I can remember spending the night at one of my best friend’s houses in the summer of 1994, right after watching the original movie. The songs, “Can You Feel The Love Tonight?” and, “Circle of Life” were now stuck in my head. I fell hard for this movie as a young teenager, and I couldn’t wait to see the new version as a 40-year-old.
The Lion King holds a special place in my heart!
When I was pregnant with my first little boy in 2004, my husband and I went to San Francisco to watch the Lion King Musical. Again, I fell in love with the songs and the story.
We just got back from watching Disney’s newest Lion King movie and I LOVED IT!!!
I started to tear up during the opening sequence and again watching Simba and Nala fall in love. Timon and Pumbaa were pretty hilarious and the storyline pretty much followed the original scene by scene.
I think my favorite part about this re-make is how stinkin cute the Simba and Nala cubs were. I just wanted to hug them. I was even a bit sad when they grew up.
I did have a hard time wrapping my mind around how they filmed this movie. The movie looks like they used CGI animals with a real background, and in some places real animals. But the truth is, they used what is called, “virtual production” which is a mix of CGI and live-action techniques. Jungle Book was done the same way.
This new Lion King is not an animated movie but also not a live-action movie. And while sometimes the animals looked a little computer created, that didn’t take away from the film as a whole. Maybe this is the movie-making technique of the future?
In this 2019 version of The Lion King, directed by Jon Favreau, you will find Donald Glover as Simba, Seth Rogen as Pumbaa, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar, Alfre Woodard as Sarabi, Billy Eichner as Timon, John Kani as Rafiki, John Oliver as Zazu, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter as Nala, and James Earl Jones coming back as Mufasa. Shahadi Wright Joseph plays a young Nala and JD McCrary a young Simba.
This was a wonderful cast and I think everyone did a decent job. Having James Earl Jones back as Mufasa connected the two movies in a way which I really appreciated.
I loved the songs! I couldn’t help but sing along to them. My favorite was, Can You Feel The Love Tonight by Beyoncé, Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner. Their version of the song was beautiful.
While I love Elton John’s version too, this one will stick with me for a while. I have already added it to my playlist 🙂
As a HUGE fan of the original Lion King, this movie hit the spot. If you weren’t a huge fan of the 1994 animated version, I am not sure if you would enjoy this movie as much as I did. I guess that depends on how much you enjoy these types of films in general.
As far as the scarier scenes go, they might be a little much for some smaller children. Remember that while these are not real animals, they look like real animals and that can be difficult for some people. Knowing the full story of what happens helped with that but for small children and those that are very sensitive to that type of thing, those scenes might be harder to watch.
I didn’t feel like the movie was as different from the original as the live-action Aladdin was. But, I think that was okay. I think this was an entertaining movie where those of us that fell in love with it in the 90s can take our own kids and share a little bit of that magic with them.
Will you plan to go see this 2019 version of The Lion King?
L to R: The Turner family, Heather (Sarah Drew), Meribeth (Abigail Hummel), Samuel (Lucas Boyle), Darren (Justin Bruening) and Ellie (Samra Lee), pose after an awards ceremony in INDIVISIBLE–in theaters October 26, 2018. (Photo courtesy of © 2018 Provident Films LLC and The WTA Group, LLC. All rights reserved.)
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