#79 Dumbo (Disney Remake Marathon)

OK, of all the films to give to Tim Burton, why this one?

I get giving Tim Burton another Disney remake, much as his Alice remake sucks, like a lot, it did make a lot of money for Disney and this was likely in production before Disney found out about the long-term damage it caused with the failure of Into the Looking Glass. But Tim Burton is more a visual director, he has a unique style and Dumbo, it’s a fairly simplistic tale.

But it’s not just Burton here, who did they get to write this? Ehren Kruger? OK, what’s his history?

Oh… Oh no!

The film had a quite substantial $170m budget, a decision Disney would live to regret as it made a $350m at the box office. With marketing costs factored in, the film needed a $500m win to break even, so the film lost money.

The animated Dumbo is perplexing and very much a production of its time, not just because of its unfortunate ethnic stereotypes. The film had a very low budget, partly attributed to the financial failure of Fantasia and partly to the war closing the European market, and it shows. Where the animators didn’t need to put in the detail, the detail isn’t there. That said, the main story focus is charming and it’s mostly harmless. How do they ruin that here, well let’s take a look.

Disney Remake Marathon - Alice in Wonderland

I’m not going to be doing another 4 horror films for Halloween, you want a horror show, you can just look at the latest news or your twitter feed for that. I will still be covering season 3 of Stranger Things and have a Halloween special but for the most part, I’m going to be doing something else.

Disney live action remakes have been a part of society since the 101 Dalmatians remake, but it was 2010 with the release of Alice in Wonderland where it was shown they could make big money, resulting in a slew of remakes and oh my god, Disney, make it stop.

I’m not gonna be covering the 101 Dalmatians remake at this time, but I will be covering all the Disney Live Action remakes of the 2010’s. Oh boy, this is gonna be a rough ride.

We start with… oh f*ck, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. OK, to Burton’s credit, he’s not a bad director. For all the problems I have with the Michael Keaton Batman run, it certainly captured the gothic look I’d expect of a gritty adaptation of the Dark Knight, Beetlejuice was weird but fun and I did like Mrs Peregrine’s home for Peculiar Children but oh man is he the wrong choice for this particular aesthetic.

Tim Burton’s style is dark and gritty. Wonderland is a place of magic, colour and madness, only one of those really appeals to Burton. As for the original, and I mean the Disney original, not the book… It’s fine, it’s not really my thing, I prefer a story with a bit more meat to it, but I understand why that isn’t the case here, unlike some people, which I’ll get to in a bit. It feels like a 20-minute short, stretched out to 75 minutes. And if that’s what I think of the original, imagine what I think of the nearly 2-hour long remake, let’s take a look.