IMO Mulan's live adaptation undermines its own message.

I just watched the live adaptation of Mulan by Disney despite being warned by multiple friends about the quality of the movie or its lack thereof. I do not want to discuss the obvious issues with CGI, acting, pace, plot and many other things that make this movie a disaster in my opinion. However, I do want to rant a bit about the main theme of this movie and the original Mulan. The theme and message of the story is that women are capable of much more than society expects of them. In short women empowerment.

The original Mulan did a fantastic job of showcasing Mulan as a brave, smart, tenacious and funny individual.

Let's look at the movie Mulan or "move-on" in short. She is said to be smart but that is not ever shown. Quite the contrary she acts rather stupid in multiple scenes; Exhibit a: pursues the black ninjas of death even after everyone around her falls to their arrows. She has no plan and no idea what she is facing. Exhibit b: in a situation where every second counts, she picks up about 6 or 7 helmets, decides to arrange them in a way that might convince the enemy there are some soldiers behind a rock. All the while hoping that they will even fall for the trick and then overshoot the trebuchet by about 200 yard north where just literally the past few moments they've been bullseyeing their targets more accurately than robin hood.

She is shown to be tenacious and funny in a couple of scenes though her delivery of the joke left me depressed for about 2 hours. I mean she maintains the same darn expression over the course of 2 hours. That's impressive.

And the main point is in the movie she is given magical powers. Whaaaatttt???? So she cannot be equal to men unless she has magical powers???? Even then she might be called a witch or be shunned like the other witch. The original Mulan had no magical powers and was not even a truly exceptional fighter. But what she had was bravery, creativity, intelligence, and willingness to try new ideas, which she used throughout the movie to climb the pole, defeat the army and save the emperor. She was the perfect example to show girls they dont need to be men or powerful or the most skilled to be accepted and influential.

The movie takes a dump on all that and makes her half Scarlet Witch, and half Bruce Lee on steroids to get her where she needs to be. And that is why they undermine their own message in the original movie.

Sorry about the long post :)

Submitted December 30, 2020 at 05:22PM by batanaz https://ift.tt/38KCtg2