Latest news with #Pinocchio
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Cowardice of Live-Action Remakes
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. There's a coincidental yet meaningful connection between two of this summer's buzziest movies. The new Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon are both remakes; beyond that, they're both live-action adaptations of animated films—each of which happened to have been co-directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders. Lilo & Stitch has made a fortune at the box office since its late-May debut; How to Train Your Dragon, which opens today, seems similarly poised for success. The two features are, if a little lacking in visual stimulation compared with their forebears, reliably entertaining. But taken together, they signal something rather alarming in Hollywood's ongoing crisis of imagination: The timeline for nostalgia is growing shorter. Since Tim Burton's big-budget take on Alice in Wonderland grossed more than $1 billion in 2010, the live-action remake has become an inevitable, pervasive cinematic trend. Fifteen years later, it seems that capturing similar financial success requires a studio to look at progressively more recent source material to work with. Disney's attempt to update the nearly 90-year-old Snow White failed at the box office earlier this year; the company shuffled efforts such as a new Pinocchio and Peter Pan off to streaming, despite the recognizable directors and casts involved. The muted response to these modern takes on decades-old classics perhaps explains the move toward reviving properties that resonate with much younger generations instead. The original Lilo & Stitch is 23 years old; How to Train Your Dragon, produced by DreamWorks Animation, is only 15. Next year, a remake of Moana will hit theaters less than a decade after the original film's release. Is that even enough time to start feeling wistful about it? Clearly, the answer is yes, given how audiences have flocked to similar adaptations. The sentimental fervor around franchises such as How to Train Your Dragon is particularly unsettling to me, because the first entry premiered when I was fully an adult; the DreamWorks canon (which also includes such films as Shrek and Kung Fu Panda) was established when I was past the ideal age to become invested. However, I've seen How to Train Your Dragon many times because my daughter is a fan; that intense familiarity helped me out as I watched the live-action version, looking for anything that might feel different about it—which would thus justify its creation. [Read: The lesson Snow White should teach Disney] Not so much. DeBlois, who also directed the two How to Train Your Dragon sequels, makes his live-action debut by adapting his own feature; as such, the end result is wildly similar to the earlier work. The new film is again set in a Viking village that is constantly besieged by different kinds of dragons. The plucky teen son of the chief, a boy named Hiccup (played by Mason Thames), befriends a sleek black dragon named Toothless and learns that fighting the beasts isn't the only answer. The actor who voiced Hiccup's father in the animated film, Gerard Butler, returns to perform the role on-screen; in all other cases, the film uses well-suited performers to replace the voice cast. To my own surprise, I liked the new version of How to Train Your Dragon about as much as I do its ancestor. Both, to me, are above-average bits of children's entertainment that struggle with the same problems: They start to sag near the end and suffer a little from their murky color palette. I got a little choked up at the exact same point that I do while watching the 2010 Dragon, when Hiccup and Toothless take to the sky together; the boy rides on a saddle he's made for his fire-breathing pal, and the composer John Powell's excellent score soars into inspirational mode, all strings and bagpipes. If there's a difference between these redone scenes and their inspirations, it's a remarkably minor one; only good theater decorum stopped me from pulling out my phone and running the two Dragons side by side. Hollywood is struggling to get people to buy movie tickets, so I understand the impulse to offer something that a broad swath of viewers already knows and likes. But there's simply no sense of risk in making something like How to Train Your Dragon—nothing that will convince said theatergoers that the medium has a future beyond recycling. Yes, visual-effects technology is up to the task of re-creating a cartoon on a larger scale and dotted with real actors, and yes, these redos tend to turn a profit for their makers. These shouldn't be the only reasons for art to exist. [Read: Why is Disney trying so hard to dilute its brand?] Lilo & Stitch, at least, diverges somewhat from its source material. Because most of the characters are human beings, its world seems easier to translate to one composed of flesh and blood. The film, like How to Train Your Dragon, is about a shiftless youngster (Lilo, a Hawaiian girl who has been acting out since the death of her parents) bonding with a fantasy creature (Stitch, a blue alien experiment designed as a weapon of destruction). The director Dean Fleischer Camp's tweaks for his rendition didn't particularly click for me, however. One amusing character (another alien who is searching for Stitch) is absent entirely, and the revised ending has prompted some pushback, though Fleischer Camp has tried to defend it. In theory, I should be pro-change, given that I found the carbon-copy nature of How to Train Your Dragon so irksome—except that Lilo & Stitch doesn't really commit to its big alterations. The animated versions of Lilo and her older sister, Nani, forge a closer connection after meeting Stitch and his extraterrestrial hunters; the live-action Lilo enters the care of family friends at the end of the film, so that Nani can go off to study in California. These adjustments to the girls' relationship are a bit bold, because the prior film is so emotionally focused on their frayed sisterhood, yet the remake quickly undercuts their separation with the revelation that Nani can just visit Lilo anytime she wants, thanks to some space technology that Nani has borrowed. Such a cop-out is the underlying, depressing reality with all of these remakes: No change can be too daring, no update too significant. It's heartening that Sanders, a co-director of the original Dragon and Stitch, is one of the few people working in animation who's still committed to innovation. Last year, he directed The Wild Robot; much like How to Train Your Dragon, it is an adaptation of a children's book upon which Sanders found an exciting visual spin. The movie was a critical success, a box-office hit, and an Academy Award nominee. Cinema needs more entries like The Wild Robot—novel works that take chances and trust the audience to follow along. If nothing else, they provide fodder for more live-action remakes in the near future. Hollywood can't have these nostalgic adaptations without something to redo in the first place. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
Hollywood's Nostalgia Timeline Is Getting Shorter
There's a coincidental yet meaningful connection between two of this summer's buzziest movies. The new Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon are both remakes; beyond that, they're both live-action adaptations of animated films—each of which happened to have been co-directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders. Lilo & Stitch has made a fortune at the box office since its late-May debut; How to Train Your Dragon, which opens today, seems similarly poised for success. The two features are, if a little lacking in visual stimulation compared with their forebears, reliably entertaining. But taken together, they signal something rather alarming in Hollywood's ongoing crisis of imagination: The timeline for nostalgia is growing shorter. Since Tim Burton's big-budget take on Alice in Wonderland grossed more than $1 billion in 2010, the live-action remake has become an inevitable, pervasive cinematic trend. Fifteen years later, it seems that capturing similar financial success requires a studio to look at progressively more recent source material to work with. Disney's attempt to update the nearly 90-year-old Snow White failed at the box office earlier this year; the company shuffled efforts such as a new Pinocchio and Peter Pan off to streaming, despite the recognizable directors and casts involved. The muted response to these modern takes on decades-old classics perhaps explains the move toward reviving properties that resonate with much younger generations instead. The original Lilo & Stitch is 23 years old; How to Train Your Dragon, produced by DreamWorks Animation, is only 15. Next year, a remake of Moana will hit theaters less than a decade after the original film's release. Is that even enough time to start feeling wistful about it? Clearly, the answer is yes, given how audiences have flocked to similar adaptations. The sentimental fervor around franchises such as How to Train Your Dragon is particularly unsettling to me, because the first entry premiered when I was fully an adult; the DreamWorks canon (which also includes such films as Shrek and Kung Fu Panda) was established when I was past the ideal age to become invested. However, I've seen How to Train Your Dragon many times because my daughter is a fan; that intense familiarity helped me out as I watched the live-action version, looking for anything that might feel different about it—which would thus justify its creation. Not so much. DeBlois, who also directed the two How to Train Your Dragon sequels, makes his live-action debut by adapting his own feature; as such, the end result is wildly similar to the earlier work. The new film is again set in a Viking village that is constantly besieged by different kinds of dragons. The plucky teen son of the chief, a boy named Hiccup (played by Mason Thames), befriends a sleek black dragon named Toothless and learns that fighting the beasts isn't the only answer. The actor who voiced Hiccup's father in the animated film, Gerard Butler, returns to perform the role on-screen; in all other cases, the film uses well-suited performers to replace the voice cast. To my own surprise, I liked the new version of How to Train Your Dragon about as much as I do its ancestor. Both, to me, are above-average bits of children's entertainment that struggle with the same problems: They start to sag near the end and suffer a little from their murky color palette. I got a little choked up at the exact same point that I do while watching the 2010 Dragon, when Hiccup and Toothless take to the sky together; the boy rides on a saddle he's made for his fire-breathing pal, and the composer John Powell's excellent score soars into inspirational mode, all strings and bagpipes. If there's a difference between these redone scenes and their inspirations, it's a remarkably minor one; only good theater decorum stopped me from pulling out my phone and running the two Dragon s side by side. Hollywood is struggling to get people to buy movie tickets, so I understand the impulse to offer something that a broad swath of viewers already knows and likes. But there's simply no sense of risk in making something like How to Train Your Dragon —nothing that will convince said theatergoers that the medium has a future beyond recycling. Yes, visual-effects technology is up to the task of re-creating a cartoon on a larger scale and dotted with real actors, and yes, these redos tend to turn a profit for their makers. These shouldn't be the only reasons for art to exist. Lilo & Stitch, at least, diverges somewhat from its source material. Because most of the characters are human beings, its world seems easier to translate to one composed of flesh and blood. The film, like How to Train Your Dragon, is about a shiftless youngster (Lilo, a Hawaiian girl who has been acting out since the death of her parents) bonding with a fantasy creature (Stitch, a blue alien experiment designed as a weapon of destruction). The director Dean Fleischer Camp's tweaks for his rendition didn't particularly click for me, however. One amusing character (another alien who is searching for Stitch) is absent entirely, and the revised ending has prompted some pushback, though Fleischer Camp has tried to defend it. In theory, I should be pro-change, given that I found the carbon-copy nature of How to Train Your Dragon so irksome—except that Lilo & Stitch doesn't really commit to its big alterations. The animated versions of Lilo and her older sister, Nani, forge a closer connection after meeting Stitch and his extraterrestrial hunters; the live-action Lilo enters the care of family friends at the end of the film, so that Nani can go off to study in California. These adjustments to the girls' relationship are a bit bold, because the prior film is so emotionally focused on their frayed sisterhood, yet the remake quickly undercuts their separation with the revelation that Nani can just visit Lilo anytime she wants, thanks to some space technology that Nani has borrowed. Such a cop-out is the underlying, depressing reality with all of these remakes: No change can be too daring, no update too significant. It's heartening that Sanders, a co-director of the original Dragon and Stitch, is one of the few people working in animation who's still committed to innovation. Last year, he directed The Wild Robot; much like How to Train Your Dragon, it is an adaptation of a children's book upon which Sanders found an exciting visual spin. The movie was a critical success, a box-office hit, and an Academy Award nominee. Cinema needs more entries like The Wild Robot —novel works that take chances and trust the audience to follow along. If nothing else, they provide fodder for more live-action remakes in the near future. Hollywood can't have these nostalgic adaptations without something to redo in the first place.
New Straits Times
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New Straits Times
#SHOWBIZ: Spotlight on young talents in theatre showcase this Sunday
KUALA LUMPUR: Children from a variety of cultural backgrounds are set to light up the stage at the Petaling Jaya Performing Arts Centre in four enchanting plays on June 15. The series, presented by The Story Book Academy, brings together local and international students to celebrate inclusion, creativity, and confidence through the magic of theatre, according to a statement released recently. Since its founding in 2022, The Story Book Academy has championed all-child casts in public performances. This approach fosters friendships and empathy as youngsters from different communities learn, rehearse, and perform side by side. This Sunday's lineup features beloved classic tales such as Pinocchio, Snow White, Peter Pan, and Maleficent, all of which will be staged entirely by children aged 4 to 15. All shows will be presented at different times throughout the day. A special highlight of the Maleficent production will be the participation of four scholarship recipients from the Dignity for Children Foundation. Three returning scholars exemplify the Academy's dedication to creating opportunities for underprivileged youth through its performing-arts scholarship programme. "Our mission isn't about perfecting technique," says Jeanisha Wan, the academy's director. "We nurture creativity, ignite imagination, and share a love of storytelling. When kids from diverse walks of life collaborate on stage, they develop vital social skills like communication, teamwork, and empathy that last a lifetime." Building on its commitment to growth and leadership, the academy will invite select alumni from its 2024 season to serve as emcees, giving returning students the chance to guide and inspire their peers. The series of plays will culminate with a celebratory "Oscar Awards" ceremony, honouring last year's standout actors and applauding the achievements of these young performers. While every role is earned through audition, ensuring that each child on stage brings genuine passion and dedication, the academy emphasises learning through play and social engagement over formal acting drills. Performances have previously been staged in theatres, shopping centres, and community venues, giving children meaningful public exposure and a vibrant introduction to the performing arts.
Time of India
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Is Lies of P available on Xbox Game Pass in 2025?
Lies of P was one of the most talked-about games in 2023. It dropped on Xbox Game Pass on day one, letting fans explore a twisted version of the Pinocchio story in soulslike fashion. But things have changed since then. If you're wondering whether the game is still on Xbox Game Pass, the answer is no. Microsoft removed Lies of P from the service on March 15, 2025. That means players who did not buy the game before that date can no longer access it through the subscription. The removal came just as developer Neowiz teased fresh content with its first major DLC drop. What is Lies of P: Overture DLC about? Director Ji Won Choi has an important message about Lies of P: Overture. The new DLC titled Lies of P: Overture officially launched on June 7, 2025. It was first revealed earlier this year at the PlayStation State of Play event. The DLC explores the final days of Krat, the fictional city where the game takes place. With new areas, fresh weapons, and eight intense boss battles, the DLC offers around nine hours of new gameplay. In Overture, you once again play as P, the deadly puppet created by Geppetto. The game stays true to its dark tone and difficult combat. Though it is not part of Xbox Game Pass anymore, many players feel it's worth buying if you're into deep storytelling and challenging gameplay. Should you still play Lies of P? Even without Game Pass access, Lies of P remains a solid title for fans of the genre. Whether you want to dive into the main story or try out the new Overture DLC, the game is available for purchase across platforms. If you missed it when it launched, now might be the right time to give it a shot.
Time of India
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Can you get Lies of P on Xbox Game Pass?
Lies of P Overture (Image via Neowiz). Lies of P , the soulslike action RPG that reimagines the Pinocchio tale in a dark Belle Époque setting, is no longer available on Xbox Game Pass . The game was removed from the subscription service on March 15, 2025, shortly before the launch of its first major DLC, Overture. Initially, Lies of P was a Day One release on Xbox Game Pass in 2023, allowing subscribers to play it at no extra cost. However, Microsoft's decision to rotate it out means players now need to purchase the game separately if they want to experience its challenging combat and twisted narrative. Why was Lies of P removed from Xbox Game Pass? Lies of P Overture - Let's Play Part 1: Krat Zoo Microsoft regularly updates its Xbox Game Pass library, adding and removing titles to keep the lineup fresh. Lies of P was part of a wave of removals that also included: - Yakuza 5 Remastered - Evil West This rotation strategy ensures new games are introduced but can disappoint players who relied on the service for access. How to play Lies of P now Since the game is no longer on Xbox Game Pass, players have two options: 1. Purchase the base game – Lies of P is still available on Xbox and PC via digital stores. 2. Buy the DLC separately – The Overture expansion, released in June 2025, requires the base game. Owning the game outright guarantees uninterrupted access to all future updates and expansions. What the Overture DLC adds to the Lies of P experience The Overture DLC serves as a prequel, expanding the lore of Krat and introducing new story elements. Key features include: - A deeper dive into the game's steampunk world - New weapons and enemies - Additional narrative layers to the main story Players who enjoyed the base game will find this expansion a worthwhile addition. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 오스템 임플란트 받아가세요 임플란터 더 알아보기 Undo While Lies of P is no longer on Xbox Game Pass, it remains a compelling experience for fans of challenging action RPGs. The removal aligns with Microsoft's content rotation strategy, but the game is still accessible for purchase. With the Overture DLC now available, there's more reason than ever to dive back into its grim, mechanically twisted version of Pinocchio's tale. Also read: All Gesture Locations in Lies of P Overture - Best Tips and Unlocking Guide For those who missed it on Game Pass, buying the game ensures full access to all current and future content.
