The Lion King (and Why the Live-Action Remakes Have Outstayed Their Welcome)

The Lion King (1994) poster description: The sky is a brilliant blue with rays of light thrown upon a small figure of an adult male lion standing upon a large, flat rock supported by others. All kinds of African animals look on, standing below the lion on a grassy plain. The shadow of a lion’s face shines in the sky.

 

 What started out as a reflection of 1994’s The Lion King quickly became something entirely different. 

As a confession, I hold 1994’s The Lion King in my heart, similar to The Emperor’s New Groove. I always watched whenever I went around the house of one of my besties from Primary School. We sang along to the musical numbers between bites of KFC takeaway, and I adored the movie’s vibrant art style. In short, there is a chance I will be biased.

I keep thinking about a quote from Walt Disney. “We don’t make movies to make money. We make money to make more movies.” One can’t help but wonder what he would make of this live-action trend that his company is determined to maintain. For all its faults, 2017’s Beauty and the Beast was visually pretty and entertaining. Tim Burton’s Dumbo had his Gothic flair, and Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin gave Princess Jasmine an empowering solo, but these films took what we loved about the originals with very little in return for our money.

Last year, I went to see the “live-action” version of The Lion King, sceptical but optimistic. Jon Favreau had shocked me with the excellent 2016 remake of The Jungle Book, so there was a chance he would do the same again.

He didn’t.   

If you’re a fan of the “live-action” The Lion King, I apologise, but I’m about to get brutal with this. Also, this essay contains spoilers (big surprise) for both films.

 

The Lion King (2019) poster description: The sky is ablaze with a vast orange sunrise amid scudding clouds. An adult male lion stands on a grassy knoll, looking down at his young cub, who sits beside him.

Inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Lion King Mufasa (James Earl Jones, Rogue One) and his young son, Simba, are targeted by his bitter brother, Scar. Desperate to take the throne and rule the Pride Lands, Scar will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

The Lion King has, without a doubt, one of the most dramatic introductions to a Disney film. The iconic opening note of “The Circle of Life” grabs your attention, while the slow sunrise holds it there.  In those first few minutes, you almost see the animators’ smug smiles as, one by one, we meet African animals on the move, following the hornbill Zazu (the underrated Rowan Atkinson. John Oliver just sounds embarrassed) flying to Pride Rock. King Mufasa stands upon it alone. How do we know he’s a King? Zazu cheerfully prostrates himself before him, and Mufasa responds by smiling down at him, bowing his head. He might be king of the beasts, but the simple action shows Mufasa’s kindness and respect for his subjects. It is a stunning sequence with love in every frame, driven by the music that ebbs and flows before reaching its euphoric crescendo. Prince Simba is unveiled, and as the film’s title appears, you’re left gasping for breath.

During the opening scene and throughout the 2019 version, the music is copy-and-paste without any joy. These so-called “real” animals are incapable of showing human emotion. They are CGI creatures in virtual reality settings, and the result is a series of awkward stares that are hard to interpret unless you have seen the original film. It is a lie to call it a live-action movie because the only real shot is the initial sunrise; the rest of it was filmed via virtual technology.

What's more, it's abundantly clear that Favreau was so afraid to do something different; he was willing to keep Rafiki, arguably one of the most terrifying-looking monkeys in the whole animal kingdowm. The other animals barely react Rafiki, and for all new audiences know, he is about to yeet that tiny lion off the rock as a marked sacrifice. Also, without his staff, Rafiki (now voiced by Marvel's John Kani) is no longer an anthropomorphic shaman with a twinkle in his eye. More significantly, the film's message about learning from you past doesn't pack the necessary punch (or bump) for Simba when he is an adult.

Image Descriptions: (Left) A hand-drawn Rafiki lifts young Simba high in the sky. (Right) A CGI Rafiki sits on a rock, holding a young Simba in front of him.

 

In the cartoon, the contrast between Mufasa and Scar is far from subtle. Scar is considerably smaller and thinner, sporting a black mane and eerie green eyes. Because we all know those colours are shorthand for evil. Jeremy Irons plays Scar as wonderfully camp while utterly ruthless in his ambition. We meet Scar toying with a mouse who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in Scar’s paw. In typical Shakespearian prose, Scar talks at the mouse (and so the audience) about his plight about not being king. His hyena cronies, Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed (Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, and Jim Cummings) offer some comedic relief when we eventually learn the true extent of Scar’s plans in the song “Be Prepared.” Arguably the best villain song from Disney’s renaissance, a lot has been said about its use of colour against shadowed backdrops and the striking imagery of, er, Gestapo hyenas. I personally find the line “Yes, our teeth and ambitions are bared” utterly delicious, and the noise bones allegedly make when you play them like a xylophone will always please me.

As a side note, I discovered that I have mixed up xylophones with glockenspiels all my life until now.

That isn’t to say that the animated film’s songs are perfect. The DVD I own features a new song called “The Morning Report.” In a pointless decision to fill out the scene before Simba pounces on Zazu, it’s easy to see why it stayed out of the original release. While lush with colour and full of energy, the song is poorly edited, cringe-worthy, and that sure as hell isn’t Jonathan Taylor’s Thomas’s voice hitting those high notes.

James Earl Jones was originally the perfect choice to play Mufasa, capable of inciting fear and awe with that incredibly deep, booming voice while capable of becoming stern and gentle around Simba. James Earl Jones returns to the role in 2019 but sounds tired and every bit of his (now 89) years. Through no fault of his own, his performance is painful to witness.

Chiwetel Ejiofor adds a more brooding side to Scar, which is fine, but this version of “Be Prepared” should not exist. Ejiofor may not sing, but neither can Seth Rogen, and he still does his best (with questionable results) as Pumbaa. All the musical numbers suffer from being half-arsed, forgettable affairs to sit through, even with Donald Glover and Beyoncé (Beyoncé!) lending their pipes to “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” No, I can’t, because it’s filmed in the daytime! Both actors/singers should have been idyllic for playing Simba and Nala as adults. Instead, they sound listless, and Beyoncé’s original song, “Spirit,” feels shoe-horned in a hurry.

Also, whose idea was it to make Nala – old and young – such a one-dimensional stick in the mud? She’s whiny, fearful, and unlikeable. In the cartoon version, she took joy from investigating the Elephant Graveyard, while in 2019, she’s begging Simba to leave. Later, there is a new scene where Nala escapes the hyenas in Pride Rock. It could have given Beyoncé a chance to shine, but the end result could easily have been left out altogether because it offers so little to the story.

A running issue in both films is Simba’s mother, Sarabi. Voiced by Madge Sinclair and Alfre Woodard, respectively, she is consistently given very little to say or do. Meanwhile, other characters gasp and demand of Simba, on more than one occasion, “What would your mother think?”  The live-action version could have developed Sarabi more of a personality, but apparently, that was too much effort and far too risky.

The death of Mufasa remains a remarkable piece of cinema. Hans Zimmer’s breath-taking score trickles in with the wildebeests, the strings coming in faster, swelling as more pile into the quarry. It is immediately apparent just how much danger Simba is in with a dramatic dolly zoom into his horrified face, surrounded in shadow; it is the deep breath before the sprint of his life. The opposite shot is used at the end, flying out as Simba’s disbelieving cry rings through the quarry. My favourite image is of Scar, seemingly diminished by a shadow of his own making. He waits for his victory, pacing eagerly with hungry eyes. The shot only holds for a few seconds, but it is chilling. 

Image Description: As dust rises, a hand-drawn Scar paces upon a rocky shelf upon a cliff-face. Scar’s shadow is large and dark against the cliff wall.

 

As for the live-action version, Scar headbutts Mufasa off the cliff in blazing sunshine, and the whole thing is laughable or worse, you feel nothing at all.

Timon and Pumbaa are the film’s main redeeming qualities. Billy Eichner and Seth Rogan ad-lib their way out of monotony, borrowing from Beauty and the Beast to get a few laughs in a similar vein to Zazu singing “It’s A Small World,” much to Scar’s disgust.

 A moment that pleasantly surprised me was Timon and Pumbaa’s new rendition of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Their home is alive with other animals (something the animated film was lacking). The jungle is lush with colour, just as it should be, and the animals perform the song as an acapella. It is, however, all too brief.

While I might have found Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella’s performances a riot as a child, it’s clear to see how restrained they were with fart jokes in the 1990s (it could be argued they saved the worst of them for The Lion King 1 ½*).  However, if there’s one thing I have yet to understand, it’s the “gag” of Pumbaa being called a pig, taking offence to it, and referring to himself as “Mr. Pig.” It suggests a backstory we have yet to see, and there is a passing reference to Taxi Driver, which will go over the younger audience’s heads, but the punchline remains a mystery to me.

Though I have expressed my disappointment in Beyoncé and Donald Glover’s performances, this is due to the lack of enthusiasm and lousy direction. It goes without saying Matthew Broderick is brilliant in Ferris Bueller’s Day, which was probably why he was chosen to do this (despite it being released over a decade before The Lion King). Still, I’ve always thought he was the wrong choice to voice Simba. Nevertheless, both he and Moira Kelly (who plays Nala) carry so much energy and expression in their performances that it’s easy to forget they are anything but their characters.

The showdown between Simba and Scar is gripping in both versions, but again, the cartoon uses light and dark to far better effect, with embers and smoke. However, the use of slow-motion goes on too long, making the fight look a little ridiculous, and the live-action film also falls into this trap. Scar’s comeuppance will always be satisfying, though the Pride Lands' miraculous healing makes one wonder if it was a literal or figurative change.

While it looks beautiful and the musical numbers (with one exception) are marvellous, The Lion King is far from the best Disney film; it sags halfway through and lacks character development. I have made no secret of my disdain for the new version. It is the most successful animated film so far, earning $1.657 billion within its opening week. Yet it lazily relies on our nostalgia while ignoring any opportunities to take risks that might add much-needed freshness to the story. It is soulless for the sake of “realism,” and judging by their muted performances, the actors seem all too aware of that.

I have been a Disney fan all my life, and this trend of live-action films – whatever that might mean – could be brilliant if Disney still cared about anything beyond profit. Their most popular movies are as such for a reason, and we do not want them spoilt. For this reason alone, I didn’t divulge my curiosity with this year’s Mulan because I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. If they must, why not turn to the less known animated films, like Atlantis: The Lost Empire or Brother Bear, and give them a new lease of life? So long as Disney put real love and enough effort in to make them, of course. If it means more money for projects like The Mandalorian, so be it. It’s what Walt Disney strived for. 

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 My Sources:

The Lion King (2019) poster - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6105098/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

The Lion King (1994) poster - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110357/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3

Walt Disney quote - https://quotefancy.com/quote/930216/Walt-Disney-We-don-t-make-movies-to-make-money-we-make-money-to-make-more-movies  

How Disney Decimated The Lion King – NitPix - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAvxy4djVUk

Cartoon and CGI Rafiki images - https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/tv-movies/g28367066/lion-king-animation-comparison-original-versus-remake/