Tag: personal

Aladdin, the One Live Action Remake I’m Excited For

A few days ago, Disney released the teaser trailer for the live-action remake of 2019’s Aladdin. Although the teaser trailer mostly displayed the grandeur of their CGI backgrounds, it hinted at some of the story with the overlay of a revamped “Friend Like Me”. In all honesty, it made me kind of excited.

I had always liked the original Aladdin. It was kind of like a blend of Vegas meets generic Middle East, but it worked surprisingly well. It was entertaining, aesthetically pleasing, and the songs were very good. Although it did have its flaws, I had to say overall it was an interesting film.

Usually, liking the original animated film in those ways is an automatic recipe for not liking a remake-especially when the Disney live-action remakes tend not to put that much effort into “retelling” the original. They do add some elements, but overall, the films haven’t been all that interesting or creative (especially not Beauty and the Beast, which I analyzed earlier).

But for some reason, I got genuinely excited about the live-action remake. And when I looked into who was the cast and who worked on the music, I got even more excited. I like to imagine that it’s because they are keeping the movie a musical, which means there’s going to be a whole new look to how they portray some of their most happening songs. What makes it even better is that they are still using Alan Menkel, the original composer, for these songs, even using him to compose a new song for Jasmine.

They kept the cast predominantly Middle Eastern, as well. The one fully white character is supposed to be a suitor for Jasmine, and was added to create a new dynamic of nation-politics. But other than that, everyone fits the bill for the location of Agrabba, which is a plus. Other movies have tried casting white actors for Middle Eastern roles, but increasingly they have been unsuccessful as they face public backlash. Disney played smart in casting, this time around.

I really can’t explain fully, however, why I want to see this new remake. I can’t explain why this one sparks my curiosity when none of the others have, and why I’m actually excited to see it. I can’t argue that it’s good old nostalgia, because if that were the case, I would have been excited to see the other remakes. But I wasn’t. Maybe it’s because this is the most fantastical one. There’s so much that happened in the original in terms of design and setup, that perhaps I’m curious about seeing how it can appear in a more solid form. I don’t know.

Returning to the World I Knew Before

I don’t know if I’ve indicated before, but I have a long history of being a huge nerd.

Or rather, a geek (yes, there is a difference). I wasn’t the techy “build your own computer and digs math” type, which would have classified me as a nerd (by stereotypical standards). No, I have always preferred pop culture and literature, preferring to spend my time playing games and dabbling in a bit of anime. But the biggest highlight of being a geek was going to conventions.

The two biggest conventions I went to were Wondercon, which functions as a mini-Comic Con, situated in Anaheim, and Anime Expo, the largest Anime convention in North America. I went to these conventions every year from when I was thirteen until I went to college, when scheduling began interfering. It got to a point where I kind of got sick of them.

But in college, things changed. For some reason, I had it in my head that I should “grow out” of my geekiness, or at least keep it more private. Perhaps it was because I looked around and saw all the other geeks around me at school made me uncomfortable. They were just too stereo-typically geeky. That’s not to say that some of my high school friends weren’t, but these guys just fit the bill too well.

The disassociation might also have been partially influenced by the fact that I never fit the bit for someone who was geeky. Yeah, I wear glasses and at one point cut my hair short and dressed less-than-pleasantly, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about my face, my figure. I looked more like the kind of person geeks and nerds would wish would be into the same stuff as them. And this isn’t out of an inflation of my own ego. I’ve had enough creepy experiences to know exactly what position I was in. I look more like I belong in a Starbucks.

This was a factor that had always plagued my adolescent years. Especially during the height of gamer gate, where you could get called a fake gamer or fake nerd for just about breathing the “wrong way”. They never judged the people that looked like (stereotypical) geeks and nerds. They judged the people that didn’t.

It didn’t help that my Mom and sister would make fun of me for being a geek. My sister has become more involved in the culture herself in recent years, which has lightened her take on it, but my Mom would always roll her eyes. She still thinks I’m into things that I’m not (i.e: she thinks everything I watch is anime for some reason). She didn’t stop me from being a part of geek culture, but she didn’t much like the fact that I was so into it, either.

So for most of my college years, I kind of kept things under wrap. I stopped investing myself in geek culture for the most part, although I couldn’t help having my closest friends know what I was into. Everything was going fine.

But then, I started to miss the geek world. I started to miss being involved in the newest game, and missed going to conventions. I missed being a geek. I wasn’t going to suddenly stop dressing decent, but I didn’t want to let go of something I actually enjoyed. It was a big part of my life, and it was something cool to do. I got to see artists I follow in person, discover new artists, and find new things that I didn’t know before in geek culture.

So I’ve decided to come back. My Dad says he can get us into Comic Con, and I am planning on going to Anime Expo, so I guess that’s a good start to breaking back in. While I don’t have much time to be “full geek” (I have school and work), I do plan on enjoying the things I once did.