The Lion King
1 the circle of life
Helen O’hara: A few shots are framed differently and it’s a little more leisurely, but this is the same sequence. It does make you marvel at the technology involved, but would it really have been less The Lion King if they had changed a few details? Have we discovered no interesting new facts about how wildlife on the Serengeti interact since 1994 that they could have added in? Even the detail is similar, with the same colour of bird landing on an elephant’s tusk as they walk through the watering hole.
2 the elephant graveyard
Ian Freer: The Elephant Graveyard scene, where Simba and Nala, disobeying orders, head out of the confines of Pride Rock to prove their bravery, is one of the more effective uses of the live-action aesthetic and improves on the original. The barren wasteland, which plays host to a strippedback version of Scar’s song ‘Be Prepared’, provides a striking visual contrast to the sun-kissed beauty of the rest of the movie. The built-in-a-computer set has a real sense of foreboding and eerieness about it. It is, in modern parlance, a big mood.
Helen O’hara: This is much more authentically volcanic-looking than the original. There are none of those glowing lava pits that you get in so many cartoons, which never seem terribly credible because, well, they’re just not. We get a much longer chase of little Simba and Nala by the hyenas before Mufasa arrives, but I’d say this actually improves on the original moment where Simba opens his mouth to roar, and we hear Mufasa’s growl instead.
3 the stampede/ death of mufasa
Ian Freer: The death of Mufasa is an example of how Jon Favreau borrows even the grammar and shot selection of Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff’s version — watch the camera pull out on Simba’s face as he watches his father die. The scene is such a carbon copy that Hans Zimmer doesn’t even have to change a note of his score.
Helen O’hara: At the risk of sounding geologically obsessed, they’ve done something interesting with the rock here, making it a really treacherous sedimentary rock that crumbles like fruit cake at the slightest pressure. There’s a parallel there, see? Treachery!
Ian Freer: Favreau’s decision to rigorously follow the 1994 template highlights an interesting difference from the way cinematic stories have evolved over the past 25 years. To use a wanky screenwriting term, the ‘inciting incident’, the thing that kicks the story into gear, is the death of Simba’s father — but compared to contemporary storytelling it happens much later than we’ve become accustomed (which is usually within the first ten minutes). It makes the early section seem sluggish by modern standards and you feel the drag with the extra half-hour on the running time. Helen O’hara: It’s not so much that there are huge numbers of new scenes before this; just that lots of them are given more room to breathe. Think of that opening scene following the little mouse, aka Scar’s Wannabe Lunch, which was nowhere in the original. Here, Scar spends a little more time telling Simba why he has to stay in the gorge (it’s not so he can kill him, honest) so the build-up is prolonged — as is our agony in waiting for that death, too. Some of these touches really help, I think. The poignant moment where Simba curls up next to his father’s lifeless body is genuinely moving, so it’s not all wasted time.
4 HAKUNA MATATA
Ian Freer: If you want to feel the difference between the two versions, the crossing-theriver shot in ‘Hakuna Matata’ (a hymn to not giving two shits) is instructive. In the original, there is bounce, spirit and joie de vivre as the fast friends go on their merry way; in the new version, it’s a carefully constructed biological study of animals walking across a log. Impressive but lifeless.
Helen O’hara: I have so many unhelpful logical questions about this scene — but then, I did in the original as well. How many grubs would a lion need to eat to grow 400lbs? The internet suggested he’d have to eat six a minute, 24 hours a day, which seems impractical. Ian Freer: Something interesting starts happening as the song ad libs to fade. Timon and Pumbaa start riffing in a postmodern way — “It’s our signature song”, “Now he’s riffing” — as if the characters are aware of the song’s importance. A fun if bizarre choice for such a faithful, strait-laced production.
Helen O’hara: Yes, but that improv from Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner is consistently fun, after all the power and plotting and tragedy we’ve had up to that point. That said, it does pose those meta questions. I’m still wondering how Timon can compare Zazu to a puffin a little later. How does he know what a puffin looks like?
5 THE NEVERENDING FLIGHT OF THE FUR
Ian Freer: Taking a leaf (or feather) out of Robert Zemeckis’ book, Favreau traces a tuft of Simba’s fur from floating down river to being rolled on a dung beetle’s ball to being ferried along by ants to arriving at the nose of wise mandrill Rafiki (John Kani) who, with a Lassie-like sense of ESP, deduces that Simba is still alive. The moment is virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake and smacks of the Dr Ian Malcolm/jeff Goldblum maxim: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Helen O’hara: I love the idea behind this, but it prompted questions about the speed food travels through a giraffe’s digestive system that I could have lived without contemplating.
6 SPIRIT
If you hire Beyoncé, she’s going Helen O’hara: to record a new song. And if that means a Best Original Song Oscar next year, it’s a bonus! ‘Spirit’ is aiming for a ‘Circle Of Life’ feel with lyrics involving heavens opening, destinies calling, and standing up and fighting. Stirring stuff, yes, but no instant classic.
7 BE OUR GUEST
Helen O’hara: The original film had that self-referential moment where an imprisoned Zazu started to sing ‘It’s A Small World After All’, only to be mercifully cut off by Scar. The equivalent here is an inspired riff on ‘Be Our Guest’ from Beauty And The Beast as Timon serves Pumbaa to the hyenas by saying, “Allow me to present: your dinner,” in a French accent mimicking Beauty And The Beast’s Lumière. After starting the song — “Be…our…guest” — he quickly scarpers from the hyenas. The moment means we sidestep something that works in cartoon logic but not at all in this more grounded reality. The original Timon and Pumbaa somehow contrived a grass skirt, lei, apple and ukulele out of nowhere; this pair only have their wits. And yet it works at least as well.
8 SIMBA VS SCAR
Ian Freer: The final battle has some very 2019 flavours. It’s a sign of the times how Pumbaa’s trigger into action is specifically fat-shaming rather than more general disrespect (“You call me Mr PIG!”). One difference you could never have anticipated in Favreau’s new version is that Scar’s alliance with the hyenas smacks of modern-day politics, with leaders siding with any old scum to get them over the winning line. It makes Simba’s victory all the more satisfying.
Helen O’hara: It only just occurred to me, watching this scene, that we don’t see a single lion kill anything larger than a grub — not even Scar. I realise they’re the heroes, but these films may be giving kids a dangerously rosy view of lions. Still, it’s good to see that Rafiki picks up his staff (or Gandalf’s staff?) and still gets his moment of heroism.