Preview: The Lion King (2019)

Preview: The Lion King (2019)

28th February 2019 Off By Northern Lights

By Kyra Sims

The Disney classic that remains most children’s first experience of heartbreak, The Lion King is getting its own remake along with many other of their hits. It’s set to be released in cinemas in the summer of this year but, judging by the trailer, it won’t be the smash hit that the 1994 original was.

The original is often commended for it’s remarkable colour palette and beautiful animation. The remake, however, seems to be going for a more realistic approach and unfortunately the result looks dull, overdone and dusty.

The use of ‘realism’ seems slightly out of touch: not only is it a kids film- and kids aren’t in the cinema critiquing how realistic a fake animal looks – but it’s also slightly terrifying: cartoon animals seem less threatening than the enormous, realistic and slightly creepy talking CGI animals in the remake. It seems a distressing concept.

Ironically, they’ve also decided to call it a ‘live-action’ remake, when in reality it is a completely computer-generated film. It’s still an animation but it lacks the creativity, wholesomeness and likeability of the original animated film.

It also looks like we’ll be paying money to see the same film, only with this inferior animation style; the trailer is almost a frame by frame reshoot of the original release’s trailer, so it seems slightly pointless. Much like the 1998 remake of Psycho, it’s exactly the same but somehow essentially inferior to the original.

Unfortunately, reusing the musical stylings of Elton John won’t save this one. No doubt though it’ll make more than its money back from parents who need to shut their kids up for an hour and a half. No doubt it’ll be nominated for best animated feature at some dismal award show in the future.