Part 10/14:

Musker also offers harsh critiques of Disney’s current strategy with live-action remakes. He describes the approach as an exercise in risk-aversion—simply redoing previous successes to sell to nostalgic audiences, often at the expense of originality. The 2023 adaptation of The Little Mermaid serves as a prime example. He laments that the new film lacked the heart of the original—failing to highlight key emotional relationships and instead focusing on superficial changes, such as race-swapping Ariel with a Black actress, which he suggests robbed the character of her iconic visual identity (her red hair).