Hollywood is intent on doing one remake after another. A combination of seeking name recognition and lacking originality drives the film industry to keep rehashing the same material, year after year. The excuse for these all too frequent adaptations is doing a new take on an old story, which invariably means a darker take. You’d think that, by now, the sinister twist on a lighthearted tale would be getting old, but no one has told the filmmakers yet that this technique is worn out.
Particularly tired is the trope of making the villain a misunderstood antihero while turning the good guy into a morally ambiguous egomaniac. What approach do you think Disney chose when formulating “Peter Pan and Wendy,” the live-action remake of the classic 1953 cartoon “Peter Pan.” This movie hasn’t received the notoriety of the other live-action remake Disney released this year, “The Little Mermaid,” since it was released directly to Disney+ instead of in theaters. It’s an example of a film that destroyed its basic story by trying to make too much of it.
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“Peter Pan and Wendy” was released on Disney+ on April 28, 2023. The title characters were played by Alexander Molony and Ever Anderson, two relative unknowns, so the cast’s only big name is Jude Law, who played Captain Hook. Filmed in Canada and on the Faroe Islands in Denmark, this production has a very gray aesthetic. If a screenwriter had a checklist of politically correct topics to include in a film, the result wouldn’t look much different than this. They covered everything. The Lost Boys include four girls (who aren’t Lost Girls, mind you, just female Lost Boys). Half of the Lost Boys are “people of color.” Peter’s right-hand man, Slightly, was played by Noah Matthews Matofsky, who is the first actor with Down Syndrome to be featured in a Disney film.
