It seems like every day that a movie is being remade for theaters again, but are they any better or have any different of an outcome than they had before. I look to find out the answer in this essay where I decided to watch all of the “Annie” movies that were created and decide if it really is worth directors to spend their time remaking a past movie. That means I watched the original 1982 Annie, starring Aileen Quinn as Annie; the 1999 Annie, starring Alicia Morton as the young orphan; and the 2014 version of Annie, starring Quvenzhane Wallis as the most recent reincarnation of Annie on the big screen.
Before I begin comparing these movies and go into detail how I feel about each one of them, I will let you guys know that I have watched a musical version of Annie and I am even in a musical for Annie right now. However, since the movies are very different than the way the movies do it, I will not be including them. The original Annie movie is a classic, but it still does have its faults. However, like most great movies, this motion picture had so many great moments that it outweighed the bad parts of the movie.
For example, Annie was a really likable character that you could relate to and have empathy for. The way Alieen Quinn performed her made her quite fun and determined while still being just a little bit manipulative. She also sang great and had very realistic emotions to what was happening. Another thing that I like about the movie is that it stayed very close to the source material, the source material I am talking about here is the musical version. I had all of the classic songs that people that have watched the show before love. They also had dance numbers as if they were performing it as a musical.
One more thing that I liked about the movie was that you could feel how over the course of the movie Warbucks got closer and closer with Annie. It’s really hard to put into words, but you could feel them just growing fond of each other. It was really obvious too when Annie is taken by her “parents” and you could see how upset he was. With all of that said, there are still some problems that I have with the movie. One thing that I didn’t like was that weird guy who could do magic and make things move. He was a fun character, but he kind of broke the realism that the movie had and made it just feel ridiculous.
It just seemed like he couldn’t do anything wrong and there was nothing he could do. Another thing that I had an issue is that the orphans were somehow able to get to Warbucks’ mansion in enough time for Annie to still be able to be rescued. From the way that the movie was making it feel, it seemed like there was no chance that they were going to get there before the plan of the Hannigans’ succeeded. They just made it sound like that it was going to take a long time. One more thing that I had an issue with was it felt like there was no emotion involved with Grace and Warbucks. It just felt like they were colleagues and that was that.
The emotion between the two was practically nonexistent. Now that I am done ranting about the original Annie movie, I get to tell you how I felt about the TV movie one. The 1999 version of Annie was a unique adaptation of the traditional story. One thing that I liked about it was that they made you feel bad for Ms. Hannigan. She didn’t feel like a drunk who was cruel to kids, but more as a person who has gotten so tired of dealing with little girls for the longest time. She, in fact, had never hit one of the kids because the threat of it was good enough to keep the kids from bothering her much more.
Another thing that I did like about it was that they utilized Lilly St. Regis’ dumb logic to full effect. What I mean by this is that the Hannigans completely kicked her out of the plot to kidnap Annie because they felt she would be so stupid to blow their cover. In fact, she did end up blowing their cover because she actually started thinking about what would happen once the orphans made her think about it once she accidently told them their plot. One more thing that I liked about this movie was that the rest of the orphans in the orphanage got adopted.
This meant that they could finally have happy lives and enjoy themselves. It also means that they get a resolution to their problem of being an orphan. While there were many pluses that I would give this movie, there are some negatives that I have for the movie. One such issue that I had was that Annie came off as an annoying brat who would do anything to get her way. She even stole corn from a guy who isn’t that well off and obviously needs all of the help that he can get. Also, when Annie and Warbucks first meet, her line of saying that she is Annie and then the smile makes her come off as rude in my opinion.
Another thing that I didn’t like was the hair style that Annie had during the show. Her hair color and her hairstyle just didn’t work with her costumes, especially her iconic red dress. I felt like that should have used a wig on her like they did in the original movie. The final issue that I will talk about in this movie are the dance numbers. I felt like they were boring and very uneventful. The one I disliked the most was the hard knock life song as it felt like they were just sitting there cleaning and doing nothing else. With that said, let’s continue to the final and most recent made Annie movie that we will be talking about.
The 2014 Annie movie and came out pretty recently and got quite a bit of box office revenue. It wasn’t the best movie of all time, but it was still very good. One thing that I liked about it was that Mr. Stacks was forced to sacrifice something to get Annie. For example, he has to give up trying to be mayor to prove to Annie that he doesn’t want to lose her. He also changes plans from just planning to use Annie to succeed to wanting her as his daughter. Another thing that I like about this version was they showed Grace’s past and really showed her bond with Annie.
This made us appreciate both Annie and Grace more and made us want them to do well. It also helped with making Grace and Stacks realizing their love. One more thing that I liked about the movie was how it was redone as if the story were to happen today. This meant that F. D. R wasn’t going be in it, but they would give a nod to him by mentioning him in a report and also changing the business Stacks would have. It also affected what movies they would watch and what they would do. This movie wasn’t perfect as it did have flaws. One flaw that I have an issue with is Annie was not able to read.
This bothers me because she was literally in school and should have learned to read, but she did not. Someone would have recognized that she was unable to read before this and they just passed it off as she was really good at faking it. Another problem I had with the movie was the amount of autotune used. It seemed like every word in every song had autotune used. They should have cast people who could have sung better or gotten other people to sing the parts because it felt like they could have had anyone as the actors at that part. I don’t like that there is no Drake in the movie.
The closest person to being Drake is Mr. Stacks’ bodyguard, but he is in the movie very little. This takes an important character in the past movies, but they were somehow able to make a good movie without him. Now that we have gone into detail about each of the movies, it is time to compare and contrast them. Even though these movies were produced by different people, they are still similar in many ways. One way is that in each of the movies, Annie and Grace end up having a good relationship with each other and are the first to become friends in a way in each of the movies.
They also share a lot of time making Warbucks or Stacks into the person in the end of the movie. Another thing that both movies had was the iconic song “Tomorrow”. Even though it is an obvious to have in an Annie movie, they were still done in different ways and all of them were done pretty good. One more thing that all 3 of the movies had was the orphans helping in a way to tell Warbucks or Stacks that the people that are taking her aren’t her real parents. In the original one, they ran from the orphanage to tell him. In the 1999 movie version, they get Lilly to take them and stop the Hannigans.
And in the 2014 movie, Ms. Hannigan needs their help to make up for what she did and they use twitter to find Annie. Now even though all of the titles of the movies are the same, they all have their differences. One example of this is how Sandy ends up living with Stacks or Warbucks. In the original one, Annie already had Sandy at the orphanage and brought her along to the mansion from the beginning. In the 1999 version, Annie finds Sandy while out with Warbucks and Grace on the streets. In the 2014 version, Stacks takes Annie to a dog pound and Annie gets Sandy that way.
Another difference is how Warbucks or Stacks meets Annie. In the original, Warbucks meets Annie by smelling wet dog and Annie coming out of hiding with the dog, In the 1999 version, Annie runs into Warbucks at the end of the “I Think I’m Going to Like it Here” song. In the 2014 version, Annie runs into Mr. Stacks when he saves her by taking her out of traffic and not letting her get run over. One more difference is the relationship between Hannigan and Mr. Bundles or Lou. In the 1982 version, Hannigan is trying to get Bundles and is all over him.
In the 1999 version, it is the complete opposite. Bundles are into Ms. Hannigan, but Hannigan doesn’t reciprocate the feeling and basically says she is only into Warbucks. In the 2014 version, Lou is all over Hannigan and she doesn’t like him back, but over time she ends up slowly falling for him. I believe they end up being together in the end since they are seen together in the last scene where they are singing “Tomorrow”. With this being said, I enjoyed these movies and it was hard for me to pick a favorite or a least liked one.
All 3 of these movies had their moments and the struggles, but there was a clear one that liked the most and one I liked the least. Starting off with the one I liked the most, I liked the 2014 movie version with the big names like Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz. I picked this one to be my favorite because it had a story that seemed to make more sense and was more interesting to watch. Even though there was so much autotune in it, it seemed possible that this would happen in real life. I think that trying to use Annie to succeed only to realize that you don’t want to get rid of her is a story that was fresh and surprising.
Now for my least favorite one, it was the 1999 movie version. I didn’t like because Annie came off very annoying and I found myself just rooting for something to go bad for her rather than something good. Also, the dancing was just so boring to watch. It felt like they should have just cut out the dances all together and just let the music play. Even though they made Lilly look dumb and made her the person to ruin everything and made Ms. Hannagan a person that you would feel for, it wasn’t enough to make it better than any of the other Annie movies.
Now in all of these movies, the stories changed in some way, but did they really influence a different final outcome? In my opinion, they didn’t because in the end Annie always ends up with Warbucks or Stacks and Warbucks or Stacks realizes that they need Grace in a way. Now some things did change, but it hardly did anything to affect the final outcome. For example, when Lilly exposes the plan in the 1999 version, she still ends being thrown into jail like the other versions and Annie, Warbucks, and Grace live happily ever after.
