Megan

This movie is a cash grab that doesn't even get close to matching the powerful message of the original. It turned Mulan from an intelligent, compassionate woman that willingly went to war disguised as man to save her father into a super hero who beats all her challenges because she has a special skill no one else has. The new Mulan leaves to join the war, less to save her dad and more because she wants to be a warrior. I think Disney has lost touch with what made their early movies so great to begin with. It wasn't just the quality of their animation and set designs. It was the compelling characters and powerful morals they portrayed. They tried to make a woke Mulan, but they failed to recognize that the original Mulan was already woke. It featured a loving father figure that supported his daughter even though she didn't fit in. It featured a woman that refused to accept what society taught her just because it was tradition. Mulan challenged gender roles of both women and men in the original. She challenged that women had to focus on being quiet and prim so they could make for a good wife and she challenged that men had to put on a brave face, be a man, and fight in wars unaided by women, even if that meant that crippled men that had no chance of surviving had to go to battle. The original Mulan showed that ordinary women, even those who feel like they don't belong, have the power to determine their own destiny through hard work and cultivating intelligence. Disney weakens the morals from the original by turning Mulan into an all-powerful being with no faults, which the ordinary woman can't relate to, and changing the focus from "she's amazing because of her cleverness and what she fights for" to "she's amazing because she has super powers". The main moral of the poem that Mulan is based on is that it shouldn't matter if you are male or female - you are capable of doing great things. The 2020 Mulan doesn't understand that. Take away the fact that Mulan is a woman and has special qi, who is she? What is she capable of? Certainly not all of the gravity-defying magic she does to save China. The point of the 1998 Mulan is that Mulan was capable of saving China, regardless of her being a woman (which is stereotypically viewed as a weakness). She was capable not because she was the strongest, but because she was intelligent, selfless, loving, compassionate, diligent, and had a strong moral compass. This movie was super disappointing and overall wasn't worth the watch.