The Lion King

[Brandywine 1320]

I saw this last night and thought it was great. I'm not a professional movie critic so I can't go scene by scene and tell you the weak points, just whether or not I enjoyed it. The audience I was with had a great time and clapped at the end. The cgi was outstanding, unbelievably realistic. And of course the music was as strong as it ever was. It's a wonderful soundtrack. I don't understand all the C ratings and critic bad reviews because it wasn't a fresh take. Why would it need to be?  I hadn't seen the animated version in years so to me it was fresh. Only downside, but a given, there were so many parents bringing their young babies, who had to start crying at some point during the movie. And there were some pretty intense scenes which could frighten some young ones. I just don't get why parents do that. It's selfish because they're depriving other people of seeing a movie.

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4980]

I thought we had a thread for this already?

Anyhow, just got back from seeing it and thought it was really good as well.  Some of the casting was questionable, though. Young Simba was not a very good voice actor, and the two Male hyenas didn't really have good charisma together. They should have cast Charlie Day as the dumb one, and maybe Mac as the other so they would have better chemistry together. A few of the scenes could have used a few more seconds, like when Nala pins Simba in the jungle. They needed a second or so there before they recognize each other. Or when the Hyenas call Pumbaa fat and he goes ballistic on them. But otherwise it was really well done. Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner were great together as Timon and Pumbaa. There were a lot of great one liners and short exchanges added. Overall it was great.

This was the first movie we took our almost three year old daughter to, and she did really well for the first hour and a half. Obviously I wouldn't take young kids to see it for a later showing, but there were plenty of kids at the 12:30 showing, so she wasn't the only one getting restless towards the end.

[Drew 2658]

I've heard it was a soulless shot for shot remake.  The lions and nature look amazing, but without the color and personality of the original.

 

I'll still see it.

[David Dennison 19119]

Skip it.

[Patrick Bateman 3942]

Thread:

 

[DanRydell 799]

I've heard it was a soulless shot for shot remake.  The lions and nature look amazing, but without the color and personality of the original.
 
I'll still see it.

That’s about right.

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

Soulless was actually the word I thought as I left the theater.  Saw it today. Already had forgotten until I saw this thread. 

[RandomIdoit 657]

6/10. They ruined almost all of the songs and the voice overs felt like they were just being read off of a sheet of paper instead of the voice actor actually being into it.

[Constant 6759]

Looks beautiful. Lacks the same spirit. 

[MillerEP 30569]

Watched it today, it’s an ok movie, I bet children who never saw the original movie would like it.


Ok now Spoilers (fair warning):
The uncanny valley is the main problem with this movie. The movie looks beautiful, and the technology looks great...the problem is that their devotion to realism makes a lot of it fall flat. They went so hard into wanting realism that they forgot to recognize that it’s hard for humans to empathize with emotion when you don’t show facial expressions. So emotional moments fall flat. I also thought that it was obvious that some lines were delivered in a vacuum ad opposed to having the other actor to play off of because the tones didn’t match. I also thought Seth Rohan wasn’t a good choice, but Timon was great, even with the over the top gay thing. He had most of the lol moments. That being said, pretty visuals and overall a fairly faithful adaptation (minus the points above).

[kingkoopa6 8470]

I fell asleep.. twice.  But I liked Seth tho 

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

A day of sitting on this and I want to rip on it even more, I guess because the original is an all-timer.

It was like going to watch karaoke.  Shot for shot from something so famous, without the actors being visible, just means you have all the lines you know but sounding a little off. It was a display of technical achievement in making it photorealistic, but it turns out that is impressive but not necessarily what I go to the movie for.

If the first one had really missed something, then this would make sense as a second chance to get it right. But the first one is in the argument for the greatest cartoon movie ever.  And the very few changes they decided to make seemed like they didn’t work. Of course the biggest thing is the Disneyfied expressions replaced with uncanny valley discussed above.  They got rid of Ed, the dim witted but demented hyena, and replaced that comic element with some sort of annoying little brother dynamic that was supposed to be funny, which made them both less funny and less threateneing. They repeated jokes of the original, and where they didn’t often inspired groans like actually saying fart in Hakuna Matata.  They were confined by the realism so they couldn’t have hyenas goose stepping in song.

I thought John Oliver did well (other than his part in I Just Can’t Wait to Be King, which was distractingly bad).  I thought Chiwetel Ejiofor did well as Scar, which was one I was worried about going in because I didn’t think he’d be able to do the menace of Jeremy Irons.  But my guess is those two were the best because of the specifics of the character they played.  A hornbill sort of feels cartoonish to begin with, and the dry Englishman villain thing sort of works when expressionless because it reads as “all of this is proceeding as I have foreseen.”   

 

Anyhow that’s me pushing back against something that will make megabajillions. 

[Turkleton 145]

On 7/19/2019 at 9:46 PM, David Dennison said:

Skip it.

Agree. Animation to CGI. Why and who cares?

[DanRydell 799]

Watched it today, it’s an ok movie, I bet children who never saw the original movie would like it.


Ok now Spoilers (fair warning):
The uncanny valley is the main problem with this movie. The movie looks beautiful, and the technology looks great...the problem is that their devotion to realism makes a lot of it fall flat. They went so hard into wanting realism that they forgot to recognize that it’s hard for humans to empathize with emotion when you don’t show facial expressions. So emotional moments fall flat. I also thought that it was obvious that some lines were delivered in a vacuum ad opposed to having the other actor to play off of because the tones didn’t match. I also thought Seth Rohan wasn’t a good choice, but Timon was great, even with the over the top gay thing. He had most of the lol moments. That being said, pretty visuals and overall a fairly faithful adaptation (minus the points above).

They actually did do most of the voice acting alongside the people they were in the scene with but I agree it doesn’t really sound like it a lot of the time.

[Gene Parmesan 4022]

These live action remakes are making a ton of money so they obviously aren't going to stop, but I don't think they hold my kids interest.  Certainly not as much as the cartoon versions.  We saw Aladdin a couple weeks ago and they were bored.  Looking back I don't think they really cared for any of them.  I'm definitely going to wait to rent these going forward instead of wasting 70 bucks on tickets and popcorn.  I bet if you polled the kids most would say they like the cartoon versions.

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

On 7/19/2019 at 3:51 PM, Brandywine said:

it wasn't a fresh take. Why would it need to be? 

yeah really, where's the art in fresh takes?

[immortal13 4059]

Bunch of critical bastards in here....surly even...

[Drew 2658]

1 hour ago, immortal13 said:

Bunch of critical bastards in here....surly even...

Hey, that's my line!

[Brandywine 1320]

One Billion in 19 days. Someone liked it!

[mdmost 43301]

Aladdin also did 1 billion worldwide. And now you see why Disney will keep cranking these out. 

[TKthunder2 5016]

I thought they did a good job for the most part.  Probably the highlight to me was the “I just can’t wait to be king” scene and how they reimagined it for live action, which is weird because I’m not a fan of that part in the original cartoon.  But yeah the voice actors sometimes took you out of the movie and the lack of facial features did too (like watching young Simba when his dad died).  Still it was okay, but like the live action Jungle Book, I’ll probably never watch it again.

[trza-hawk 269]

I actually thought it was real life.

[Sbbruin 21912]

Saw it this afternoon and really enjoyed it.

[Brandywine 1320]

On YouTube Jon Favreau has a 10 minute discussion of the making of The Lion King. It made me appreciate the movie even more. Filmed for Vanity Fair. 

 

[hundredTT 578]

I enjoyed it, but like all these remakes...they just lack soul and the innocents of the originals. Can’t blame them though. 

[MC Fresh Breath 4074]

Took my kids to it about two weeks ago.  It seemed the more realistic look added more to the scary parts and to the sad parts for them.  My daughter really lost it at Mufasa's death, and she's seen the animated version many times.  For little ones who aren't cynical adults yet, it definitely seemed to have more impact.

I had mixed feelings.  The CGI is really amazing in my opinion, and there was some different humor this go round, but it didn't seem to have the same spirit that the animated one had.  But maybe I'm overly nostalgic.

 

[Beau Vine 54843]

Meh.  Thought it was really disappointing.  

The lionesses literally never changed expression.  I remember the hyenas being a lot more entertaining in the original.   Seth Rogan was the best thing about this version.  

[HookMD 37]

Meh.