I Fell Asleep During The Lion King Remake
Don’t shoot me. Don’t cancel me. And for God’s sake, do not at me!
I went to go see the new Lion King a few weeks ago and I fell asleep, HARD! If I’m. being real, The Lion King was watching me. I started fighting to keep my eyes open shortly after “Hakuna matata,” and I really can’t tell you why. Blame it on my rockstar lifestyle or perhaps the soothing computer generated African country side shown in the film. One undeniable fact about this all animal live action remake: it was beautiful. Minus the fact that the voice overs did not sync well with the talking animals, but I digress.
I waited a week from the film’s release date to go see it. There were mixed reviews, but I went in with a clear mind because 1) I’m a millennial and this is one of my top favorite Disney movies from childhood; 2) haters gon hate; and 3) I already knew how the story ended so there was really no way to disappoint me. Even as I review the film now, disappointment isn’t what I’m feeling. Sheer boredom best describes my reaction.
Yes, I said it. The new Lion King was boring AF! But why? How? My biggest conclusion is something I don’t think anyone thought would be a problem —the realism. In the cartoon, you saw facial expressions and attitudes depicted vividly. Where as in live action, you can’t make a lion contort it’s face in disgust, look surprised, confused, or deeply saddened. You also can’t read sarcasm in a lion, which is a pivotal trait of Scar’s personality. It’s just a lion’s face, which as a human all I can see is a meat eating predator, and bad lip syncing. Doing a deeper analysis, I think I was driven to boredom despite the beautiful graphics because the whole movie came off as a National Geographic program. A 118 minute Nat Geo show at that! It’s like doing a live action remake of Finding Nemo… and nobody wants that. I think I would’ve been just as excited to see a Pixar like animation remake.
So what lesson can be learned here? The jury’s still out on that. I’m glad Disney is reprising their vault of classics (hoping for a Hercules remake). Perhaps, special considerations should be made for movies like Dumbo, Lion King, and Bambi before going into production.
