Following the successes of their live action adaptations of Cinderella and The Jungle Book, Walt Disney Studios mined deep into its vaults to embark upon converting much of its classic animated catalogue into live action, or visually upgraded versions for the present day. The studio’s latest release in this effort is a CGI converted version of 1994’s The Lion King. Transforming the impeccably drawn, scenic landscapes of the African Savannah into impeccably rendered, realistic computer models of the African Savannah, while keeping the exact same story from 25 years ago intact has made 2019’s The Lion King the ruler of the worldwide box office once more. But what does an identical retelling of an old story with updated visual effects laying waste to any other film that dares challenge it mean for the health of a cinema landscape struggling to find traction in the current moment and define itself for the years ahead?
You know the story behind The Lion King by now, a young lion prince named Simba (JD McCrary) is born to King Mufasa (James Earl Jones), destined to one day rule the plains of Africa after his father. But before he can ascend to the throne, his uncle Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor) stages a coup, killing Mufasa and exiling Simba. While exiled, Simba (Donald Glover) meets Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogan), matures, and returns to his pride to avenge his father and overthrow Scar. Because of this familiarity with the story, the draw for the modernized Lion King film is its CGI-enhanced visuals which deliver in full. Building on the groundbreaking work offered in 20th Century Fox’s recent Planet of the Apes trilogy, The Lion King is filled with astonishingly real lush African Savannah’s, sandy dry deserts, and fauna that make you feel as if you’re immersed the latest tour of a corner of Earth’s climate guided by Sir David Attenborough.
Much has been made of the characters’ ability to emote, particularly when compared to the beloved 1994 version’s exuberance and flair. The end result in this film ends up resembling a bell curve; the hearty laughs on young Simba’s face or the ferocious, angry roar of Mufasa look and feel very real and true to life, while anything in-between struggles to present as something you can actually feel. Chiwetel Ejiofor is fantastic as the devious, maniacal Scar and his command of the screen even through the at times lifelessness of the CGI characters is only ever approached by the comedic timing and chemistry of Eichner and Rogan as the duo Timon and Pumbaa. Ejiofor is able to use his voice acting to impart emotion where the VFX could not and it allows him to tower over the rest of the cast. Glover and music megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, who plays Simba’s childhood friend and future queen Nala, are serviceable as the main pair with Beyoncé actually surpassing and putting to rest any concerns that arose regarding her performance after the online release of clips from the movie. But, serviceable performances don’t do much to elevate the material past being averagely enjoyable.
While the film does deliver visually, what it presents in creative eye candy it subtracts from the story. The Lion King film you watch here is pretty much the same story you’ve seen and loved 25 years ago in 1994, just with the aforementioned technological advancements in animation. And this fact begs the question of what this “live action remake” means for the larger cinema landscape that is now seemingly inundated with them from a sole megacorporation which now controls forty percent of the film industry and a creative environment that finds producers increasingly empowered and creatives like directors and screenwriters relegated to hired hands who just make sure the trains run on time and nothing else. The Lion King was an unqualified success at the box office, creating the necessary headlines about new records and standards for money-making despite the fact that both critical and audience consensus conceded that the film felt a bit lifeless and unnecessary. So if innovation, creativity, and even quality are no longer markers for what constitutes success in multiplexes or what draws audiences out to watch, what is this new paradigm and how do we critique and analyze it?
Nostalgia currently rules the day and attempts to bring the familiar into new, uncharted ground in film have been so thoroughly dismantled that studios have all but sworn off ever trying that again for the foreseeable future. As studios race to give audiences the regurgitated sameness they demand, what happens to a generation of auteurs with something new to say? As I enjoyed noted polarizing director Nicholas Winding Refn’s foray into streaming television with Amazon’s Too Old to Die Young, my jubilation at 10+ hours of new content from him was soon followed by a worrisome realization that he had joined a list alongside David Fincher, Steve McQueen, Barry Jenkins, and Alex Garland as distinctive, uber-talented filmmakers whose next efforts won’t be on the big screen, but instead relegated to TV shows or limited series. Are our generation of great cinematic storytellers doomed to be banished to the small screen, where original, risk-taking art will be relegated to try to find an audience while familiar bombast claims the fantastical, communal experience of the theater? In the world of 200+ million dollars budgets, it would of course be absurd to expect executives and producers to have zero say in the creative process of a production and studios have always enjoyed a healthy measure of control in the direction of a film, but the rendering of creatives to automatons cannot bode well for the long-term health of should be a creative medium.
And what of audience tastes, who are fully aware of the low quality they are consuming but sit there and force it down anyway? As of July 18, just five Walt Disney Company movie releases averaged $416 million in domestic gross this year with the next closest competitor being Universal Studios with $86 million over nine films and third place going to both Warner Brothers and Sony Pictures with $76 million over nine and seven films respectively. As non-Disney studios fail to gain traction this year at the box office, it has caused many to wonder why audiences seemingly refuse to watch any films not made by the children’s company behemoth. In my estimation, the answer is generational and may define the nature of film for at least one generation. The historically accepted adult demographic of 25-34 year olds have a unique set of viewing habits within the millennial generation. This set of adults seemingly have the same tastes and sensibilities of 14 year olds with a penchant for the nostalgia of their adolescence. So films that would normally appeal to adults in the past fail because this generation of adults are now mainly interested in children’s movies. Due to this dynamic, Disney movies now accumulate box office grosses that are multiples of what the competition brings because the kids-focused studio is receiving adult business they didn’t in previous generations while adult oriented films like Widows, which would have made their money from adult viewers in the 1980s or 90s, underperform because the intended audience is now seated in Disney theaters. This phenomenon is behind the disconnect between what is recognized at the Academy Awards and the films that the general public has actually gone to theaters to see. In 1988, Rain Man was both the Best Picture Oscar winner and the top grossing film of the year. That absolutely cannot happen in this day and age because of what was described above. The film would have no audience outside of critics and cinephiles who would elevate it to Oscar winning status while the casual audience would complain about its nomination despite the fact they skipped it to watch Avengers 12. Now, there are socioeconomic and political reasons behind the millennial generation’s (the generation to which I belong, mind you) state of arrested development that have beyond their control; their inability to afford the things that have historically transitioned young people into adulthood such as having children or buying homes is due to the greed and political philosophy of the generations that preceded them and control the machinations of government. Still, their lack of matured tastes that match their physical ages are having a deleterious effect on film that may hurdle it down a hole from which it won’t be able to dig itself out of in the future.
The Lion King offers some pleasing visuals and the same familiar story beats, but the updated FX aren’t enough to overcome the bland and boring trip down memory lane that’s actually inferior to the original jaunt you enjoyed so much years earlier. The new voice cast does well in their roles but, with the notable exception of Chiwetel Ejiofor and his excellent performance, cannot overcome the loss of joy that comes with the photorealism present in the updated technology. Yet and still, the Disney machine rolls on and the film will probably gross one billion dollars or close to that amount. And so, as another carbon copy piece of producer-driven film dominates all comers at the box office, lovers of film are left to ponder where this era, and the future of cinema writ large, is headed. Is there room for outside of the box, original storytelling, crafted by the distinct vision of a creator in the director’s chair or will such risks only be shared through the medium of streaming services sent directly to our homes, with theaters reserved for bombast and mega-dollars? Here’s to hoping the magic of the theater is something that fans of intimate dramas will be able to enjoy for the foreseeable future, avoiding banishment to a desolate shadowland, where once majestic things now lie in a graveyard, relics of a bygone past.
Image: Walt Disney Studios
