Naaaaaaaaants ingonyaamaaaaa bagithi Baba!
I would imagine most of us know how the story begins, but in case you’ve never seen The Lion King: this is the opening line to Circle of Life, one of the many legendary songs from the movie. (In all honesty, though, I had to use my Google-Fu to find out how you actually write those first few lines, I’ve just been screeching random similar-sounding nonsense up until now).
So this beloved Disney animated movie got a shiny new update. It is overall incredibly similar to the original, with a lot of the scenes being shot-for-shot. But not the entire movie is the exact same, and here’s the first (and possibly even only) reason why: necessity.
Animal Stacks & Upbeat Villain Songs
Given its new medium, the movie had to strike a delicate balance between an unavoidable high level of realism and the adherence to the original. Because of this a bunch of alterations to the more playful and fantastical visuals have been made, some of which I am not entirely happy about while others were very welcome.
One of the scenes that was drastically changed was during the musical number “Can’t Wait to be King”. This is where Simba and Nala try to shake off Zazu by hiding amongst a host of other animals. In the original there was some nifty choreography and a stack of animals that inevitably topples over at the end of the song. It might not surprise you to hear that this scene didn’t get a frame-by-frame copy in the new version. Instead, we get a beautiful oversight of all of the herds and animal families that live in the Pridelands. This was definitely a well-handled update with beautiful imagery, but I personally enjoyed watching the cascading failure of the animal pyramid better.
And here and there, the tone of some characters and their key scenes was heavily altered as well due to the realism. For example Scar’s villain song “Be Prepared”, went from whimsical and slightly threatening to full-blown dark and unsettling. This is partly due to Scar’s way more pitiful portrayal; he is now a scrawny looking, disfigured lion out for revenge. And his pact with the hyenas is based on (albeit fake) mutual respect. So in his song he is now just spiteful and angry, there is no playful insulting of the hyenas and upbeat singing… And I must say I prefer this version of Scar (and his song) way more.
Voice Acting & Dialogue
Let me just jump on the bandwagon here: I am absolutely thrilled that James Earl Jones was able to take up the role of Mufasa again. He did an amazing job and simply killed it (once again).
Donald Glover (Simba) did a great job and I also can’t complain about Beyoncé (Nala) although I feel she sometimes missed the mark ever so slightly.
I was slightly disappointed by Chiwetel Ejiofor (Scar). Not because he did a bad job, but because Jeremy Irons was just so incredibly good in the original that it’s hard not to compare the two.
But the most anticipated voice for me was Zazu, whom was voiced by John Oliver. And let me say: he absolutely killed it. Partly because I think John Oliver may have been an actual hornbill with neurotic tendencies in a previous life. He was hilarious and did a great delivery of both the new and old dialogue.
BONUS: Animal Facts
I’m a biology geek. When going to the zoo, I will annoy whoever is closest to me with a barrage of random animal facts at no end. And in all honesty, I don’t even need a zoo for this.
So I noticed a couple of things that I just loved:
- Shenzi, the female hyena, is more prominently put forward as the leader. Given that hyenas are matriarchal, I thought this was pretty neat.
- At a certain point a leafcutter ant is walking around with a tuft of fur. Leafcutter ants can often be seen making a “mistake” and bringing things into the nest other than leafs. So this isn’t all that unbelievable.
- The other animals living with Timon and Pumbaa are all herbivores or insectivores. Their two coolest additions I think are an elephant shrew and an aardwolf. The latter of which may look like a predator (which, given that it’s a distant relative of the hyena, isn’t all that crazy an assumption) but is also a harmless insectivore that thrives on termites. I also think there’s a helmeted guinea fowl in there (don’t sue me if I’m wrong on this one, birds aren’t my strong suit), which is also a bird that lives off of insects, in this case mostly ticks.
- Rafiki still has his staff, but it no longer has the fruits tied to it. This is cool because wild baboons have been spotted using tools, but not making
The Judgement
Overall, yes: this is another one in the Disney Train o’ Remakes. And while there are some remakes that I absolutely didn’t like (e.g.: Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast) this one I mostly enjoyed. The visuals are spectacular and the animals are beautifully crafted. And the story stays mostly untouched, and when it is altered it is mostly to further the realism. This does, however, destroy the fantastical elements and reduces the emotiveness of the characters. Oh yes, and there’s an extra Beyoncé song shoved in there for no apparent reason. But it’s definitely worth a watch!
written by Ayla Brulez
Return to Pride Rock
I won’t deny it, the Lion King remake was possibly my most anticipated one of all Disney remakes, closely followed by the upcoming Mulan. The reason for this is easy: The Lion King still is my all-time favorite Disney movie and I absolutely adored it as a kid. Returning to Pride Rock in this 2019 version got me both excited and worried. Why should Disney even bother remaking this classic? There’s no point calling it a Live-Action version since all animals are created using state of the art computer techniques. Calling it a modern remake where cartoons got traded in for hyper-realism is a much better description of it. That being said, I was blown away by the visuals almost instantly.
As said above, the movie follows the original almost completely, meaning we start with the impressive gathering of animals in front of Pride Rock. All animals gathered around to see a glimpse of the new prince Simba who will once rule over their lands. Watching this gorgeous scene come to live in a 3D IMAX environment is simply unbelievable. The details, the amount of depth, the amount of love that went into this revision are simply fantastic. Watching these realistically created animals come together in celebration of a new prince is simply put amazing. Once the dust settled, however, I started noticing the downside of this realism.
Lack of emotion
Although I absolutely love the new character models and the way they truly mimic real animals, it also comes at a cost. Unlike the original cartoon, these animals are limited when it comes to their emotions. Scar looks fierce but lacks his sinister smile while Timon and Pumbaa are still hilarious but lack their facial expressions. Of course, it makes sense that this is the way things are now. It’s a far more realistic movie and giving these life-like animals too many emotions would quickly become uncanny. And yet, this is exactly what bothered me the most during the movie. If animals can, for some reason, lip-sync English sentences, why can’t they show more emotion? It’s a bit of a shame and for me personally, it resulted in less involvement.
The remake still features some heartbreaking scenes but due to the lack of emotions, none of those hit as hard as the original scenes. Maybe it’s because I knew what was coming but keeping things as realistic as possible certainly didn’t work in favor of the movie. Strangely, however, this also affected some of the less emotional scenes. For some reason, these struck harder and made me feel things I never felt while watching the original. Although it might all feel a bit too real at some points, those scenes, in combination with the amazing soundtrack, certainly still trigger something while watching. It’s just such a beautifully crafted world where you’ll lose yourself in once more, even with the lack of true emotion.
Worth watching
Judging this remake isn’t such an easy job. One part of my absolutely adored every second of it, mostly because it enabled me to revisit one of my favorite Disney movies with upgraded visuals. On the other side, these visuals did come at the cost of more realism and less emotion. Did this bother me while watching? It did. Did I still enjoy the movie? I did. The Lion King 2019 is a worthy remake and thanks to its stellar cast, it’s definitely one worth checking out on the big screen.
