The Big Picture - We’re Debating ‘The Lion King’ in 2019. Why? | Exit Survey

Episode Date: July 19, 2019

Disney is in the midst of a nostalgia churn, and the latest installment is a remake of ‘The Lion King,’ the iconic 1994 peak of the Disney golden era. Have we reached a dark place with live-action remakes, and are there more to come? Plus, does the 2019 all-star cast live up to the original voice performances? Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelley, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. It's the season finale of Big Little Lies on Sunday, so make sure to check out our final episode of our live after show with the Ringers' Amanda Dobbins and ESPN's Mina Kimes. You can tune in on Twitter to Big Little Live right after the episode ends. Also, this week's 2019 Open Championship marks the final major championship of the golf season, so check out Fairway Rollin' where Joe House is joined by a cast of ringer and golf world personalities for everything you need to know heading into the weekend. You can find new episodes on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessy.

And I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the circle of life. We are here to talk about the 2019 film The Lion King, which is also a 1994 film called The Lion King. This is a photorealistic, digitally animated, reimagining, though not quite so creatively reimagined version of The Lion King, which is, of course, one of the canonical Disney New Golden Age classics that has been remade in this series of remakes. And boy, there are a lot of things to say about this film. There are not a lot of things to say about the plot of this film because the plot is exactly the same as the original. Yes. For the most part. But Amanda, let's start this conversation by talking about 1994. Wow. Take me back to Amanda Dobbins in 1994

entering a movie theater and experiencing The Lion King. So I would have been nine years old at the time of the release. And I'm trying to remember, I don't remember this actual theater day experience because again, I was nine. I don't know. What are you going to say? Children are children. But I have probably seen this movie after the fact as much as any other Disney movie that I've seen. And I think this soundtrack definitely became a part of my life. We have spent a lot of time on this podcast talking about how much I love Elton John. And I think this was my entryway into Elton John. So the music and those opening notes make me emotional every single time. And I think, I'm trying to remember, we were talking,

I went to, they were re-released, The Lion King, the 1994 Lion King, about 10 years. And I actually went to see that in theaters, which is strange. It's not something I normally do. I don't go in for that type of nostalgia usually. But this became the central Disney text for me and for a lot of other people of my generation. I think because it's not about a princess. It's not about a boy either. I mean, obviously, there are male and female lions, but it's just about animals. I think it's about more than just a love story, which is great. It brings in a larger audience.

And I think probably both in terms of story and musical achievement, I think it's the peak of the new golden era of Disney. I would agree with you. And I think that that has evolved over time. This movie was obviously a massive box office success. It was later adapted by Julie Taymor into a very successful Broadway adaptation. This new version is directed by Jon Favreau,

who is one of the, I think one of the signature blockbuster filmmakers of his era. So you know that this is meaningful. The movie, the original movie, was nominated for two Academy Awards, which actually feels quite low in retrospect. This is before there was a Best Animated Feature category. It was nominated for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for Can You Feel the Love Tonight. I definitely saw The Lion King three or four times in the movie theater. Really? And I think I was 11 when the film was released. So maybe a little old, but I also, I think I was

very, I think Aladdin ensnared me and I got very excited about people like Robin Williams. And so the Timon and Pumbaa aspect of the movie, I found very appealing. I was not quite aware of the Shakespearean Hamlet intonations or the biblical Joseph and Moses story. Right. But at the same time, I think that this movie is pitched a little older than, say, Aladdin for that reason, because there are those generational and canonical overtones. And it's about fathers and sons and family and what we leave behind and responsibility and larger issues. There are no princesses in this movie, which I think is one of the other things too that is significantly different from so many of the

classic canonical Disney movies that we talk about. This isn't Cinderella. This isn't Sleeping Beauty. This isn't even Aladdin in that respect. It's a very male movie. All of the main characters are very male. And I wonder if as a kid, I was responding to that unconsciously somehow. I'm sure you were. I think it is also somehow, it is very male, but somehow feels like less masculine

than a lot of the other. I have been handed a lot of like male focus pop culture throughout my life and especially as a kid. And I do think that this opened it up a little bit more. And it is also, there are female characters. Nala is not as developed as you might like, but again, at the end

of the day, they're lions, you know? They're lions. You can see yourself. If you're going to see yourself in an animal, you're going to see yourself in an animal. There's kind of less gender stuff to work with. I'm glad we agree that this is the peak of the Disney neo-golden era. The decision to remake this movie is complex. On the one hand, if you listen to our episode about Aladdin, you know that there is really one reason why they're doing this, which is for money.

These movies are making a lot of money, these live-action remakes. Some of them are more successful than others. I think, you know, Dumbo came out earlier this year and has already been forgotten. That was not very successful, at least from a financial perspective. I think creatively, there's kind of some cool things in Dumbo happening. It's Tim Burton applying his Tim Burton-ness to the Disney world, which is kind of a kick unto itself. And we may look back on that in 10 years and be like, oh, that was interesting.

I found Beauty and the Beast, for example, to be utterly dull and pointless. And I thought Aladdin was strange and a little bit unnerving and a little bit sexual. And why am I the only person who's like, let the genie have a sex life? Why not? He wants to be a human. That's part of being a human. Let's make this a sex positive podcast. Okay. Thank you. The Lion King is different from those movies. Those movies star. No sex in this movie. There's no sex in this movie.

And there's no humans in this movie at all. And all of those other movies, all of these other live action remakes, Cinderella, Kenneth Branagh's Cinderella stars a human being, Lily James. The Lion King is completely digitally animated. And there are some brilliant people, I think chief among them, Rob Legato, who is the sort of digital overseer of this whole film, the person who has conceived a lot of this and who has worked on a great many films with Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese and is widely considered one of the premier digital architects of the modern era of movies. But there's something, you know, the phrase the uncanny valley has been used frequently

in aggressive reviews of this movie because it is set in a valley and there's something unnerving about looking at real life, photorealistic-ish lions talking and singing and nuzzling and conquering. The actual physical manifestation of this movie, how did you feel about it? I think I'm the only person who is really pro. Honestly, it's like a nature documentary with Elton John songs.

I'm not mad. I do think I turned to you within 10 minutes of this movie starting and was like, we should be high right now, which we shouldn't have been because it was a professional experience in the middle of the day and it's important to have boundaries.

A lot of kids in that theater. Yes, exactly. So we made the right and responsible decision. But in terms of the attitude with which I would enjoy seeing this movie, I thought it looked amazing. And I really do think that as a technical and visual achievement achievement it's beautiful

and there and I want to say two things about that one is in terms of the it's it's competition and comparing it with all of the other effects that we have seen I find it so strange that people don't seem to like this because we have sat through so much true visual garbage in the last two, three, five years. So many blockbuster movies that we see look like trash and they're garbled and there's so much CGI. And that's, I mean, that is certainly true. I think of superhero movies, which I just have stopped taking into account visually because I've just given up. But also a lot of, now that we're using more CGI and action movies and honestly, just for location stuff, so much stuff looks really bad all the time. And you can tell that it's fake. And I thought that this looked beautiful. I agree with you to an extent. I think that if you look

at a lot of the early reviews of the film, what you'll see is this kind of phrasing. The Lion King is an extraordinary breakthrough, comma, but. And the but is, this is creatively a dead end. And I think that what your feelings are,

I remember this kind of conversation around Avatar. It feels very similar to the one that you're having around Avatar, which is that to see Avatar in theaters. I don't know if you saw it in theaters. I assume you did. I did. Okay. You, like most humans, saw it in theaters. There was a blizzard in New York and I'd been in my house for two days and I was like, I got to go.

Right. So Avatar, I remember being completely blown away. It was a very similar situation where I was not really thinking terribly hard about the world that James Cameron had created, but I was inside of the world. And it's the sort of movie that when you watch it on television does not stand up in quite the same way, but it has this ability to surround you and envelop you in what it has created, which is from whole cloth. The line, this Lion King, I think is somewhat similar. The problem is we know where the movie is going the whole time. And so if you are not stoned and you can't fully just appreciate the digital presentation, it feels like you're on a road to nowhere. And I like the story of The Lion King a lot.

And there are things about this version of The Lion King that I think are interesting and well done. But I couldn't just help but feel like they stretched out something that I didn't need. This movie's 30 minutes longer than the original film. I would say that the voice performances, some of which are good, most of which are less good than the original, which is not what you want. True. They made an interesting choice to spend all of, not an interesting choice, but I understand how it happens. They spent all of their time on the visuals and it looks spectacular. And they did not update the script. They seem to have extended the story a little. And I think they spent that a lot of extra time is the hyena scene and the chase scenes, which I think are pretty scary. Yes.

And I'm curious to see how kids handle them. It's going to be tough for four-year-olds to see this. I mean, that was a little scary in the cartoon. Yeah. Because, I mean, and that's dealing with parent death and real serious stuff. But this was genuinely frightening and immersive. And so I thought that was a great achievement. And I think that's where the time goes.

But they didn't update the actual scripts like there are still lines being said that were written for a children's cartoon version of these people and there is a difference between a and what is the non-pejorative way of saying a children's cartoon well how would you animated feature well but I'm trying to distinguish kind of the 1994 animation from the new animation well that is something that I want to talk about a little bit later in this show. But there is a difference in presentation and style, and it's two different types of art. And they both require skill and artistry, but you expect different things to come out of the mouths of the 1994 Lion and the photorealistic 2019 Lion. No doubt. The original film, if you go back and rewatch it, and last week on the internet,

there was a Twitter account that very predictably did a side-by-side of the 94 version of The Lion King. I believe it was the performance of Hakuna Matata. I can't recall specifically which song it was. I think it was Hakuna Matata. And then the new version of Hakuna Matata. And what you see in the animated version is this almost Busby Berkeley-esque

musical execution. The characters are like whirling dervishes. They're doing flips. They're swinging from vines. They're not just walking through the jungle. And in the new Hakuna Matata, it's just a warthog and a meerkat and a lion walking and singing. And that is just less visually dynamic. And it's more difficult to do this sort of photo-realistic digital animation that they've done, but it's not as fun. And the original Lion King is really fun and there's something intellectually absent from this in a way. It's like in an attempt to be more real,

they have lost sight of what was ultimately truly great about the movie, I think. That is where my head is i i think that's true i don't think that this movie like it doesn't to borrow a sports metaphor that i barely understand like carry the ball across the goal line if you will well done that's the sport of football yes right they don't they don't quite get there um but i i also watched that clip of the side by side, and my first thought was, wow, I nine was really young and I was a child when I saw this movie and this is a movie. It is it does have childlike wonder. And what I responded to in this new Lion King and you and I had this conversation after we saw it, it's just, it's like, it's a different type of imagination. I mean, here's my thing. What if lions could talk? That would be cool as shit.

If, like, lions could actually talk, and you could just watch them have an actual Shakespearean drama, and it's not David Attenborough narrating it, it's them actually talking. And it looked as, and it was real life, and it looked as beautiful, and it was real life and it looked as beautiful and it was shot as beautifully as this is. That is more exciting to, that type of imagination is more exciting to me than total made up worlds and total out of nothing fantasy

things. I just, the things where you're just spinning reality and suddenly it's like these majestic creatures could speak to you. I find that really exciting and I like that approach to this movie. I don't think that they leaned into it fully enough. I'm going to ask you an unanswerable question. Let's say that there was a movie in 2019 called The Lion King that was written, designed, executed in exactly the same way. But the 1994 version of The Lion King did not exist. And this was the first time you were seeing this movie and this story.

Do you think you would like it? Well. Because you typically do not like quote-unquote animated films. Right. I don't like things that are for children because I'm a grown-up. And I know that that's like really hard for you to hear. It's just unnecessarily harsh. It's just it's just.

Well, but you asked me an unanswerable question and I'm trying to be very honest. If I could sense and this movie is still for children, you know, and so much of this stuff where they didn't make it, they made it pretty scary, but then there's still kind of the goofy numbers and they don't explore a lot of, I had a lot of questions. Number one, there's no sex. I had a lot of questions about like the demographics of a lion pride. Yes, you did.

There are larger political and issues that they kind of leave on the table because you got to just like have a little lion singing a song about, you know, God, I just can't wait to be king. Yes. And which I, by the way, have memorized and I just forgot the title right there. Great song. No one's saying do this. Now when I said that, no one's saying be there. No one's saying stop that.

No one's saying see here. No one's saying there. These songs are awesome. Yeah, the songs are great. Elton John's great. So I think that I would watch this, and I would sense the thing that... I do not think that this movie is maybe even a total success, and I don't think it's perfect, and I would sense that it's just not being marketed to me, and they didn't lean into the things that I think are interesting enough about it. You know what's complicated, though? This movie is for you. This movie is meant for everyone.

The whole purpose of this movie is to get everyone to see it. And I fully expect it to be very successful. Right. I think in that sense, it will work. It is one of the movie events of the year because I think Disney is plying not just the children's audience, but the adults who once were children's audience. Yeah, of course. And so that means basically anybody from three to 40, maybe even three to 50,

should be interested in this movie for that reason. And because one, it taps a nostalgia bone. Two, it's an event movie. It's as big an event movie as an Avengers movie is. And so as adults, we kind of have to take it seriously. I mean, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think it merited that level of conversation. Right.

I am taking it seriously. But I was answering the question of if the 1994 didn't exist when I see this. If the 1994 didn't exist, then this movie being targeted to me would not exist in the same way because it wouldn't be playing on my nostalgia. I'm going to read the premise of the plot to you. Okay. Because I think one thing that tends to happen with nostalgia content is we forget what these things are actually about. And we just, we, my mind goes to Hakuna Matata, you know, or my mind goes to Whoopi Goldberg doing one of the voices of the hyenas. That's so funny.

My mind goes to the circle of life. Okay. And the drama and the generational power of this movie. I go to the adult version. I do. I remember the kind of larger picture themes of it, which is not me stunting on you. It's just me sharing how I,

how I feel. It's perfectly fine. Every person has the right to be different in this world. Here's the premise of the movie. In the African Savannah, the young lion Simba idolizes his father Mufasa

and longs to succeed him as king of the Pride Lands. Before this can happen, his jealous uncle Scar initiates a coup, which results in Mufasa's death and Simba's exile. Simba grows up in the company of Timon and Pumbaa, a meerkat and warthog, pair with a carefree lifestyle. As tensions arise, he is drawn back into a battle with Scar by the friends from his past life. One thing that I was surprised by when I was

rewatching this movie is kind of how thin the story is, which seems ridiculous because it's Hamlet, but also... I will not take that from a person who talks about how important superheroes are like every week on the podcast. Oh my Lord, no. Well, honestly though, the arc of the Simba character is a bit strange to me because a whole period of his life happens that they don't show us. Basically Simba growing a mane. It's called the Bible.

What does that mean? It's like this in the desert. a mane. It's called the Bible. What does that mean? It's like this in the desert. Come on. It's like literally a reference to. Yes, certainly. But how Simba evolved from feckless child to spirited and worthy king happens off screen. And it's because Timon and Pumbaa teach him how to eat bugs.

That is the story of how Simba becomes a man. And I don't, I gotta say, I didn't get it. I don't understand how Simba became the king. Can I just say something? Scar, maybe Scar should be the king. Hold on, hold on. Literally, you went to the bathroom during the scene in which Simba and Rafiki go to the watering hole

and he looks in the water and he sees the reflection of his father and he's like, your father lives on in you and Simba has the realization that we are the continuation of our parents and that he needs to honor his family and what was learned in him and

get his shit together. That's not my father. It's just my reflection. No. Look hard. You see? He lives in you. That, like, honestly,

it wasn't there because you went to the bathroom. You're my friend, but that's what happened. Here's what we call that. That's movie bullshit. I have talked about movie bullshit on this podcast and on the rewatchables. That is where we take a scene and we externalize internal feeling.

And great films show us them through action. They don't show us them through conversation and a conversation between Rafiki and Simba in which he sees the reflection in a pool of his father is movie bullshit so I may not have seen that scene in the new Lion King but I did see that scene in the original Lion King I'm very aware I know your skin is melting off your face right now but is the Lion King story good is a conversation that I feel is necessary I am so mad at you right now because you know what I'm doing right now like I I honestly wish I had gone through and I tallied up the amount of hours that I in my life have spent talking to you

about fucking MacGuffins and other planets and like aliens I've never heard of those movies are good and every single time it's like oh yeah daddy issues but he got through it it's the exact same thing this is the one story that all of you and by you I mean

men tell and you're telling me that this like beautiful primal story doesn't work but the freaking ncu is literature i will honestly walk out of this podcast studio honestly we're not uh we're not comparing the two well i think we should i know i don't think so no i think that we should a little bit in terms of event movies and franchises. No, because I have just been interested in watching all of these people who have sat and been like, oh, my God, and it's another superhero movie. And they did it.

And look what Marvel and Disney figured out. Don't conflate the Internet with me. Well, but it's interesting when people decide to get mad about cynical money grabbing uh movie making that's all and and i feel like this is cynical and and money grabbing for sure and it's not perfect but i have also seen a lot of movies that fit into that rubric. And they place emphasis on different things. And I think this movie looks a lot better and has better music and is more accessible in the story

than a lot of the kind of mumbo-jumbo space stuff that seems to fill out and possibly be the action that you're discussing that fills out what are considered successful blockbusters. I mean, I think this is kind of the crisis of this movie that we were alluding to earlier about the eventizing of movies and things. That's something that we talk about on the show all the time, which is that these are really the only kinds of movies that can be successful.

So it feels essential to compare them to one another because they are the only things that feel meaningful. And I get that. I get that impulse. I'm certainly aware of your frustration with how the youthful masculine ideal has overtaken the box office. I get it. I know you're annoyed by it. I'm not seeing it from the same perspective, though, because I'm not trying to say, well, Guardians does this so much better than The Lion King. I don't care about that. I think that there are some MCU movies that are very good and are very thematically coherent. I'm thinking more in the great history of film.

Okay. Because I think if we say that The Lion King is one of the great animated features of all time, and the way that this story is constructed is really powerful and is generational, I think we can look at it in the same way we would look at Gone with the Wind or Citizen Kane or It Happened One Night or The Godfather or any of these other. I think it's worthwhile to have the conversation about does it hold up in the same way.

Now, it's not totally fair to compare The Godfather to The Lion King because of what you're saying, which is this movie is designed for children. However, Snow White was designed for children and it was one of the most radical things that ever happened in movie making. And it changed movies forever. And it cemented Walt Disney as an iconic creative person in our American history. So sure, The Godfather may be deeper, but that doesn't necessarily make it more meaningful. And so I'm trying to think about it on that plane, not just in, hey, Man and the Wasp is so stupid because it's about a guy and his dad,

and he has a problem with his dad, and he's got to figure it out. It's not just about that. You hear what I'm saying? I do, sort of, but I just, we're in a machine, and we talk about the machine all the time. And it's hard to talk about this movie we talk about the machine all the time and it's hard to talk about this movie without talking about the machine and I think it's hard to talk about any blockbuster at this point without talking about the machine that is being created because all of these movies are about you can you can see the structural pieces and you can see we're putting this in

this movie so you'll come back for this movie and we're doing this so you'll come back to this you can if you want to you can see yourself being manipulated in real time which all movies manipulate even every movie that you just mentioned manipulated and gets people into the theaters and by the way a movie that no one sees is a failure just as much as a movie that doesn't have like great character exposition so I I just I find it so interesting because there has been real vitriol for this movie and people just being like this is useless and I just think it's because we're rewarding one type of usefulness at the box off and not. And I found some things in this movie that spoke to me in a way that like the quote-unquote usefulness of other like

traditional, you know, quote successful blockbuster movies don't speak to me. A hospital is useful. Movies are not useful. You know what I mean? I think we have to think practically about that. You're completely right that the critical reaction that we were feeling is a lot of people trying to get attention with stormy opinions. Because everyone knows that there's a huge level of interest in this film. And so I think if you're writing a review of this film, you know you'll have a bigger audience. And the stormier your response, the more exciting it will be.

Now people may believe that this is circling the drain of creativity in the broken 21st century. And in some ways, I get it it i get why people feel that way and also appeal if people feel like they're just screaming into the void about certain things but i'm i'm a little personally a little less interested in that i think we can dismantle some of those arguments pretty effectively we know we know this landscape very well at this point yeah the thing i'm interested in is more like this movie itself is this movie good and what makes it good or not good even within you and i walked out of theater we had a lovely walk back to the to our office and la what a town it was finally summer

thank you los angeles and we were talking about the visuals and i was just way more excited about them than you were which is a bizarre thing for me to say because, like, you know, I don't care about technical anything. And I don't really love thinking about the work or like, wow, you know, what an achievement is like the first sign that, you know, nothing else happened. But we were talking about the different types of effects and really the different types of imagination and visual imagination that you and I respond to in movies. And it's just very different because you like completely new worlds. You are excited to see something that has never been seen and has no reference. And, well, it does have a reference. It's usually comic book-y, but that also means something to you and you're very well

versed in that. And so that just visual experience is exciting to you and it means nothing to me. And I thought this was pretty transcendent. So I think there's two challenges for me when it comes to that. Yeah. And I completely respect what you're saying. I think in a lot of ways, you're right. But one, we have nature documentaries, and they are incredible. The nature documentaries of the 21st century are mind-blowing. And the David Attenborough stuff that you're talking about is some of the best documentary filmmaking that we have. And it's not only good from a visual perspective, which is so precise and so labored over. It takes days, weeks, months to capture a caterpillar crawling up a tree

in the Amazon forest. Excuse me, in the Amazon jungle. So you have that already. And then in addition to that, there are real artisans that are working on this movie whose work we don't fully understand yet.

And part of, for me, I like to understand how things happen. So there are great documentaries about how cinematographers work and how they shoot and how they light and how they film things. There are great documentaries about screenwriters, great documentaries about actors and how they apply their craft. There are way too many documentaries about directors, what it means to be a director. There's never been a definitive document of how does a digital

artist work? So how does Rob Legato collaborate with Jon Favreau, the director, and Caleb Deschanel, the cinematographer of this movie, to actually make what they're making? I don't actually know. I have no understanding. Now, I could certainly read a book and find out. And I've watched my handful of featurettes over the years that show me how these things are animated. But definitive definition this this this visualization this clarification right of how a movie like this comes to be I think would help a lot well but I also think that that's just an opinion you love process you like to you're the guy who literally likes to know everything and you have to understand how it all works and I actually I mean I am often that

way but in this case I'm experiencing a sense of wonder, both in, wow, look at, you know, look at what they did, which I do think that this movie pulls off, at least visually. And I think that that is the result of a lot of talent from a lot of people, but also imagination. I agree with you about the David Attenborough documentaries, but I keep going back to like, yo, what if a lion could talk? That would be like, I hate pets. I hate all of this. It's so interesting to me that I'm the one just sitting there being like, that would be amazing. Imagine what, you know, and

that's, I guess that's me getting in touch with my childlike wonder, but that is just how I respond to it. And for some reason, that to me is more exciting than like, imagine if there was a, you know, space planet where there was a, I don't even know. I can't tell you the plot of the thing. That's okay. You don't have to describe Star Wars

to compare it to the Lion King. No, not Star Wars. I think Star Wars is nice. It's also like basically grounded in the exact same text that the Lion King is. So it's true. Fathers and sons, that is the archway that we walk through at the Cineplex.

Should we talk about the voice actors? Yeah, because that doesn't work. Well, there are a few. Some of them are good and some of them are not good. And how do we parse that? Now, I think that the voice performances in the original are very fun and spirited. I can't say I can remember all of the people who appeared as voices. The people who jump out to me are, of course, James Earl Jones as Mufasa,

who recurs here and recreates the performance note for note. Yes. I would not say there's much that's different about that. I think everyone else here is new. And let's just go through each person. We get two Simbas. Okay. The Simba of note, J. we get two simbas okay the the simba of note jd mccrary is the the young simba i believe jd mccrary is um the young actor who appeared in little i thought it was the young actor who appeared in us but it's not um but donald glover plays

older simba okay what'd you think of donald glover you're a Donald Glover fan. I am. We were talking about this. Donald Glover has now been the butt of a joke in two major studio releases this year, both Men in Black International, and I honestly can't remember the other one. Maybe it was The Hustle, which I saw and you didn't, which is just the life cycle of these things is really fascinating. Anyway, I did not think that he was great. One thing I want to say is that even in the 1994 version, adult Simba and adult Nala are lame underwritten characters.

Because, again, when you're a child, you don't care about grown-ups, you know? And you don't really have a nuanced understanding of grown-ups. And you really need that looking in the river and having the movie explain to you what grown-ups think. It is a trainer's wheel guide to Shakespeare and all of these motivations. But so there's not a lot to work with. And once again, they made the decision to not update the script at all. It's almost like my point about how the story might not be good is real. Well, I don't think it's the story. You can talk about the script. You're not going to discount Shakespeare in the Bible.

I just, not on my watch. I'm not going to let you do that. I'm just discounting The Lion King. Okay. I thought Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen were fantastic. Probably the best part of the movie. Delightful. It's great to see Billy Eichner shining in 2019.

Particularly Billy Eichner. He just crushed it. Did you see the video of Billy Eichner shining in 2019. Particularly Billy Eichner. He just crushed it. Did you see the video of Billy Eichner preparing to meet Meghan Markle and Prince Harry? Yeah, I did. Which was just because they're all in a lineup and he's just like very nervously asking Seth Rogen, what should I say? Oh, he didn't say this. I've never related to a video more in my life.

Do you think Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen are authentic friends? I hope so. They do have chemistry, which is not something that you can say of most anyone else in this movie. I had no idea Billy Eichner could sing. I had a very exciting moment when I hadn't thought this through. And of course, as soon as Can You Feel the Love Tonight starts, I was like, oh my God, Billy gets Can You Feel the Love Tonight. It turns out that he did not get all of Can You Feel the Love Tonight,

but he did get the first Can You Feel the Love Tonight. You got to count that as a win. I think the whole movie is a huge win for him. I agree. He is the least famous of all of the major characters doing voice work in this film. And I think he kind of walks away with the movie. Seth Rogen is good as Pumbaa. It's notable that Pumbaa is a significantly more flatulent character now that Seth Rogen is in the mix.

I feel like that also is for all the six-year-olds out there. I want to talk a little bit about Scar. I think Scar is one of the great villains in the history of Disney movies. And he is voiced in the original by Jeremy Irons. Is that right? Yes. Life's not fair, is it? You see, I, well, I shall never be king.

And you shall never see the light of another day. And you... Jeremy Irons. Icon. One of the great voices. Holy Christ. And his performance as Scar is iconic. And Chiwetel Ejiofor is the new Scar.

When I heard his voice in the trailer, my skin rippled. I was so sad. Life's not fair. Is it, my little friend? I think he was a little bit better than I expected. There's something not quite melancholy enough, not quite dastardly enough about what he's doing in this movie.

Does that make sense? I feel like there's something very dignified about Chiwetel. Okay. And Jeremy Irons made his name on likable rap scallions. You know, Reversal of Fortune?

Right. That kind of character? Right. That scar is hemming it up a little. Yeah. There is that Disney cartoon tradition of, you know,

Ursula and... Same thing. Well, Angel Fish, the solution to your problem is simple. All of them being appealing the only way to get what you want is to become a human yourself everything would

be fine here whatever you need I thought I smelled a rat. Meg. Speak of the devil. Meg, my little flower, my little bird, my little nutmeg. Which, you know, again, I wonder if it's also trying to soften it for children. I thought Jotella Dufour was pretty good in this. I have to be honest.

I thought he was more... Again, I thought it was maybe one of the only performances that actually did adapt to the visual thing. If he were doing full, almost camp Jeremy Irons, and then it was that raggedy, real lion, that wouldn't

have fit for me. You just hit on the word that I've been searching for. Camp. This movie is missing a little bit of camp. Only Billy Eichner at times is getting there. Yes. And I think that that is fundamental to some of the most

exciting animated movies is there is a campy quality to them because you have to oversell, especially in the voice acting. Right. Donald Glover is not going for camp at all. It's very underplayed,

I would say. Yeah. I'm not sure what he's going for, which is a problem. I noticed you skipped beyonce we're getting there okay um i thought john oliver john oliver was fine as zazu he's he's basically playing john oliver he's probably doing like you know his his hbo show but as zazu which is fine um john connie as rafiki fine. Yeah. James Earl Jones, we mentioned.

Mm-hmm. Alfre Woodard as Sarabi. Great. Doesn't get a lot to do. No. But it's great. Again, I just would really love, there was a great, there was a National Geographic piece that was explaining some aspects of how the lion dynamics and the Lion King are incorrect.

I would like to know why there's, there's only one, there's only two dudes, two lions, and a lot of women, and they don't do anything. Anyway. I don't have any answers. I don't know enough about lions. I think Florence, Kusumba, Keegan-Michael Key, and Eric Andre portray Shenzi, Kamari, and Azizi, the hyenas. Pretty good. Yeah. Beyonce, Knowles, Carter, as Nala. What do you think of Beyonce? I'm not afraid afraid to say it it's not a good performance it's not good it's not a good performance it's it's caps lock acting she's just yelling every single sentence and simba no we must not do this we must go over here and there's simba there are a couple moments that are literally just, come on, lions, let's get in formation.

And she's doing that actual voice. And I understand wanting to pull that reference in because at that moment, the movie needs the energy. But no. It reminded me of the Endgame sequence where all the female superheroes united. Yes. Which, you know. Which I did not like.

It's not what you want. It's really not what you want yeah it's really not what you want it's just it hasn't worked no i i think that beyonce is it doesn't work at all in this setting which is at least visually supposed to be naturalistic and i think we've kind of identified that the tension here is between the naturalistic visuals and the childlike and also like occasionally campy aspects of the script so I don't think it's a good fit for her and I think she she is the definition of of performance as greatness Beyonce shows up and she is putting on the greatest show for you and you are aware of of the performance of the staging of her assuming a character that is part of what makes her great as a musician and as a performer on the on the

stage it doesn't work when she's trying to play a line who can talk because you're aware of that you're aware of the the artifice of. And she's here for the artifice. She's here to appear at the premiere. She's here to sing a song. She's here to sell the movie in an even bigger way. This makes it even more of an international event. And in that respect, I get it. I certainly don't begrudge Beyonce.

I don't begrudge Disney for making this choice. It's just creatively, she just can't do it. It's okay. She can do literally everything else. She's good at almost everything else. I think that's true. And unfortunately, saying words is not the thing that she does well. I don't think the original 1994 performance, which is by Moira Kelly of...

I love Moira Kelly. Cutting Edge fame. Oh my God. God bless. What an icon. Right. But it's the same thing where it's not great. Yeah. an icon right but it's this same thing not where it's not great yeah and the matthew broderick

performance i had forgotten that it was matthew broderick which is my verdict on 1994 old simba this movie's not about olden olden old simba and old nala it's, it's not interested in that. There were some legendary folks in the 1994 cast, though. Okay. Nathan Lane. Sure. One of the greats. And Eichner had a heavy burden to pick up from Nathan Lane, and he does so admirably. Robert Giel was Rafiki, the late great. Rowan Atkinson, Mr. Bean was Zazu. I don't think I knew that. I don't think I did either. And we mentioned Jeremy Irons and, of course, James Earl Jones. So, you know, I don't think that— I just don't think that a lot of the voice acting works, and that's part of what kept me from admiring the movie as much as I'd like to.

I agree with that. Again, I don't think that they developed it to go along with the— their focus was on the technical. What about the music? Mm-hmm. A slower tempo. Why was it slower? I guess because lions walk at that speed.

I needed it to be a little... I think that's where the rest of the extra minutes came from, is that it was just a little slow. I guess the key songs in this movie are Circle of Life, I Just Can't Wait to Be King, Be Prepared, Underrated Scar Jam. Scar Jam? Sure, yeah. Akuna Matata.

Yeah. Can You Feel the Love Tonight? Mm-hmm. I think that's it, right? That's it. Akuna Matata. Yeah. Can You Feel the Love Tonight? Mm-hmm. I think that's it, right? That's it. I mean, that's five. That's five classics. What was your favorite of the new ones?

Of the new songs? Mm-hmm. I don't bring new songs into this. I have not heard the full new Beyonce song. It was just her saying spirit a lot in the movie while running across some beautiful vistas, which, I mean, not mad. I can't evaluate it until I've heard the whole thing. just her saying spirit a lot in the movie while running across some beautiful vistas which i mean not mad i can't evaluate it until i've heard the whole thing and then there is a new credit song

though with elton john singing i believe it's called never too late great shout out to elton and his victory tour i'm loving that here's my thing here's my thing elton has so much money it's outrageous he deserves it okay what a what a talented and what a talented musician and an important person to me my thing is circle of life is possibly the greatest disney song ever written or one of them it's definitely the greatest opening song and in terms of the role that it plays in the movie, you hear one note and you can conjure an entire movie. It brings all of the drama to you in one note. That is powerful.

And somehow. I'm right here, Amanda. I just, I really thought I was going to get Beyonce singing the circle of life. Why did I go to the movie theater if I didn't get Beyonce singing the circle of life on top of that why did I go to Elton John's goodbye tour and not get Elton John singing the circle of life what do I have to do as a grown adult who is saying supportive things about all of these people's output to get just one of them singing circle of life to me in a in a situation that's all I want I have such bad news for you.

They don't care about you. They don't care about you at all. I know. They don't even really care about your support. I know. But I think they care about my money at least. And I gave them that. You did.

But that's the thing. You're going to give them that no matter what. And they're making the creative choices they want to make. That is the best Disney song is an interesting conversation. I don't know if it is. I don't think it's the best Disney song is an interesting conversation. I don't know if it is. I don't think it's the best Disney song, especially in terms of... Because once you say best Disney song, it has to stand on its own outside of the movie.

And I think that that is just the most successful and evocative song in terms of what it does in communicating the themes of the movie, in soundtracking the visuals of the movie, in soundtracking the visuals of the movie, in representing the movie instantly. I mean, think of a better opening to a movie. Definitely, I mean, it's the best opening to an animated movie. So I think you inevitably tell on yourself whenever you talk about this sort of thing

because it's very bound up in when you saw something. We were having this conversation with Mallory Rubin yesterday, and she went right to a Mulan song. Let's get down to business to defeat the Huns. Which, like I said on the show, I've never seen Mulan. A lot of the people under 30 here are talking about it. And I just, I refuse to engage in that. But that's a big movie for them. Sure. And I think if you are 15, maybe if you're 12, Frozen might be huge for you.

For the first time in forever, I'll be dancing through the night. And the songs from Frozen would be your pick. I mentioned last week on this show that Robin Hood is my favorite Disney movie. Now, Robin Hood, the songs in Robin Hood are very me. They're written by Roger Miller, and they're like country folk Americana of a certain kind in the 1960s that I like. Yes, that is the same thing. That is the intro to the movie. It introduces us to the characters.

It's kind of overture of the Robin Hood story. And it's just a great folk song. So for me, that's my thing. I think it's just a personality test. What your favorite Disney song is is a personality test. If you go to TheRinger.com right now, you can see our ranking. I would say that that ranking is an editorially curated and managed experience that I'm sure you will hold against us. It's fine.

Like, lists happen, you know? Lists happen. You got to have your own personal conviction. While I do, everything that you just said is true. And I think Circle of Life is possibly not the best out of a vacuum Disney song. I even just, I said that already. It's my favorite because I think of the role that it plays in the movie.

I just find it really powerful. And I think everybody has a different favorite. Everybody responds to a different song based on their experiences. Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid. I've got gadgets and gizmos aplenty. I've got whozits and whatzits galore. I mean, that one is hugely important.

And that's definitely up there for me. I'm trying to think, like, objectively, out of a vacuum. Colors of the Wind from Pocahontas. Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon? Or ask the grinning bobcat why he grinned? I like that one a lot. I also like Just Around the Riverbend. But I do think the Elton John songs hold up. You know what's tight?

Be our guest. Guest. be our guest guest be our guest put our service to the test tie your napkin around your neck sherry

and we provide the rest I mean be our guest is probably top five that's a jam and I think

I don't even like Beauty and the Beast yeah really yeah okay you know the sleeper in

Beauty and the Beast is Belle but that's like just with the opening song with her and the villagers, you know? Uh-huh. Yeah, that's good. I like the opening songs, I guess. Yeah, I can see that. But again, I think that's like a deep cut favorite personal experience being a girl who likes reading books things as opposed to it being great.

I do think the Ellen John songs are just pop songs. If we're going to do this objectively, Can You Feel the Love Tonight is a jam. I think Prince Ali is in my top three. Okay. I accept that. That's a pretty good one. I honestly thought Will Smith did a nice job with that.

He didn't, but okay. It was fun. At least they had all the people out in the street. You know, he was selling it. He was aware of your feelings and was trying to deliver on those. We didn't appreciate Robin Williams in his time. We needed to appreciate him more. Okay. I completely agree with that while also thinking that you don't appreciate Will Smith enough in his time. You're probably right about that. Okay. Let's talk a little bit

about the external experience of The Lion King. One thing that's come up, and we are Oscar podcasters in many ways, is where does this movie fit into the Oscar conversation? As I mentioned, the original had two. I'm sure that both

Beyonce and Elton John are gunning for a Best Original Song nomination here. Obviously, the film, I'm almost certain, will be recognized in the Best Visual Effects

category. And the question of whether it competes in Best Animated animated feature seems to be a big talking point amongst academy circles. Because one, you've got Disney, which also has Toy Story 4 this year, which would theoretically be competing in that category. And two, is this actually an animated movie or is it not? Yes, it's an animated movie, right? Don't we have a technical definition of that? I don't know.

I think it puts, there's two choices here. One is, will Disney choose to run it in that category? Will it create a campaign around it and submit it officially? And two, will voters recognize it as such? Because it has a cinematographer in a way that most films like this don't. And like, could Avatar have been considered an animated feature given that so much of the film is digital animation? Right.

I don't, should Dawn of the Planet of the Apes be considered an animated film? We're in this, that's an interesting creative conundrum. And I'm quite curious to see what Disney does. I think Disney will try to run this in Best Picture. I don't think it will. I don't think it will

compete for Best Picture. I agree with that. It seems, I mean, they try to run most things in Best Picture. They're not usually that aggressive. Right, that's true.

They're not aggressive generally. Exactly. In the animated category, they are. I mean, they've probably won, I would say, upwards of 85% of the best animated features over the last 20 years since they installed the category. Pixar is often at the forefront of that, though. You know, movies like Zootopia have also won, too.

Like, Disney digital animation is also a huge competitor in that field. This isn't in neither of those parts of the company. This is Disney original pictures. Well, it just seems like, as you said, they aren't that aggressive generally at the Oscars. So you have to assume their strategy will be go for the effects, which are a layup, I would say. Or not a layup, but...

I mean, Endgame. I mean, you know, there is... The Rise of Skywalker. Sure. Hobbs and Shaw. Well, I mean, that's where there is... The rise of Skywalker. Sure. Hobbes and Shaw. Well, I mean, that's where you and I disagree a little. I'm just like, this is amazing. And to me, this seems like a significant technical achievement over something like Endgame.

And I know how many people worked on Endgame, and I know the visual references, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's what I have to say about that. That said, I'm not an Academy member or a technical expert. So you could be right that I'm sure there are as many political things in terms of whether people want to vote for this style of effects versus Endgame versus, you know, any number of other sequences. But it seems to me like the best bet would be to run it in effects and then hope you pick up some song stuff. The last 10 years of best visual effects is very interesting. Okay, go ahead. I think it bodes well for The Lion King.

Here's why. 2011, Hugo. 2012, Life of Pi. 2013, Gravity. 2014, Interstellar. 2015, Ex Machina. 2016, The Jungle Book, Jon Favreau's film. 2017, Blade Runner.

2049, 2018, First Man. What they like to reward here is a craftsperson's film, something a little bit more high-minded. Now, The Lion King is going to put them to a decision in an interesting way. Because it's not a comic book movie, but's not quite hugo or ex machina it's still a disney animated property and so it'll that'll be an interesting race you know i don't know how much time i can spend necessarily debating the the merits of visual effects in certain films because of what i said earlier which is i don't fully understand how they do what they do right i think also merit probably doesn't matter.

You put your finger on the point that this is a group of people who do this for a living and probably have very strong opinions about the craft and what direction

they would like to see these things going in and I don't quite know the inner workings of that voting body though I would love to hear more. Does Beyonce have an Oscar?

I don't think so, no. This is her chance. Yes, her first chance. I'm sure they'll give her as many more chances as Beyonce would like in order to finally win an Oscar. Do you think she should get an Oscar for this? I don't. This didn't really stand out to me.

Again, I haven't heard the full song, but it wasn't the most exciting part of this movie by any means. What other Oscar things do you think you can contend for? Anything? I don't really. If I had to guess, they'll run it in Best Picture, but not put a lot of weight behind it because they don't want to eclipse Toy Story 4, I would say. And it just seems like an uphill battle in animated and doesn't really seem like it's worth it to Disney because again, that's not why they're doing this. They're doing this to make money and to have all of us still go to the theaters and then to put it on their

streaming service and have people watch it some more. And so I think it'll be pretty muted at the Oscars or kind of be early in the night in the technical categories. Can we talk just a little bit about Jon Favreau? Mm-hmm. I think Jon Favreau is having one of the more fascinating Hollywood careers in the last 50 years. Absolutely. Obviously, he got his start as a screenwriter and actor and kind of broke through with swingers. And he was a working actor for a time.

He was a writer for a time. And then in 2001, he makes Maid. That's his first film, which is sort of a continuation of Swingers. Different characters, but the same interplay with Vince Vaughn. Great performance by Diddy and Maid. I don't know if you recall that. And then he makes eight movies in a row that are pretty weird. Some of them are great.

Okay. Some of them are fine. Some of them are bad. Yes. His first movie after Maid is Elf, which is an instant classic. Yes. Elf is, I think Elf might be my brother's favorite movie. Love my brother.

Shout out to Kyle. Then he makes a movie called Zathura colon A Space Adventure. Oh boy. That movie didn't do that well. And then he makes Iron Man, which is arguably the most quote unquote important movie of this century. And I think regardless of your feelings about comic book movies

and all that stuff. I just agreed with you. It's very well made. It's very significant. Set the template for what these kinds of movies were going to be. Casquan and Paltrow.

Henceforth. Casquan and Paltrow. Then he makes Iron Man 2 which is bad. Right. Then he makes Cowboys and Aliens which I wonder how far away we are

from the is Cowboys and Aliens good movement. I thought you were going to do it right now. I don't think it's good, unfortunately. I feel like I just am so conditioned to that take from you. Just being like, you know what? It's actually great. I mean, it's right there in the title.

At some point, I appreciate the essentialism. It's Cowboys and it's Aliens. It's all the things. I have a little bit of a Damon Lindelof problem. And that's a Damon Lindelof property. But you know, Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Olivia olivia wild sam rockwell pretty dope cast people pretty pretty dope cast then he makes chef three years later he licks his wounds he emerges post cowboys and aliens and he makes a charming little film called chef which i respect i think sometimes big time filmmakers need to go back and make a more personal piece. Jon Favreau obviously likes food. He likes the act of creating food. And I

enjoy that movie. And then he comes back two years later with The Jungle Book, which has obviously changed his career yet again, and has changed movies yet again. I mean, a lot of these movies are happening. And I think The Lion King in particular is happening because of the, I would say, somewhat unpredictable mega success of The Jungle Book, which made $1 billion at the box office. And it makes The Lion King. So if you're Amanda, you're Jon Favreau. Okay.

You've got all the money in the world. You've got all the creative capital in the world. You're at the forefront of your industry. You've made nine films. Your 10th film is what? So after The Lion King. Yeah. Gosh. Where do you go? What do you do? What do king yeah gosh where do you go what do you do

what do you conquer what do you what's a challenge well i think what's interesting about the lion king and the jungle but i don't i could be wrong i don't get the impression that john favreau made either of these movies because he was like the most important important thing to me are Disney movies and recreating them and getting to live in this world that I experienced as a child over and over again. I don't think he has a fan approach to this filmmaking. It seems like he does enjoy making money, which is great. So do I. We all do. Yeah. And it just kind of seems like an interesting problem to be solved. And he was kind of like, sure. It seems like the interviews that I've read even about how they made The Lion King and how it's different from how they made The Jungle Book just because of you're trying to,

they were trying to recreate a live action film experience while just having it be totally digital. And so it's a lot of working with people and problem solving and being like, huh, I'm going to go to work today and have a creative challenge and then I'll go home. And at the end of the day, it'll be fine because these movies are bulletproof and will make a lot of money and no one will be that mad at me. So if that's your mindset where it's just like, I want to have an interesting job and make a lot of money, you could do a lot of different things. I don't think it's suddenly like I'm going to make another chef. What I'm really going to do is make a small, quiet passion project film, I assume.

He did that already, though. He made The Chef Show for Netflix with Roy Choi, which is where we got that incredible Gwyneth Paltrow moment. But that is different than Chef. That's just i'm having a nice time and someone again it's like i like doing this and someone's gonna give me money to do it and it'll be interesting and then i'll go home and the stakes are actually quite low that's like this podcast for me and you so i i i would think if it's not another live action style movie, it would be something similar in terms of franchising or in terms of, I don't think that this is a full passion project for him. I think it's just kind of something to try and figure out, which is a good position to be in. Can I read a very brief quote from john favreau's

wikipedia page sure favreau credits the role-playing game dungeons and dragons with giving him a quote really strong background in imagination storytelling understanding how to create tone and a sense of balance yeah maybe make the dungeons and dragons movie sure that has long been considered unmakeable if you're citing dungeons and dragons as the way that you understand all of this that's like the most that's the most obvious reference that you can it seems fake right it's so obvious it seems so i don't actually think that he's going to make a dungeon and dragons because i didn't really care in may 2019 it was announced that favreau will be named a disney legend at the 2019 D23 Expo for his

outstanding contributions to the Walt Disney Company. That's fascinating to be considered in that sort of company because he is an all-time industry guy now. And the way he came in was the opposite. He was a hustler. He was like a struggling stand-up comedian and writer and failing actor who made his own fortunes and made a small movie with Doug Liman and Vince Vaughn that was bought by Harvey Weinstein and released by Miramax. And it's definitely one of my favorite movies in a long time. We're doing a rewatchables for Reservoir Dogs and Swingers when I was like 14. Probably honestly significantly changed my life to watch those movies over and over again. It's really weird for me to think that the guy from Swingers is the guy who makes this movie. Sean, it's happening to you too. Oh my God. May it happen to all of us.

May we all grow up and get normal jobs and make a shitload of money. I wish that for you, big picture listener. I wish it for everyone. Is there anything else we should say about the movie The Lion King? I'm fascinated to see what the wider response to it is. I think it's going to make a tremendous amount of money. I think, you know, people will go see it

regardless of the reviews. I think people will see it internationally. It has that international translatable appeal. I am curious whether kids like it. It seems increasingly...

Does that matter? I don't know. I think what we found in Aladdin was that kids do like it. We're going to have to wait to get the official ruling from Jason Gallagher's son. Yes, from Isaac. And I want to know just finally, would you recommend this movie to an adult moviegoer? Yeah.

You heard it here first, folks. Amanda says yes. We have truly completed the circle of life can you feel the love tonight open your heart please stay tuned

to future episodes of the big picture you know if you're a fan of Quentin Tarantino I suspect we'll have a lot for you on the Ringer Podcast Network in the next week or so

next week we're going to be breaking down the top five Quentin Tarantino movies that'll be me Chris Ryan and Jason Concepcion

and then tune in later in the week for me, Amanda Dobbins, and Chris Ryan talking about a movie called Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. See you then. Thank you.