Live Action Lion King Movie

Literally all the first few trailers for all the remakes have done that (Jungle Book might be the only thing approaching an exception, and even it's first trailers relied on familiar beats and scenes), because of the audience they're trying to reach, so I wouldn't worry about them. Few of them actually turn out that way.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Apr 10th 2019 at 11:27:06 AM

guys i’m terrified of what photorealistic nala’s sex eyes are gonna look like

Oh no.

I more terrify by what will the photorealistic nazi walking hyena will look like

Be Prepared won't be in this movie so we likely won't see the Nazi goosestepping.

I honestly felt like the Jungle Book remake managed to have its animals be expressive? At least, more expressive than any of the animals look in this Lion King trailer. So I don't know what's up with this. I've also seen Aslan tossed around as an example of an expressive yet realistic looking animal, as well as Rocket Raccoon. So I dunno, this trailer isn't making me very enthused.

The thing about Lion King is that it’s basically Hamlet WITH ANIMALS. With such a human story and human emotions at work, you need to relate them on your characters, like how Disney’s B-Team fabulously accomplished in 1994. You can’t tell a human story without humanizing the animal characters just a bit.

It doesn’t help that the movie itself appears to be relying on the audience’s memory of the original film to convey emotion. The trailer is literally scene-for-scene reenactments of pivotal moments in the original film. That’s not always a bad thing, 'cause I get it, the job of a trailer is to pique your interest. But when it’s directly comparing itself to the original film on purpose, the audience can’t help but remember the stark contrast. I’ve seen enough comparison gifsets going around that are making this obvious.

This isn't degrading the animators’ work by the way. The real problem has always been with the Disney execs who think realism is the hottest way to make money. You don’t get to be an animator of that caliber without knowing about character animation. The CGI is gorgeous, but that’s it. It’s realistic animals sans character animations to convey human emotion. I don’t believe they did that without direction; I believe Disney forced them to comply as employees. They believe realism is "in", they believe nostalgia is profitable, and that that’s the way to make the most bucks.

I think both this and The Jungle Book demonstrate the limits of increased realism.

The medium of animation works for these stories because it allows you to simultaniously make the characters animalistic and human. With animation, you can have an animal talking and expressing in a human-like manner while still feeling like an animal thanks to their body language and movements. It seldom feels weird hearing voices come out of their mouths in the way it does in these ultra-realistic CGI-fests.

Even then, I'd argue that photorealistic animals can have a wide variety of expressions in the right hands. Rocket Raccoon was brought up earlier, and he's a very expressive character despite not having a humanoid face. If you watch a scene from Guardians of the Galaxy on mute, you can still tell what Rocket's feeling just by his body language and facial expressions alone.

Maybe it's the fact that these character don't have a humanoid body structure that makes it harder to read their emotions, but a good storyteller should be able to get the audience to empathize with anything no matter how it looks. Maybe the voice acting might be able to carry the film, but we won't know until its released. Personally, I don't really feel the need to watch the film in theaters at the moment. Maybe the word of mouth will be good, but I'm staying cautious.

Edited by chasemaddigan on Apr 13th 2019 at 2:25:54 PM

I'm just kind of worried how the musical numbers will look.

Well, the trailer showed the part of Hakuna Matata where Simba ages several years during a trip on a log and it looks pretty decent.

I'm in a full disagreement on that then. It just looked like... Three animals walking in a line. There wasn't anything to read off of the animations. Where as the original walk montage'd Simba letting go of the past and giving into the care free lifestyle, this one just didn't really show much.

I also meant that I'm more worried about how they'll do musical numbers which usually require fast lip-mouth movements and VERY exagerated and expressive movement. Like... As much as the emotion and facial expression is a problem on the 'realism' stuff, I think the Musical Numbers will suffer the most for it.

There is a tumblr post I can't find right now that compared this movie's animation with that of that Owls of Ga'Hoole movie to show how photorealistic animation can still anthropomorphize the animals enough to give them real emotion

This wasn't the comparison post, but close enough. And here's another Lion King '94 v. Lion King 2019 comparison.

The way I see it, if the way a Disney movie tells its stories and develops its characters is noticeably different from how it would be done now due to societal changes, remake it. Cinderella (2015) and Aurora in Maleficent were justified. They both grew personalities beyond “generic, kind, loves animals.” (Aurora less so, but we got to find out why Maleficent went the way she did, so we’re still getting better character development.) And while the Alice in Wonderland movies weren't perfect, at least Tim Burton using his style made them uniquely different both visually and story-wise. But the ones where it's clear they didn't want to change a thing because they think people only want to see the stories they know and love like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King? With those movies, their original animated versions still work perfectly well from a modern storytelling viewpoint. So they don’t need the remakes. As can be seen from them being almost word-for-word, scene-for-scene copies!

Well, the reason why it has less meaning might be more because there was more context to the scene than there is in the trailer. Thus said, in the animated movie, the animals had so much personality that just seeing them walk said a lot about them.

Doesn't change the fact that it comes off like Disney chose to do things in the easiest, laziest way possible because they know the moment people hear the first few notes of "Circle of Life", the nostalgia will kick in, turning people into idiots willing to fork over all their money as a reward for that laziness. And the sad part is that this movie will likely be another massive hit because people are so desperate to relive nostalgia they're willing to ignore the massive drop in quality. And I see defenders of the CGI who are like "oh but isn't Simba adorable?" and "you're just being too harsh". To which I'm like, "you know what's better than an adorable lion cub? An adorable lion cub with real personality and emotion." You can't just use a character's appearance to make people fall in love with them. People fell in love with Simba in the original because of who he was as a character; the adorableness was just an added bonus.

They could have done something really unique with this story, but so far all the trailers have given me an impression of is that the movie will have slightly more accurate depictions of real-life animals completely void of any emotions when they don’t have to be.

And what stings is that this is The Lion King. An animated movie that is easily on most people’s top 3 Disney movies lists. The fact that they even made a remake is one thing, but this is how they’re going to animate it? They’re going to take a movie with amazing and bold and colorful animation with expressive and well-designed characters, amazing cinematography, fantastic songs, and some of the most iconic sequences of all time, and they’re going to rip off virtually every shot from it except with lazier, duller animation? CGI doesn’t even have to be dull and lifeless for the sake of “realism”. It can still be realistic and dynamic, expressive, and colorful.

I hope this movie comes and goes and then fades out of existence. Not because I hate the Lion King - but because I love the original movie and the Broadway musical. And this remake is doing a major disservice to it.

I have made my peace with this. Because I know that in 10 to 20 years, those Disney Classics will still be classics while the remakes will fade into obscurity. Well, most of them at least.

The thing about the trailer was that it felt like a compilation of images from the movie, and not a focus on the personalities of the animals. Most of it was voiceover, with only a couple lines seen directly spoken by the characters themselves (including the Timon and Pumba tag). So discussing the facial expressions or lack thereof is hard when we are mostly just seeing narrated photographs and very brief movement.

Edited by Pseudopartition on Apr 14th 2019 at 7:14:13 AM

Seriously.

Not everyone who enjoys something you don't is an idiot. Not everyone who thinks a photorealistic animation style isn't a problem is an idiot.

Given the sheer nastiness of what you're saying, I feel justified in saying you really ought to get over yourself. People don't have different opinions on things from you simply because there's something wrong with their cognitive process, and likewise, you aren't some enlightened soul rising above ignorance for choosing to complain about something other people don't necessarily see as a problem.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Apr 14th 2019 at 8:28:50 AM

Disney thinks that they should keep remaking old movies because people keep supporting them. If they didn't make any money off of these remakes then they'd stop making them. Nostalgia has become the most annoying sales tactic, it's used to sell the exact same product to people under the guise of "nostalgia". I see this in the casting list too: they're pulling in big-name actors that appeal to adults, and the marketing material so far baits the nostalgia of people who grew up with the original.

I just don't understand why I should be excited for this movie. I enjoyed the original, and I don't need the same story retold with realistic CG animals. I honestly feel the same about most of these cash grab remakes.

And I’m not sure why they didn’t use the balance of realistic and cartoony CGI they did for the Jungle Book remake, because that was INCREDIBLE.

(watches trailer)

Man, Scar's actor doesn't sound like he's even trying.

Also, since this remake isn't really live-action, should we move this thread?

Well, the our Wiki Word for the film is Film.The Lion King 2019, not WesternAnimation.The Lion King 2019. Even though there doesn't appear to be any live-action elements in the film and it's all animated.

Could this mean this film has a chance of winning a Consolation Award for Best Animated Feature at the next Oscars?

... I'm sorry, I went too far there.

If it was nominated..... great, I guess.

If it won, it just means Jon Favreau won an oscar for something that really should have went to Rob Minkoff (director of the animated version). It also means he won an Oscar for a pithy remake, and not for something more substantial like say "Iron Man". But, hey, that's how it is with awards sometimes.

Edited by Brandon on Apr 14th 2019 at 5:52:25 AM

I'm reminded of Brad Bird's words on The Incredibles DVD commentary: "Animation is not a genre. It's an art form."

I think it'd just get a best set design and that's it.