by Nicholas Valenzuela, A+E Editor

Originality in Hollywood has been decreasing over the last few years, specifically with Disney, whose new content is largely live action reboots and sequels.

While it is always fun to see what happened after a story, it quickly gets stale when it’s just a remake. One must innovate, not reiterate. Stories quickly become repetitive if overused.

Newer stories help enhance the library of media, while remakes and sequels leech off of former success and nostalgia. Even when a story isn’t supposed to be “original”, and it comes from another intellectual property (IP), it is important to faithfully and accurately display the IP.

The biggest culprit of the overuse of old IPs is Disney. They constantly put out unoriginal shows on their streaming service, Disney+.

“Maybe it’s to appeal to a sort of nostalgia, or to come back to their origins to keep the original idea of the company in mind,” said junior Gian Paredes.

The Acolyte is one of Disney’s new Star Wars shows that was released on their streaming platform and poorly received by many fans. One of the reasons was for the lackluster special effects and the plot holes. Some Star Wars fans have said that Disney is running out of ideas with many new characters feeling “phoned in.” The show was canceled and will not return for a second season.

Another issue is Disney’s recent trailer of the Snow White remake. It has already garnered the ire of many fans. The trailer’s view-to-like ratio is one like for every 103 views, and the movie has received a lot of backlash. Its poor production looks like a movie no one would pirate, let alone spend money on. The movie debuts on March 21st, 2025.

The movie The Wild Robot is a movie coming out in September by Universal Pictures. It’s based off of the book series by Peter Brown. The trailer’s view-to-like ratio is one like every 92 views, which unsurprisingly outpaces Disney’s Snow White. It’s seems audiences view new concepts more positively than other shows and movies that are derived from an IP.

Mr. Isaac Sanchez, the animation teacher and the moderator for the Braves’ Creative Guild, shares the opinion that remakes specifically can be rather stale.

“So as a working professional animator and editor, I think remakes are a bit of a double edge sword. There’s no real reason to have a remake other than making money on an existing IP,” said Mr. Sanchez. “I can see the value of some ‘remakes’ fostering a creative change and hiring the talent and skills of many people like myself. But it still makes them cheap to me. I don’t care for a remake. it is what it was; that’s all it ever needed to be.”  

Junior Andrew Iona-Tuiviati echoed Mr. Sanchez critique.

“They are blatantly redundant because they are usually a poorer original version. Of course, there is the occasional good live action [film] which can be refreshing, but for the most part, the decline of quality writers has led to bland storytelling,” Andrew said.

Disney and other companies are turning away from animation and leaning more into live action remakes. Despite this, animation is what built these pioneers of the industry. Animation is a huge industry. According to the Academy of Animated Art, the global animation market is predicted to reach $400 billion by the end of the year.

Originality in media and especially in animation are crucial, as it’s what has allowed it to capture consumers and bring in money. It’s important that big media companies don’t forget this, as originality is the secret ingredient to success in the industry.