Althouse: "The thing is, there’s no way to watch the new Lion King and not think of the old one, even if the new one is the only one you’ve seen."

July 26, 2019

"The thing is, there’s no way to watch the new Lion King and not think of the old one, even if the new one is the only one you’ve seen."

"Every time a clunker dropped, I wondered if there was a version of the movie where it actually worked. It’s weird, and eventually grating, the way John Oliver’s hornbill keeps hopping around as he blurts out one-liners, but maybe it would work better if the bird had arms, or at least cartoonish wings he could move like them?... I didn’t need to have seen the original to know that the Beyoncé song jammed in over helicopter shots of capering animals and not sung by any of the characters was the one that had been added to the soundtrack so that Bey could get her Oscar nomination, although I turned to the person next to me and asked, 'Is this the new one?' just to make sure.... Without an immensely popular original to guarantee the new movie’s audience, the idea of making a musical about lions that also looks like a National Geographic special would have seemed insane.... You could destroy every print, every Blu-ray, every iTunes download of the original Lion King, and the new one would still feel like a copy."

Writes Sam Adams in "What It’s Like to See the New Lion King When You’ve Never Seen the Old Lion King/Even if you’ve never watched Disney’s animated original, you can tell something’s off" (Slate).

At some point, it's weird enough almost to make me want to see it for the extreme weirdness, and I have seen the original cartoon movie and the Broadway show, and I didn't like either of them. It's not that I expected to like them, by the way. I was accompanying children. I really dislike the idea that the lion is "king" of the jungle and that the other animals (the prey) are in love with the idea and the one animal who's irritated by royal succession is a horrible creep. Bleh! What a terrible idea for an story to inspire children. How about a "Wicked" style remake where we get the story from the point of view of the villain and the villain becomes the hero? No, that won't work, because the original story is too stupid and dull.

61 comments:

gspencer said...: Remakes - when we've run outta ideas but believe we can still get milk from the herd.; 7/26/19, 8:57 AM
rehajm said...: Try fishing.; 7/26/19, 8:59 AM
Birkel said...: Like all the other movies released this year, I won't see this one in the theater.
But I will buy a used copy from Redbox when the price drops to $5.99 and watch it on my home theater.

That decision is driven by others.; 7/26/19, 9:00 AM
Lucid-Ideas said...: Word has it "Top Gun: Maverick" is the same way. A bunch of repeated references to the 80's original - complete with flashbacks for the uninitiated - and fall-flat-one-liners hidden by impressive action sequences and graphics.

Netflix lost 126,000 subscribers and more will follow. The well is dry. You can't get to an era of 'that's not funny' without first pigishly marching down the road of 'that's not creative'.

Hollywood - and the rest of the elite - are out of ideas. Sacrificed on a bonfire of their vanities and a belief they didn't have to work hard anymore. They're too big to fail.

Wrong.; 7/26/19, 9:01 AM
Biotrekker said...: Accurately realistic CGI animals don't show emotions - they don't smile, grimace, frown, etc. This is a huge, huge, huge problem. The whole joy of animating animal-characters is that you can anthropomorphize them. If you can't, there isn't actually a point in having animal characters.; 7/26/19, 9:01 AM
chuck said...: > No, that won't work, because the original story is too stupid and dull.

Time for some dental work?; 7/26/19, 9:02 AM
Shouting Thomas said...: The Lion King was cornball stuff for kids.

My grandkids loved it. They love cornball stuff.

I'm sure the movie will be more of the same and the kids will probably watch it 1,000 times when it hits Netflix.; 7/26/19, 9:02 AM
Ken B said...: You can get in trouble, dissing the work of Elton John.; 7/26/19, 9:04 AM
Ken B said...: Never saw the whole thing, just eye-rolling bits as the kid watched it. I did like the mid 60s Jungle Book, but it had none of this Kumbaya monarchism, and some real invention.; 7/26/19, 9:07 AM
Fernandinande said...: I like it when the hyenas win because they're the underdogs.; 7/26/19, 9:09 AM
Dave Begley said...: This is encouraging to me. Frankenstein in Love is all new but with one character (the Creature) that people think they know but don't know at all.; 7/26/19, 9:09 AM
Wince said...: Many believe the Lion King was a rip-off of Kimba the White Lion, the Japanese cartoon from the 1960s I watched growing up.

I really dislike the idea that the lion is "king" of the jungle and that the other animals (the prey) are in love with the idea and the one animal who's irritated by royal succession is a horrible creep.

Imagine if the lion were white to boot, that'd be a real problem.; 7/26/19, 9:15 AM
Sebastian said...: "I really dislike the idea that the lion is "king" of the jungle"

But there is a hierarchy in nature. Hard to believe, I know. Evolution etc. etc.

"and that the other animals (the prey) are in love with the idea"

True, that's a bit much. Then again, lots of humans are the same. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Fidel, Hugo--at least for a while at least some of the prey loved them.; 7/26/19, 9:16 AM
doctrev said...: Wicked had great production values but an eye-rollingly bad SJW plot. It was an insult to Baum, if not defiling his corpse. Don't do that.

I'm not going to see a version of the Lion King featuring John Oliver, who isn't fit to clean Rowan Atkinson's shoes, and goddamn Beyonce as she obnoxiously angles for an Oscar in her quest to make the world constantly celebrate the Beyonce Awards (aka the Grammys). If I want to see CGI talking lions, I'll go rewatch Narnia, which apparently had better lion chatting than this movie.; 7/26/19, 9:19 AM
Anonymous said...: I really dislike the idea that the lion is "king" of the jungle and that the other animals (the prey) are in love with the idea and the one animal who's irritated by royal succession is a horrible creep. Bleh! What a terrible idea for an story to inspire children. How about a "Wicked" style remake where we get the story from the point of view of the villain and the villain becomes the hero? No, that won't work, because the original story is too stupid and dull.

If memory serves (I too was accompanying children), the original cartoon followed the standard fairy tale tropes. And we all know that what children really need when exposed to fairy tales is the guidance of a Woke adult to point out the violence inherent in the patriarchal system.; 7/26/19, 9:27 AM
buwaya said...: "Lion King" is realistic, in terms of human history.
You have predators, you have prey, this is a stable relationship. The human predators don't (usually) actually eat the lower classes, but the situation stands.

And succession struggles have quite often gone down in just that way. And the rose-tinted retrospective on the qualities of the rulers of men is also realistic. Of course there is a legitimate monarch, the world would be improper otherwise.

You could replace the animals in "Lion King" with ladies and gentlemen and peasants, and you would have to change next to nothing. It would work as a drama set in any time and in any culture. It could have been an Errol Flynn medieval thing, or a Kurosawa concoction.

I find the original movie excellent. I saw it as an adult of course, and often, later, with children. It benefits, probably, from the properly cynical eye.; 7/26/19, 9:28 AM
buwaya said...: Actual L.Frank Baum stories are much more interesting than "Wicked".
There is a ton of material there, for an enterprising and brave producer.

They were reprinting all the old Baum follow-on books to "Wizard of Oz" when the kids were little, and I got the lot for them. Kept me in bedtime stories for six months.; 7/26/19, 9:33 AM
Jake said...: Pretty sure most films these days fell like copies.; 7/26/19, 9:33 AM
buwaya said...: They are copies because there is no appetite for risk.
It is a symptom of decadence.; 7/26/19, 9:35 AM
Wince said...: It’s weird, and eventually grating, the way John Oliver’s hornbill keeps hopping around as he blurts out one-liners, but maybe it would work better if the bird had arms, or at least cartoonish wings he could move like them?

So exactly like his weekly HBO show?; 7/26/19, 9:36 AM
mikee said...: You wanna talk about woke kid's stories?
Kipling's Jungle Book got the predator/prey relationship much closer to correct.
And the man-cub was indeed the most dangerous of all animals in the jungle.
I loved the recent remake of Mowgli's story with CGI animals.
Perhaps Althouse has seen this, and would care to comment on Christopher Walken's giganpithecus/orangutan character as king of the monkeys?; 7/26/19, 9:37 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "But there is a hierarchy in nature."

Yes, but it's about killing. In "The Lion King," the other animals participate in a worshipful celebration of the king. And being an efficient killer isn't what makes you royal. There is some correspondence between a system of monarchy and effective killing, but that's not an idea that's developed in the movie. If the nonroyal animals are worshiping and celebrating a king, it's not because of all the murder but because they've gotten real benefits and forgotten the murder and don't think of themselves as prey.; 7/26/19, 9:38 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "If memory serves (I too was accompanying children), the original cartoon followed the standard fairy tale tropes. And we all know that what children really need when exposed to fairy tales is the guidance of a Woke adult to point out the violence inherent in the patriarchal system."

Seems to me that fairy tales have the common people elevated and getting the better of any king. Where's the traditional fairy tale where the common people just celebrate the king and we're supposed to care about the prince ascending to the throne?; 7/26/19, 9:41 AM
Sebastian said...: "because they've gotten real benefits and forgotten the murder and don't think of themselves as prey"

Sure. I agree with your basic take on romanticized nature. But that's how it goes. Stalin and Mao and Fidel still have their worshippers.; 7/26/19, 9:42 AM
buwaya said...: Ah, but I am a peasant!
We are of the peasantry, guaranteed and certified, going back two centuries.

Other than that odd Turk of course, and being a descendant of the Prophet (PBUH).; 7/26/19, 9:42 AM
Nonapod said...: I personally find Disney's CGI remakes both superfluous and visually disturbing and will never see them by choice.

Unfortunately Disney has already taken in $713,650,600 worldwide off of this abomination, so it's most likey paid for itself and has become quite profitable.

For some reason a lot of people like this stuff. And Disney has already greenlight a whole bunch of these CGI nightmare fuel things. Along with this one they've already done Dumbo, Beauty and the Beast, and Jungle Book. They've also greenlit The Little Mermaid, Mulan, 101 Dalmatians, Lady and the Tramp, and on and on.

As long as poeple keep lining up for this garbage, Disney is more than happy to feed it too them.; 7/26/19, 9:42 AM
rcocean said...: My kid loved it. My wife could tolerate it. I hated it. I wanted a jazzy upbeat story like the "The Jungle Book" - not a cartoon Broadway show complete with one-liners and fake Rogers and Hammerstein.; 7/26/19, 9:48 AM
narciso said...: Or into the woods, Sondheim's contribution, we staged it in college, it's like they dont understand the source material.; 7/26/19, 9:49 AM
Fen said...: No, that won't work, because the original story is too stupid and dull.

Well there's a legit feminist(?) angle. While you are marveling at his great mane and mighty roar, two lionesses are circling around to shred you. They are the real predators.; 7/26/19, 9:50 AM
rcocean said...: Fairly tales are usually about the good king being usurped by a "Bad" Prince or brother - who then oppresses everyone. Then after a struggle we get the "Good" King - back on the throne and everyone lives happily ever after.

I agree, it doesn't work with Lions. They eat their subjects. And the real kings are the Elephants. Lions will occasionally try to go after a baby elephant- but once they reach a certain size the Lions just stay out of their way.; 7/26/19, 9:54 AM
rcocean said...: Lions also kill leopards and cheetahs every chance they get.; 7/26/19, 9:55 AM
rcocean said...: As noted above the Jungle Book was more realistic. Everyone fears and hates Shera Khan and they keep out of his way.; 7/26/19, 9:56 AM
Ralph L said...: As a rule, lions don't live in jungles.; 7/26/19, 10:00 AM
Roughcoat said...: The gold standard for this kind of filmic storytelling is "Jungle Book." I like all three versions, but I'm particularly of the 1942 version starring Sabu as Mowgli. A trio of film genius was assembled for its making: Zoltan Korda directing, his brother Vincent Korda art directing, and the incomparable Miklos Rozsa scoring the music. With the brilliant writing of Rudyard Kipling, a true literary genius, providing the storytelling template.

The Disney version was fun, and the most recent version was crazy-good in so many ways: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, and Idris Elba (as, respectively, Baloo, Kaa, and Shere Khan) were all terrific. Christopher Walken's performance as King Louie, an hommage to Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurz of "Apocalypse Now," was beyond hilarious.

Fun fact 1: Sabu served as tail gunner and ball turret gunner on B-24s during World War II. He flew many combat missions and was decorated for bravery.

Fun fact 2: Kipling wrote Jungle Book as an allegory for the "Great Game" between Russia and Britain on India's Northwest Frontier, with Shere Khan representing Russia.; 7/26/19, 10:03 AM
narciso said...: We are but peasants to these global media combines, which seek to drive us out of the public square and call it consensus.; 7/26/19, 10:04 AM
rhhardin said...: I assume it's a period piece about Richard the Great. A black woman playing the part would be a challenge.; 7/26/19, 10:06 AM
Matt said...: "Beyoncé song jammed in over helicopter shots of capering animals"

I thought the Lion King already had a song for a woman who is neither a character nor the narrator to sing: Circle of Life. I see they've decided to added another just for Beyonce. There should be a name for the (annoying) musical convention of having musical numbers sung by non-characters who walk on, plant and scream some heavily gospel-influenced version of a melody, then walk off. Let's call it a Beyonce.; 7/26/19, 10:09 AM
buwaya said...: If you think you aren’t a peasant, then you might be a peasant!
Human nature will not be denied, in spite of fairy tales.; 7/26/19, 10:10 AM
Lyssa said...: We saw it last week and loved it. I’ve seen the original more then I can count, as a kid and then again as a parent of.a kid who wanted to watch it over and over. Yes, the criticisms regarding monarchy and animal relations are valid, as they are for so many other kid’s stories, but so what? You’re not supposed to hyperanalyze it.

I didn’t see a creepiness to it, though I do think the more dramatic moments suffered from the fact that lions and other animals simply don’t have expressive faces like humans or cartoon characters do. It deviated very little from the original (though it explained why Scar’s reign was so bad, which was something that always bugged me), so you’re probably not going to like it if you didn’t before. We did see it in one of those new 4d theaters, which was incredible, and I’m sure that made it seem better just for the experience.; 7/26/19, 10:17 AM
Xmas said...: The Lion King is just a take on Hamlet, without the suicide and terrible ending where everyone dies.

I mean, who doesn't see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Timon and Pumbaa?; 7/26/19, 10:20 AM
Leland said...: the story from the point of view of the villain and the villain becomes the hero?

Other than "point of view"; Disney did "Beauty and the Beast" first.; 7/26/19, 10:20 AM
Ralph L said...: Does the movie have flies all over the animals?; 7/26/19, 10:25 AM
Roughcoat said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/26/19, 10:25 AM
Roughcoat said...: Read Bruno Bettelheim's "The Uses of Enchantment" to understand the purposes of fairy tales. Bettleheim may have been something of a fraud, but he was right about the subject at hand.

Criticizing the use of anthropomorphized animals in fiction, and complaining about the unreality of, e.g., portraying a lion as the king of the jungle, is to miss the point. Such use is allegorical and metaphorical, undertaken to achieve psychological and spiritual ends and, not least, to provide entertainment. It has a very long history, going back to the dawn of the human species. The "Trickster and Tar-Baby" stories, e.g., are among mankind's most venerable and are direct predecessors to Bugs Bunny and his gang. Aesop's Fables are, by comparison, quite recent.; 7/26/19, 10:32 AM
William said...: I saw the cartoon years ago. I was an adult when I saw it. I thought it was pretty good as cartoons go, but I think you had to be eight years old to get the full impact. Probably the same with this....Apparently The Lion King is not just a movie you see as a kid, but a movie that you grow up with and look to for wisdom and guidance the way I did with Casablanca or The Wizard of Oz. I don't remember that much about it, but I do remember thinking that gazelles probably wouldn't be all that enthusiastic about lion kings. Well, they used to edit Lasie's butt sniffing habits out of her movies too. As I learned here recently, they also used to anthropomorphize Spencer Tracy in his movies too.; 7/26/19, 10:43 AM
tcrosse said...: It's unlikely there will be a remake of Song of the South (1946) unless they do it with Aunt Remus, Sister Rabbit and Sister Fox.; 7/26/19, 10:57 AM
narciso said...: Pebble as I like to call it is just terrible, it's a string of nonsequiturs; 7/26/19, 10:57 AM
narciso said...: It doesn't really address the film, or the narrative behind it.; 7/26/19, 11:08 AM
Sam L. said...: Haven't seen the first; won't see the new one.; 7/26/19, 11:10 AM
MadisonMan said...: I think I saw The Lion King. My kids were Disney Age when it came out. No interest in revisiting it. I didn't see the live version either.

(I'm also laughing at RalphL's comment); 7/26/19, 11:34 AM
Bill Peschel said...: We are hardwired for hierarchy, no matter how looney, hence the continued popularity of the useless British royalty family and the equally useless Kennedy family.

The elites count on that. So does People magazine.; 7/26/19, 11:38 AM
Yancey Ward said...: I hated the first one with a passion. No interest in either the play or the new movie.; 7/26/19, 11:42 AM
Anonymous said...: Seems to me that fairy tales have the common people elevated and getting the better of any king. Where's the traditional fairy tale where the common people just celebrate the king and we're supposed to care about the prince ascending to the throne?

On the same shelf of un-woke stories where the heroines, beautiful and young and sweet and modest, always triumph over the ugly and/or aging, ambitious and unfeminine bad-guy women.

Guess you just got the abridged Howard Zinn editions. (Scar and his hyenas - the Robin Hood and his Merry Men of the savanna.)

Clever commoners in fairy tales often triumph over the abusive and unjust wealthy and powerful. The point is the injustice and corruption, or the incompetence and stupidity, of those claiming a right to rule, not the wrongness of there being a top dog (or lion, as the case may be).

"Po-mo" interpreters have been falling all over themselves for decades delineating the "transgressive", hierarchy-flipping nature of folk tales, but they haven't uncovered anything that hadn't been obvious to the average churl or villein enjoying the antics of the Carnival King or age-old trickster tales.

If the nonroyal animals are worshiping and celebrating a king, it's not because of all the murder but because they've gotten real benefits and forgotten the murder and don't think of themselves as prey.

Honestly AA, what a po-faced, literal-minded take. A proper anthropomorphizing fairy tale needs a social-justice herbivore for a king, I guess.

As an adult, I had a little snicker over the eliding of the fact that lions live in harems. (Don't tell Simba that Mustafa is sharin' the love with all the lady lions at court, not just his mom the "queen"!) But for chrissakes I didn't think my private zoological sperg-out was relevant to the purposes of a retelling of the age-old "return of the king" tale for children.; 7/26/19, 11:47 AM
SF said...: "A proper anthropomorphizing fairy tale needs a social-justice herbivore for a king, I guess."

The presentation of the new prince scene at the beginning of tLK is basically a rehash of the same scene from Disney's Bambi with lions subbed in for deer. (And wildly better music.)

I dunno about Kimba the White Lion, but most of the story beats in the Lion King come from either Bambi, the Jungle Book, or Hamlet.

As for re-telling the story from Scar's point of view -- the song "Be Prepared" is apparently from his point of view, and it's essentially "I Just Can't Wait to Be Hitler". Gonna take some massive rethinking to make that even remotely acceptable...; 7/26/19, 12:06 PM
Anonymous said...: SF: The presentation of the new prince scene at the beginning of tLK is basically a rehash of the same scene from Disney's Bambi with lions subbed in for deer. (And wildly better music.)

Ha. Didn't know that. Never saw Bambi.

As for re-telling the story from Scar's point of view -- the song "Be Prepared" is apparently from his point of view, and it's essentially "I Just Can't Wait to Be Hitler". Gonna take some massive rethinking to make that even remotely acceptable...

I remember appreciating the visual riff on Leni Riefenstahl for that number. Wondering how widely noticed this had been at the time, I just now googled it and was informed that that particular choreography had not been recycled in the new version. Hmmm, passing up the opportunity to associate the Bad Guy with Hitler? Whatever does this portend? The future rehabilitation of Scar à la Wicked, as Althouse hopes?; 7/26/19, 1:38 PM
Bill R said...: How about a remake called "The Lion Fuhrer" where the animals all worship him and have torchlight parades and are busily hunting down the owls and preparing to invade the Savannah to the East.; 7/26/19, 1:58 PM
Steven said...: But there is a hierarchy in nature.

No, there isn't. There's just an anarchy. The gazelle does not submit to the lion; it resists the lion with all its ability. It's just that it loses.

(In a fifth grade school project, we were supposed to illustrate a food chain of at least five links. The one I submitted was Grass -> Cow -> Human -> Mosquito -> Sparrow -> Peregrine Falcon.); 7/26/19, 4:34 PM
svlc said...: I saw the "broadway" show in Vancouver with my mom and gf. None of us were particularly thrilled with it. At the end, everyone around us jumped up and applauded passionately while the 3 of politely clapped and prepared to leave the theater. Funny enough, I noticed a couple very dirty looks from some of the raucous fans around us. I doubt we will be seeing the movie.; 7/26/19, 6:06 PM
Jaq said...: John Oliver? Thanks for the warning.; 7/26/19, 7:03 PM
Jaq said...: “ If the nonroyal animals are worshiping and celebrating a king, it's not because of all the murder but because they've gotten real benefits and forgotten the murder and don't think of themselves as prey.”

Something that liberal Jonathon Haidt would say about conservatives, on account of he lived with conservatives as an anthropologist, in India, and one day the light went on that it was a cooperative culture that benefited its members. That people had roles and responsibilities and order and stability is of value.

Leftist get pissed off because they can’t stand not being in control and they are blind to the subtle ways that traditional culture takes care of its members.; 7/26/19, 7:08 PM
rcocean said...: "As a rule, lions don't live in jungles."

That's why Shera Khan isn't one.; 7/26/19, 10:43 PM