Disney movies are a staple in many households in America. Parents all over show the kids the same movies that they once watched as children, and relieve the nostalgic memories they had from their childhoods as well as check out new films. So obviously, there was a boom of excitement and anticipation when the first live action Disney movie remakes were coming out, but many of them didn’t live up to the hype.

I recently watched the live action remake of the classic Disney movie Mulan, and I must say I was disappointed. 

I loved the original Mulan movie; it was a fabulous movie with a perfect mix of humor and serious topics surrounding gender roles and familial expectations, and with characters everyone could fall in love with. 

One of the most universally loved characters in the original movie was Mushu, the sarcastic, clumsy, yet well meaning little dragon that follows Mulan throughout the story. I was more than a little disappointed to see that the funny and lovable dragon had been completely removed from the adaptation. 

Upon doing some research on People.com, I found evidence of the director of the new Mulan remake stating that Mushu was removed in order to try to strengthen the bond between Mulan and her fellow soldiers, but I don’t think the movie quite hit the mark on that one. One of the characters in the new Mulan remake exhibited even close to the same level of humor and sarcasm that Mushu brought to the movie.

Along with the removal of beloved characters such as Mushu, another thing that upset me was the lack of music.

Randomly bursting out into song is a staple of Disney movies, and in the original Mulan, that’s exactly what happened, but in the live action version, there was no music, or at least not in the same way.

While there were backtracks of the original instrumental audio played at some points in the movie, such as the backtrack to “I’ll Make a Man Out Of You” playing while Mulan was at the army facility, or the instrumental of “Reflection” being played at several points in the new version, there was no singing. Most kids remember belting out disney songs when they were little, and the kids who see this version of Mulan won’t have that experience.

Everyone loved the songs from the original Mulan movie, which is why it’s so hard to understand why they’ve been removed. What’s the point of removing a much appreciated part of the movie?

All in all, while the movie wasn’t terrible, it isn’t worth your time. Your time may better be spent watching Maleficent, which is a live action Disney movie from the perspective of the villain.