Mulan Coming to Disney+

[Psyren]

To elaborate on the change I enjoyed:

Spoiler: Ending

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Like the animated original, she gets the job offer from the Emperor (altered from the emperor's council to his Imperial Guard - much more fitting!), but turns it down to go back home to her family. Understandable as I believe this is part of the underlying legend, or at least the more common variants of it. The vague love interest who may or may not have been attracted to her while she was pretending to be a dude - Shang in the original, Honghui in the remake - also has a little meeting with her before she leaves. Up until this point the broad strokes are the same.

Unlike the original movie however, after she gets home, the Emperor persists - sending his general with the gift to honor Mulan. In the original I think it's just some sword, but in the remake it's her family sword reforged - again, much more fitting with Mulan's character, and now very clearly hers as opposed to her father's that she borrowed. More importantly however, he re-extends the job offer, and this time Mulan quietly considers it. As she does so, she looks into her sword's reflection, seeing her family's phoenix (possibly for the first time?). The movie ends here but the strong implication is that this time, she takes the job.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Except there are male chi users in the cast too - Bori Khan's Improbable Archery, the Emperor, and of course Mulan's father. Her talent allowed her to match them, not merely to make her a superhero among muggles.

The antagonists having access to the magic is pretty much standard superhero storytelling. Which I said in advance:

the moment the protagonist is the protagonist because it has magic no-one else does (outside of the antagonist)

The reasons why the emperor is the way it is are political and I won't touch it. But again: it changes the genre from Sweet Polly Oliver to Superhero. She is a superhero amongst muggles. Heck, it is ridiculous that, from what I see, Captain America did a better training montage than this film. Mulan should not need magical powers to shine in a Mulan story, and neither should the antagonist. Giving them magical powers is the problem, what removes the original genre from this film.

Grey Wolf

[Psyren]

How is the hero keeping up with the antagonists a problem?

And this is hardly the first work where the supporting cast doesn't have the powers of the main hero; there are countless examples.

[Traab]

How is the hero keeping up with the antagonists a problem?

And this is hardly the first work where the supporting cast doesn't have the powers of the main hero; there are countless examples.

I think because it creates a special chosen one narrative rather than just being a young woman out to do what she feels is right. In the original cartoon she wasnt anything particularly special. She was one soldier among many, and that was enough for her to accomplish her goals. Now she is a super soldier, superior to the rest of the rabble. In the first her clever plan is how she wins, both in causing the avalanche and in beating the big bad. She wasnt some incredible sword master with magical abilities, she was a desperate fighter trying to survive and using the few seconds she had to come up with a risky gambit to beat him. So the story drifts from "Women can be soldiers too" to "Only the super special can achieve this"

[Lord Raziere]

I think because it creates a special chosen one narrative rather than just being a young woman out to do what she feels is right. In the original cartoon she wasnt anything particularly special. She was one soldier among many, and that was enough for her to accomplish her goals. Now she is a super soldier, superior to the rest of the rabble. In the first her clever plan is how she wins, both in causing the avalanche and in beating the big bad. She wasnt some incredible sword master with magical abilities, she was a desperate fighter trying to survive and using the few seconds she had to come up with a risky gambit to beat him. So the story drifts from "Women can be soldiers too" to "Only the super special can achieve this"

Indeed.

the original Mulan Ballad doesn't mention any powers either. or her even being caught until she deliberately outs herself. she was just a badass. its sad that we keep replacing the power of human skill and badassery with made up magic as if the former isn't good enough.

[CharonsHelper]

The antagonists having access to the magic is pretty much standard superhero storytelling. Which I said in advance:


The reasons why the emperor is the way it is are political and I won't touch it. But again: it changes the genre from Sweet Polly Oliver to Superhero. She is a superhero amongst muggles. Heck, it is ridiculous that, from what I see, Captain America did a better training montage than this film. Mulan should not need magical powers to shine in a Mulan story, and neither should the antagonist. Giving them magical powers is the problem, what removes the original genre from this film.

Grey Wolf

Got it. So... Avatar the Last Airbender is superheroes.

Harry Potter is superheroes.

And Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is superheroes.

The Matrix is superheroes.

The Last Witch Hunter is superheroes.

Dune is superheroes.

Both The Adventures of Hercules and Xenia are both about superheroes.

You have stretched the genre of "superhero" into meaninglessness. Having characters with powers alone does not a superhero movie make.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

How is the hero keeping up with the antagonists a problem?

It's a problem because "girl that tries to pass as boy to go to war" falls under a set of tropes that does not require either to be supernatural.

And this is hardly the first work where the supporting cast doesn't have the powers of the main hero; there are countless examples.

Yes, countless indeed. Marvel mass-produces them, for one thing. What we don't have a lot of is Sweet Polly Oliver stories made into film in the last decade or so. So it'd be nice if this had taken the chance to do that, given the source material.

Got it. So... Avatar the Last Airbender is superheroes.

Harry Potter is superheroes.

And Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is superheroes.

The Matrix is superheroes.

The Last Witch Hunter is superheroes.

Dune is superheroes.

Both The Adventures of Hercules and Xenia are both about superheroes.

You have stretched the genre of "superhero" into meaninglessness. Having characters with powers alone does not a superhero movie make.

No, I haven't. I have used it correctly. I'd dispute one or two of those, and I haven't seen some, but yes, AtlA, HP, Hercules, Xenia and Matrix all follow the tropes and conventions of what these days we call superhero stories, tropes that go all the way back to Achilles. That all your examples also have a significant overlap with The Chosen One trope is also quite apparent, and also a major problem for this version of Mulan.

You know what is not a superhero story or a Chosen One? Sweet Polly Oliver stories. Which this could have been, and I am of the opinion it should have been, but wasn't. Instead, we have yet another American tone-deaf interpretation of some non-American culture, hamfistedly fit into a genre it doesn't belong to.

GW

[Dienekes]

Indeed.

the original Mulan Ballad doesn't mention any powers either. or her even being caught until she deliberately outs herself. she was just a badass. its sad that we keep replacing the power of human skill and badassery with made up magic as if the former isn't good enough.

I mean the original Ballad was explicitly a story with the express purpose of shaming young men into sacrificing for their elders and the state. I’m not entirely opposed to reinterpreting the story for a more modern telling. Hell the original Disney version being a story of female empowerment is also explicitly going against the original narrative. That’s not a bad thing.

We can quibble about whether we like the change or not.

As someone who personally loves the general message of swords to plowshares the change to the story does not really appease to me. But I haven’t seen the movie. And if they’re going with the framing narrative that she was literally born to be a warrior, not having her retire may fit the story better. I personally can’t say.

Got it. So... Avatar the Last Airbender is superheroes.

Yes. Very explicitly.

Harry Potter is superheroes.

Hmm, arguable. Part of what makes the subset of people super is playing off the normies. And while muggles certainly exist in the world. They’re so secondary to the setting where everything actually takes place that you can make the case it’s more of an underdog team story with a super hero backdrop.

And Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is superheroes.

it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. But I believe it probably counts.

The Matrix is superheroes.

Very much. Quibbling about, with a undergrads understanding of philosophy doesn’t really change it.

The Last Witch Hunter is superheroes.

I cannot comment. I haven’t seen it.

Dune is superheroes.

By Herbert’s own admission it’s a story about the horrors of ubermensch and superheroes.

Both The Adventures of Hercules and Xenia are both about superheroes.

Hercules has always been a superhero. He’s literally what the earliest comic book characters were modeled off of. He’s the granddaddy of the genre. Except for maybe Gilgamesh.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

No, I haven't. I have used it correctly. I'd dispute one or two of those, and I haven't seen some, but yes, AtlA, HP, Hercules, Xenia and Matrix all follow the tropes and conventions

I would like to politely dispute Harry Potter; yes the kid has magic but so does everyone else at the school. He might be ‘super’ by normal Muggle standards but barring his relatives he isn’t interacting with those on a regular basis. Chosen One I’ll agree with wholeheartedly though.

Hercules definitely counts as a super hero though.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I would like to politely dispute Harry Potter;

I'll grant Dienekes & your point that it is disputable, but between the invisibility cloak harkening back to Perseus, the special connection to the bad guy that makes him his equal, and thus above all others, and so on, I think it fits in classic superhero tropes - but fair enough, it might fit in those because of their overlap with the Chosen One genre instead, so I can concede that otherwise, his general lack of powers above that of his peers doesn't fit as neatly as the others.

Grey Wolf

[Psyren]

It's a problem because "girl that tries to pass as boy to go to war" falls under a set of tropes that does not require either to be supernatural.
...
Yes, countless indeed. Marvel mass-produces them, for one thing. What we don't have a lot of is Sweet Polly Oliver stories made into film in the last decade or so. So it'd be nice if this had taken the chance to do that, given the source material.

Indeed.

the original Mulan Ballad doesn't mention any powers either. or her even being caught until she deliberately outs herself. she was just a badass. its sad that we keep replacing the power of human skill and badassery with made up magic as if the former isn't good enough.

The original didn't "require" Eddie Murphy to be a dragon spirit either. Speaking of which, while you two are complaining about the supernatural elements, keep in mind that she needed her magic dragon to cause the avalanche in that one too, not to mention beating the bad guy in the final fight.

[Lord Raziere]

The original didn't "require" Eddie Murphy to be a dragon spirit either. Speaking of which, while you two are complaining about the supernatural elements, keep in mind that she needed her magic dragon to cause the avalanche in that one too, not to mention beating the bad guy in the final fight.

a magic dragon who can be replaced by a box of matches or a fire lighter, not exactly a compelling argument. like, him and lucky cricket add up to one incredibly weak friend who just so happens to have a box of matches and surprisingly good ancient chinese letter forgery skills. Beware their supernatural powers to just barely reach to the levels of usefulness actual human would be in this situation.

[Vinyadan]

I dislike this way of using superhero, because it's the same decontextualisation that brings us ancient epic described as fanfiction.

The mention of Achilles stands out to me, so I'll elaborate, although it's unclear whether GW argued for him being a superhero or simply as a source for tropes. If you read the Iliad, then you know that he can be wounded. His emotional vulnerability is the main theme of the story, but he also gets physically cut. The point of the later introduction of imperfect invulnerability isn't that he now is invulnerable, it's that he is still vulnerable. This goes along with the knowledge that he will die young because he chose not to be forgotten (he was literally given the choice). And the partial invulnerability myth belongs to a trope (compare the child Demophon) about the ineluctable fate, the nature of man, and, when passed from a divine to a human actor, the danger of hybris. The ritual also gets interrupted by Thetis's husband in its oldest attestation, causing Thetis to leave him forever, which adds aspects like taboo, the divergence between the spirit and the human world, the fragility of happiness as a status, and the unreliability of love (notice that, in this version, she is making him immortal and eternally young, not invulnerable).

Honestly, when I think of Spiderman, Superman, or Batman, I don't see much in common. To make an example, Superman has kryptonite, but that's because he must have something to fail against. Superman is an invulnerable character that was made vulnerable, because he needed challenges to overcome. Achilles was always vulnerable, and his invulnerability was just a way to make his vulnerability more poignant. Maybe supervillains are closer, since they are doomed to fail.

Pretty soldier nurse Polly Oliver also is fairly different from Mulan (well, the old Mulan cartoon and what a few Chinese told me), since she never goes to battle and instead pretends to be a soldier garrisoned in London to be close to her lover and later nurses him back to health, the song ending with some good ol' banging (which the ballad humorously allows without confirmation as the way she restored him to health, by having the oblivious doctor say "you have cherished him as if you were his wife".)

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I can imagine a lot of problems with making it, based on what I have seen of fairly recent Chinese blockbusters. Problem #1 is serving two tastes, or actually three tastes (Western, Chinese, Top Brass). This leads to a lot of things, the only one I can talk about here probably being the need for an ultra-generalist plot (which is passable) without clear themes (which is bad), because the underlying themes of movies like "The Flowers of War" would make the milk curdle in Mickey's glass.
Not that it matters; the movie was doomed to bomb anyway, given the COVID emergency.

[Eldan]

To hear MovieBob tell, it feels like they borrowed an unmade script from Star Wars, and just replaced "the force" with "qi".

Isn't that just going pretty much full circle then, back when George Lucas stole the Force from Wuxia movies?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The original didn't "require" Eddie Murphy to be a dragon spirit either. Speaking of which, while you two are complaining about the supernatural elements, keep in mind that she needed her magic dragon to cause the avalanche in that one too, not to mention beating the bad guy in the final fight.

No, I don't need to keep that in mind because I wasn't impressed with that film either - the silly dragon was a significant issue with it. But it was a damn sight closer to a SPO story than this version, by all reports.

Isn't that just going pretty much full circle then, back when George Lucas stole the Force from Wuxia movies?

Sure? But if they want to make another star wars movie, they can just make it. They don't need to hide it under the Mulan name.

To be clear: I do not have a problem with superhero stories about better-than-human individuals facing more-than-human enemies, avatars of concepts that are fallen by their own folly or hubris and rise to overcome those or whatever. Those are fun stories. I enjoy Marvel movies, and look forward to them. But Mulan is not one of those stories, and as per every review I have seen, the fit is really, really poor in this case. The best that can be said is that is was a missed opportunity.

I dislike this way of using superhero, because it's the same decontextualisation that brings us ancient epic described as fanfiction.

It's a shorthand. I do not have the time to go into a twenty paragraph description of the evolution of the hero myth from ancient Greece into the modern superhero genre just to point out that the things they have in common are not present in "girl goes to war as a boy" stories.

Grey Wolf

[snowblizz]

But if they want to make another star wars movie, they can just make it. They don't need to hide it under the Mulan name.

Na, Star Wars is basically unknown in the Chinese market and all the SW fanobis are butthurt about the franchise latest attempts. They can't make a SW jsut now, they had to picks soemthign else. It's all about the Rinmibis nowadays.

There's only a small quota of Western movies allowed in the Chinese market. Previous attempts at Star Wars hasn't worked. This was Disney's shot at grabbing the Chinese market. They are going to put everything and the kitchensink into it to make sure it gathers eyeballs.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Na, Star Wars is basically unknown in the Chinese market and all the SW fanobis are butthurt about the franchise latest attempts. They can't make a SW jsut now, they had to picks soemthign else. It's all about the Rinmibis nowadays.

There's only a small quota of Western movies allowed in the Chinese market. Previous attempts at Star Wars hasn't worked. This was Disney's shot at grabbing the Chinese market. They are going to put everything and the kitchensink into it to make sure it gathers eyeballs.

...

OK, this I can believe. I don't like it, and it is a pity it had to replace what could have been a Sweet Polly Oliver film made with effectively infinite budget, but I can see at least why they made the decisions they made.

GW

[Psyren]

Isn't that just going pretty much full circle then, back when George Lucas stole the Force from Wuxia movies?

Ha!

a magic dragon who can be replaced by a box of matches or a fire lighter, not exactly a compelling argument.

You mean things that didn't exist yet? Seems like magic is pretty useful then.
Regardless, your belief that she was just a competent muggle in the original is proven wrong.

No, I don't need to keep that in mind because I wasn't impressed with that film either - the silly dragon was a significant issue with it. But it was a damn sight closer to a SPO story than this version, by all reports.

And your preferences are totally fine, but the point is that their version of Mulan always had a protagonist with powers that the other protagonists didn't have. Nobody's saying you have to like it, but it shouldn't have been a surprise after twenty years either.

[Dienekes]

You mean things that didn't exist yet? Seems like magic is pretty useful then.
Regardless, your belief that she was just a competent muggle in the original is proven wrong.

Eh, unless I'm misremembering. Mulan's big moment with Mushu involved her flint not working for no reason. Just to get the funny Mushu fire breath visual. And so Mushu had a reason for being there so he could commentate for added drama.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

And your preferences are totally fine, but the point is that their version of Mulan always had a protagonist with powers that the other protagonists didn't have. Nobody's saying you have to like it, but it shouldn't have been a surprise after twenty years either.

"Access to a talking animal that can replace her flint stone in a pinch" is not "a protagonist with powers the others don't have". It is comic relief.

And there is also the matter of scale of the problem. Animated Disney Mulan, silly dragon moment aside, is not a jedi. This Mulan? She might as well be.

Grey Wolf

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Psyren
You mean things that didn't exist yet? Seems like magic is pretty useful then.

No one built the rocket expecting a dragon to light it, so even within the movie’s framework we can expect ordinary ways of lighting a fuse. As Dienekes correctly points out, Mulan was struggling with her flint when the hawk knocked her over; she lost the flint in the snow and used the dragon as a last resort. (This is right at 56:01 on Disney+ and only takes a few seconds to find.)

Historically the Chinese were using gunpowder projectiles since at least the early 900s, and while they didn’t have modern self-igniting matches, they certainly had other ways to light fuses, as seen in the first illustration here.

Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c
"Access to a talking animal that can replace her flint stone in a pinch" is not "a protagonist with powers the others don't have". It is comic relief.

Definitely so. The animated Mulan was about as ordinary as a person can be, at least in terms of supernatural abilities.

Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c
Animated Disney Mulan, silly dragon moment aside, is not a jedi. This Mulan? She might as well be.

From what I’ve seen of the trailers and a couple preview scenes, this movie is pretty standard wire-fu, on a par with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That’s substantially different from the animated Mulan, but unless she’s lifting wagons with the power of her mind and choking people from across the room, I’d say the Jedi comparison is perhaps not entirely apt.

[uncool]

The main conflict Grey_Wolf_c is describing is a narrative one: is the main character's conflict about "fitting in", or "standing out"?
A SPO plot is one whose narrative says "Everyone can reach this level through effort", while a "superhero" narrative says "It takes someone special to do this" (overlapping heavily with the "Chosen One" narrative). And those two are pretty contradictory!

This is why the "cross-dressing soldiers" scene at the end of the animated Mulan was actually thematically important (if mostly unimportant to the plot - iirc it mostly served as an excuse to get Mulan 1-on-1 with the enemy general eta: not even that, plot-wise it was pretty much irrelevant): it gave the "correct" answer to "How could Mulan fit in?": not by denying and repressing herself, but by expressing herself and making others realize their wrong standards, providing a bookend to the "arrow on the pole" scene where Mulan realizes she has to change her own standards to solve a problem.

This isn't to say that the narratives can't be reconciled, but it takes a lot of work.

[Brother Oni]

That wire-fu wuxia also breaks my suspension of disbelief, to be clear, is unconnected to the above. That's just something that throws me off a film. Last time I watched was Hero, and I just couldn't get invested in the fight scenes (a bit of a problem in a film that is nothing but fight scenes colour-coded for your convenience).

With the sole exception of the final scene's demonstration of Nameless' Death at Ten Paces technique, every fight is either a 'battle of the mind' or a story/recollection by an unreliable narrator (either by Nameless or the King himself), so fantastic flying martial arts is not unrealistic in these cases.

That said, the fights being sheer spectacle is both part of the visual appeal but primarily mainly eye-candy to help drive the underlying story, rather than telling the story itself. The important bits are the bits in-between where each story gets Nameless closer and closer to the King.

From what I’ve seen of the trailers and a couple preview scenes, this movie is pretty standard wire-fu, on a par with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That’s substantially different from the animated Mulan, but unless she’s lifting wagons with the power of her mind and choking people from across the room, I’d say the Jedi comparison is perhaps not entirely apt.

Unless it's been ret-conned, isn't the entire skill set of the Jedi Guardian just essentially 'be a wuxia hero'?

[CharonsHelper]

Eh, unless I'm misremembering. Mulan's big moment with Mushu involved her flint not working for no reason. Just to get the funny Mushu fire breath visual. And so Mushu had a reason for being there so he could commentate for added drama.

Mushu was the one who actually finished off the main villain Shan Yu. He did it by shooting a massive firework at him which carried him into the tower full of fireworks and killed him. All Mulan did was pin his shirt-tail to the roof so that he couldn't dodge at the last second. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTpZELFKH2w (skip to about 3:40) - arguably they just didn't want to show blood and Mulan would have won anyway, but Mushu was actually the one who killed him.

[Traab]

I think this discussion has gone in a dozen different directions with people arguing stances that arent being argued against by the rest in a lot of places. I think the main problem with wuxia mulan is that it alters the themes and message of the story from what it was in its original disney version. By turning mulan from an ordinary girl who wants to protect her family and doesnt feel like she fits in the normal female role into wonder woman finally getting the chance to show off how awesome she is, it changes the underlying message of "You, yes you, could do this too. She didnt need any special powers to do it, she was just a regular girl like you." To "This is something only the chosen one could have done. She was special, always had been, therefore no little girl, you cant do this yourself."

Take hercules with kevin sorbo as an example. The first disney mulan was iolaus. The normal guy who refused to not fight for what was right. He wasnt perfect, he got beat up, but he still fought, he still had times where he could save the day. Thats inspiring to everyone. A role model that you can aspire to be. Hercules on the other hand is a super special demigod with magical strength and durability he was born with. He is a heroic figure to watch, capable of performing amazing feats that are really impressive... but you cant be hercules. He isnt a goal you can aim for. He isnt a symbol of who and what you can be capable of. (except maybe morally as this version of hercules was a tiny bit different from the og) people might WISH they could be hercules, but they know they cant. Iolaus on the other hand is someone they can be if they try hard enough. Thats the difference caused by turning mulan from another soldier only with boobs she has to hide, into wonder woman. And I think thats a shame.

That being said, that doesnt make the movie itself bad. Its just different themes and messages from what its a remake of which can be very jarring for people.

[Psyren]

No one built the rocket expecting a dragon to light it, so even within the movie’s framework we can expect ordinary ways of lighting a fuse.

Sure, but heavy snow tends to interfere with those ways. It doesn't interfere with a magic dragon spirit.

The simple fact is that she would have failed/died if her magic dragon spirit wasn't there - ergo, claiming she didn't make use of magic is false.

"Access to a talking animal that can replace her flint stone in a pinch" is not "a protagonist with powers the others don't have".

So the other soldiers had ancestral dragon spirits in that battle? News to me.
He saved her in the final fight as well.

[Lemmy]

Hey, we finally got something entertaining out of this movie!

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Brother Oni
Unless it's been ret-conned, isn't the entire skill set of the Jedi Guardian just essentially 'be a wuxia hero'?

Not the entire skill set, no. The Jedi have a whole suite of abilities that wuxia fighters don’t display, from mystically influencing the weak-minded to gaining visions of the future. And let's not get into the most recent movie and teleporting objects across lightyears.

And, of course, lifting heavy objects by concentrating on them. Rocks, droids, starfighters, etc.

Originally Posted by Traab
By turning mulan from an ordinary girl who wants to protect her family and doesnt feel like she fits in the normal female role into wonder woman finally getting the chance to show off how awesome she is, it changes the underlying message of "You, yes you, could do this too. She didnt need any special powers to do it, she was just a regular girl like you." To "This is something only the chosen one could have done. She was special, always had been, therefore no little girl, you cant do this yourself."

I can certainly see how people would be annoyed by this, and in general it would irk me a little as well.

But for my part, I’ll wait to watch the movie and see how it plays out in context of the story.

Originally Posted by Psyren
*snip*

Point being, the dragon isn’t a power inherent to Mulan as a person. He’s a (thoroughly ridiculous) sidekick. He was a servant of the family ancestors, so he’s not part of Mulan. She herself is as muggle as they come.

.

[Psyren]

Point being, the dragon isn’t a power inherent to Mulan as a person. He’s a (thoroughly ridiculous) sidekick. He was a servant of the family ancestors, so he’s not part of Mulan. She herself is as muggle as they come.

So Summoner instead of Swordsage, okay.

And the whole point of chi by the way is that everyone DOES have it. She's just more talented with its use.

[Lord Raziere]

So the other soldiers had ancestral dragon spirits in that battle? News to me.
He saved her in the final fight as well.

and could be replaced with a very weak human guy with flint and tinder. you could give everything that he does on his own to one of the three men she befriends then just have her light the dang stuff normally and the film would work. he is not a superpower, he is a superfluous.

like if "a friend who has matches and a letter forgery skills" counts as a superpower now, that makes a lot of people superheroes.