The Lion King (2019)

[Greg]

I can see from the previous reviews I was the one partaking in Avante Garde cinema on Saturday night.

Can you feel the love tonight? Can you? Maybe.

If you've seen the Lion King, you've seen the Lion King. No great departures in storytelling. It follows all the same beats. It has all the same songs. It even has most of the same shots. It just looks like photos rather than paintings. I wasn't a huge fan of the original, so this didn't overwhelm. I admit I was watching it from a technical standpoint. The film makers said they basically built a game engine which they could view with VR goggles. They used that to set up their shots and camera movements. It seems like a lot of work to remake a film that already made you billions of dollars.

Beyonce got to sing a new song. Elton John got to sing a new song. But know it's Beyonce playing Nala kind of takes you out of the story.

It was also a Chiewetel Ejiofor bad guy double feature. CE plays Scar. (Did his parents give him that name as a child? If it's a nickname, it's not a great one) But before we popped in The Lion King, we were watching Serenity, the feature length Firefly episode were CE also plays the bad guy. Serenity is such a fun film. I don't know why it doesn't get more credit. And it does have a great fight scene where River Tam takes on all the Rievers. Also great lines.

So, Lion King, meh. Serenity, I think I'll watch it again.

[Drunk Monk]

I saw the play, which was fantastic.  I'd also recommend the direct-to-vid sequel LK 2.5 (I think that's what it's called).  It retells the whole story from the perspective of 3p0 & r2.  I mean Pumbaa & Timon.  Turns out all the animals weren't bowing to the baby LK out of respect - they were covering their noses from a massive Pumbaa fart.  srsly.

[Drunk Monk]

I must give it up to Seth Rogen, who I generally disdain. He killed it as Pumba, rekindling the original role while giving it his own spin. Did James Earl Jones rerecord his lines or did they just use another take of his original? Beyonce was cool - she rocked 'Can you feel the love?' putting her duet partner to shame. Did they use real landscapes? Is that why they can call it live action? I appreciated the details with animal gestures - the lions did a lot of house cat gestures and the hyenas, dog gestures. Stacy said she liked it better than the original because she liked how the animals looked and the African landscapes. I still feel Lion King 2.0 is the best telling of the tale, better than this, the original or the play. But I've only seen that once and my memory is biased because I saw it with Tara and we laughed so hard at it (she was the perfect age for that to work for her at the time). I also still firmly believe that this should be done with the animated Star Trek series - they have the voices and storylines - it just needs to be CGIed like this and that would be worth the rewatch. 

No sword fights. Not particularly DOOM recommended.

[Drunk Monk]

We're discovering this weird six degrees phenomenon with our Netflix DVD viewing. Just like with Tom Hughes in M & RJ (http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFor...8#pid37418), we're seeing the same actor in two films back-to-back. This time it's Chiwetel in MM (http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFor...p?tid=5408) and LK (http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFor...p?tid=5260). He went from apostle Peter to the villainous Scar. 

We will continue to monitor this situation in hopes that it provides some omens of things to come...