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WARNING: THIS IS ONLY MY OPINION. ALSO, THERE ARE SPOILERS.
Disney’s 1994 film The Lion King is considered one of the greatest successes in movie history, earning over $94.2 million at the box office when it was released. Even 25 years later, people still re-enact the scene of Rafiki presenting Simba to the world and “Hakuna Matata” is still a most wonderful phrase. However, with every big success, there is always someone looking to leech off its fame for some quick cash. Using that logic, Disney decided to throw originality and creativity out the window and resort to remaking some of their old animated films, spawning the new “live-action” Lion King. So, brace yourselves as we take a closer look into this utter disgrace to the original Lion King.
While Disney pitched this as a live-action movie, it was clear that that would be impossible considering that they would be working with animals. However, if the animals were not talking, it would be easy to understand how someone would mistake it for real life. As a quick reminder, nothing you see on screen is real except for one frame being an actual shot from Africa. However, this use of realistic visuals actually becomes one of this remake’s biggest downfalls.
If you have seen the original Lion King (if you have not, what are you doing here?), you would probably remember all the colorful scenes like the number “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” where multiple animals created this spectacular tower while there were all these beautiful colors in the background. When you move to real life, you lose a lot of color and style. The lack of color variation also caused an issue in defining characters, often making it hard to tell some characters from others. This was quite apparent in trying to differentiate between all the lionesses and also the hyenas.
Many fantasy elements also got lost because of this lack of artistic license. The aforementioned tower of animals was removed, basically taking away a lot of the grandeur present in the song. When Mufasa appears in the clouds, it is really hard to tell if there is even a semblance of him there because, of course, clouds do not do that in real life. We even lost the iconic hula scene with Timon and Pumbaa, limiting their humor to quick jokes here and there. Instead we got a performance of “Be Our Guest” by Timon as he presents Pumbaa as the main course, which, in my opinion, was very underwhelming. Speaking of characters, realism also got in the way of a lot of character development and emotion.
The original animation of the Lion King featured characters who anyone could recognize as animals but could also sense human emotion from them as the artists carefully implemented different facial expressions and lighting effects. In the remake, however, all that emotion is lost due to how rigid the facial expressions appear. In the famous scene where Simba cries out to his dad as he falls into the canyon, you can see this sheer look of terror and shock on his face as his eyes go wide and his mouth opens similarly to a human when he begins to scream. In the new movie, there is little to no emotion on Simba’s face as the animators stuck so closely to make it look like a real lion. This occurs throughout the film, with the limited face expressions losing much of the emotion the original movie had. But the loss of character goes beyond the facial expressions.
The voice-acting in this movie seems very mismatched to the characters they are playing. Scar was the biggest offender, as the inflection with many of his lines didn’t portray that sense of hidden anger and malice that Jeremy Irons portrayed in the original, also giving him that sense of superiority. The new Scar is shaky on his lines and doesn’t have that cool confidence that he is supposed to have. The hyenas also lost a lot of personality, including Ed as they have him speak when he was originally a bumbling idiot. As a result, they weren’t as funny and felt like they could easily overpower Scar. Beyoncé was also a bit iffy as Nala, with her performance doing nothing to further the chemistry between her and Simba. The two felt disconnected which did not bode well with the “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” scene. Nothing against Beyoncé, I just believe that there could have been more to her character. The only character’s performance I truly enjoyed was Mufasa, who was played by the original voice actor, James Earl Jones. Now, on to my final nitpicks.
There were a few little things that were cut or changed that did not sit right with me, but I’m sure many others just looked over it. The song “Be Prepared” was cut short, losing a lot of imagery from the original and the involvement of the hyenas. This also resulted in Scar’s line, “I’m surrounded by idiots,” being cut as well (which is my favorite line by the way). The scene where Mufasa pleads with Scar to save him is also a bit off. Firstly, Mufasa actually does not address Scar as “Brother”. Not a big change, but still weird. However, when Scar delivers the famous line “Long live the king,” his voice is a bit shaky and he does not shove him off as effortlessly as he probably should have. This bothered me as it detracted slightly from Scar’s indifference in killing his own brother for the throne. And finally, the “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” scene was at daytime. That made no sense to me.
In conclusion, the fact that this movie took itself so seriously detracted from the soul the original had and made this movie very static and disconnected from the themes of the movie and creative genius that went into the art and humor of this movie.
So what did you think? Be sure to tell me your thoughts in the comments below!
Disney’s 1994 film The Lion King is considered one of the greatest successes in movie history, earning over $94.2 million at the box office when it was released. Even 25 years later, people still re-enact the scene of Rafiki presenting Simba to the world and “Hakuna Matata” is still a most wonderful phrase. However, with every big success, there is always someone looking to leech off its fame for some quick cash. Using that logic, Disney decided to throw originality and creativity out the window and resort to remaking some of their old animated films, spawning the new “live-action” Lion King. So, brace yourselves as we take a closer look into this utter disgrace to the original Lion King.
While Disney pitched this as a live-action movie, it was clear that that would be impossible considering that they would be working with animals. However, if the animals were not talking, it would be easy to understand how someone would mistake it for real life. As a quick reminder, nothing you see on screen is real except for one frame being an actual shot from Africa. However, this use of realistic visuals actually becomes one of this remake’s biggest downfalls.
If you have seen the original Lion King (if you have not, what are you doing here?), you would probably remember all the colorful scenes like the number “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” where multiple animals created this spectacular tower while there were all these beautiful colors in the background. When you move to real life, you lose a lot of color and style. The lack of color variation also caused an issue in defining characters, often making it hard to tell some characters from others. This was quite apparent in trying to differentiate between all the lionesses and also the hyenas.
Many fantasy elements also got lost because of this lack of artistic license. The aforementioned tower of animals was removed, basically taking away a lot of the grandeur present in the song. When Mufasa appears in the clouds, it is really hard to tell if there is even a semblance of him there because, of course, clouds do not do that in real life. We even lost the iconic hula scene with Timon and Pumbaa, limiting their humor to quick jokes here and there. Instead we got a performance of “Be Our Guest” by Timon as he presents Pumbaa as the main course, which, in my opinion, was very underwhelming. Speaking of characters, realism also got in the way of a lot of character development and emotion.
The original animation of the Lion King featured characters who anyone could recognize as animals but could also sense human emotion from them as the artists carefully implemented different facial expressions and lighting effects. In the remake, however, all that emotion is lost due to how rigid the facial expressions appear. In the famous scene where Simba cries out to his dad as he falls into the canyon, you can see this sheer look of terror and shock on his face as his eyes go wide and his mouth opens similarly to a human when he begins to scream. In the new movie, there is little to no emotion on Simba’s face as the animators stuck so closely to make it look like a real lion. This occurs throughout the film, with the limited face expressions losing much of the emotion the original movie had. But the loss of character goes beyond the facial expressions.
The voice-acting in this movie seems very mismatched to the characters they are playing. Scar was the biggest offender, as the inflection with many of his lines didn’t portray that sense of hidden anger and malice that Jeremy Irons portrayed in the original, also giving him that sense of superiority. The new Scar is shaky on his lines and doesn’t have that cool confidence that he is supposed to have. The hyenas also lost a lot of personality, including Ed as they have him speak when he was originally a bumbling idiot. As a result, they weren’t as funny and felt like they could easily overpower Scar. Beyoncé was also a bit iffy as Nala, with her performance doing nothing to further the chemistry between her and Simba. The two felt disconnected which did not bode well with the “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” scene. Nothing against Beyoncé, I just believe that there could have been more to her character. The only character’s performance I truly enjoyed was Mufasa, who was played by the original voice actor, James Earl Jones. Now, on to my final nitpicks.
There were a few little things that were cut or changed that did not sit right with me, but I’m sure many others just looked over it. The song “Be Prepared” was cut short, losing a lot of imagery from the original and the involvement of the hyenas. This also resulted in Scar’s line, “I’m surrounded by idiots,” being cut as well (which is my favorite line by the way). The scene where Mufasa pleads with Scar to save him is also a bit off. Firstly, Mufasa actually does not address Scar as “Brother”. Not a big change, but still weird. However, when Scar delivers the famous line “Long live the king,” his voice is a bit shaky and he does not shove him off as effortlessly as he probably should have. This bothered me as it detracted slightly from Scar’s indifference in killing his own brother for the throne. And finally, the “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” scene was at daytime. That made no sense to me.
In conclusion, the fact that this movie took itself so seriously detracted from the soul the original had and made this movie very static and disconnected from the themes of the movie and creative genius that went into the art and humor of this movie.
So what did you think? Be sure to tell me your thoughts in the comments below!
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So, haven't watched the movie yet. But what you wrote about the emotions is not surprising, but as a reminder Disney has released a "realistic" looking animated film back in 2000. Of course due to the limitations of the technology back then, it wasn't that realistic, but it still looked pretty decent. The movie I'm talking about is Dinosaur. One of my favorites from when I was a child. Despite the fact that they went for a realistic approach it didn't lack colors, emotions, not even humor. Anyone who haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It was made when Disney still cared, what they release and it's simply amazing.
However, I actually have some pretty good hopes for Mulan. I don’t think it’s going to be based on the original animation but rather do its own thing. And there are more fight sequences. If they’re executed correctly, I think I will really enjoy it.
Great review, by the way!