Alright it is time for Disney live-action remake numberrrr…a lot.

A couple weeks ago (Actually by now it was a lot of weeks ago, like, months ago…THANKS, REAL LIFE), I took myself to the movies and saw The Lion King!

Listen–I have a plethora of feelings about all these remakes, okay? On the one hand, there is a whole assortment of movies that I think would make great live-action remakes, and then there are the most profitable ones. For example–live-action remake of Atlantis: The Lost Empire? Iconic. Amazing. Please stop ignoring my baby Atlantis. Instead, we’re getting a lot of princess movies because everyone loves princesses (KIDA IS ALSO A PRINCESS YOU IMBECILES I’m fine) and now we’re getting Big Cats.

I feel like no one really knew how to handle this when it was announced. I mean, on the one hand…why? This is unnecessary? On the other hand…

But we’ll get into details later. For now, let’s start with the basics:

THE PLOT

For any Lion King or Shakespeare newbies, let’s discuss.

We start with all the animals in Pride Lands going to Pride Rock to see the…crowning? Christening? Announcing? Of the new baby lion king, Simba. Simba is tiny and adorable and pure. I sure hope nothing happens to destroy that innocence of his!

We are introduced to a whole slough of key characters: Zazu, the king’s assistant or something (played blessedly by John Oliver); Mufasa, the lion king himself; Sarabi, the lion queen (if you ignore actual lion biology and behaviors); Scar, Mufasa’s brother and perpetually bitter about not being lion king; Rafiki, spiritual monkey dude who doesn’t say much; Nala, apparently Simba’s intended and a general sweetheart; and of course, Simba, the little lion prince himself.

Scar, having no soul I guess, is determined to get rid of Simba and Mufasa so he can be king (if you know the plot of Hamlet, you know where this is going), so he hatches a plan to lure Simba to the dreaded Elephant Graveyard so that he can become hyena chow. Simba and Nala take the bait because…well, plot, and they sing a song in order to get rid of Zazu and head to the Elephant Graveyard.

Once there, they do indeed almost become hyena chow, but Mufasa himself shows up (alerted by Zazu) and he saves the two little punks. Mufasa and Simba have a Conversation about responsibility or whatever, and then they talk about the kings of the past living on in the stars (this will be important later).

It is revealed that Scar is in league with the hyenas (and everyone pretended to be shocked) and he promises them actual status in the Pride Lands once he gets rid of Mufasa and Simba and becomes king. The hyenas are skeptical until Scar sings a really, really watered-down version of the classic villain song “Be Prepared,” and Scar hatches a new plan.

He leaves Simba down in a ravine to practice his roar, telling him this is what all future kings do. He then has the hyenas initiate a stampede. Scar runs to retrieve Mufasa, who of course leaps down into the stampede to save his son. Mufasa manages to get Simba to a safe location on the side of the steep cliffs, but struggles to climb back up on his own (why did he not also just wait it out like Simba instead of trying to get back to the top? BECAUSE PLOT). Simba doesn’t see this, but when Mufasa reaches the top, Scar actually shoves him back down into the stampede.

Everyone’s favorite heartbreaking moment happens as Simba finds his dad’s body and asks him to please wake up. Scar confronts Simba and tells him to run far away and never return (since he totally killed the king and all). Simba totally believes him because PLOT and runs away. Scar takes over the Pride Lands. The hyenas overhunt. Simba is found by Timon and Pumbaa and raised without a care in the world far away from the troubles of the Pride Lands and his past.

Until one sunny day when Nala comes stumbling into the oasis and tells Simba he has to go back to confront his uncle and take his rightful place as king. But Simba can’t go back and face everything that happened…can he?

THE REVIEW

So here’s the thing: I liked it. I really did.

Is it unnecessary? I mean…kinda, yeah.

We’ll get into this more in detail below, but the basic fact is that there is a lot to discuss when it comes to these remakes. Are they necessary? Is it a requirement that they add anything new? Should they stay completely faithful to the original source material? Does this story even work in this new medium? Why are we continuing to be okay with Disney owning our souls? So on and so forth.

Regardless of all of this, the fact remains that when the sunrise began onscreen and the first notes of “The Circle of Life” started playing, I was damn excited.

Were there things I was unhappy with? For sure.

Were there things I totally loved and appreciated? Absolutely.

I guess what I need to do is create a new category for movies like this: will they win any awards? Not necessarily. Do they contribute anything on a larger scale? Not necessarily. Do they make the audience ponder something, or think and discuss it afterwards? Not necessarily.

Is it a damn good time?

ABSOLUTELY.

Spoiler alert ahead! (If you somehow don’t know The Lion King…or Hamlet)

THE MUSIC

Listen. It’s Lion King. It’s my boy Hans Zimmer. The music is fanTASTIC.

I’m fully up to arguing about it with you but you’re not likely to change my mind tbh.

Spotify made a playlist with all the music from the new movie specifically, if you’re interested, so go check it out!

Like I briefly mentioned above, my one little…problem, I guess, is the changes specifically made to “Be Prepared.” That song is such an iconic villain theme, and it’s just not present in all its glory here.

(Also like…fam…Beyoncé.)

THE CHARACTERS

I feel like any large change in major characters was due more to the animation choices when it comes to facial expressions rather than anything else related to actual character…like, Simba wasn’t as emotional? Y’all, his face barely moved in this version. I’m sure he still felt things.

…Probably.

Zazu has always been memorable, of course, but I would like to thank and also sell my soul to whatever stars aligned to allow us to have John Oliver as Zazu. I am not even exaggerating. To some degree, he almost feels out of place since he’s everyone’s favorite comedian in a surprisingly serious Disney movie (more on the tone later) and maybe I’m biased as a huge John Oliver stan, but…I don’t care, y’all. He was fantastic. It is disappointing to me that we didn’t get to hear him sing snippets of “It’s a Small World” and “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” (is that the name of the song? It is now), but again…more on the tone later.

In the complete opposite corner, we have Scar. Scar is…a character. I feel like the biggest change for him comes in the form of being angrier. Original Scar felt like he dealt with his issues by covering it up with sarcasm and witty retorts–he was still the villain, but he knew he was more cunning than he was physically strong. This Scar, while certainly still cunning, doesn’t cover up any of his issues or insecurities with humor. This Scar has allowed everything that happened to him to harden him as an individual, so while he’s certainly a villain, he’s a lot less fun than the original.

Rafiki’s change was…fascinating. But I’ll get into that later.

Many of the other characters didn’t change much (with the exception of less facial expressions, of course). Timon and Puumba are voiced by different comedians, so their whole thing is slightly different, but the same idea is there.

Overall, the characters weren’t that different comparatively. So what did change?

THE COLOR

As much as watching the original is painful because nothing will ever be okay when Simba is asking Mufasa to wake up (and now I’m crying), the overall tone of the original was just…playful.

It was a serious story, for sure, but it was tempered with fun all throughout. The colors are bright and boisterous. The self-aware jokes abound. Yet it still sells itself as perfectly serious when it needs to be.

So how does that work?

Well, if you’ll allow me to dive way too deep into a kids’ movie (as I adore doing)…the movie begins with bright colors and a cheery mood. It’s still a realistic palette, because it’s “reality,” but it’s warm and cheery, just like Simba’s life at the start. Then, during “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King,” the colors explode in an unrealistic fashion to match the song and the choreography where animals do things they normally can’t. This is a stark contrast to the Elephant Graveyard that immediately follows, full of grays and purples. There is danger here, a realistic danger, not like the fantasy world Simba had just come from. Scar’s fantastic villain song, “Be Prepared,” is all greens and blacks, shadows and eeriness. Like many of the other songs, the colors shift to be just a little unnatural, but it’s still not as out there as Simba’s song. Anyway, the colors shift again during the stampede and following it. The warm colors from the beginning are suddenly too bright and harsh, and it frames Simba’s exile well. Then, when Simba meets Timone and Puumba, the bright colors from “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” return because essentially, Simba has found his fantasy world again. The bright, somewhat unnatural colors of paradise are a perfect setting for “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” and it’s a perfect contrast to the wasteland the Pridelands have become. Simba’s conversation with Rafiki about his destiny and his dad are all the cool, toned-down colors of night. The battle between Simba and Scar is fiery, so the palette returns to those unnatural warm colors from the stampede scene. Once Scar is defeated, it rains, and the harsh warm colors from both the battle and the memories of Mufasa’s death wash away to return to the cool palette of night that we saw when Simba talked with Rafiki. It ends where it began–the colors are a realistic, gentle palette again as Simba’s daughter is introduced to the world, and the circle of life continues.

Clearly, I could talk about color theory forever. And I will. One of the endlessly beautiful things about the Disney renaissance films especially is their stunning use of color, and it’s used so gorgeously in The Lion King.

When you adapt an animated film to live action, you naturally lose that use of color. Animation is a medium that excels in the use of color, but live action doesn’t have that, and that’s just a fact. You can make up for it somewhat in settings, framings, and especially in costumes, but it won’t ever be quite the same as the entire screen exploding with color like you see in the animated films.

I think it’s why the live action Cinderella and Aladdin work for me a little more than the live action Beauty and the Beast and, yes, The Lion King. The characters from Cinderella and Aladdin, while played by “live action people” (I can’t say “real” people because voice actors are real people, too, I promise), are still set in a fantastical world that wasn’t established to be grounded in reality. Cinderella takes place in a kingdom, sure, but where? When? We’re never told. We don’t have to know. Because of that, they can get away with more color. The green of the leaves and the forest can be just a little too bright. The gold of the palace can be just a little too shiny. The garish colors of the ball gowns can be just a little too, well, garish. It’s fantastical and it fits. It’s the same thing with Aladdin–it has a general overall setting, but it’s never fully grounded in time or place, so everything can be just a little too enchanting.

Beauty and the Beast, on the other hand, tethers itself to a specific location (France) and a specific time period (late 18th century). That immediately limits what you can do because the audience expects some sort of reality amidst the fairy tale. It can work, of course, but it just takes some of the magic of the animation away–there’s no way around it. The costumes and the hair and the setting have to be specific to the time period and location you’ve established–you’ve immediately limited yourself.

The live action Alice in Wonderland, hated as it is (why are people so angry at movies all the time?), I think is a good example of this because the creative minds behind it used the plot point of a magical world to still give us all that over-the-top fun from the animation while still grounding it in reality. It’s a fun trick, because you as the audience, like Alice, can never be sure if you were dreaming or not. Alice’s reality is boring and bleached of anything remotely fun, but when she enters her dream world, the colors explode, characters behave like they are animated, and even when she returns to her reality, everything looks just slightly more magical.

I think there’s a way you could have done something similar with The Lion King, but despite the fact that this is a live action animated film (I mean it’s technically CG so we can’t even call it live action I guess?), it feels like everyone was so focused in grounding things in reality. It’s a movie about talking lions, but heaven forbid they show facial expressions. The colors are toned down to, I suppose, recreate reality, but I think the movie suffers for it. The fiery battle with Scar at the end followed by the rain still happens, but the brilliant color scheme is lost–sacrificed for the sake of reality.

In some ways, I think the movie did a good job with this. “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” is no longer an over-the-top fantasy sequence where animals dance and sing with Simba, but a boisterous romp through the watering hole. Simba and Nala turn the whole situation into their own sort of jungle gym as they weave in and out of animals to escape from Zazu’s watching eyes. I think the scene is beautiful and fun, even if it is drastically different from the original.

In others, I think they really missed out. The rather lackluster “Be Prepared” has no element of playful fun to it at all, unlike the original. It’s purely dark–both in tone and in the colors onscreen. It’s unsettling, sure, but that’s about it. We already know that Scar hates Mufasa and is jealous of him, but establishing that is about all this scene does in this version. In the original, “Be Prepared” was fun. It was still a villain song, but it established how cunning and dangerous Scar really was. All we’d seen of him up to that point was how lazy and disenchanted he was–“Be Prepared” was where we first got the hint that something far, far bigger was going on underneath the sarcastic surface.

This ties into part two of the big change, which like I mentioned above, is:

THE TONE

I think one thing I’ve always loved about the original film is that I knew I was in for a good time. Some scenes are devastating to watch, this is true, but above all else, the animated movie always held a tone of whimsy and fun. The point was to be an enjoyable, beautiful story. With talking animals. Comedic relief abounded, and good thing, too, because…it’s pretty dark if you think about it too much.

I feel like the change in tone is most evident when it comes to a couple specific characters.

1. SCAR

Poor, sweet, beautiful Scar…what did they DO to your villain anthem??

I think how I would best describe animated Scar is that he’s an enjoyable villain. Many of the Disney renaissance villains are ones I would categorize as such–Scar, Hades (though I guess Hades isn’t technically renaissance because Hercules technically isn’t but he’s one of my favorite so he stays haHA), Ursula…you get the idea. We kind of love to hate them. They’re terrible people for sure, but look at their designs!! Their songs!! Their memorable quips!! They’re all such a perfect balance of fun while also being absolutely awful. They’re fun to watch but you wouldn’t necessarily want to deal with them yourself–and always without fail their humorous moments are tempered beautifully by their horrific actions. Ursula’s all good fun until she steals Ariel’s voice and uses it to steal her prince (#rude). Hades is relatable AF, but we don’t love him for laughing about Meg’s death and releasing the titans to destroy everything. Scar is the funky distraught uncle until he straight-up murders his brother and convinces a CHILD that it was his own fault and should be banished.

Along with the loss of vibrant color theory play, this enjoyable villain thing is something I feel like the live-action remakes have generally missed. Like a lot. I would argue that Cate Blanchett’s delightful stepmother in Cinderella is the closest they’ve come–she’s classy and delightful to watch, but you’re furious with her for smashing the glass slipper and scheming the way she does. Is she the absolutely horrifying Lady Tremaine of the shadows from the animated version? No, but she’s still good. On the other hand, you have Jafar from the live-action Aladdin, who was just…he was just pure villain. You at least got the impression in the animated movie that Jafar at least had fun every now and then (also Iago? I love him), but this live-action Jafar was just dark and evil and cruel through and through. He wasn’t as interesting that way, just…dark.

This, unfortunately, carries over to Scar in this version of The Lion King. Scar used to be sarcastic, overly dramatic, and delightfully snarky. He was clearly outmatched physically with Mufasa, so he made up for it with a quick wit and dramatic schemes. This new Scar is just like the new Jafar–any semblance of fun or enjoyment has been torn away from him, and what we’re left with is a bitter, angry character with no redeeming qualities.

Interestingly, the 2D animated Scar felt like much more of a well-rounded, three-dimensional character than the one we got in the live-action film. He’s still Scar, he still goes through all the motions, but without any of the heart or fun.

2. THE HYENAS

I group the hyenas together, but there is a disclaimer here–my main issue is with how they changed Shenzi.

Of the three main hyenas of the original story, Shenzi has always been the more competent, but like Scar, she still had an element of fun to her. She was goofy and ridiculous, and she messed up a lot. This, I think, made everything so much more meaningful when she led the final charge against Scar at the end. She finally stood up to him and showed she was plenty smart and cunning, thank you.

The Shenzi we got in the live-action film is still interesting, sure, but also like the new Scar, she’s so much darker. She was even more of a goofball than Scar in the animated film, and here, she’s even more evil. She’s much more silent and reserved–I don’t even remember if she still leads the charge against Scar because it doesn’t mean as much. Her character change here made her much more of a chained-up dog waiting to pounce than she used to be. Scar’s hold on her was a lot more tentative here, which means the surprise of her attacking him (if that even did happen) was lost–you expect it throughout the entire movie.

The other two hyenas are still a sort of comic relief, but not in the same way. This movie is so much more serious than the animated version, so any sort of attempt at comic relief honestly feels a little flat. The two somewhat silly hyenas seem very out of place now, where before they used to fit the puzzle perfectly.

3. RAFIKI

I love puppets. Like, a lot.

I promise this is related.

When I was a relatively new theatre-nut as a kid, my parents and I were able to go see the stage version of The Lion King, which is kind of famous in the theatre world for being a full-length musical done with a whole lotta gorgeous, stylized puppets (this was before Avenue Q, okay?…I think)

Now Rafiki in the stage show is one of the few non-puppets, and Rafiki is also typically played by a woman. Rafiki sings one of my favorite musical theater songs ever (“He Lives in You (Reprise)”) and is just generally wonderful. This is a delightful new take on a character I already enjoyed for being a complete mystical goofball in the original animated movie.

So yeah, I got a little bit of a soft spot for Rafiki. I generally don’t like monkeys, but Rafiki is the one exception for me.

I was excited to see what they’d do with Rafiki in the live-action adaptation. Would he be as much of a goofball as I remembered? Would they pull some sort of inspiration from the stage show and have Rafiki be played by a woman? Would Rafiki sing my favorite song????

The answer is uh…none of the above. I realize it’s been a few weeks (months) since I’ve seen the movie at this point, but uh…Rafiki didn’t do anything in this movie, y’all.

Not only did he barely appear, but I genuinely don’t think Rafiki said a single damn word.

This was such a weird change for me because I cannot for the life of me understand why this change was made. They kept in the classic scenes of Rafiki holding Simba the cub up on Pride Rock, him drawing baby Simba and then crossing him out when he’s presumed dead and gone, so on and so forth. I think he fights at the end?

One of my favorite scenes from the animated movie is when Rafiki speaks with Simba when he’s at his lowest. It’s why I like “He Lives in You (Reprise).” Rafiki shows Simba that Mufasa is alive–in him. He doesn’t tell it to him outright, but he helps him realize it in possibly the most vague and frustrating way imaginable. And isn’t that how life is?

Rafiki, Shenzi, and Scar are characters who, while they are definitely more than that, are silly. They’re comedic as well as crucial. They add to the animated film’s tone of lightness when it’s needed–and enhance it to be even more. The live-action movie took all of that away from them, and it’s a real shame.

The live-action movie, for some reason, decided it needed to take the more serious elements of the original film and enhance them by about a billion, and these characters prove that. Any element of fun was stripped from them and replaced with something else (or nothing else, in Rafiki’s case). Is it bad? Not necessarily. With the exception of Rafiki, I still think it’s executed well. It’s just…different. Unfortunate, if you know the source material, but not necessarily bad.

SHOULD YOU TAKE YOURSELF TO SEE THIS MOVIE?

Listen, if you expect something groundbreaking and breathtaking and the best thing in the world like…Black Panther, this movie ain’t it, chief.

On the other hand, it’s also not something confusing, disappointing, but still visually appealing, like…*cough*ALITABATTLEANGEL*cough*

This movie, like The Meg, Late Night, and arguably Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, is just a damn good time. Maybe it doesn’t add anything new or say anything incredibly profound and life-changing, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad.

And who knows, maybe some people did get something new and profound and amazing out of this film–and that’s awesome!

For me, I don’t think it necessarily adds anything to the original animated story (unlike Cinderella and Aladdin and I guess Maleficent? I always forget that’s technically the live-action Sleeping Beauty…I mean it’s GREAT though), but it’s still enjoyable. It’s definitely still a fun time, and it’s still gorgeous to look at. It’s just…different.

But if all you want is a damn good time at the movies, I think I can recommend this to you. Unless you’re someone who is continually offended by the live-action remakes–you may be too blinded by love of the original to see anything good in this one. And I get that, believe me! So maybe this one isn’t for you, and that’s just fine.

As I like to say, I don’t know you, I don’t know your life.

All in all, I give The Lion King…

3/5 REALLY AWESOME DRAWINGS OF BABY SIMBA!!!

What are you talking about, this is exactly what they looked like in the movie.

FAVORITE MOMENT:

I really do love the “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” sequence, but also can we please talk about changing the distraction joke from Timon wearing a hula skirt and singing to Timon putting on a horrible French accent and singing “Be Our Guest”? Iconic.

I mean, I love you Ewan McGregor, but…yeah.

“OOF” MOMENT:

As discussed above, the changes made to Rafiki really irked me, and I’m still not over what they did to “Be Prepared.” Big frowny face from me, y’all.

TRAILERS TO WATCH OUT FOR:

Playing With Fire looks so, so bad. And it’s a shame, because I think if they took it seriously, it could be an interesting story. But because it’s aimed at kids, it’s going to be filled with stupid humor. Because kids aren’t smart enough to understand anything else, right? (I should say though, that the last time I saw this trailer in a theatre full of adults, THEY were all laughing at it. These were adults who came to see the Downton Abbey movie. DOWNTON. ABBEY. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE WORLD.)

Listen. Listen. Cats is unironically my second favorite musical and you bet I am going to see this movie at least once and be unironically excited about it. Were interesting choices made? 100%. Am I still going to see it because Taylor Swift is a cat? Without a doubt.

Mulan is…happening. I’m so torn. This may be the remake that breaks me. Because on the one hand, I’m thrilled they’re changing things so that it stays more faithful to the original Chinese legend. On the other hand…”I’ll Make a Man Out of You” 😦 (then there’s all the drama with the lead actress making public her support for the Hong Kong police which is a whole other barrel of worms…are there any more updates about that? Does anyone know?)

And that about does it for this review!

Is it the best Disney movie ever? Definitely not, that honor belongs to Tarzan and Atlantis: The Lost Empire…although I guess Black Panther is technically a Disney film, too, because Marvel…? So fine, that one can stay, too.

But it’s still good. It’s still fun. And y’all…it still has BEYONCÉ.