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New live action (aka, CGI) Lion King movie came out this weekend, marking the 2nd live action release of my top 3 Disney movies (other two were Aladdin and Mulan). Most of you remember how disappointed I was with Aladdin because they made it a story about Jasmine instead of the title character. That ISNT the case here!

They stayed very true to the original story, but changed a lot of lines around a bit, while keeping the story 99% accurate. The 1% is that Scar wasn’t already friends w/ the hyenas, and Shenzi was the hyena matron (instead of only being one of three that talked and had names like the cartoon). Timon was hilarious, James Earl Jones came BACK as Mufasa, and they kept the feel of the original. I don’t know why the reviews are bad. This is so much better than Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. Best “live action” Disney movie remake yet!

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I don’t know why the reviews are bad.

Reading the reviews might have answered that

The general consensus from reviewers was that it's pretty much beat for beat a remake of the original but without facial expressions, making it either not as immersive, or a little bit creepy, depending on personal preference.

It’s the exact same plot, sure. If you saw the cartoon, you know exactly how this one will play out. But they’ve changed the interactions, new dialogue, you actually see Nala begin her quest to find help, etc etc. They flesh it out in spots while still making sure that it’s Hamlet with lions. Not Hamlet: an Ophelia tail.


Yes, btw, that misspelling was on purpose.

They screwed up my favorite song!!!!

BE PREPARED was destroyed. Otherwise it was good and my kids enjoyed it.

Haven't watched it, saw this though and found it amusing.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Haven't watched it, saw this though and found it amusing.

Also haven't seen it yet. Love that video. Looking forward to the long lingering shot of a poop ball.

I saw this today. That video is 100% accurate. This is a worse version of the normal lion king. The song are worse. You can't tell one lion apart from the others. Especially in the last fight. All the fights feel weightless like everyone is just smacking around paper. Rafiki lost all his fun personality.

I think the worst part is the line delivery. So many times it sounds like everyone is just reading a line from a script with the emotional dissonance of having their lines recorded on different days even though they should be in a room talking to each other. The lines seem out of place. Often it doesn't feel like anyone is saying anything anyone would say to another person. They are JUST reading the script.

It's not the worst movie I have ever seen. But it's definitely a big step down from the cartoon and there was no reason they should have made this.

And yet...1000x better than Jasmine the movie, featuring Will Smith as her handmaiden’s stooge.

Could we not rerun 'the new Aladdin is pro-feminism and it's a horrible attack on my childhood!' again?

I kinda fancy the new Lion King out of curiosity, but all the clips I've seen feel very jarring. Like it's just too good a CGI job for the talking animals not to be totally reality breaking. It's just really bizarre to look at.

I get what Disney is doing with these remakes (money and mucking about with legal issues around mostly public domain stories), but they just seem so terribly pointless.

Do something new, don't just rehash a story that was well told in its previous incarnation (in theory at least, most of the remakes are of films that came out after my childhood so I don't really care about them).

They might generate money, but really they've got nowhere to go but down. And 'realism' is a drag on what are fundamentally fantastical stories.

(Though obviously the upcoming Mulan is an exception to the 'fantastical' , but Chinese comments on the trailer were pretty incisive- lots of errors. Style of home is off for the time and region, clothing, weapons, etc. Though on the other hand, an actual known Chinese actress won a lot of support). I don't doubt its aimed at the Chinese market, but it may struggle more than they expect if they gloss over the basics.

I didn't like what they did with the jungle book. Not going to like this either probably so going to miss this.

It goes without saying the CG work is stunningly impressive and realistic. I think it might be part of the problem, I find it too bizzare.. Its a bit unfortunate they are choosing to go this route rather than invest in some new IP/source material for some original ideas.

nfe wrote:
I kinda fancy the new Lion King out of curiosity, but all the clips I've seen feel very jarring. Like it's just too good a CGI job for the talking animals not to be totally reality breaking. It's just really bizarre to look at.

I still haven't seen it, but I watched on youtube a video of "hakuna matata", at first glance I thought someone was taking the piss and had badly dubbed voices over a random scene, but it turned out it was real. Someone in the comments said something along the lines... if you turn off the sound it becomes a video of a lion harassing a warthog... and I think that's a good description, the voices didn't match the visuals.

I didn't love the Jungle Book live action, but the animals seemed more characterful in it.

Saw it over the weekend. There are definitely moments that feel impressively recreated where the movie seemed to work, but I never really shook the feeling I was listening to the cartoon over random wildlife footage. That dubbed over feeling of movies like Milo and Otis never went away. Scar is just a massive disappointment as every one one of his lines is subdued and rather bland and more than any other character he really suffers from the lack of facial expressions; coming off as just kind of staring dumbly rather than being... anything really. Its definitely not bad; just grossly inferior to the original.

I don't doubt its aimed at the Chinese market, but it may struggle more than they expect if they gloss over the basics.

I have full trust in Chinese viewing audience being able to view a fairy-tale retelling of their history, just like the West can watch Beauty and the Beast without going "aktchually" over the lacing style on Beast's sleeves.
People who comment usually have nitpicky personalities to begin with.

Cronch wrote:

I don't doubt its aimed at the Chinese market, but it may struggle more than they expect if they gloss over the basics.

I have full trust in Chinese viewing audience being able to view a fairy-tale retelling of their history, just like the West can watch Beauty and the Beast without going "aktchually" over the lacing style on Beast's sleeves.
People who comment usually have nitpicky personalities to begin with.

It will be interesting given the original was also aimed at the Chinese market.... and got banned there. A lot has changed since then however.

I do look forward to seeing Mulan, as it was a great story, but really no desire to see Lion King or Aladdin, as I could just tell I would be set up for disappointment. (sorry...)

I also look forward to The Little Mermaid, but a lot of backlash over the main character casting and the hate has already begun on that one. So sad.

Beauty/Beast was not bad; however, Cinderella was really good with Cate Blanchett and Helena Bonham Carter. But, if you really want a great live action Cinderella story, Drew Barrymore's Ever After is the one for me.

My main gripe with Cinderella is that the single most memorable sequence from the original is completely forgettable in the remake.

Beauty and the Beast was solid enough, but really suffers from a modern need to over explain things. It's probably the closest to matching the quality of the original of the lot (disclaimer: haven't seen Aladdin yet) but doesn't really add anything that improves upon the original.

 LunarSol wrote:
My main gripe with Cinderella is that the single most memorable sequence from the original is completely forgettable in the remake.

Beauty and the Beast was solid enough, but really suffers from a modern need to over explain things. It's probably the closest to matching the quality of the original of the lot (disclaimer: haven't seen Aladdin yet) but doesn't really add anything that improves upon the original.

Aladdin is NOTHING like the original. As I mentioned in the title of my Aladdin thread (before people got it locked), Aladdin is the sidekick character to Jasmine, who is the real main character of the remake. And Genie has to have a forced in love interest to swoon over because “reasons”. BatB was definitely closer to the original.

Lion King...hey, some people didn’t like that the animals didn’t have human facial expressions. On live animals, that would look like a caricature. There have been a bunch of movies with “live action” animals that talk (yes, usually with humans around too), but they don’t have humanized talking features. Lion King was visually impressive and beautiful with an excellent landscape and the humor in it was verbal, not visual. I get that it’s not for everything. But it kept the spirit and majesty of the Lion King and didn’t try to rewrite the story out of some SJW propaganda like Aladdin did. And for the record...I’m so pissed about the Aladdin thing because the original Disney cartoon is one of my top 3 Disney movies (along with Lion King and Mulan ). Now, if Mulan is the story of Yao, King of the Rock and Mulan is a side character pining over a military prince and does stupid stuff to look like a sidekick, I’ll be pissed at that too.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

Lion King...hey, some people didn’t like that the animals didn’t have human facial expressions. On live animals, that would look like a caricature.

Yes, it would. And that would have been preferable to a complete lack of expression.

There have been a bunch of movies with “live action” animals that talk (yes, usually with humans around too), but they don’t have humanized talking features.

Yup. And they pretty much always come off as expressionless and weird.

And for the record...I’m so pissed about the Aladdin thing because the original Disney cartoon is one of my top 3 Disney movies (along with Lion King and Mulan ).

I'm not sure what there is to be angry about there... Did Disney send people to your house to destroy your copy of the animated version?

There is little point in remaking a story if you're just going to duplicate the previous version.

Voss wrote:
I get what Disney is doing with these remakes (money and mucking about with legal issues around mostly public domain stories), but they just seem so terribly pointless.

Do something new, don't just rehash a story that was well told in its previous incarnation (in theory at least, most of the remakes are of films that came out after my childhood so I don't really care about them).

They might generate money, but really they've got nowhere to go but down. And 'realism' is a drag on what are fundamentally fantastical stories.

(Though obviously the upcoming Mulan is an exception to the 'fantastical' , but Chinese comments on the trailer were pretty incisive- lots of errors. Style of home is off for the time and region, clothing, weapons, etc. Though on the other hand, an actual known Chinese actress won a lot of support). I don't doubt its aimed at the Chinese market, but it may struggle more than they expect if they gloss over the basics.

Aladdin, this, Star Wars...Disney is all about rehashing rather than new stories these days.

I guess the way I'd phrase it is not necessarily that they got this one right; just that they didn't get it wrong.

I would argue that a beat for beat remake with worse songs less emotion and the fun sucked out of your most fun character is doing it wrong. I would also argue that the voice acting is worse. Not because the people in it are not talented, but because it sounds like they all recorded their dialog alone on different days and the conversations sound unnatural because of it.

 Lance845 wrote:
I would argue that a beat for beat remake with worse songs less emotion and the fun sucked out of your most fun character is doing it wrong. I would also argue that the voice acting is worse. Not because the people in it are not talented, but because it sounds like they all recorded their dialog alone on different days and the conversations sound unnatural because of it.

Yeah, that kinda happens when you over CGI a movie and are not really careful. Disney certainly should have been better at that.

I kind of look at the Lion King in line with the Jungle book live action remakes - heavy CGI obviously, but maybe they put a bit more human emotional expression in JB?? In any case, I did enjoy the JB remake, but I'll admit it was not stellar.

I am FAR more stoked over the Lady and the Tramp live action than this one.. it was DULL...

 MDSW wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
I would argue that a beat for beat remake with worse songs less emotion and the fun sucked out of your most fun character is doing it wrong. I would also argue that the voice acting is worse. Not because the people in it are not talented, but because it sounds like they all recorded their dialog alone on different days and the conversations sound unnatural because of it.

Yeah, that kinda happens when you over CGI a movie and are not really careful. Disney certainly should have been better at that.

I kind of look at the Lion King in line with the Jungle book live action remakes - heavy CGI obviously, but maybe they put a bit more human emotional expression in JB?? In any case, I did enjoy the JB remake, but I'll admit it was not stellar.

I like andy serkises one much better. It was less animated remake and more the book the jungle book and because of that it felt more raw and dangerous to match the realistic "live action" effects. Highly recommend mowgli over JB any day.