The Lion King (2019)

[Bartmanhomer]

Hey everybody. Today early this morning I went to see The Lion King in IMAX and this is what I think of the movie:

Spoiler: My Thoughts On The Lion King (2019)

Show

Well I did see the cartoon version on of The Lion King when I was a little boy and it was awesome. This live-action version of The Lion King was awesome. It takes place in an African savannah where a young lion cub named Simba who was exiled from the wilderness after his father Mufasa was killed by his evil brother Scar. Scar told the Pride that Mufasa and Simba was killed. However Simba was still alive and travel a very long journey. Scar took over the throne and causes tyranny at the herd. Simba met Timon and Pumba and Simba grown up to a full adult lion. His female friend Nasha found Simba and told him everything happen with the Pride under Scar leadership which Simba must reclaim it. Simba return to the pride, fight Scar. Scar said some nasty and insulting things about the hyenas. The hyenas kill Scar. And finally Simba reclaim his throne as King with Nasha and their son. So anyway this movie has everything. The song they copied from the movies was excellent. Their was comedy and drama. I even cried during the movie. It a perfect movie and it's Oscar-worthy with no flaws at all. So I'll give this movie 5 out of 5 stars for a perfect movie.

[weckar]

Spoiler: Opinions

Show

This was an incredibly 'meh' movie. I saw it with my partner, and we both agreed it was extremely forgettable. What do you even call it? the 'óther' animated Lion King? Because it certainly was in no way live-action .
The biggest issue with the movie was, unfortunately, in the character design. The lack of lips or real facial expressions on the very accurate looking animals made it difficult to empathize with them.
The same striving for realism also managed to make even most of the songs... well... boring. There is none of the colorful choreography from the original, because animals are mostly acting like animals would.
The only exception to this is, possibly, "I just cannot wait to be king". Even though not nearly as visually interesting as the original; they managed to use their new style to at least do something of value with it by more actively combining it with a story scene.
Only exception? Yes, probably. In "Be Prepared", all the charisma and threat is just gone -- in fact, all the charisma and threat has been sucked out of Scar for the whole movie. In the final battle, it is even difficult to tell which lion is which because their designs are too realistic.
Then there is Timon and Pumbaa... Overall, they were probably the best update, dialogue wise. They gained a bunch of new friends ("making the 'our trio is down to two' line very strange") which does go a long way to fill out their hedonistic livestyle. Their pop culture references and references to the original movie also create an appreciated schism with the overly realistic rest of the film.
Ultimately, I would not say it is not worth your time; but it is in the end just another Disney remake. Just in this year's lineup so far (Aladdin and Dumbo came before) it is probably in the middle of the pack. It is well done, for what it is, but what it is is not something I think many people will enjoy past an initial viewing.

[GentlemanVoodoo]

I want to watch it but many of my friends are really unsatisfied with it :/

If you must watch it, do it as a mantenee or dollar theatre. Don't pay full price. The movie is a literal shot for shot remake with nothing new added.

[Tom Kalbfus]

If you must watch it, do it as a mantenee or dollar theatre. Don't pay full price. The movie is a literal shot for shot remake with nothing new added.

Well if you've never seen the cartoon. or the Musical...

I saw Aladdin the live action movie earlier this year, it was much the same story, with some twists, but mostly the same and some new songs added, maybe they came from the musical I've never seen. I also saw Beauty and the Beast the live action movie. I think while they are doing this, they might try doing Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as a musical live action movie. I think since they own the rights to the Wizard of Oz, they can redo that movies as a musical, by using special effects instead of actors in costumes

[Strigon]

Spoiler: Opinions

Show

This was an incredibly 'meh' movie. I saw it with my partner, and we both agreed it was extremely forgettable. What do you even call it? the 'óther' animated Lion King? Because it certainly was in no way live-action .
The biggest issue with the movie was, unfortunately, in the character design. The lack of lips or real facial expressions on the very accurate looking animals made it difficult to empathize with them.
The same striving for realism also managed to make even most of the songs... well... boring. There is none of the colorful choreography from the original, because animals are mostly acting like animals would.
The only exception to this is, possibly, "I just cannot wait to be king". Even though not nearly as visually interesting as the original; they managed to use their new style to at least do something of value with it by more actively combining it with a story scene.
Only exception? Yes, probably. In "Be Prepared", all the charisma and threat is just gone -- in fact, all the charisma and threat has been sucked out of Scar for the whole movie. In the final battle, it is even difficult to tell which lion is which because their designs are too realistic.
Then there is Timon and Pumbaa... Overall, they were probably the best update, dialogue wise. They gained a bunch of new friends ("making the 'our trio is down to two' line very strange") which does go a long way to fill out their hedonistic livestyle. Their pop culture references and references to the original movie also create an appreciated schism with the overly realistic rest of the film.
Ultimately, I would not say it is not worth your time; but it is in the end just another Disney remake. Just in this year's lineup so far (Aladdin and Dumbo came before) it is probably in the middle of the pack. It is well done, for what it is, but what it is is not something I think many people will enjoy past an initial viewing.

Spoiler: Response

Show

I agree with pretty much everything you said.
It felt like they drained all the cartoonish charisma from the original. This would be fine if handled properly, but they really didn't add anything to compensate for the loss. Rather than turning it into a more mature movie by adding extra depth or anything else to make it more interesting, they just stripped away all the character and left it as a dried out shell in the shape of The Lion King.
I've got to be honest, none of the Disney remakes have yet lived up to, let alone surpassed, their original versions (not that anyone expected that, anyway,) but this one in particular fell flat. Aladdin had its issues, but they changed a significant portion of the story and let Will Smith do his Genie thing. They kept a lot of the enchantment from Beauty and the Beast, even if it's not quite to charming or romantic in live action. With this, though? It felt like they wanted it to be for a grown up audience, but they didn't know what that meant beyond "take away all the animated hijinks"

[niysam]

Awesome movie in this year.

Well if you've never seen the cartoon. or the Musical...

I saw Aladdin the live action movie earlier this year, it was much the same story, with some twists, but mostly the same and some new songs added, maybe they came from the musical I've never seen. I also saw Beauty and the Beast the live action movie. I think while they are doing this, they might try Mobile application development from doing Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as a musical live action movie. I think since they own the rights to the Wizard of Oz, they can redo that movies as a musical, by using special effects instead of actors in costumes

[Tom Kalbfus]

Hey everybody. Today early this morning I went to see The Lion King in IMAX and this is what I think of the movie:

Spoiler: My Thoughts On The Lion King (2019)

Show

Well I did see the cartoon version on of The Lion King when I was a little boy and it was awesome. This live-action version of The Lion King was awesome. It takes place in an African savannah where a young lion cub named Simba who was exiled from the wilderness after his father Mufasa was killed by his evil brother Scar. Scar told the Pride that Mufasa and Simba was killed. However Simba was still alive and travel a very long journey. Scar took over the throne and causes tyranny at the herd. Simba met Timon and Pumba and Simba grown up to a full adult lion. His female friend Nasha found Simba and told him everything happen with the Pride under Scar leadership which Simba must reclaim it. Simba return to the pride, fight Scar. Scar said some nasty and insulting things about the hyenas. The hyenas kill Scar. And finally Simba reclaim his throne as King with Nasha and their son. So anyway this movie has everything. The song they copied from the movies was excellent. Their was comedy and drama. I even cried during the movie. It a perfect movie and it's Oscar-worthy with no flaws at all. So I'll give this movie 5 out of 5 stars for a perfect movie.

Spoiler

Show

The plot sounds the same as the cartoon, so there is nothing to spoil, unless you've seen the cartoon. Just the same I'm putting it in spoiler brackets so nobody accuses me of spoiling it for you by telling you its just the same as the cartoon. My brother thinks Disney is wasting its money by making live action versions of its cartoons, or in this case a photorealistic version as there are no human characters for live actors to portray.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

My brother thinks Disney is wasting its money by making live action versions of its cartoons, or in this case a photorealistic version

(Removed the spoiler tags because I removed everything spoilerish.)

Your brother hasn't seen how much friggin money these things bring in. The old Lion King, the biggest peak in the Disney renaissance, made a hair under 970.000 at the box office. The new one has made over 1.43 million and counting. Not bad for what's essentially a really, really thorough remaster. And it's a pattern, they all do better than their originals. It can be hard to sell people on a good original movie, but a lot easier to sell them on something connected to a beloved classic. That's why sequels do well, and that's why those cheap direct to video sequels Disney used to make sold, before their reputation became too bad. This is the same idea as those sequels, but bigger and with more fanfare.

Doesn't mean they're bad movies, or good movies, or anything, but they're definitely not a waste of Disney's money, people are paying them their investment back by the bucketload.

[Olinser]

(Removed the spoiler tags because I removed everything spoilerish.)

Your brother hasn't seen how much friggin money these things bring in. The old Lion King, the biggest peak in the Disney renaissance, made a hair under 970.000 at the box office. The new one has made over 1.43 million and counting. Not bad for what's essentially a really, really thorough remaster. And it's a pattern, they all do better than their originals. It can be hard to sell people on a good original movie, but a lot easier to sell them on something connected to a beloved classic. That's why sequels do well, and that's why those cheap direct to video sequels Disney used to make sold, before their reputation became too bad. This is the same idea as those sequels, but bigger and with more fanfare.

Doesn't mean they're bad movies, or good movies, or anything, but they're definitely not a waste of Disney's money, people are paying them their investment back by the bucketload.

You're off by 3 zeroes in those numbers, big chief. 970,000,000 and 1.43 billion.

And while they are technically bringing in more money as movies, they are making less PROFIT than they were previously.

The old Lion King made that $970 million on a production budget of about $40-45 million. The modern one has an estimated budget of $250-300 million. When you add in the additional costs for distribution and advertising (which are much higher in modern times), the original Lion King made significantly more profit than the current one.

That holds true for most of the other movies as well. The remakes make more absolute amounts of money, but their production costs are SIGNIFICANTLY higher.

And of course then there's the after market factor. The original Disney movies made HUGE after market money for Disney with the toy market, the cheap exploited straight-to-DVD sequel cash ins, and of course the toy lines.

The remakes don't really have any of that. They're making money as movies, but by all accounts, the sub markets are not feeling the benefit. There's a short bump associated with the movie before going back to what it was before.

So they're successful movies in that they make profit for Disney, but they're not nearly as successful for Disney as the originals were, because they are not generating anywhere near the non-movie income for Disney that the originals did.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

You're off by 3 zeroes in those numbers. 970,000,000 and 1.43 billion.

I am, thanks. No idea how that happened. I might need to sleep more.

And while they are technically bringing in more money as movies, they are making less PROFIT than they were previously.

But at zero risk. Regular movies, even Disney ones, can flop. These nostalgia remakes have (for now) less chance to fail than a Star Wars - Avengers crossover. For a safe investment the profits are more than generous.

Or, put differently: they don't bring in large after market profits because they are after market profits. Like a sequel or a plushie they make money because the animated classics exist. They're expensive, sure, but they're making money.

[Olinser]

I am, thanks. No idea how that happened. I might need to sleep more.


But at zero risk. Regular movies, even Disney ones, can flop. These nostalgia remakes have (for now) less chance to fail than a Star Wars - Avengers crossover. For a safe investment the profits are more than generous.

Or, put differently: they don't bring in large after market profits because they are after market profits. Like a sequel or a plushie they make money because the animated classics exist. They're expensive, sure, but they're making money.

It's not zero risk though.

Dumbo was a BIG flop. This was not a fringe movie, and it barely cleared $350 million worldwide on a budget of $170 million, and by most accounts lost them about $100 million after the various non-production costs.

Pete's Dragon was also a flop. While it didn't have the budget that some of the others did, and was based on a significantly less popular original movie, it's estimated that lost them another $100 million.

And while it was a sequel rather than the main movie, Through The Looking Glass (sequel to Alice in Wonderland) lost them an estimated $200-300 million after only getting $299 million on a $170 million budget.

They're not zero risk, they've definitely lost large amounts of money multiple times. They have a relatively good track record, but they're not invincible, and they can't just put anything out. They're rapidly running out of popular nostalgic movies to exploit.

I think they've only got 2 big successes left in the tank - Little Mermaid and Peter Pan. Snow White MAY do well, but they're going to have to majorly change the story to make it successful. I also have serious doubts that Pinocchio will do nearly as well, that one we'll have to see how exactly they do the main character.

After that it's second-tier movies. They're not likely to make $1 billion with a live action Lady and the Tramp, Hunchback of Notre Dame or Sword in the Stone (as far as I know the only other 3 that have been announced). After that its stuff like Tarzan, Princess and the Frog, etc. Those aren't the big winners.

But as I said, the main problem with the remakes is that they're making money but not really creating the after-market demand that Disney is trying to achieve. They're just not drawing people to the toy lines or the parks like the originals did.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Okay, they might already be scraping a bit further down the barrel than I may have realized.