Just saw the new Lion King movie. It was weird. I never saw the original Lion King so I had no nostalgic connection to the story. My first thought was about how humanized the animals were and that the 'prey' animals were just cool with the circle of life bullshit and must have a lottery or something to decide who gets eaten by the lions each feeding time.
Meanwhile having a nazi style rally with all the other victimized herbavores to praise the new king to whom they sacrifice unlucky souls as the price for living in peace on the plains. A large expanse that is ruled by the governing race of meat eaters. It really is an unrealistic representation of animals in the wild and I feel sorry for the kids who see this before they watch National Geographic nature shows.
And not to mention that while they address, albeit kind of brutally for the food animals how eating your neighbors is somehow justified, they really treat bugs, catipillars and grub worms like soulless nothings. Where's the Bug's Life movie where they're constantly in fear of being eaten or having their entire home destroyed without a thought?
And the poor Hyenas are like fucked over for everything. No wonder they're so pissed. An arbitrary monarchy basically shuts them out of the peaceful life why? Because they have nothing to offer? Because they aren't food? Because they are competition to the lions? I kinda feel bad for them.
Once I got over how odd it was watching an episode of Planet Earth where the animals talk and do people shit I started to get into the story. But even then it seemed like a cheesy 80s Disney movie. I did really enjoy the Billy Eichner parts tho. He's pretty funny.
Overall I felt like it should have never been remade. Besides my usual hatred of Hollywood's lazy money grabbing, to me the story feels outdated and predictable. Also personifying animals works better in cartoon form. It wasn't Uncanny Valley but something like that but with animals that left me feeling uncomfortable.
If you loved the original you're probably going to see this anyway so nothing I say here will matter. Even if you know you probably won't like it.
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