On this Lion King Reboot

[amarie24]

Ya'll, I done listened to the new Can You Feel the Love Tonight, with Beyonce and that coon ass Donald Glover. I also saw a video of the sequence for Hakuna Matata.

On the first song I mentioned...Donald can neither keep up with Bey nor can he blend his voice well with hers. It's part of why so many fans are already demanding a Beyonce-only version to listen to.

And then the second song...apparently you can put just about any other song over the scene of Simba, Timon, and Pumba and you wouldn't know it was that particular song sequence.

Like...I ain't even gonna link to either one of these songs because damn. We been knew these remakes weren't all that and a bag of chips, but my goodness.

I'm like...first live action!Aladdin has white actors in brownface and we been guessed.

And now I'm like ya'll niggas really done messed up The Lion King, my goodness. Ya'll niggas barely even tried.

-headdesk-


--Amarie

Comments

[alexseanchai]

I mean I knew I wouldn't see this because the CGI compares unfavorably to both the original animation and the CGI in Disney's Narnia, but I think if I'd been looking forward to this I'd still say "fuck it, not worth my time" after this post?

[amarie24]

Yeah, it's...I mean, I hear that Beyonce is an absolute gem as Nala's voice, but overall most people have just been like, "I can tell that minimal effort was put into this quick cash grab."

So yeah-probably not worth your time. : /

[alexseanchai]

people keep saying the remakes are about keeping all this out of the public domain, and…no? maintaining active trademarks I might buy—I don't, but it's vaguely plausible—but the 1937 Snow White is not yet public domain, okay, and if Disney gets its way it never will be, why in fuck is anyone thinking a 1995 film is anywhere near public domain status

and Maleficent was good! Cinderella 2015 was good! Beauty and the Beast 2017…well, it wasn't bad. (haven't seen animated Jungle Book in forever or "live-action" at all, can't judge.) this? no try again. if you can't do a remake right, don't do a remake at all. it's not as though there's a shortage of original blockbusters that just haven't been filmed yet because any original script is riskier than a remake!

[amarie24]

Yeah, there's been quite a bit of discourse on Disney's true intent in regards to all these largely tedious live-action remakes/reboots.

And thankfully this post sufficiently sums it up-it purports that it's largely about riding that 90's and 80's nostalgia that a lot of us (including me, admittedly) have.

Also as far as the availability of original blockbusters...hard ditto. But I've also seen more discourse a while ago that I can't find now that says a lot of the problem of constant remakes and reboots comes from capitalism.

That is, you have the actual animators/creators on the ground being overworked, underpaid, and generally just far, far too stressed and stretched thin to actually produce anything that's original. And then you have the ones overhead in the board rooms, holding the company's stocks, etc. that usually won't even hear anything new because they'd rather be safe with old, boring ideas that'll at least make them something of a buck.

So in a nutshell like you said: they don't want to put out the monetary risk of an original...even if the idea is great and the proposed execution is even greater.

It's just all around a messy, messy mess of profit over innovation and creation. :( :(

[redsixwing]

Anyone might struggle to keep up with Bey, but I ..don't think I knew Donald Glover even sang.*blink*

I saw the animation for Hakuna Matata, and I think someone else worded it well: it's like they just didn't bother to try and make any of that nice to look at.

I'm cautiously curious about the Mulan trailer, especially because I loved that story (the Disney movie too, but I had a book about Hua Mulan) and apparently this one has more actual touchstones of Chinese culture and less uninformed, racist imagining of what China might be like.

[amarie24]

See?! And you didn't know Donald Glover sang because...he does not and cannot sing. At all, my friend.

At all.

And just the coloring and lighting for Hakuna Matata...that quote is oh-so very right! So no, no, no!!

I absolutely ditto on the Mulan trailer. I mean, I can't quite say as much as about it, as I'm not Chinese, but...there does seem to be a lot more hopefulness about. At least that's a factor. : /

[redsixwing]

*lolcough* Heh. Oops. :D

[alexseanchai]

whereas everything I hear from Chinese diasporic people is Mulan 1998 is a Chinese-American story and the (white) creative team is tossing the second half of that in favor of the Chinese sourcelander market, which is a painful enough proposition for the diaspora without getting into all the ways it then has to be friendly to the Chinese media censors…

[redsixwing]

Hoo boy. /o\

Yeah, I'm a bit concerned about a major company being willing to play nice with Chinese censorship, but I don't have anything coherent about it yet. Mostly*handflail*

[alexseanchai]

AVENGERS ENDGAME DIRECTORS YOU DO NOT GET TO TAKE CREDIT FOR QUEER REP THAT CAN BE EASILY REDACTED FOR CHINESE DISTRIBUTION

especially not when you've got Taika Waititi and Tessa Thompson right there trying to make Valkyrie blatantly and unambiguously onscreen bi and you're not letting them go there

[redsixwing]

THAT. YES THAT. All my feels about the House of Mouse being willing to work with censors have combined with the ones about Chinese fandoms fleeing en masse to AO3 and I have the fandom equivalent of a bellyache. (Which I am using to write spitefic for a fandom that is intently trying to self censor. F that! But that's way off topic for this post.)

More Taika Waititi and Tessa Thompson yes good.

[amarie24]

especially not when you've got Taika Waititi and Tessa Thompson right there trying to make Valkyrie blatantly and unambiguously onscreen bi and you're not letting them go there

And even way, way, way before that bullshit got to the silver screen...by now into the 21st century, who thought that was going to in any way be respectful to a marginalized group so starved of mainstream representation? That's hardly even bread crumbs from the table. Lord h'mercy.

[alexseanchai]

have not seen any MCU more recent than Iron Man III, thus phrasing the below as a bet rather than a thesis with support, but like

betcha money the 101 Dalmatians henchmen were better queer rep than Endgame

[amarie24]

CHEERS.

[silveradept]

If you do a remake, shouldn't one of the goals be not to do the same terrible things that the original did? Like, none of this sounds like anyone at Disney gives a fuck past "if we say it's that, people will come flocking to see it, no matter how shitty it is."

[amarie24]

Yeah, like...apparently this new Lion King looks like someone just animated a bunch of lions with no care to nuance or even facial expressions and slapped the name "The Lion King" on it.

It's so terrible and transparent, I tell you.

[silveradept]

Woof. If you're gong to do a film that is essentially "let's see if the CGI department can create something lifelike," then why make it a Lion King movie? Did someone pitch it to the execs that way?

[amarie24]

And not just the issue of making it lifelike to the point where the animals don't even have any freakin' eyebrows to show human expression. But also, the backgrounds are so dull and pale and regular. There's absolutely no vibrancy of color, so you feel like you're watching a regular ol' National Geographic channel!!

Absolutely not cool.

And Silver, you done know the way they pitched it to the exces was, "Money? Yes, money." :P

[silveradept]

Pretty much. We don't need a hyper-real Lion King because the original had no interest at all in being anything other than a musical.

But it's always more profitable to remake than innovate.

[amarie24]

Also, I gotta say...in the original Lion King? When I was a kid, I always done thought that cub!Simba was properly voiced by a black boy.

...And then fast forward to when I'm in my 20s and I try to look up who that black boy is and I see a white boy's face?!

Silver, I tell you that my life has never been the same since. Do you know the devastation I feel? Do you know?

(And I was more than okay with Matthew Broderick's voicing of adult!Simba, since I always thought adult!Simba was hot as hell until Kovu came along. But cub!Simba had to be voiced by a black boy!!!)

[silveradept]

Oh, that must have been disappointing. (At that time, I don't think Disney would have cared about casting a black boy.)

(Of course, I'm not sure how good they are now about casting a black boy when it would make sense.)

[amarie24]

Yeah, but there's always Broadway's The Lion King that, from my understanding, stays getting it right!!! :D :D :D