BEFORE: I know what you're thinking - how could he NOT have seen "The Lion King"? How could he work in animation and not have rushed out to see, like, the biggest Disney movie ever? (Let me check on that - yes, confirmed, it's the biggest Disney movie ever, save for "Toy Story 3".) Geez, I've only had 17 years to watch this, what was the hold-up? Well, when it was first released I did have a co-worker who lobbied hard for it, and sometimes that makes me defensive, and the more people push for me to see something, the less I want to see it. Sometimes I like to discover movies on my own, ya dig? Plus I was sort of busy in 1994 - actually that may be something of an understatement.
But that's what the blog is about - atoning for past cinematic sins. (cins?) I did buy tickets to the Broadway stage version for my wife's birthday last October, so I'm coming at this one from a funny angle, having seen the stage show before the film it was based on.
Joel Edgerton from "Legend of the Guardians" was also in "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith", which conveniently links him to James Earl Jones, who provided Darth Vader's voice in that film, however briefly.
THE PLOT: Tricked into thinking he killed his father, a guilt ridden lion cub flees into exile and abandons his identity as the future King.
AFTER: See, this reminded me why I love animation. Sure, you can dress up a bunch of people and build fantastic sets, and giant animal-shaped puppets, but with animation, there truly are no limits. If you can imagine it, it can be drawn (or generated or composited, whatever) and it can look like the ultimate rendition of that object or idea, if you want it to. The stage show was limited to simple props, like a water-hole drying up represented by a piece of blue fabric being pulled into a hole in the floor. It's inventive, but with animation you can just DRAW THAT, and it will look the way it's supposed to.
So now I see some of the imperfections in the stage show, and some parts where they had to beef up the dialogue to make up for what could not be represented visually. Plus there were some extreme logistical problems with the nature of the puppetry - Timon was much larger on stage than he was in the film, and the puppeteers portraying him and Zazu had to appear on stage next to the characters, and we all just sort of had to pretend that we couldn't see them. (awkward)
Plus the lions and hyenas wore these headpieces, with their human heads poking through what should have been the characters' necks. How is that acceptable? I didn't know whether to look at their human faces or their animal faces. By comparison, it just seems a lot simpler to watch the film.
In other ways, this is a very simple, almost elegant story - there's no Long and Difficult Quest, which is a big relief. Compared to that "Owls of Ga'Hoole" nonsense, understanding the circle of life is a breeze.
However, with that said, I do feel that there's just too much comic relief in this one, and of course it raises the question over whether animals can grasp such concepts as a line of monarchial succession, or even the concept of government in general. The lion's status as the "King of Beasts" - that's a human label, right? Of course we want to anthropomorphize animals for the sake of a story, but I'm left wondering if it's always necessary, or just a frequently used screenwriting crutch.
What would take real cojones would be to write a story from the realistic point of view of an animal, without pandering to a childlike audience, or over-humanizing the characters. I wonder if it's ever been done, or even possible.
Starring the voices of Matthew Broderick (last heard in "Bee Movie"), Jonathan Taylor Thomas, James Earl Jones (last seen in "Clear and Present Danger"), Jeremy Irons (last seen in "The French Lieutenant's Woman"), Moira Kelly, Nathan Lane (last heard in "Teacher's Pet"), Ernie Sabella, Robert Guillaume (last seen in "The Meteor Man"), Rowan Atkinson (last seen in "Johnny English"), Whoopi Goldberg (last heard in "Everyone's Hero" and Cheech Marin (last seen in "From Dusk Till Dawn").
RATING: 6 out of 10 elephant tusks
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