Don't be for real
Just because something is dressed up in the guise of realism doesn’t make it better.
There has never been any need to turn animation into live-action, and there never will be. If you disagree, you’re wrong. Animation is not some prototype you run in beta. It is not some rough draft waiting for the final form of "realism" to validate it by stripping it of magic. Animation is the finished product—a medium that transcends live action because it creates its own rules. It is a deliberate choice, not some placeholder until "real actors" show up.
No one needed The Lion King with dead-eyed CGI lions. We don’t need to see Ariel’s hair flattened by CGI water. Animation works precisely because it doesn’t try to be real—it operates in a world where emotions can be stretched, colors can be exaggerated, and hyperbole is natural. Why is there this persistent need to iron out the wrinkles of creativity until everything looks like it’s been over-processed?
The idea that live action is somehow the superior form feels like the artistic equivalent of those who think "serious" literature is 500 pages of dense prose without a shred of humor. Realism doesn’t always make it be; often it makes it worse. Live action is just duller, uninspired, and stripped of the creative freedom that art thrives on.
The idea of "upgrading" animation to live action to ‘bring the magic to life’ is baffling. It’s like taking a fine piece of literature, stripping it down to a bulleted list, and proudly declaring it’s now more accessible. That’s exactly what happens when you flatten an animated masterpiece into something that must adhere to the laws of physics—or worse, the box office.
Leave it alone. Animation is already everything it needs to be—vibrant, emotional, fully realized. Trying to make it “real” is nothing more than an artless exercise in missing the point.
I recently saw the Mufasa trailer and was reminded how much I hated The Lion King (2019). Please make them stop ( making live actions and funding genocide)