Saturday, July 20. The Saratoga sky has darkened, it's still brutally humid,the streets are wet but that does nothing to keep people out of them during track season. My friend and I are not there to walk up and down the streets since the racetrack is closed, like most of the others are. We just walked out of the cinema, reeling from seeing a favorite film of ours remade, to no disappointment of ours. The Lion King.
My biggest complaint about the film is Beyonce's Spirit being played as Simba and Nala race back to Pride Rock. The original track, King of Pride Rock, has always been a favorite of mine. When my school played a Lion King medley in band, my heart would race every time we played that epic song, especially when the percussion section came in proud and strong, just like Simba is doing in the film. Don't get me wrong, Spirit is incredible, full of soul and culture. However, for me, the usage of it at that moment in the film ruined one of my favorite, power-filled moments of the original that I had really been looking forward to in this version.
Second, the most dreaded part of the movie was undercut by poor delivery. Scar sinks his claws into Mufasa's paws, everyone in the theater knew what was coming, a few people were already crying. Scar leans toward his brother to say that one, twisted, iconic line: Long live the king. Then he lets go and Mufasa plummets to his death. Unfortunately, the line was spoken more than whispered. If Simba had happened to be within earshot or if, for some reason, anyone had shown up, they would have heard what Scar said. The not-whispering took away a lot of the evilness in that line, which is so important to understanding Scar as a character.
Speaking of Scar, in this version, Scar's sarcasm, which made him an even more compelling character in the original, was almost completely removed. His lines of "a monkey's uncle" and "I'm surrounded by idiots", which are two favorites of mine, make no appearance in this version.
All of the original songs remain, which was an extremely beneficial decision by Disney. Sadly, though, one marvelous song was trimmed down, diminishing the power that the original scene holds. Be Prepared. As the song began, I wondered if it had been cut down due to the actor's singing ability. This could not have been the reason because Chiwetel Ejiofor succeeded in holding quite a few notes toward the end. The decision makes no sense to me and while it did not effect my overall view of the film, the song was a huge disappointment to me.
With the addition of only one song, The Lion King contains almost all of the sentiment felt when watching the original. This is especially true in the opening scene and song- the Circle of Life, which is exactly the same as the original, drawing heaps of nostalgia out of the audience from the very first scene, a brilliant move on behalf of the film's creators. It also shows how much the creators recognize the desires of the audience- they were well aware of what iconic material they were dealing with, they knew that changing anything too drastically, especially the opening scene, would cause a rift between the viewer and the film when the experience had only just begun.
The Lion King was far from flawless, as the original was, but it was a very well done live action remake.
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