Oh boy, looks like I get to talk about the Lion King remake/reboot/reimagining/cash grab– ooh I mean live-action version!
If there was a phrase that meant no worries, then I’d put it here!
So, ‘The Lion King’ has been out for about a week now and the reviews are positive.
Heck, the movies made about what we professional journalists call “a butt-load of money” in its opening week, so it can’t be that bad.
There have been a lot of changes to the new version of the movie.
A lot of details that have been switched to set this new one apart from its predecessor.
For starters…
The cast has been completely changed up, save James Earl Jones as Mufasa (because how could you change someone as iconic as him).
Donald Glover takes on Simba, Beyonce takes on Nala, etc, etc…
We have a different tone between Zazu and Mufasa.
Where in the original, Zazu was much more serious, this time they’ve thrown in some jokes for him to play to Jon Oliver’s strengths.
As for the Rafiki…
He’s much more mystical and silent than in the original.
Apparently, as opposed to how he was in the animated version, he’ll say a lot less. Which… is a great thing!
The songs have changed, too.
For those of you who loved “Be Prepared” in the original, be prepared to be… surprised.
That’s all I’m going to say about it, don’t want to be sent to the Disney reeducation camps.
The first meeting with the hyenas is a little different too.
Zazu plays much less of a role, and Keegan Micheal Key and Eric Andre’s hyenas get a little joke about personal space thrown in there.
Scar and Zazu interact differently at the gorge.
Instead of Scar knocking out Zazu while Mufasa is saving Simba from the stampede, Scar actually tells Zazu to get the rest of the pride.
Much more diabolical.
Pumbaa and Timon’s dialogue is much more updated for a modern audience.
There are points where they say “I can’t even” and describe bugs having an “umami”.
They cut a bunch of classic dialogue for those gems!
But the biggest change is obviously that it’s live-action instead of animated.
Or, well, it’s CGI instead of animated.
Every single scene in the movie has been CGI’ed, or in other words animated by a computer.
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Except there’s one shot in the entire movie that is in fact live-action.
As director Jon Favreau will tell you in the Instagram post below, he snuck one shot in there.
Apparently…
Nobody really noticed, which is a testament to how good the computer animators did on this live-action remake of this movie.
Clearly, if no one noticed the one real shot, it must be good!
As for the comments, it’s what you’d expect.
A lot of “wow Jon Favreau, I totally didn’t notice!
Thanks for Iron Man , by the way!” There are a couple of Chef fans in there too.
But all in all people seem to really enjoy the movie.
Which, is not surprising, considering its the same one as people saw back in 1994, plus and minus a whole bunch of stuff.
What about you?
You, yes you, the one reading this right now.
Did you see the movie? Was it any good? Tell your fellow Diply readers what you thought of this awesome live-action remake!
