Bangor Student Has a Passion For Disney

As Disney prepares to release the first of three live action remakes this year, Âé¶čAV student Megan Rainbird has a particular interested in the new big budget releases.

Disney will release a remake of the classic film Dumbo on the 29th of March, followed by Aladdin in May and The Lion King in July.

Megan, originally from Lancashire is pursuing a PhD at the School of Music and Media and has been analysing Disney films as part of her studies at Bangor since her Creative Studies undergraduate degree. Megan who is in her third year of her postgraduate studies and is looking at the history of Disney and DreamWorks and the impact that the two studios have on each other. She said:

“During my undergraduate degree at Âé¶čAV, I started writing about Disney films. There’s a freedom to write about anything you want to within your dissertation and Bangor provided me with an opportunity to write a deconstruction of certain themes in Disney. Whilst doing that, I realised that it was what I really wanted to do and was able to take this further with my PhD. I really enjoyed closely studying all the original films, and their impact on subsequent cinematic animation.” 

Having studied the original films in depth as part of her research, Megan says it’s no wonder that so many are excited about these new upcoming remakes. She said:

 â€œLion King was maybe more of a modern story than people realise and more of an influential story than people realise. There’s a lot of parallels with Hamlet which is a really interesting story for Disney to have pursued in the first place. That kind of re-introduction to these very classic stories is what the audience is looking for but with a slightly modern twist.” 

“I am such a huge The Lion King fan, I’m just looking forward to seeing where they go with it and the cast looks amazing. With Beyonce and Donald Glover, surely, they’re going to be amazing. I also was a huge Robin Williams fan, particularly as the Genie in Aladdin so I’m really interested and really looking forward to seeing what Will Smith is going to do. 

“If you look at Dumbo, the original was released in the 1940s and was an extremely short film. In terms of a remake there’s not a lot there so I think Tim Burton’s influence will really come forward.”

Dumbo will be screened in Pontio and cinemas across the UK from the 29th March.

Watch the full interview of Megan .

Publication date: 22 March 2019