About a month ago, Disney released a trailer for its upcoming live-acton Aladdin remake, the latest part in its 100-part plan to weaponize your nostalgia and make several trillion dollars. There was a lot to talk about in that trailer, but almost immediately, conversation turned to the fact that Will Smith, who plays the Genie, was blue and that it looked weird.
Well, Disney released a new trailer today, so the conversation can turn to the fact that Smith won’t be blue all the time, which is for the best.
More substantially, this trailer gives us our first looks at how Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott and Marwan Kenzari will perform the roles of Aladdin, Princess Jasmine and Jafar respectively, plus a look at a couple of musical numbers, including snippets of “Friend Like Me” and “A Whole New World.” Nostalgia: weaponized.
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What’s interesting about Aladdin is that, unlike past Disney remakes like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast (and upcoming ones like Dumbo and The Lion King), it traded very heavily in the pop culture of the time. As the original Genie, Robin Williams was a mile-a-minute reference machine, burning through celebrity impressions at an alarming rate.
Some of those references are still recognizable today, some aren’t, and for the children in the audience it probably won’t matter, but the point stands that Aladdin needs more updating than the average Disney movie, and most of that is going to come down to how Smith plays the Genie. Based on this trailer, he’s a bit less manic than Williams, but then again, anyone would be.
Also there’s a new character named Prince Anders played by Billy Magnussen. I dunno what that’s about; I guess they needed to pad the runtime? The original is only 90 minutes.
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