The film Mulan (2020) is Disney’s latest live-action adaptation of their classic animated films. However, instead of being a blockbuster like its predecessors Beauty and the Beast (2017) or Aladdin (2019), Mulan received only a lukewarm response – especially in China. How did Disney fail at retelling a story that everyone knew and loved, and why do we think Pixar (a subsidiary of Disney) is a better storyteller than Disney? Join Wordsmith as we learn about crafting stories the Pixar way.
Why Mulan (2020) was so mediocre
Featuring a young tomboyish girl who enlists in the army in place of her ailing father, Mulan dons a false identity to defend her country from savage Huns while also breaking stereotypical traditions and empowering women. At its core, the new Mulan film still very much follows this courageous and inspiring narrative.
However, director Niki Caro removed Mulan's comedic dragon guardian Mushu (voiced by Eddie Murphy) from her rendition – a beloved character that undoubtedly helped the animated film shine. Caro’s reasoning for omitting Mushu was twofold: (1) she wanted Mulan to develop deeper and more serious relationships with the other recruits, and (2) Chinese audiences disliked Mushu’s character. Dragons being proud and revered creatures in Chinese mythology, portraying one as comedic relief was considered insensitive.
Aside from Mushu being offensive to some Chinese viewers, the original animated film performed poorly In China as a whole. Viewers criticised Mulan’s behaviour for being too westernised and individualistic – not accurately representing the Sui Dynasty era and the values that people held at the time. With this in mind, it made sense for Caro to take a depart from the animation.
But before the movie was to be released, the movie’s international publicity was hurt when the actress who plays Mulan (Liu Yifei) supported police actions during Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests in 2019 – creating unnecessary heat and international calls for boycotts against the film. Furthermore, the film’s credits revealed that parts of the movie were filmed in Xinjiang (with local authorities being thanked) to show off the province’s landscapes, which was a point of contention due to treatment of ethnic minorities in the region. Politics aside, why did the movie still fail when Disney had so carefully tailored it for Chinese tastes?
Audiences lauded the film’s beautiful scenery and fight sequences, but were ultimately disappointed with Mulan’s character. In the original story, Mulan was just a regular girl who achieved her goals through hard work and determination. In Caro’s version, she had literal magic (coined “qi”) that granted her superhuman combat skills – an element that was allegedly only natural in males, whereas females who had it were considered “witches”. This is rather strange, considering that the Chinese government banning sci-fi and fantasy-themed television shows in the past for promoting superstitions and fatalism. Furthermore, it seems rather silly to undermine the story’s theme about female empowerment when you give the protagonist unnecessary powers to make the point…
Let’s take a look at how Pixar crafts their narratives to create more believable stories.
Storytelling the Pixar way
Emma Coats, a former Pixar Story Artist, tweeted a number of Pixar-approved storytelling rules to help aspiring storytellers form more cohesive tales. Here are a few that we think are the most important, with some examples from successful Disney-Pixar films:
1. You admire a character for trying more than for their successes
Audiences like to be shown how a character progresses. In Finding Nemo, the young clownfish Nemo is captured by divers and it’s up to his reclusive and overprotective father, Marlin, and the ditzy blue tang, Dory, to find him. Obviously, we know Marlin will succeed because Disney and Pixar are all about happy endings – but we want to find out how Marlin was willing to abandon the safety of home and throw himself in danger (and even tangle with hungry sharks) to save his son. Marlin is by no means a strong or powerful character, but his determination to save his son eventually inspires him to open up to new possibilities and to begin trusting new people (er… fish and other aquatic animals in this case).
2. Come up with your ending before figuring out your middle
Writing a satisfying ending is tough, but nothing disappoints more than sitting through a story with a lame and clichéd ending. At first, Disney’s Frozen appears to be a stereotypical princess movie, but the ending throws everyone off. In the film, Princess Anna was struck by a spell that gradually froze her body solid and she needed to find true love to break the spell. If this was in the 1970s, it would’ve been obvious that the freezing Anna would’ve been saved by a kiss from the burly and kind-hearted Sven. Instead, Disney changed things up by using sisterly love – Queen Elsa’s love for her sister – as the catalyst to undo the spell. The movie spent nearly an hour building up the relationship between Sven and Anna, and while they ultimately do get together in the end, it baited audiences into thinking that he would be her saviour!
3. When stuck, make a list of what wouldn’t happen next
Writer’s block sucks, but making a list of what can’t happen is an excellent way to stay productive – it can often lead to a solution as well! In Toy Story, sheriff Woody grows jealous of his owner (Andy)’s new Buzz Lightyear spaceman action figure. If the goal of the story is to show how Woody and Buzz can get along and both become favourite toys, how can we help Woody get over his jealousy while helping Buzz to get along better with the rest of the toys? Here are a few things that would be implausible:
a. Andy gets hurt/sick and it’s up to his toys to cheer him up
b. A new toy forces Woody and Buzz to have to work together
c. Andy’s baby sister Molly breaks Woody or Buzz and they have to help put each other back together
Option (a) wouldn’t work because showing a kid get hurt or injured isn’t exactly family friendly material. Option (b), on the other hand, doesn’t fit with the flow of the story – given that Buzz is already the new toy, it wouldn’t make sense for Andy to receive another new toy so quickly. However, the inclusion of a common enemy is a classic way to force co-operation between rivals, and this is shown in the movie with the introduction of Sid (the bad boy with a knack for explosives and butchering toys). Option (c) is interesting, but it restricts what we can do in the rest of the story. For one, it means the rest of the story would likely take place within the house, and because there’s no external threat other than the baby, Woody or Buzz would have little reason to help each other. Having both Woody and Buzz away from home would create a better impetus to bond.
Having these two developments, what if Woody and Buzz got taken by Sid and had to escape to get back to Andy? Boom! Now we have the plot for the latter half of the movie.
4. Why must you tell this story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of?
This boils down to the theme(s) and message(s) of your story and why other people need to hear it. Monsters, Inc. features the world of monsters and how they generate “power” for their cities by harnessing the screams of young children. To do so, specialist monsters (dubbed “scarers”) must travel through portals into children’s bedrooms every night to scare them. However, children and their belongings are supposedly toxic to monsters, so monsters are just as terrified of touching their prey as the children are of them. Mike and Sully, the best scaring duo for the powering facility, discover that a rogue child (named Boo) has accidentally made her way into the monster’s world and they must send her back before risking a citywide pandemic.
Along the way, the duo discover that children pose no physical harm to them and that the higher ups have been indoctrinating all monsters to fear humans. It wasn’t made clear why they did so, but we have a hunch that by marking humans as enemies, the majority of the monster population would be okay with treating children as a fuel source – instead of realising that most children are just harmless pipsqueaks and that their laughter generates ten times as much energy as their terrified screams.
This brings us to the movie’s theme: to face your fears and to give others a chance despite any preconceived notions or stereotypes you may have about them. What makes this message so great is that it applies to both the human and monster worlds. As children, we are innately afraid of the darkness in our closets and beneath our beds because we always expect something malicious to be lurking there – but what if they didn’t mean any harm? That’s what Monsters, Inc. tries to teach us.
In the end, a great story only works when you have a specific goal in mind: to tell a story and to share a message. It’s wrong to bash Mulan (2020) for political reasons, but criticising the movie for its muddled narrative is completely justified. Perhaps if Disney spent less effort trying to cater to the Chinese market and stuck to crafting better stories, they’d get the ratings they so desperately desire.