Lion King Is The Future
And the future is boring
The new Lion King is so deeply animated that they just gave up and called it ‘live action’. In a very strange way, I guess it is. To understand, just look at how Jon Favreau and his crew filmed it.
Instead of going to Africa, his crew went to a virtual world to shoot ‘real’ footage. They’re sitting in a room on office chairs, using VR headsets. They have fake cameras, dollies and lights that they move around, setting up and filming shots in a virtual world. Then we watch the scenes in 2D. It’s not a VR film but it is filmed in VR.
Unfortunately the new Lion King is also tremendously boring.
The original was a world where animals had lips and colors and physics could change for a musical number. In the new Lion King the animals look completely real, which makes you realize how fucking absurd talking animals are. In some walking scenes you’re honestly like ‘where are those voices coming from?’ and ‘why?’
This remake is often a shot-for-shot remake of the original, except done with photo-realistic animals. I don’t think anyone asked for this, but I guess it had to be done. Disney is just ringing…
