Why the Music in the Live Action Disney Remakes is Worse than you Thought

this video was brought to you by viewers like you thanks for helping me make rent so a while ago I decided to get a subscription to Disney Plus so I could watch the mandalorian because I'm really really basic and after realizing that I forgot to cancel my subscription as soon as the show ended I figured that I might as well get my money's worth and see what they had and lo and behold they had a lot of those live-action Disney films that everyone's been talking about so I decided to check them out and ever since I've between my soul to the chaos Lords I no longer feel the anguish and suffering that these films were clearly designed to impose on their audience I'm honestly kind of stunned at what these films have managed to accomplish but no matter how good you might think they are the music is worse pal Beauty and the Beast so here's the thing we're gonna talk about this film there's one thing we need to address because chances are you're aware of it but we all need to be on the same page Emma Watson's voice was extremely artificial in this film there's something sweet and so if you watch the movie you thought it was great and all wonderful turn the video off because you're never gonna be able to unhear some of the stuff I'm about to show you you know honestly I don't think even pick out like a decent example because it's kind of everywhere like right here listen to the word before I'm pretty sure they're not only did they pitch correct it but they added an LFO as a kind of artificial vibrato take another listen her vibrato is always like the exact same or like listen to what happens when she says the word these childhood these for the waters of when you listen to the performance every notes more or less the exact same it has a perfect attack the intonation doesn't waver at all she never flinches nothing it's a perfect performance which is the problem and I can already see a lot of people in the comment section being all like something something unrealistic standards for women something something and yeah if you want to sit around for another three hours I'd love to go over how pretty girls have to sing pretty too and how that's been around since the medieval period and how Disney is basically using the audio equivalent of Photoshop to establish an unrealistic expectation for everyone everywhere but the truth is that this video is long enough already and I have some professional complaining to do so the let's call it liberal employment of pitch correction for Watson's performance has basically led to a single kind of response which is more or less been some kind of variation on they needed to auto-tune Emma Watson she must not be able to sing followed by the digital equivalent of pointing and laughing now this is not fair the truth is that there are no vocal performances nowadays they don't see at least a little pitch correction I'm pretty sure you can even hear some for the beast right here in the live-action Lion King movie they actually autocorrected kid Simba to the wrong note here and we're gonna get to that oh don't you worry we're gonna get to the Lion King oh yes we will all in due time but back to beating the beasts okay so here's the deal there are a couple reasons as to why everyone is wrong here so first and foremost a depressing number of people have this assumption that musical ability is just gifted to you like Apollo throws a fireball at you when you're born and you can either music or not music and that is just extremely incorrect musical capability is really more comparable to athletic capability sure some people are born with natural advantages but no one just wakes up looking like this the same way people don't just wake up being able to sing well if you put in the time you will see a result you have to work for these abilities you have to work to be able to do something like this and performing music is a physically demanding endeavor from embouchure and breath supports your fingers and forearms every instrument has something that you have to physically train and develop in order to get better at being a performer a lot of being a really really good musician is just time and training in the practice room and this is something that you don't really hear a lot of people talking about these are Olympic athletes and I don't just mean that in practicing and memorization and when you go to music school a part of your training is taking care of your body the exact same way you might expect from a college athlete if you still don't believe me I had a friend in college detach a muscle in his back from practicing the piano while carrying too much tension I knew two students while I was in college who now have permanent nerve damage in one of their hands this is serious stuff and not practicing properly can lead to permanent problems so when it comes to being able to perform really it's just about proper preparation just like you might see with the more physical performance just think about how many times you've heard of an actor having to go through an insane amount of training just in order to look a certain way for a role remember how they trained all the actors and extras for like six months before filming three hundred there's legitimately no reason they couldn't do something like that in terms of musical training for their actors in fact that's exactly what they did for Master and Commander they gave the actors music lessons so they could actually perform their instruments during this scene so when you look at the naturally athletic elements of music performance in conjunction with the effectively limitless resources of the Walt Disney Company there's absolutely no reason Watson couldn't have been properly prepared for what is honestly a really demanding role she's the lead it's just her up there it's not like someone from her background couldn't become a decent singer [Music] but that's not the part that really gets under my skin the part that bothers me the absolute most about this whole situation was that she had to audition in fact if you look it up Watson talks about how excited she was to have this audition and how like unlike her role as Hermione where apparently she just lucked out one day at school or something for buting the Beast she actually had to prepare an audition for this role she specifically says that she feels like she's earned this role and she goes as far as to say that she's peaking but this means one of two things one she was completely prepared for the role and had the chops or two she sucked and they wanted her anyway either way Disney's walking into this arrangement knowing what they're getting into one way or another they were poised to get her whatever musical training she needed and this is where it really starts to suck because when you look at what bill condon the directors said about the audition process Emma Watson was our first and really our only choice for bill through a lot of reasons her talent her beauty her intelligence so it looks like the powers that be looked at Watson who like hey we noticed that you got a degree in book-reading and Belle really likes books and stuff this would work really well oh you also have a decade's worth of experience pretending to be in an enchanted castle this is perfect but the trouble with all this is how all that reflects onto the music which I could only explain with Bill Murray's performance as blue in the 2016 remake of The Jungle Book this isn't a joke this couldn't make sense I promise just listen all right let's be real here venkman's vocal performance isn't like Josh Groban after a bottle of wine or anything it's honestly kind of rough around the edges you might even go so far as to say that he might not even be trying you kind of get a similar vibe from Christopher Hawkins King Louie this was a weird movie oh well we're doomed I'm gonna be like you okay so it's one thing to ask an actor to sing well but it's another thing entirely to ask them to sing well in character for his rough as Murray's performance is here you really get the vibe that blue is a lazy carefree going with the flow kind of character all delivered in Bill Murray's singing the way he attacks and shapes his notes where he chooses to ornament want passages and just his vocal inflection in general this isn't necessarily a good vocal performance in an abstract onstage concert kind of sense but this is a fantastic performance of what Balu sounds like when he's singing to himself while floating down a river Murray is very clearly having fun with a performance it's not it's a man-cub you have never been a more endangered species than you are at this moment and with that let's go to page O'Hara's performance I know it's unfair to compare the two but this is just such a great example right here you can hear O'Hara smile in the studio really think about that you can hear her smile if you pitch corrected either Murray or page O'Hara you would strip away a lot of what they were giving their characters in their performance and that's exactly what happened here with Emma Watson either they didn't like her singing and they Frankensteined all of her takes together or they did like her singing and they sucked all the life out of her performance anyway it just doesn't make any sense even if they specifically got Emma Watson because they wanted this Belle to have that book-reading feminist energy they ended up digitally removing any vocal nuance that she gave the character like no matter how you look at it you're kind of left scratching your head like what was Disney thinking when it came to this trying to blame Emma Watson for her singing and Beauty and the Beast is like trying to blame Henry Cavill for the mustache thing and then just to draw extra attention to this vocal nightmare they have the nerve to hire Josh GAD and Luke Evans to be the supporting cast Josh GAD who has experience on Broadway as elder Cunningham and as most of the kids will know him Olaf is totally left alone to just mess with his interpretation of the FEU as much as he wants and he's great [Music] and look Evans who was a decade of experience on London's West End absolutely brings the heat with Gaston [Music] even Dan Stevens who plays the beast is married to a professional jazz singer and vocal coach and every twist and turn you just left trying to figure out why they sucked the life out of one of Disney's most beloved characters it just NE sense whatsoever but this isn't the only time in these films Disney walks all over one of their stars okay so history time longtime viewers of the channel will already know this but let's review anyway so back in the 70s and 80s right after Walt Disney's death the Disney Company was actually in really serious trouble believe it or not their animation department was basically almost bankrupt and about to get cut from the program altogether that was until like 1988 ish when playwright and lyricist Howard Ashman and his composing partner Alan Menken swooped in like superheroes and saved everything together they wrote something called The Little Mermaid which completely changed the course of history and started something called the Disney Renaissance which were all those animated musicals in the 90s that everyone knows and loves but here's the deal as great as the music was that Menken composed it was Ashman at least from what I've been able to piece together that was kind of the secret weapon that made the Little Mermaid work so well see they signed him up as producer but in reality he worked with manking to have the musical numbers function within the context of the story he wrote the lyrics and basically maintain the overall structure of the story for the film it was these two working together that made the masterpiece that was the Little Mermaid now shortly after the Little Mermaid Ashman talked to the higher-ups and was like hey I had this idea for this film called Aladdin and at Disney execs being the Disney execs were like haha no instead they immediately brought Ashman in Menken onto another title they'd been trying to get off the ground called Beauty and the Beast trouble was that at that point Ashman was dying due to complications from AIDS because the world is not a fair place Disney knowing how valuable Ashman was decided to move the entire pre-production of Beauty and the Beast from London to New York so they can consult with Ashman at his New York home Ashwin died six months before Beauty and the Beast was finished and the film is dedicated to him but before he passed away he had already done a whole bunch of work with Menken on an idea for a Latin but after Ashwin's passing the captain but here took the idea for a Latin basically tossed out like 99% of what Ashman was doing and was like cool here's our new movie it's like originally Aladdin was gonna be this like Michael J Fox kind of character but Katzenberg said and this is true that he wanted him to be more like Tom Cruise these are facts looked them up in the process of removing all the story elements and characters that Ashman put together they ended up taking a lot of inspiration from The Thief of Bagdad like having a sidekick monkey and a love interest and a villain named Jafar even Iago was rewritten after the filmmakers saw Gilbert Godfried in Beverly Hills Cop 2 but most importantly they removed all of a schmee musical numbers aside from three arabian nights' friend like me and prince ali you'll notice that those are the three songs that the genie sings but friend like me in the animated film does not appear how it was originally intended initially it was gonna be a big band Cab Calloway kind of number and you can still hear those influences when you hear Robin Williams scat I actually think that someone at Disney might have known that this was supposed to be a Cab Calloway style number and specifically put in this Nicholas brothers reference right here I don't know but after casting Robin Williams they reworked the song to fit in with Williams's comedic style that is to say how he'd fill his performances with impressions and voices and pop-culture references suffice it to say I won't be surprised if Prince Ali went through a similar process considering how many characters Williams throws out there during the tune and if there's one thing that is very very clear to anyone watching the live action version of Aladdin it's that Robin Williams's genie is completely different to Will Smith's genie now I'm not saying I didn't like Will Smith he was absolutely my favorite part of the film and I'd love to see more of his genie delicious exotic jams move away from the jams but comparing these two is absolutely apples and oranges Will Smith is not an impressions guy he's funny I love the stuff he does but these are just two different performers and pushing Will Smith into that Robin Williams role really comes off as forest-like you can hear him trying to pull off similar voices and characters throughout the number to help you like there's just weird little things here and there like in the opening there's this line referencing Scheherazade the storyteller for the Thousand and One Nights and in Williams's performance he adds this extra flair when saying her name had dim quality the shadows out it had a thousand tape but when Will Smith does it it almost sounds like he's calling Sahara Zod a man that might just be a little thing that just bothers me but it's all really weird that they would force Will Smith to try and pull off the same numbers when Will Smith's genie is just so different than the Robin Williams genie if they had already rewritten a substantial portion of the genies numbers to fit in with Williams comedic style it would only make sense for them to do the exact same thing for Will Smith and his performance this is the genies introduction this is where we get to meet him I'm a genie we see during this song is not the genie we get to see throughout the rest of the film and the most infuriating part about all this is that everyone seems to constantly forget that Will Smith's career began with music like he got started doing like family-friendly clean rap he was already the most Disney fied rapper out there I don't know how anyone could screw this up so badly why would you have Will Smith not be Will Smith why would you have the Fresh Prince trying to pull off nanu nanu I just don't get it and when you hear him pulling the same voices it just reminds you of Robin Williams and it makes you sad and all that only gets worse we get to the credit to this film and you realize that they actually did make a different version a friend like me and it's Will Smith in his element and it actually sounds amazing tell me whatever you need no reason not to put that in the film why Disney why why are you holding your performers back why spend all this time and money getting someone like Will Smith only to have him sing his best Robin Williams impression instead of just letting him be himself it's just unfair not only that but like before friend like me actually starts they have this little sort of joke opening it's like a cold opening but trying to be funny about it well he had it almost feels like it's trying to soften the blow like they're looking out into the audience and saying hey we knew that you were worried about how this is gonna turn out but at least it's not this right which that alone is just a huge problem because it directly violates something that Ashman specifically tried to do with his films something Ashman aimed for was being able to smoothly transition from speaking to singing to dancing and that's an old adage in musical theater when the situation becomes too emotional to speak you start singing and when the emotions grow too much for singing then you start dancing again I've already covered all this so if you're lost I have a primer for you to go and check out so you can see this done really well in the original Ladin with how one jump starts the singing in by extension the song organically grows from the dialogue we had dialog in the script part not enough we will back that vamp up under the earlier dialogue so he will be speaking over that musical vamp so you make the transitions between the sung stuff and the dialogue stuff as seamless as possible but here the intro to the song isn't just for shadowed it's like a direct fourth wall break you almost expect to see the text put on your 3d glasses now show up on the screen like you're in some theme park ride but what's more bothersome is that part way through the show they just have this big dance number for absolutely no reason and I mean absolutely no reason it's like an action scene for the sake of an action scene we aren't getting anything out of it it's just there and that doesn't even begin to address the new song for Jasmine which I guess might also be a good time to bring up the other new songs impeding the beast like the one for Beast and all the servants in the castle which really brings us to something that is for me probably the biggest issue with these live-action Disney remakes at the Lion King [Music] so let's play a trivia game play along at home see how well you do what is the longest-running musical theater production that would be the majestic theaters run of The Phantom of the Opera which has been going strong since January of 1988 great wonderful which musical currently has the record for winning the most Tony's that's the 2001 production of the producers with a staggering 12 wins at the Tony's fantastic but what is the highest-grossing Broadway show of all time that would be the Lion King with six Tony's and a whole bunch of other honors and awards from all over the planet as well as being the third longest-running show ever as of September 2017 The Lion King musical has grossed over 8.1 billion yes that's billion with a B dollars and it blows me away how many people don't know that I've seen it twice on stage and watching Pumbaa catch that fish in his mouth is impressive every time now if you watch the stage musical or hear the official recording then you'll know that they made some pretty substantial changes to the music and it's all fantastic I loved every second of it and if money is any indication so does everyone else it looks like everyone likes it or at the very least we all 8.1 billion dollars like it so here's the thing if you have a new set of tunes that have already seen the most intense focus testing of all time and you own all the rights to it then why oh why would you not only not include anything from the stage adaptation but actually cut one of the most iconic songs from The Lion King why why would you cut be prepared what is this the need for a different it's like a slam poetry version of a good song it's like watching an email middle schooler try to work out the lyrics to his fear at MC our song after his mom said he couldn't go to the concert there's just no reason to cut this number like at all auto-tune um if you have to is this where we draw the line really be prepared is where I figure in just let him talk it it's not like we haven't heard - at elegy of force sing before and yet somehow somehow someway this still isn't the worst part of this film what is this what like I said it's just this number as I mentioned before kids Simba has some really weird auto-tune happening they just leave Seth Rogen out to dry right here ain't no passing craze like really we're not gonna get another take of that okay but then that brings us to my big problem with this film Beyonce's spirit so we might as well cover all of these new songs that they're adding to these new films so let's go back to Ashman and Menken so when they worked out these songs each song had to have a specific purpose it had to tie into the work as a whole for a very specific reason these musical numbers were concentrated emotional representations of characters deep motivations and feelings what they wanted why they wanted it and what was gonna happen the key story beats and moments all happen during these songs having said that the powers that be decided to make these films like an extra half an hour longer than the originals for basically no reason it's cold and it's dark in that lamp but I prefer to this which can we just stop right here and acknowledge that if George Lucas had decided to add an extra half an hour to the original Star Wars instead of just changing who shot first we'd still be listening to other neckbeards lose their minds on YouTube but when you look at Disney's first tries to these live-action remakes like Dumbo and The Jungle Book they ended up cutting out almost all of the music and the Jungle Book they cut out everything except for a trust in me the bare necessities and I want to be like you and they cut everything out of Dumbo except for a weird version of baby mine but don't you worry we're gonna get to that and honestly you kind of understand why they cut out the other numbers gonna throw out a yikes for that but when you watch those films the singing kind of stands out because they don't really office musicals given how little screen time is spent on singing like even though Danny Elfman referenced the numbers in the score [Music] hey down the track the only one they really kept in earnest was this mutant form of baby mine but when it comes to these three films you can see how they'd want to add an extra number to just in order to maintain that musical momentum having said that as soon as you start adding musical numbers you're throwing off the delicate balance of what characters get to sing about what and when so whether you really like the songs or feel like they're really necessary in the story or not they're there but I honestly just can't figure out why they go through the trouble of writing brand-new songs instead of just relying on the music that had already been proven to be successful on the big stage each of these films have successful stage adaptations I don't know why they go through all the trouble of reinventing the wheel one of my patrons cue player actually had a suggestion that was really interesting in that they were asking about how often a studio will artificially add a song to a musical just so they can chase the Academy Award for Best Original Song which if that was the case for these films then that would be really sad because not a single one has been nominated for Best Original Song and Menken has been nominated for over a dozen best original songs and has won four of them which include the original Little Mermaid Beauty the Beast and Aladdin even Elton John won Best Original Song for can you feel the love tonight which really just drives more nails into the coffin but yet again Disney kind of threw their talent under the bus here listening to Beyonce's performance do you hear what's wrong with it me neither it's great I like it the problem is who's singing it we don't ever see Nala the character singing it's Beyonce singing over a montage of Simba returning back to the pride lands which is such a slap in the face for Beyonce like look at it by the numbers Disney's been adding songs for the romantic interests see originally each of these films have an I want song for their main character the opening titled Belle for Belle one jump ahead for Aladdin and I just can't wait to be king for Simba then in the originals we have a duet with the love interest something there that wasn't there before for Belle and Beast a whole new world for aladdin and Jasmine and can you feel the love tonight for Simba and Nala and that's where it stopped in the originals the love interests never had their own musical number they never had a mega or a moment where they got to sit down and express themselves and these live-action remakes try to address that beast gets evermore Jasmine gets speechless and Nala gets nothing you got Beyonce to voice Nala and you didn't give her a solo number for no reason whatsoever I know that a lot of people are gonna say that knowledge song is this spirit song but the truth is it's Beyonce singing not Nala and then that doesn't even begin to address how much of a diet Jesus problem this is in my Tarzan video I basically complained for 20 minutes straight about having music sung to the audience is not the same as having the characters sing a song having Beyonce sing over montage does nothing to tell us anything new about Nala we're just being narrated information it's just like this bizarre new baby mine scene in the new Dumbo it's not Dumbo's mother singing to her child it's some carnie in the background singing too like herself it honestly gives this whole scene a super dark tone but I cited the original baby mine as a great example of what they should have done in Tarzan and I guess now this and to top it all off the cherry on this nightmare cake Ashman explicitly talked about how and why animation was such a good move for musicals I know it usually doesn't work music may have more license the animated film in the same way that it does in the theater simply because the level of reality is different there's no game being played by a theatre audience we know that's happening right in front of us and it's painted scenery and it's not real we go to the movies it's a real Street or it looks a lot more like the abstract representation of a cartoon makes it easier to suspend your disbelief you can believe a crab is singing because crabs don't even talk but if you're gonna go for as lifelike as possible and then you have them sing it works in the absolute opposite direction it makes it even harder to suspend your disbelief and get into the emotional message of the story in the songs but the thing is that for all the complaining that I do for all the complaining anyone does these films are making record-setting amounts of money just ludicrous amounts of money what makes these films work half moon on at the time of making this video the live-action Mulan has not been released not even the soundtrack I haven't heard it which makes you wonder how could I talk about the movie and the music if I haven't seen or heard it well honestly in a time in place where I am right now I feel like I'm actually perfectly poised to kind of highlight why I think these films are doing so well now when the trailer for this film first dropped it caused a commotion there were two camps one group said that they were upset that there wasn't gonna be any singing and that there wasn't gonna be any Mu Shu and that overall the film seemed to be much more serious on the other hand there were a massive number of people commending Disney for finally making a film with accurate and healthy Asian representation they were happy that there weren't any show tunes and they were happy that there wasn't gonna be a cartoon Eddie Murphy dragon now here's the thing I can't tell people what is and is not good representation that's not my place but in all the discourse that I hunted through in all the hashtags and all the Twitter arguments that I went through not once not once did I hear or see a single person talk about the music in the trailer listen here's the first trailer that they released [Music] yes I will Briana to us all that's reflection now listen to the second trailer they released that's also reflection for everyone talking about how great the representation was and how great it would be to have a traditional Chinese folk tale come to life with no show tunes no one even tried to address the fact that they were still using the tunes from the 98 animated film to sell this new one show tunes that I might add that were written by two white guys for everyone talking about how great it was there was all this representation nobody seemed to be aware of the fact that the guy composing the score for this new film looks like this and I'm gonna be really honest here I absolutely loved Harry gregson-williams and I'm not just saying that to soften the blower act like a fence sitter I genuinely love what he did with Shrek so much that I made a video about it this guy genuinely does some amazing work and I'm kind of happy that I'm making this video when I am because in the off chance that people make it to this point in the video without getting bored and clicking away I wouldn't want everyone going after him and costing him his job I really am sincerely interested in what he's gonna do kind in the same way you might get interested in watching a video of a kitten cross the highway cuz this dude has one tough job ahead of him but now they're a month out of the film being released I gotta ask why are we talking about the music because here's the thing no matter where you're coming from the fact of the matter is this Howard Ashman and Alan Macon started the Disney Renaissance by making animated musicals that's just how it goes the music isn't a component of the success for these films it's what made these films successful it's what brought the Walt Disney Company back from the grave and the first film that came out after the Renaissance ended was the Emperor's New Groove which opened with a quasi musical number followed by an hour of no singing the music is what made these films so great the music is why people like Disney movies and when it comes to the remakes it doesn't really matter what they do so long as they make sure to include something that resembles the songs that you know and love they know they're never gonna be able to compete with let alone beat the songs from your childhood they kept Robin Williams's version a friend like me even though they didn't have Robin Williams and that film grossed 1 billion dollars which is exactly how much the Lion King stage musical had made in its first 20 years when I asked my Twitter why these films are doing so well they all said the same two things nostalgia and Families parents who grew up with these films are now taking their kids to see it but the kids being exposed to these films are watching a cruel charade half the time the only way to get the joke is by having already seen the animated version [Music] disgust me and really think about it when I asked you about your favorite part of the Lion King do you think of this or this when I asked you about the magic carpet ride what's the first image that comes to your head when you hum be our guest are you thinking of this or are you singing along with obi-wan Kenobi pulling a French accent which strangely enough he didn't do in Moulin Rouge in the music alone it just constantly feels like we're hearing an imitation instead of an innovation a reference to something we all know and love the painful truth is that people will spend their money and enjoy these films because they remind them of something good thanks for watching I like the thing with Patriots making these of you as possible with an extra special thank you to Alex Cole Kowski Alex clinker Clara tan Hayden Elza Jacob Silas Jordan Adams Kate J Myron John Zatara Noah grape ray Locke Rafael Martinez Silas and Who am I I also like to thank you player for their great observation if you like what you saw here be sure to subscribe and check out my other videos follow me on Twitter and twitch other musical questions answered live and if you really like what I'm doing they consider supporting the channel on patreon but that's like I for now thanks for watching oh my ears pal do I like you this is the dumbest [Laughter]

Channel: Sideways

Views: 2,580,318

Rating: 4.889617 out of 5

Keywords: Disney, Howard, Ashman, Howard Ashman, Alan, Menken, Alan Menken, Beauty, Beast, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion, King, Lion King, The Lion King, Live Action, Remake, Robin, William, Robin Williams, Will, Smith, Will Smith, Emma, Watson, Emma Watson, Simba, Nala, Belle, Jasmine, Genie, Autotune, Gaston, Josh Gad

Id: OaO3M-zZR8E

Length: 30min 11sec (1811 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ollaway]

Came across this one recently myself, loved it! I like that it doesn't place all the blame solely on the performers like some other videos I've seen, too.