Mufasa: The Lion King

[Marvolo]

Being entirely honest I still havent watched all of Favreau's film. I just did not like the visual design. I thought I'd warm to it, but it just looked too much like nature doc footage with adlib dialogue and none of the emotion was landing. If they stick with that hyper real style in the sequel I doubt I'll even give it a chance.

 

[terry78]

 

[Marvolo]

Yeah let's blame California for doing what doctors and scientists advised them to do. Damn those hippies for not letting the Mouse open its theme park and kill its employees and customers.

I've got an idea. How about Disney executives take a pay cut and cancel their bonuses, cancel a few unnecessary live action remakes, and cut down some of their bloated film budgets for the next year or two. That should allow them to keep paying 28,000 employees' low wages. But that would require Disney to actually give a **** about its grunt employees.

 

[Prison Mike]

The cuts are just an unfortunate side effect of the restrictions sadly, but a lot of businesses are facing a similar thing. As for the live action remakes considered unnecessary...well I don’t know any movie that would be considered necessary to begin with.

 

[Arachnerd]

I feel that's a strawman. Something doesn't have to be necessary to be good, sure, but it's even more unnecessary if it turns out to be dull and disappointing.

 

[Schlosser85]

The cuts are a side effect of the pandemic that shouldn’t be surprising to anyone.

 

[terry78]

They are but it's obvious Disney needs to recoup some cash, and a sequel like this could do it.

 

[Prison Mike]

Yeah, if anything, they’re going to green light more sequels to the live action remakes that made money in the past. I mean...eventually the box office will be back to where it was pre COVID.

 

[jmc]

Normally I would ***** and moan about this but these studios are continuing to make stupid decisions during the worst of times so it’s hardly a surprise. As such I want them to make this movie, I want them to spend another $200m+ and act as if nothing has changed, especially for a sequel to a film most believe to be a soulless shell. Keep wasting your money Disney. Maybe in the not too distant future you’ll realise your decisions are taking the company in a very wrong direction.

 

[samsnee]

I still haven’t made it through the first one. It was so boring and lifeless, I can’t imagine how the second one would improve.

 

[The Guard]

Have to believe there are some progressive themes in this that appeal to him. Can't just be a paycheck, it can't be.

 

[Persona]

Really annoyed that this is Jenkins' next project but more power to him, I guess.

 

[Wheels]

I feel that's a strawman. Something doesn't have to be necessary to be good, sure, but it's even more unnecessary if it turns out to be dull and disappointing.

Nothing is necessary though.

No movie needs to be made except for the movies we justify being greenlit due to our own biases. Today's unnecessary film becomes " necessary" tommorow due to whims of the moment and the trends of a given time.

We're an egotistical lot if you examine us lol. I do it too.

 

[Melpardus]

Nobody wants to see a Mufasa and Scar prequel and I actually face palmed as I was watching John Campea earlier actually pitch that idea like it was something exciting lol.

I haven't delved too deeply into this in a very long time, but a Mufasa-Scar backstory is one of if not the biggest storylines that at least the litany of hardcore Lion King fans have wanted to see for literal decades now. It's probably one of the most-covered subjects in the franchise's fanfic community; there was even a dance show (The Lion King - A Brothers' Tale) based on it that was very well received over its very limited run a few years back. Cheesy and kiddie fare as the show often was, even the Lion Guard episode that actually gave Scar something of a proper canon backstory (canon to the cartoon universe anyway) got a surprising amount of media coverage last year because of it. (Of course, the episode also premiered in the wake of the Favreau film hitting theaters, so there was that boost as well.)

Obviously the prequel portion won't be the whole of the film, but it's one of the few things I think the 2019 movie did well in setting up; the way the relationship is played between Mufasa and Scar hints at a more personal and deeper history than the cartoon's (at least initial, before The Lion Guard added things) more overt big good, big bad dynamic. Not to disparage the original of course, I just think there's ample material in the remake's portrayal for any decent writer and a director like Jenkins to run with. (Surely that's at least partly why they announced the prequel bit without giving any hints for the actual sequel portion, as it's the part someone saw fit to be most excited about.) But we'll see...

The biggest drawback to this for me honestly is just whether they'll get James Earl Jones back if they feature "young man" Mufasa, which I assume is where the meat of that story would lie. I love him and didn't mind his 2019 reading, but it's clear that he doesn't have the oomph to play a younger role. Perhaps someone like Gary Anthony Williams (he's played Mufasa for The Lion Guard and sounds pretty decent) or Avery Brooks (he's even got a nice singing voice in they give Mufasa a song)...?

 

[Chesterfield]

Jones' 2019 reading of Mufasa was atrocious. As a big fan of the original animated movie and the way Mufasa was depicted and his delivery of lines, the 2019 version was overwhelmingly lacking. Lacked soul and lacked sincere emotion. I couldn't take his "stern" disposition seriously. In fact, it was heartbreaking and in consequence, I ended up walking out of the movie. How do you have an almost perfect reference point and screw it up so badly?

 

[Arachnerd]

For one thing, it was clear he was too old by this point to play the part again. Though I attribute it to direction as well.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

I won't be upset if the movie makes a lot of money, and I won't lose anything if it makes less money than its predecessor.

Being entirely honest I still havent watched all of Favreau's film. I just did not like the visual design. I thought I'd warm to it, but it just looked too much like nature doc footage with adlib dialogue and none of the emotion was landing. If they stick with that hyper real style in the sequel I doubt I'll even give it a chance.

That was the goal of the movie designs, so don't put your hopes up. Anyway; the movie managed to be a boring recreation of the hand drawn movie from 1994, so not warming up to it is a win for you.

 

[Chesterfield]

For one thing, it was clear he was too old by this point to play the part again. Though I attribute it to direction as well.

I get that he's old but he seemed fine in some parts and not so much in others and it was mainly down to the dialogue; the words used and the overall vocal direction of his words needing impact. In the 2019 movie Look at when he says, "If you ever come near my son again"...that's the Mufasa that should have consistently been portrayed throughout the film. But then his follow up line of, "You've been warned Senzi" was kind of weak; and the whole scene where he needs to teach his son a lesson. I feel like there was no urgency and emphasis in his voice...he was just too calm. Now, compared to the animated movie, Mufasa was straight up pissed and you felt that. From the moment he calls out Zazu to take Nala home and then going off on Simba before calming down. That's what was missing. It's almost like this 2019 film catered to this nu-age of ineffective parenting where you can't shout or discipline your kids lest you be slapped with accusations of child abuse and all that nonsense.

Mufasa kind of reminds me uncle Phil from Fresh Prince in the 1994 film and the 2019 film he's more like Mr Drummond from Different Strokes.

Lets compare Mufasa saves Simba

1994:



2019



Mufasa teaches Simba a lesson

1994:



2019:



Yeah, the 2019 ironically doesn't even come close to capturing the more real emotion.

 

[Drizzle]

Two things happened there:

1. James Earl Jones aged 25 years since the original film. He sounded his age when he reprised Darth Vader in Rogue One too.

2. Jon Favreau was too timid to give Jones proper acting direction. I can't really say I blame him considering Jones made the role so he should know it better than anyone, but I'm almost certain based on a lot of those line deliveries that a lot of them were done in a single take.

 

[Melpardus]

I read an interview with Favreau (or maybe it was a video, I don't remember anymore) where he pretty much confirmed that Jones recorded all of his lines in more or less one session and with limited direction; maybe an hour or so tops of work. He said Jones asked "what do you want?" and Favreau was basically like "You're Mufasa, do whatever you like." And then that was that.

Wonder how he's doing lately. I know the Disney schedule for their blockbuster marketing can be intense, but I don't remember him doing anything for the film's press junket or other advertising; literally just his voice in the trailers.

Also, can't front, I rewatched that clip and remembered why I liked the action scenes in this movie. i've always wondered what goes into choreographing an action/fight scene involving animals that are supposed to look believable. They probably won't but I wonder if they'll actually show blood in the next film considering they'll probably show how Scar got his scar(s). (I noticed they added a smaller but prominent one on the right side of his face as well.)

 

[Schlosser85]

It's obvious Jones' voice doesn't have the same power it once did. Which is understandable; he's 89 years old.

Even for his few lines in Rogue One, they did a little digital tweaking to make his voice sound more like it originally did as Vader. And you can still hear the difference a little bit, even with them trying to adjust it to make it closer.

 

[terry78]

I'm sure he's happy to do these roles, he's an icon. But at almost 90 you know he's probably tired.

 

[Drizzle]

It's obvious Jones' voice doesn't have the same power it once did. Which is understandable; he's 89 years old.

Even for his few lines in Rogue One, they did a little digital tweaking to make his voice sound more like it originally did as Vader. And you can still hear the difference a little bit, even with them trying to adjust it to make it closer.

Yeah, Vader sounding more mechanical anyway didn't make it as jarring. Especially considering his voice in A New Hope sounds different than it did in Empire and Jedi anyway. His voice was also only utilized for one scene. Mufasa 2019 on the other hand sounded like he was ready for retirement as opposed to the powerhouse in his prime 1994 version, with all due respect to James Earl Jones. I understand why they brought him back, but in my opinion, his Mufasa was no more or less iconic than Jeremy Irons's Scar, Robert Guillaume's Rafiki or Nathan Lane's Timon.

 

[Melpardus]

Still genuinely surprised they didn't bring back Ernie Sabella; this was pretty much the first onscreen (big or small, including commercials and video games I think) version of Pumbaa that didn't have him voicing the character.

 

[Schlosser85]

I thought Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen as Timon and Pumbaa were among the few cast members who didn’t feel like inferior cosplayers.