Have you guys heard about The Sorcerer’s Apprentice? It’s a movie from Disney scheduled to come out next year as part of their effort to release various blights upon the world. Now, I know what you think of when you think Sorcerer’s Apprentice, because I know you’ve seen Fantasia, but here’s a refresher course on what goes down in that famous cartoon:

Mickey is a lazy bum who’ll do anything to get out of the simple chore of hauling gallons upon gallons of water for no clearly defined reason. To avoid having to do the work himself, Mickey whips up a little magic and brings a broom to life, intending it to be his slave forever. “Let the broom carry my water” has always been Mickey Mouse’s philosophy. So he makes a broom and it does just that. Unfortunately, Mickey gets a little more than he bargained for. (OMINOUS!) As you might expect, things quickly spiral out of control, with anthropomorphic brooms and water everywhere, and the Sorceror is forced to save Mickey’s bacon. Mickey learns a valuable lesson about meddling with powers he doesn’t understand and can’t control and gets a whack in the ass for his troubles.

So yeah. Mouse, brooms, water, mischief. Now here’s the plot summary from the Wikipedia page for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010 film):

“An average college student (Jay Baruchel) is reluctantly recruited to work for a sorcerer (Nicolas Cage), who gives him a crash course in the art and science of magic to prepare him for a battle against the forces of darkness in modern Manhattan.”

What? Nothing about that is recognizable. And then, of course, there’s the fact that during the filming of a car chase stunt for the movie, a Ferrari crashed into a restaurant in Times Square and injured two pedestrians. Hold on here, let me see: Mickey…brooms to life…overflowing fountain…nope, no fucking car chases.

What possible line of thinking could end up at this conclusion? Why do we live in a world where Disney properties, both good and bad, are constantly being made worse? The idea that even stupid movies need revisited gives us Race to Witch Mountain and the upcoming Tron 2.0. I was content to just ignore those things, because the source material was unbearable to begin with. But now they want to sully the good name of the single best Mickey Mouse cartoon of all time with this bizarre, misguided idea? They want to reunite National Treasure director Jon Turtletaub and actor Nicolas Cage and expect something good to come of it?

Attention everybody in Hollywood: Please just stop.

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• Fantasia
• Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas
• Mickey’s Christmas Carol
• Fun and Fancy Free
• Wednesday Top Ten: Disney Animated Features