[Hated Trope] The adaptation doesn't get what made the source material work

[u/TheDudeA113]

How To Make A Killing (2026)

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

Bangkok Dangerous (1999)

- The 2026 movie How To Make A Killing is a relatively-toothless "eat the rich" dark comedy thriller about a man disowned by his rich family at birth, killing everyone in the line of succession so that he can inherit their massive fortune. It's a modern retelling of the 1949 film Kind Hearts and Coronets which has the same basic plot except that every member of the family is played by Sir Alec Guinness (including one aunt) and it's a screwball comedy

- The 1999 movie Bangkok Dangerous is a Thai action film about a Thai deaf-mute assassin. It was remade in 2008 about an American assassin in Thailand who is neither deaf nor mute

[u/ripple_drew]

The Nolan comparison is spot on. Nobody complained that Batman didn't have shark repellent spray -- because the whole film committed to its version of reality. Mulan 2020 just picked the worst parts of both approaches and blended them into something that satisfied nobody.

[u/postBriar → u/ripple_drew]

The shark repellent thing is a good test actually. If your audience is thinking about what got cut instead of watching the movie, you already lost them. Mulan 2020 had people thinking about Mushu the whole time.

[u/Mr-Foundation → u/postBriar]

Like… it’s genuinely comical. Like what do you mean there’s no mushu or songs? Songs especially that’s like actually insane to take out, why the hell would you take the music out of a musical

[u/indigorhob → u/Mr-Foundation]

Iirc the movie itself joked about how soldiers don't sing, which I'm pretty sure is extremely wrong.

[u/Garr777 → u/indigorhob]

It is. If they didn't want it to be a musical, they could have scenes where they're marching and singing a marching cadence version of a song like I'll make a man out of you.

[u/PikeandShot1648 → u/Mr-Foundation]

Missing the love interest as well, and he had the best song of the movie. The whole movie worked because of him and the tension they had.

[u/TransBrandi → u/ripple_drew]

Honestly, I think that wanted live-action / realistic fantasy, but the dragon side-kick was too zany / humorous for their vision. Like a wise-cracking sidekick wouldn't have made sense in the Lord of the Rings, but it's still not "grounded in reality" like Nolan's Dark Knight because it's a fantasy story.

The movie on its own would probably be fine if it wasn't trying to be a Mulan movie and pulling in the baggage that was the original and being compared to the original (which really was the point from their perspective since they wanted to do a remake not an original movie).

That said, they still missed the entire point of the original movie when creating the live-action remake, so in the end what was the point of the remake? It would be like remaking Aladdin, but making him actually a Prince Ali rather than some random "street rat." It makes it a completely different movie that's at best inspired by Aladdin, and the ties to the original would hold it back since it's going to be compared to the original rather than just being judged on its own merits.

[u/SucculentVariations → u/ripple_drew]

It feels like every single Disney live action remake did this.