The Lion King (Live-Action)

[D82]

I'm glad we have someone in Disney criticizing the film.

Well, John Musker isn't at Disney anymore. That's probably why he can say things like that.

[JeanGreyForever]

I'm glad we have someone in Disney criticizing the film.

Well, John Musker isn't at Disney anymore. That's probably why he can say things like that.

Yes, that's true, I'm glad he can speak openly now.

[Sotiris]

The Lion King has won Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature, Outstanding Created Environment in a Photoreal Feature, and Outstanding Virtual Cinematography in a CG Project at the Visual Effects Society Awards 2019.


Source: https://twitter.com/disneylionking/stat ... 4426678272


The Lion King has won Best Feature Animation at the Casting Society of America's Artios Awards 2019.


Source: https://twitter.com/disneylionking/stat ... 6033084416

[Sotiris]

Disney has been promoting The Lion King as winning the Oscar for Best Visual Effects when it didn't.


Source: https://twitter.com/CydonPrax/status/12 ... 2288121856

[Sotiris]

Chris Sanders shares his opinion on The Lion King remake.

“It’s a curious thing to see it, I didn’t have a problem with it,” Sanders said. “I think that I follow the camp of ‘I would’ve definitely pushed those designs a little harder.’ That’s a taste thing. I think for me, there was a same/same thing, especially when it came to Scar. But that’s a threshold they would’ve had to have crossed and stayed on the other side of. That was a choice obviously they must’ve had a conversation about early on, how stylized will we be? Do we want to be hyper-real and be very controlled in the proportions of the characters? Or do we want to go a little bit further? I think people do a CG version of the characters that did cross that line, and I thought it was very exciting. But again, nothing major here to say about how they did it, simply a choice. I thought one of the things I was curious about was how closely they adhered to the staging and cutting of the original, particularly the opening, which I was stunned to see was pretty much shot for shot verbatim, which I’m sure must’ve streamlined what they did.”

Source: https://www.comingsoon.net/movies/featu ... -lion-king

“Lion King was an interesting thing, because they didn’t try to reinvent it. Almost a shot-for-shot remake. We worked so hard in that film. The film was perfect. I think it was exactly the film that it was supposed to be,” says Sanders. “So in some ways, you are happy that they did this shot-for-shot remake because it wasn’t the wrong film. On the other hand, when it’s a shot for shot remake ... It’s weird. It’s weird when you see it celebrated when it was all worked out ahead of time.”

Source: https://www.polygon.com/features/226754 ... an-deblois

When I heard they were doing a remake, the first thought in my head was "We did it right the first time." There's a frustrating aspect to this because we did it right the first time, so there is no need to redo it, right? So that's frustrating, but then on top of it, the finished film was almost shot-for-shot the movie that we made. So, the weird thing is rather than being upset by that, I suddenly was on the opposite side going "I'm glad they copied it because we got it right the first time."

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B98c2ZkWT9Y

[Sotiris]

Storytime with JD McCrary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rZ0QyBEmmU

[Sotiris]

Beyoncé Visual Album ‘Black Is King’ Coming to Disney Plus
https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/b ... 234692505/

What Beyoncé’s ‘Black Is King’ Means for Disney Plus
https://variety.com/2020/streaming/news ... 234719116/

[Sotiris]

Poster, teaser trailer, full trailer, TV spot #01, TV spot #02.


Source: https://www.facebook.com/DisneyPlus/pho ... 7908321236

[Sotiris]

After Elton John, now Tim Rice has expressed his frustration and disappointment with the remake, saying the music in the film was an afterthought and that they cut one of his songs to accommodate "other artists" (aka Beyonce and her team). It's not surprising how modern Disney treats artists who had previously contributed greatly to their success, but what I don't get is why they couldn't include "Light of the World" as a bonus track on the soundtrack or an extra on the Blu-ray. What's the point of hiding it away?

The pair were invited back to contribute to the 2019 computer animated remake, but in the end, just one new song made the cut, despite Sir Tim writing two especially for the movie. "To be honest, I should have, in a way, got more involved in that film," the 75-year-old told Metro.co.uk. "I assumed rather stupidly that they would be keen to make the most of the material they already had. But they had so many commitments, they had other artists wanting to get their songs in. I think they should have probably got me and Elton to write some stuff first. I rather liked the reflective ballad Light of the World. It’s one of those songs that really grows on you. I can see why they thought 'oh, this is too serious and too heavy'."

So Light of the World didn’t see the light of day, while their other offering Never Too Late made it into the film – albeit barely. "It should have been just laid down in the film somewhere, only maybe a minute of it, and then the whole thing would have been heard at the end of the film. But as it was, Never Too Late – which I think is a great song – is not in the film. At the end of the film you think, well, here’s a nice song by Elton – so what? Those lyrics are strongly related to the story, but you wouldn’t know it. I think we were very low on the food chain in that one. Whereas on the first film, we were involved right from day one, and it was very fun creating the songs, which really did well and they were very much part of the film being a success."

"I hope it comes over that I wasn’t 100% happy with the music in the film, but on the other hand, I don’t want it to come over as ungrateful or pissed off. Elton, I don’t think was too happy, to put it mildly, but luckily he had a really good song in another film at the same time that he won the Oscar for and I was delighted for him. It would have been nice to be nominated again, because I thought the song was quite a nice song, but it was only in the end credits and looked like it was just something stuck in."

"With The Lion King, I think I should have come in and said, 'hey, look, think about the music, mate!' The music was the last thing that people thought about in a way, and I think it suffered slightly."

Source: https://metro.co.uk/2020/08/19/sir-tim- ... -13149895/

I didn't think the so-called live-action version worked as well as the cartoon, partly because it's extremely difficult to make animals have expressions, even though the whole thing was constructed and in a way a sort of cartoon itself. But to make real-looking animals have expressions was almost impossible and a lot of humor seemed to go from the film, I felt.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe8ynqoyHnE

[Disney's Divinity]

They should've just tacked it onto the End Credits, too. You can have multiple songs play over them; it wouldn't have been too odd.

I still think it's sad they didn't ever think to use songs from the musical. I would've liked "Endless Night" and/or "Shadowland" to be used for this, for example.

[rodrigo_ca]

I was hoping this would use songs from the Broadway show as well, but as it is, I'm almost glad it didn't. Those songs remain (especially the ones you mentioned, Endless Night and Shadowland) as the best ones ever written for The Lion King in my opinion, and I'm glad they're not attached to the almost soulless project that was delivered. Maybe someday we can get something like Black is King but with the Broadway songs (ok, we know it's never going to happen)

[Farerb]

^ Using the Broadway songs was never an option because they wouldn't have been eligible for Academy Award nomination.

[Disney's Divinity]

I was hoping this would use songs from the Broadway show as well, but as it is, I'm almost glad it didn't. Those songs remain (especially the ones you mentioned, Endless Night and Shadowland) as the best ones ever written for The Lion King in my opinion, and I'm glad they're not attached to the almost soulless project that was delivered. Maybe someday we can get something like Black is King but with the Broadway songs (ok, we know it's never going to happen)

True. Still, I can just imagine Beyonce and Glover on those two songs even if the movie itself sucks. It's a shame.

I didn't know Black is King was connected to TLK until now. I've only seen commercials for that, since I have no way to access Disney+. I'd wondered what the story must be since the visuals had an interesting vibe. EDIT: Reading about it on Wiki now, apparently it has 98% on RottenTomatoes. I dunno, I think there would've definitely been an appetite for a live-action version of The Lion King that changed the animal cast to humans. Too bad Disney was too restrictive about the re-make. No way they would've done something creative like that with it considering they copied so much, often shot-for-shot.

[Disney's Divinity]

Finally saw this as well. (I’m hoping to see Toy Story 4 and Onward soon, too.) I guess it’s because I went in with expectations that were below the floor—due to all the talk about the shot-for-shot re-creations—because I didn’t hate this like I expected. I mean, the movie is completely lacking the emotional heft of the original, no doubt, and it’s on the weaker side of the remakes, but I dunno. I kind of liked some parts of it, shockingly. I think it was simply the parts I disliked about the original that I managed to enjoy here—mainly the hyenas and Timon & Pumbaa. T&P were always my most-hated part of the original; not only were they gross, but the voices always irritated me, especially for Pumbaa (and I don’t say that to take potshots at the voice actors, both of them have always seemed like really nice people). Then there’s the fact that Timon is a jerk. In contrast, Pumbaa was freaking adorable here… A real warthog ended up being more cute than the Disney design of one. I think I had the same “sooo cuuute” reaction to him here that I did to Pua in Moana. As for the hyenas, I’m really referring to Shenzi. She was so much more threatening and I liked it. I also liked what little they gave to Sarabi; at least it was something. I didn’t completely hate the direction they went for Scar either, although he’s naturally not on the same level as the animated character and “Be Prepared” was a trainwreck. He felt more like Shere Khan from the TJB re-make transplanted to this film, as far as coming across feral and savage; I liked Shere Khan in that film, so I enjoyed that take even if I always saw Scar as being much different than that. And one other positive thing I can think of is that there was a line they added to the scene when Simba speaks to the ghost of his father that made me tear up actually. I can’t remember how it went, something about Mufasa saying “That’s forever” about him being his son, regardless of how unworthy he thinks he is to share the same bloodline as Mufasa. Oh, and the part with the dung beetle made me burst out laughing.

Nala and Simba were pretty bland, but they always were to me even in the original. Jon Oliver as Zazu was, eh… Not great, not horrible. Rafiki was probably the biggest letdown, but that’s a character / performance that would be very difficult to re-create. Plus, I think the beauty of the setting and animals offset my disappointment with a lot of it. It felt like I was watching a nature film at times. I don’t mind if they make a sequel that vaguely follows Simba’s Pride, except maybe with Shenzi as a major adversary instead?

[Sotiris]

Andreas Deja talks about the remake.

Q: On the other hand, too much realism can also be detrimental. Watching the new CGI-based Lion King film, I really missed the very expressive faces that the hand-drawn process gave us in the original.

Andreas Deja: I had the same reaction. I didn't see the whole film, but I saw all the trailers and clips. It almost looks like National Geographic footage or something. You cannot have the human range that we had in our drawings because then it would ruin the realism. So, they’re a bit trapped by their own rules in that sense.

Source: https://the-talks.com/interview/andreas-deja/

[Sotiris]

The king has fallen.

‘Inside Out 2’ Surpasses ‘The Lion King’ Remake, Becomes Highest-Grossing Animated Feature Of All Time
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/box-office- ... 42814.html

[D23ExpoVisitor25]

The king has fallen.

‘Inside Out 2’ Surpasses ‘The Lion King’ Remake, Becomes Highest-Grossing Animated Feature Of All Time
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/box-office- ... 42814.html

Good riddance, false king. The real king of animation has taken your place. You're out. Fired.

[Farerb]

I'm going to Mufasa next week so I decided to rewatch this remake and I've forgotten how Beyoncé's song sticks out like a sore thumb. They really should have incorporated the Broadway songs instead.