The Lion King (2019) VS The Lion King (1994)

[Music] The Lion King is yet another victim of Disney's money-grabbing live-action remakes and today we are going to have it face-off against the original animated classic let the battle commence now you all know the story for the Lion King so I'm not gonna go through it it is essentially Hamlet and the animated movie adapt the story in a very tight one hour and 28 minute runtime the remake on the other hand is 1 hour and 58 minutes and one of the ways it achieves this is by pointlessly prolonging certain scenes to pad out the movie's runtime for example instead of seeing this rats for a few seconds and then have Skaar grab it we see it moving along for a whole minute and then scar shows up another example of this is where we see Simba's hair blow in the wind in the animated movie it blows in the wind for 15 seconds before it reaches Rafiki in the remake however it floats around for like 2 minutes straight and is when they constantly prolong scenes like this that you realize that they are pointlessly padding the movie out and it just bores you now despite prolonging these scenes the remake actually cuts out some of the more important ones they cut out all the heartfelt moments with Simba and Rafiki the scene where he gives him a lesson about pain being in the past and when Simba jokingly throws a stick are completely removed from the remake and as a result we don't even have this moment with Rafiki where he basically thanks him for making him come back this was a great moment before he has that epic walk but we don't have any of these hot felt moments in the live-action movie because it either cuts them out altogether shortens them or rushes them and it replaces them with pointlessly prolonged shots of a rats moving around and Simba's hair traveling around in [ __ ] until it finds Rafiki I am NOT making that up this movie has his priorities completely wrong and if prolonging certain scenes and cutting them out isn't enough it also rushes several of the scenes the scene where Simba and Nala recognize each other was a disgrace it was rushed and there was no moment of realization where the two slowly each other and they hardly catch up before she starts saying Simba you need to come back scar has taken over the pride lands that just made this scene feel really unnatural and if prolonging scenes cutting others out and rushing several of them isn't enough it also introduces plot holes that weren't there before much like the live-action Aladdin in the animated movie scar tells everyone that Mufasa and Simba are dead he doesn't give them details he just tells them that it happened in the remake however scar tells everyone that he didn't seem a fossa died because he wasn't anywhere near the gorge when it happened now this is clearly a lie but unlike the animated film in the remake someone was there to prove that it was a lie and that someone was Zazu in the remake Zazu was in the gorge with scar and scar told him to go and get help so Zazu knew that scar was there the whole time so why didn't he tell everyone that scar was lying this movie just created a big plot hole one that wasn't in the animated movie because scar very wisely knocked Zazu out and if prolong in certain scenes cutting others out rushing several of them and introducing plot holes wasn't enough the tone of this movie is just a complete mess and does not fit the tone of what's going on in the scenes for example Simba has a pouncing lesson and throughout this scene the music is very upbeat and happy the tone immediately shifts however and becomes very urgent and serious when Zazu yells hyenas in the pride lands now the voice actors and tone of the scene has become very serious but the music is still upbeat from the pouncing lesson it doesn't give you a sense of urgency which is needed in a scene like this and seeing as it just plays the happy music it sounds like the movies trying to say it's funny that the hyenas are coming rather than urgent and tonally even the comedy is pulled out of the scenes in the animated movie when Simba and Nala tried to pin each other down it was hilarious I remember me and my brothers and sisters used to laugh so much during this scene especially when Allah says in the movie however watching them pin each other isn't amusing in the slightest and it wasn't even funny and I can say that for so many of the others throughout the movie but we'll save those for the character segment the best way to sum up the story for the remake is that it has no heart the animated movie had a ton of heart and emotion in every single one of its scenes the remake just as a paint-by-numbers recreation of them and it doesn't feel genuine the story feels like it's being poorly imitated by someone who doesn't understand what made these story elements so great in the original it just failed on all levels to hit the emotional and dramatic notes that the animated movie did so well so the movie with the superior story is the original Lion King all right we've got a lot of characters to cover here so let's start with Mufasa now Mufasa is voiced by Darth Vader himself James Earl Jones and something that always struck me about James Earl Jones is that he brings such an authority to his performance and you see that with all of his interactions with every single one of the characters when the fussa call Simba so he can tell him off it was scary it's that moment that every kid has when they're going to be told off by their parents specifically their father and even when he's being nice and having a nice father-son moment with Simba he still manages to maintain the authority of a father figure and his whole performance in the animated movie is pitch perfect in the live-action movie however James Earl Jones delivery was completely off and much less impactful his delivery was just flat and it didn't carry the weight and authority that I did in the original in the animated movie his line delivery is absolutely perfect forever emotion he is trying to get across in the remake hardly any of his lines carried the same impact the closest he gets to a great delivery is when he speaks December in the clouds but that's about it speaking of the clouds you don't even seem a busser in them there is a flash of lightning which makes out his face slightly but to be honest in the movie it comes and goes so fast that blink and you'll miss it now it's time to talk about Simba now both voices for young Simba do a great job so I'm then I'm going to compare adult Simba who in the animated movie is voiced by Matthew Broderick now some people say that he is giving a flat performance now I agree that he isn't necessarily a great actor but I thought he was great in the Lion King there was a passion and heart to his performance and everything the character was going through was conveyed incredibly well and he comes across as a confidence but at the same time less confident version of his father now Simba in the remake is voiced by Donald Glover and I just thought he was sleepwalking throughout his whole performance the passion and heart that Matthew Broderick put into his performance is nowhere to be found here I just got the impression that Donald Glover just couldn't be bothered when he was reading his lines it felt like his direction was off and he didn't naturally transition from his different emotions especially when he raises his voice when he returns home and confronts scar he completely failed at delivering the more dramatic dialogue here something that was not a problem with Matthew Broderick in the original and he's not even that great an actor but he far outperforms Donald Glover and there is no excuse for Donald Glover to fail with the tone of his delivery here he knows what scenes he is voicing he has the original animated movie as reference for crying out loud it's like cheating on a test where you have all the answers at your disposal but he still ended up failing in the end now it's time to talk about scar now one thing I don't understand is that they bought James Earl Jones back to play Mufasa but they did not hire Jeremy Irons back to play scar instead they hide Chua tell Ejiofor to play scar you know the guy that suddenly decided to turn evil dr. strange and I'm sure you've heard about this already he downright sucks a scar he lacks the sly meanness the Menace and the downright deceitfulness that the original scar had and is those things that made up scars entire character so if you take those away what does that leave you with a boring empty shell of a character he just lacks all the qualities that made scars such a great villain in the first place speaking of which he is completely forgettable in this movie when Simba returns home as an adult we see scar again and believe it or not but I completely forgot he was even in the movie and that is unforgivable for one of the most memorable villains in Disney history to be completely forgettable and if that wasn't enough the movie makes changes which could have been interesting but they just ended up being pointless for example in the animated movie it is implied that scar knew the hyenas for a very long time in the remake however it changes that and says that the first time scar meets the hyenas is after they failed to kill Simba and Nala lives kids he convinces them to join him with his half-assed version of the be prepared song and then they immediately join him it was so sudden that it makes you think why didn't the movie just say scar always knew the hyenas liked the animated film did if they're not gonna do anything smart with it then they might as well have left it that way and then we have Nala she is Simba's best childhood friend and she's still his best friend when they're older and in the animated movie she was incredibly memorable and played a part very well and is one of the components that helps Simba confront his past and the scene where Simba reunites with Nala after so many years in the original they all have an exchange Nala is surprised that Simba is alive and she even tells him that scar told them about the Stampede even Timon and Pumbaa get acquainted with Nala this is character development and the exchange between these four is so quick yes so full of comedy and is building relations between these characters in the remake however they skip through that whole exchange so quickly that I swear it felt like they didn't even give a [ __ ] there was no relations being built there was no excitement being conveyed that these characters are being reunited after all these years and Timon and Pumbaa are just there rather than being introduced and invited into the fold now in the live-action version Nala is played by Beyonce honestly I think Beyonce was completely miscast they hired her for a singing voice but she contacts to save her life totally she is completely off and you don't buy the emotional tones of her voice when she speaks the actress that played Nala in the original Moira Kelly had such an excitement and passion whenever she spoke but she was able to pull back and deliver a very natural yet emotional tone to her voice as well particularly when she had to tell simmer about the horrifying state of their home in the live-action version however there is no emotion even when there is it feels completely fake and when she takes charge of the lionesses Simba gets covered from head to toe with hyenas and she actually says lions attack and I remember thinking they don't need to be told to attack Simba is being swarmed and they should all instinctively jump into battle and protect him they shouldn't have to be told they basically just tried to give Nala an empowering moment to make her more badass and it didn't work her moment in the animated movie was so much better and it didn't have to throw in a badly timed line to do it so the animated movie actually develops these characters and they are perfectly cast whereas the remake rather than developing the characters just rushes through their introductions and hardly spends any time developing them at all even though it has a much longer runtime and that is just pitiful so the movie with the far superior characters is the original Lion King now I am almost hesitating to call these two side characters but let's talk about Timon and Pumbaa now there are some reviewers out there who say that Timon and Pumbaa are hilarious but the thing is those reviewers have also admitted that they were either not a fan of the original or haven't seen it in years and I am positive that if they saw the cartoon again and refresh their memory then they would realize that Timon and Pumbaa here are completely inferior versions to the original character in the remake Timon and Pumbaa really got my nerves as the film went on and one of the reasons is that the actors improvise and is when they improvised that their dialogue really sucks and starts to become irritating and the joke about Pumbaa being called mr. pig was changed and what they changed it to was lame mean my brothers talked about it and it felt like they were trying to make a social justice message which completely diluted the joke even their final action scene was off Pumbaa just goes up against three hyenas in the animated film in the remake however he goes up against several of them and I can buy that he goes up against these three wimps but going up against a pack he should have been dead now Seth Rogen was the perfect choice to voice Pumbaa Billy Eichner as Timon however I just found him annoying and that's mainly because his line delivery was just way too quick I mean let me show you an example listen to the way he talks and pauses to think in the animated version he's gonna get bigger maybe he'll be on our side that's that stupidest thing I ever heard maybe he'll be hey I've got it what a fees on our side and now look at the same dialogue in the remake he's been strong I've got it what if he's on our side hear me out you see what I mean in the remake he's just rushing out the dialog at such a fast pace and you aren't even able to properly process it there's no comedic timing and as a result you can't laugh at any of his jokes now Pumbaa for the most part was fine as a matter of fact they showed Pumbaa when he was a kid in a flashback during the Hakuna Matata song where he was isolated by the other animals and I laughed at that there was another funny scene where Timon and Pumbaa caused the distraction for Simba and Nala and I thought it was a smart joke but yeah besides what I just mentioned the reason these versions of Timon and Pumbaa don't work is again because they are just a paint-by-numbers copy of the animated characters and they don't feel genuine there are also animals that live with Timon and Pumbaa and that didn't add anything to it it just leads to a pointless scene where Simba tried to talk to one of the animals and they said Oh Simba is just you I thought it was a lion not you a real lion I mean a different kind of lion is just that kind of speak is forced humor and then we have the hyenas now in the animated movie there are three lovable goofballs they can certainly be intimidating when they need to be but when they aren't trying to eat our main characters they provide so much great comedy and in the live-action version we have Shenzi but it's confusing because it doesn't feel like we have ed and Banzai instead we have two other hyenas and the joke between those two is that one of them doesn't respect the other's personal space and the joke got a laugh out of me once and that's about it the humor with the hyenas is practically gone I did kind of like that they made Shenzi more serious and more like a leader but in making us so serious she's infinitely less memorable than the original character the original was very strict and clearly had a bigger brain than the other two but she still had a crazy side too which showed that despite being the leader these three's personalities really have rubbed off on each other and there is a certain incompetence to them so yeah I didn't hate the hyenas in the remake I actually thought they were okay but they don't hold a candle to the ones from the animated movie and finally we have saw Zoo and I hated the voice of Zazu in the remake he just didn't sound right and even he was blurting out dialogue with next to no pace and it sounded like he was doing an imitation of Rowan Atkinson's voice from the original Lion King and he can't pull it off what they should have done was gone Rowan Atkinson back if they really wanted the voice to be like his also Zazu as weakened delicate as he is he still felt like a guardian to a Simba and Nala in the animated movie but in the remake you don't get that vibe from him he is just like many other things in the remake very forgettable and doesn't leave a lasting impression so with all that said the movie with the far superior and genuine side characters is the original line [Music] now even though I called a remake a live-action movie it's still an animated film as 99% of it is CGI and I got to give credit where credit is due it looks absolutely beautiful it's amazing to see what technology can do in this day and age because if you've got the animals in the live-action jungle book looked photorealistic then these are on a whole nother level but much like a Michael Bay movie there comes a point where you just get numb to the visuals and you start to notice the problems and I think it was a completely misguided approach to make the animals look photorealistic the reason being is because so much of the story for the Lion King is told through the animals facial expressions what they should have done was taken the middle ground approach like what the Planet of the Apes movies took and they should have made them look real while simultaneously being able to fully emotes that would have been very interesting to see from beginning to end but they didn't do that and as a direct result after watching about 20 minutes of these photorealistic animals you just get bored of looking at them is the novelty that wears off and you don't feel the wow factor that you got at the beginning and I am 100% certain that they could have pulled it off we know that it is perfectly possible to make the animals look real and have them a moat the most recent examples of this is with the jungle book and war for the Planet of the Apes but they didn't do that because they instead decided to go with the realistic approach and the Lion King is not realistic we have the spirit of a dead lion speaking to his son from the sky for crying out loud so why they wanted to recreate that in a more realistic way makes no sense to me another downside of making the animals look photorealistic is that if there are more than one of the same animals on screen then they look identical and you can't tell who's who when the final battle is over Simba hugs both his mother and Nala at the end of the movie and I can even tell which was which you could easily tell in the animated version but you can't tell in the remake and the misguided decision of making the animals photorealistic also makes its way into their body language for example the body language in this scene is showing you that Simba is really enjoying himself over the years and has been breezing his way through life with no weight or responsibility on his shoulders and in the remake there is no body language there they are just walking and that's it and the whole movie is like this whereas the original showcases a lot of motion with both the facial expressions and body language the remake doesn't showcase any of that and that's when it hit me this movie is just one big demonstration and to use one of the best Disney animated movies as a tech demo is just insulting the animation in the animated movie still holds up 25 years later the use of colour is beautifully integrated into the movie and the scope and scale of the film is absolutely huge and far outshines the scale of the remake so the movie with the superior animation is the original Lion King now the songs in the original Lion King are great they are very catchy and ingeniously written and the animation joined the songs is absolutely amazing now the remake attempts to recreate these songs and as far as the singing is concerned it is a big improvement of the songs in both a live-action Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin in Beauty and the Beast everyone's voice sounded 100% auto-tuned in Aladdin they sounded 50% auto-tuned and in The Lion King it doesn't sound auto-tuned at all so that's a very big improvement that the Lion King has over the previous live-action Disney remakes but that being said all the songs in the Disney animated movies already sounded 100% natural and they were at least decades ago so the live-action remake shouldn't sound auto-tune to begin with so although the natural singing gives it more points against the other live-action remakes it doesn't give it any points against the animated movie as you are about to see right now first off the build-up to the songs that was found in the original on nowhere to be found in the live-action remake the songs come out of nowhere and it doesn't even make sense when they happen in the animated movie there was a natural buildup and segue to the songs there is no such thing in the remake and then we get there can you feel the love tonight song which ironically is being sung in daylight so this movie just took this song with a very simple concept and made it make absolutely no sense and not to mention the volume for both Simba and Nala voice drawing this song is uneven Gobbo supposed to be singing as a duet but it's like the guys who were recording them were secretly told to drop Donal Glover's microphone and to crank Beyonce's all the way up also all the songs in the original were absolutely pitch perfect but singers nowadays are adding a ton of unnecessary modern extensions to their singing and it pointlessly prolonged the songs and takes away from the quick and concise rhythm that the original songs masterfully managed to deliver so this comes as no surprise but the movie with the superior songs is the animated Lion King and the be prepared song what the hell were they playing out with that it was an embarrassment [Music] now the music for the animated Lion King was composed by the one and only hand Zimmer and it was and still is an amazing soundtrack it's very emotional when it needs to be it's overwhelming when it needs to be it's epic at all the right times and if the music wasn't this good then the movie would be nowhere near as loved as it ended up being the music and the visuals perfectly complement each other and the music in the remake is mostly just an exact copy of the music from the original I'm serious the music is so similar most of the time that I don't even know why they even bothered to rerecord it now the movie does have some new music - and it was crap it felt like it was meant for a completely different movie the only time the fill of music was great is when it was taken directly from the original movies score the new music though didn't match the music that it was reusing from the original and even if you judge it on its own merits it's not even good on its own when it reuses music from the original it's still good but even when it copies the music from the original it's still not as good it makes slight changes which don't add anything to the beats of the music if anything it just takes away from it and do you remember the awesome music that was playing when Simba was running back home it was an amazing piece of music that beautifully blended into some emotional music as Simba looks over in shock at the state of his home in the remake however they turned the scene into complete [ __ ] instead they removed that awesome music as Simba runs and they replaced it with some [ __ ] chanting from what I assume came from Beyonce and my jaw was dropped throughout this entire scene they took a scene that really didn't need to be changed and they just took a dump all over it the music for the Lion King was created to go side by side with the animated movie not the live-action version so even though they copied it it didn't hold a candle to the original Lion King so the movie with the superior implementation and overall better use of the music is the animated Lion King I'm running out of things to say about these Disney remakes I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over again if anything the remake of The Lion King proves that you can't tell a traumatic and epic story using photorealistic animals if you do then this is the kind of stiff and emotionless movie you'll get what Disney should be doing with this kind of technology is continuing the technological accomplishments that we got with characters such as Gollum King Kong and Caesar from the Planet of the Apes remakes these movies show that you can make animals that look real enough whilst providing them with visible emotions in their faces and using this technology you can really tell these epic stories of bring these animals to life but unfortunately that's what's lacking in the Lion King remake life despite having animals that look photorealistic this is a lifeless soulless and uninspired cash-grab which not only does a disrespect to the animation from the original film but also disrespects the original cast say what you will about the cast for the animated movie I don't care if they were mostly full of white actors they bought so much more life humour and passion to these performances than any of the black cast members for this movie and I want to touch on this the movie made sure to advertise that they are casting african-american actors for these roles and if this was a live action movie that was set in an African setting then yes that would be important but for a movie that purely relies on voiceover the cast being african-american is neither here nor there you prioritize the voices first and that's exactly what the animated movie did it was beautifully performed wonderfully animated it knew how to tell its story and it gave us one of the most memorable animated movies of all time and it still holds up after all these years and for good reason the pacing took a bit of a dip in the middle of the movie but then it picked right back up and above all it prioritized the voices first and not the race but this movie prioritized the race and put the voices second and they can pat themselves on the back all they want most of the cast were not fit to play these characters especially the replacement we got the scar he gave by far the worst performance of this movie and Jeremy Irons more than willing to reprise his role in fact he sounded very optimistic surprises roll as he was very impressed by the great reviews of the live-action Jungle Book but they didn't even contact him I I look forward to seeing it they happen to proach me if I don't know who else will play scar they didn't contact him but they contacted James Earl Jones for the obvious reason he's black it's not because he is the only one that could play Mufasa as they so eagerly want you to believe because if that was their thought process then they would have hired Jeremy Irons back but they didn't and aside from the poor vocal performances and the misguided photorealistic CGI animals the best moments of the movie are either completely left out or poorly recreated and once again it does a disservice to the original and I honestly can't take it anymore let me tell you if making content wasn't my full-time gig I would just ignore all of these Disney live-action remakes and I wouldn't even watch them at home but I've had to go through two of them just recently and there are two more coming up and I honestly don't know if I can take it anymore it's time for the scores let's get this over with the animated Lion King gets a 9 out of 10 and the remake I was going to give it a two or a three out of ten but then something happened two days after I watched this movie I tried to reflect on it and I completely forgot everything about it how do you take something as memorable as the Lion King and make it so forgettable that's just amazing it really baffles me how they were able to accomplish that and at this point all the small stuff this movie did okay didn't matter anymore and as a result this movie gets a 1 out of 10 after making a versus video of Aladdin I couldn't even bother doing an even comparison all I could do in this video is explain how the Lion King remake is an inferior movie to the animated film and that's all I can do now with these live-action remakes as none of them are even trying to do justice to the original stories is it worse than the Aladdin remake well in a way it isn't and in a way it is it isn't as bad because it's not as cringe-worthy as Aladdin but at the same time it is worse because all this had to do was a scene for scene recreation of the original movie everything was laid out for them and somehow it still screwed it up but then again that is a common problem all of these live-action remakes have and something else they have in common is that we keep coming to the same conclusion over and over again and if you want to see me make more verses videos of these Disney remakes in the future then by all means I will continue to make them but at this point I doubt Disney are going to raise the quality of these movies if in reality minimum efforts and maximum returns is working well for them then why the hell will they change they are making an unjustifiable amount of money in the box office and unfortunately that's enough to keep them coming and if that's the game not playing then my low scores will keep on coming too so that's it for another verses video if you guys liked it please do give the video a thumbs up as it really does help in getting my channel noticed also stay tuned because my next two verses videos will be my three ways spider-man video between the spider-man sequels and then I will be doing the second part to my it's vs. video this is gonna be a fun couple of months as always thank you very much for watching guys and I will see all of you next time take care you

Channel: Eric Carter

Views: 101,661

Rating: 4.7452669 out of 5

Keywords: The Lion King animated VS Live Action, The Lion King VS The Lion King, The Lion King 2019 VS The Lion King 1994, The Lion King VS, Live Action Remakes

Id: UWfBSelrKsI

Length: 27min 43sec (1663 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 17 2019