Who wanted a photorealistic ‘Lion King’ remake in the first place?
A new trailer for ‘Mufasa’ makes me wonder who Disney’s live-action remakes are for. PLUS: Trailers for ‘Thunderbolts*,’ ‘Captain America’ and ‘Mission: Impossible, and maybe that new ‘Star Wars’ trilogy is about Rey?
I’ve been looking into the possibility of moving to one of those Interstellar planets where time goes faster on Earth while you’re on them. But for now, it’s the Friday edition of Popculturology.
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Disney, I’m begging you to stop making these photorealistic remakes
Disney dropped a new trailer for Mufasa: The Lion King over the weekend. It’s a prequel to the studio’s “live”-action remake of the 1994 classic.
And after watching two minutes and 24 seconds of dead-eyed animals, I gotta ask: Who are these movies for?
I showed this trailer to Caitlin, and she immediately pointed out that there’s no way kids would be interested in this. I absolutely know our daughter would have zero interest in this kind of photorealistic animation.
Don’t get me wrong, there are good things going on with Mufasa. Barry Jenkins is a fantastic director, earning several Oscars nominations and infamously winning Best Picture for Moonlight. I’m intrigued by the spin that Mufasa is putting on The Lion King’s backstory, making the title character the outsider who seemingly usurps Scar as the future king?
But, wow, is this one not fun to watch.
Photorealistic computer-generated characters are capable of showing emotion. They’re capable of capturing your imagination. But for some reason, Disney didn’t want that with Jon Favreau’s 2019 remake of The Lion King. And with Mufasa, we’re still getting realistic animals with zero ability to emote. (This isn’t the fault of the hardworking special effects artists who are probably still working overtime on Mufasa. They’re just doing the job they were asked to do.)
Even worse, I can barely tell some of the characters in this Mufasa trailer apart. Is that Mufasa? Is it Scar? Is it some other lion with pretty much the exact same fur color?
(Disney also gave us a new look at the “live”-action Lilo in its upcoming Lilo & Stitch remake, which is a whole other can of worms ...)
I get that these live-action remakes are easy money for Disney. The Lion King remake made $1.661 billion worldwide. The Beauty and the Beast remake made $1.269 billion worldwide. The Aladdin remake made $1.047 billion worldwide. Disney is a business. And these remakes are a quick buck. There’s a reason they’re still going ahead with Dwayne Johnson’s live-action Moana remake. I’m honestly shocked there isn’t a Frozen remake in the works.
At least those remakes all had people in them. Yeah, there are CGI or motion-capture characters — the Beast, Genie — but the films are anchored with real human performances. The Lion King remake and Mufasa don’t even have that caveat to cling to.
What if Disney — the studio that created the feature-length animated film — told the exact same story it’s telling in Mufasa through real animation? I get that the chances of Bob Iger breaking out the paints is super slim, but why not use today’s animation technology to give us something magical, something beautiful, something special like we saw in the original Lion King?
Mufasa will likely make a billion dollars. But is it worth releasing a movie that looks soulless?
