If there's any iron law you can depend upon, it's that Disney will ruin the classics with needless remakes. It is one of those horrifying but inevitable acts of waste and folly that define our species, like the urge to build giant statues or hold referendums on ultra-complex constitutional change. The only thing to do is ignore it and try not to think about poverty levels in Los Angeles.
But the new Lion King trailer stands out for me among the regular follies; a shot-for-shot remake, it seems to have given up on the paltry if abortive attempts at originality seen in the previous remakes, instead doubling down on reproducing the film in every detail, adding nothing more than 25 years of progress in animation technology.
Needless and profligate as such an endeavour surely is, it would be comprehensible. People like to see beautiful images. Fair enough. What's more troubling than the incredible pains it takes to hew identically to the original, is that it looks way worse. It's extraordinary. Every image is so much less moving and beautiful than the hand-drawn versions we know and love from 1994.
Allow me to demonstrate in excessive detail. Others have already created comparison videos of the new and old versions (here is an example) but I want to go further. What's required, clearly, is an analysis of every single shot so far made public.
Shot 1: The sun rises
The very opening frames of the Lion King (1994) are among the most evocative and memorable in modern cinema. Who among us does not remember the sight of a vivid crimson sky, a blazing furnace of a sun rising majestically, rippling like syrup in the thick haze of heat, promising a spectacular African day to come - both in terms of temperature and also dramatic potential. Passionate, primordial, utterly compelling.
The new version does away with that, giving us instead... a sunrise. That's about all you can say for it. It's quite a nice sunrise, but that's like calling a superhero movie unrealistic. It's not an achievement to look nice when you're a sunrise.
If I saw this sunrise in real life, I would probably watch for a few seconds - whereas if I saw the bright red fireball of the original, I would fall to my knees and rethink everything I'm doing with my life.
2: Antelopes looking up
But the new Lion King trailer stands out for me among the regular follies; a shot-for-shot remake, it seems to have given up on the paltry if abortive attempts at originality seen in the previous remakes, instead doubling down on reproducing the film in every detail, adding nothing more than 25 years of progress in animation technology.
Needless and profligate as such an endeavour surely is, it would be comprehensible. People like to see beautiful images. Fair enough. What's more troubling than the incredible pains it takes to hew identically to the original, is that it looks way worse. It's extraordinary. Every image is so much less moving and beautiful than the hand-drawn versions we know and love from 1994.
Allow me to demonstrate in excessive detail. Others have already created comparison videos of the new and old versions (here is an example) but I want to go further. What's required, clearly, is an analysis of every single shot so far made public.
Shot 1: The sun rises
The very opening frames of the Lion King (1994) are among the most evocative and memorable in modern cinema. Who among us does not remember the sight of a vivid crimson sky, a blazing furnace of a sun rising majestically, rippling like syrup in the thick haze of heat, promising a spectacular African day to come - both in terms of temperature and also dramatic potential. Passionate, primordial, utterly compelling.
The new version does away with that, giving us instead... a sunrise. That's about all you can say for it. It's quite a nice sunrise, but that's like calling a superhero movie unrealistic. It's not an achievement to look nice when you're a sunrise.
If I saw this sunrise in real life, I would probably watch for a few seconds - whereas if I saw the bright red fireball of the original, I would fall to my knees and rethink everything I'm doing with my life.
2: Antelopes looking up
Amazing how a cartoon can look so real and true, while an ultra-realistic computer render of the same image looks utterly fake. Would it have been so hard to shoot some actual antelopes instead of spending trillions of terabytes simulating them? They could probably have found some in the LA zoo.
But there's another pressing question here. Just as with the previous shot, the new version is a replica of the old one but so much less compelling and mythic. But why replicate it at all? Even in the original, this shot was always slightly confusing - if the animals have this great kingdom and they're all conscious enough to be aware of things like monarchs, lines of succession and christenings, then why do they look up in surprise? This isn't a random earthquake, they must have known that today was the big day, since they are all convoying over great distance to attend. While the "looking up in surprise" thing nicely conveys excitement, it makes little sense in hindsight. It would have been a perfect place to try something new. You can convey excitement by packing a suitcase.
3. Elephants beneath Kilimanjaro
Pop quiz: which is cooler, a herd of majestic elephants waking past an awesome mountain, or a herd of majestic elephants waking past an awesome mountain wreathed in mist beneath a summit of flaming glory?
4. Birds over marshland
This shot I'm willing to concede is a draw. While the original version is vastly more sensational in both scope and colour, the new version adds a camera tilt which I can't help but enjoy, and the ending image of silhouettes against the sun is a nice touch. At least in this one shot we can see an attempt at capturing the splendour needed for this sequence to work. Still, the new version misses the sun's powerful reflection, and loses the sense of perspective and hugeness conveyed by the very high camera in the original, capturing multiple layers of flock.
5. Loyal subjects rejoice
This is another shot that isn't totally hopeless. I like the sense of a big celebration in the new version and again the framing against the sun is working in its favour. Still, the original is clearly closer to the mark, as it spans over multiple shots showing each of the different tribes united not by physical proximity or being mixed up randomly among each other, but by their support of the new heir. It's one thing to ask us to believe that all the prey animals love their predator overlord, it's another to pretend that the herds all join into a single jumbled crowd.
6. Simba sees his future
For some reason the trailer breaks away from the Circle of Life sequence at this point to foreshadow later parts of the plot, specifically the moment where Simba steps in dad's footprint and realises there are large paws he will need to fill.
Once again, the new version is visually mundane and hopelessly realistic when compared to the original. But story-wise it's weird as well. In the original, Simba feels his paw touch the larger print, and flinches back in surprise and dismay. In the new version, we can clearly see his other front foot come up alongside the first, suggesting he hasn't even noticed where it landed, or is unfazed. I'm sure when we see the full scene, Simba will react appropriately, but here it's our first glimpse of weirdly alien, animal body language which does a terrible job of showing the little human details we need from these characters.
7. Mufasa's Bane
Another weird jump to this shot, and one that brazenly plays on our greatest childhood trauma. It would hardly be worth showing some running wildebeest at this point if we didn't know what doom came with them.
The shot itself is perfectly functional, and I can even forgive it for indulging in the modern taste for swooping, fast-moving cameras - a departure from the steady and ominous pan of the original shot. Interesting fact: the original stampede sequence used rudimentary computer generation tech, and you can see it if you look for details. The animals are all too similar in their movements; they feel "computer random" rather than "nature random".
None of that matters, of course, when you first watch the movie, since the overall effect of an unstoppable force moving into a dark gully of death is so powerful. If the new version wants to go for more immediate adrenaline and less building dread, that's not the end of the world, but it is clearly worse. The rich ochre palette of the original has also been sacrificed in favour of indistinguishable browns and greys, but what do you expect at this point?
8. Pride Rock
We're back at the intro sequence. The original version is another shot that suffers if you look too closely at the details. Our first glimpse of Pride Rock is breathtaking (and timed to coincide with the mighty Circle of Life chorus in the music), with its rapid crest of the hill and Zazu soaring across the foreground. But the approaching animals on the ground are kind of ugly and weird - though they are clearly in separate groups in later on, here they are jumbled and blotchy, in terms of the colour of the overall frame.
The new version escapes this fate by accident. Since its colouring is so bland and undifferentiated anyway, the mixed up animals can't ruin the shot. Still, these are relatively unimportant details. The original version is still obviously superior thanks to its more dramatic camera movement and superb use of an avian audience proxy. The new one is staid and tepid in comparison.
9. Enter Rafiki
Oh god. Oh dear god.
Where my primary concern with the prologue images leading up to this point is the use of colour and photography to create the sense of epic grandeur so vital to all Disney success, at this point a new problem emerges to dwarf and consume the first. I believe I can sum it up in three words:
ANIMALS AREN'T CHARACTERS.
Or at least, they're not dramatic characters like you need in a Disney movie, especially not a Disney movie supposedly inspired by Shakespeare. Animals can be characters in a documentary, but that's a very different class of storytelling that clearly won't work in this format. What you need in a Disney movie about coming of age and fighting for justice is not some random monkey. You need a mentor. You need someone with quirks and mystery, a trickster, an archetype. In other words, you need a human.
All of the characters from the original are humans, exaggeratedly so. In this scene, Rafiki emerges over the rock and his tail is bent to show his eccentric nature, he immediately cocks his head to show he is both thoughtful and roguish. He leans on a staff to show he is advanced in years and therefore wise. And then he gives Mufasa a big hug. They are old friends. And you can see all of this right there in the drawing. The cues we are trained to recognise. The human emotions, the human faces, the human styles of non-verbal communication.
I'm sure that the new film will try to show all of the same character traits for Rafiki, but they won't be anything like as effective because we won't be able to see it. It'll just be a monkey. I mean look at this guy. This is the shot they've selected to show off the new Rafiki. I can't imagine a blander looking hominid. He's so utterly dull! Expressionless! No glimmer of human feeling, or any trace of character. I literally can't see his eyes or mouth, and this is a medium close-up looking right at us. He's just an animal. And animals aren't characters.
10. Simba awakes
This shot sort of works because it's super cute, and that's all you really need at this point. But why eschew the nice slow zoom, or crop out the smiling parents on the edge of frame? It simply makes the cuteness wilt a little under the burden of static boredom.
11. Ritual
I quite like the roots as an image, but the faint mist of red dust that follows is uninspiring - especially when compared to the explosive display of the original version, where the unidentifiable red husk-goo fruit is rent asunder in a blinding flash against the white sun, a moment of pure creation, like the primordial fire. The dripping gunk inside is the thick red blood of life, of the kingdom, of Simba's birthright, which seems to have shrivelled to a dry powder in the new version.
12. The chosen one anointed
Not a huge difference here. The original version is slightly betrayed by Simba's cheesy grin, which is not very newborn of him, and this is a rare instance where the animal non-comprehension of the new version works in its favour. But the point from the previous shot about the benefits of goop vs dust is more apparent here than ever.
13 and 14. The nation meets its prince
Reverse shot:
In the original, these shots are combined as a single long camera movement from behind to in front of Simba. The same may well be true of the new film, so I won't judge it by the trailer's decision to chop it in two - and to show the front side first when clearly you need to start from behind so that by the time you get to Simba's face you can fully comprehend his awe.
And that's just it. Simba is awestruck. Look at that face. In just a few lines, the animator conveys not just awe but concern, curiosity, fear and a sense of something momentous. The cub in the new version is merely looking at stuff. Being an animal, we have no idea what it's thinking.
Side note: the new version seems to take place on a sunny day. It has quietly excised the grand billowing clouds from the original version, through which the sun beams fix Simba in a godly spotlight, and which also foreshadow his future destiny as Rain King.
15. The subjects swear fealty
Seriously - what are these animals doing in the new version? It seems they have been struck by a collective bout of neck cramps. Mufasa should execute them for failing to bow properly.
16. Pride Rock: Redux
God rays aside, I'll just note that the original version holds on the royal family for much longer before zooming away, while the new version almost immediately begins with the shot's primary focus as nothing but dots in the distance.
17 and 18. Bring the rain
I've combined a couple of shots for this one, because you can't really take them separately. They were stuck on to the end of the trailer as a kind of stinger and I have to say, of the 18 shots Disney have released, these ones make me the most nervous and most certain that the new film is going to but unwatchable.
In these shots, Disney makes it clear that it has totally failed to grasp the dramatic principles that made the first film so great. Not only have they sliced away any trace of the extraordinary emotional richness by replacing human expressions with animals, but they've made Simba give his triumphant rain roar without any rain.
By all that is holy in storytelling, what is this abomination? Surely they haven't missed the point so badly that they think the roar actually causes the rain?! Surely they realise that the roar is not about saving the kingdom, but rather about saving Simba himself. That his journey is one of finding self-belief, remembering who he is and confronting his responsibilities. Simba doesn't have to roar for the rain to come. Simba roars because the rain comes: the rain of clear thinking, of personal growth, of sweeping away all that is flawed within yourself. He brings the rain by making the choice to act, to return and to do what is right. The roar is symbolic - it comes after the victory has been achieved, in celebration and affirmation of it.
Plus - you hardly look badass doing a giant roar if it's not bloody raining!
Equally concerning is this: if there's no rain at the moment of Simba's roar, where is the fire? In the original, Scar's reign is so ruinous that by the time of his downfall the land is being consumed in great firestorms, which are not extinguished until the rain comes. In the shot from the trailer, there's no glow of fire or sign of smoke, and since it hasn't been put out by rain, it must never have started. So am I supposed to believe there's going to be a climactic showdown without fire?
If I had any hope that there was some originality in this movie, then I would be curious about how different the ending must be if they are not using the fire sequence. But I feel confident that what's more likely is that the climax is just the same showdown...simply without the flames of pathetic fallacy that makes it awesome.
Oh, Disney. Oh, oh, Disney.
