channel on patreon that's all i got for now thanks for watching so credit where credit's due it sounds like grace and williams actually did put a little light motif for mulan in this film and protect the emperor but it just got so buried in all the other problems that i really didn't know what to say about it i just wanted to bring it up and calm all the angry people that were going to show up in the comment section

Channel: Sideways

Views: 758,996

Rating: 4.9428172 out of 5

Keywords: Mulan, Disney, Howard, Ashman, Howard Ashman, Opera, Aria, Recitative, Recitativo Secco, Recitativo Accompagnato, Recitativo, The Producers, Producers, I wanna be a producer, Ming Na Wen, Li Shang, Musical Theater, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Live Action Remake, Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, Maleficent, Christopher Robin, Aladdin, The Lion King, The Jungle Book, Cinderella

Id: EXjK50kEgvo

Length: 25min 9sec (1509 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Zagorath]

Seems like he deliberately avoided an opportunity to talk about "leitmotifs" at 21:45, but don't worry. Stick around after the credits and he sneaks it in there!