Anyways, that's enough of my agony, lord knows this would be better if it was a script for a video rather than the contents of a blog. If you clicked on this, you're probably wondering why I didn't just make some Twitter thread about my thoughts on the Lion King remake instead of forcing myself to get onto Blogger, create a new blog entry and type away into this downward spiral. Well, for one, the Twitter thread would be incredibly long, to the point that I don't think neither I nor anyone reading that thread would find it bearable to read through it. Twitter threads are bad formatting for walls of text. I need better formatting to articulate what I thought here. Moreover, I can set a better tone here. That tone of course being one of exasperation and exhaustion.
I struggle to be a creative because I feel very limited by what I have. Time, resources, energy, skill - all of these have become painfully finite. Sometimes I am given a boost in one of these fields, but it may only provide a few seconds of productivity. Other times, one of them will become so depleted that it leaves me with little option but to watch a show or play video games, which will make me feel like I'm accomplishing something. Creating anything lately has more often felt like pressing my hand against hot coals in an empty cave, painstakingly enduring the process only to be left with a part of myself melted away and hearing the echoes of my agony. If I could only be one of the largest entertainment conglomerates in the world, I could spend less time reiterating my frustration of being productive and instead turn whatever thought that crosses my mind into a reality. Shit, I wouldn't even need to exhaust myself, the brunt of the effort would be delegated to teams of randos that I wouldn't give a second thought to bring my vision to reality! My idea could turn out to be mediocre, it might've been mediocre from the start, but I could always get this machine to pump out plenty more to make up the damage. I could have a whole world to myself.
That could have theme park rides. And mascots. And tons of merchandise.
Now I could get angry as to why the world has made me a mortal that needs to take days to write a blog entry and not a company that can remake one of its most memorable properties in one of the most ill-conceived ways and still be stable enough to make more. That really wouldn't be a good look. I'd look jealous. But I am jealous. Corporations are truly enviable entities, and Disney certainly has to be one of the most enviable. It's powerful. It's prestigious. It's profits are non-stop. It doesn't need to contemplate its existence. It doesn't feel like it's wasting time. It'll live longer than the oldest person on earth. To think that they could get their hands on such stunning technology and use it in the most laborious rehashing makes my blood boil, but I could only wish that I could make even half from such a similar move.
With that said, I'm still quite peeved by the Lion King remake. The circumstances that led me to watch this film I can't really get into but it required none of my money going into its box-office. That provided some relief in that I did not directly contribute to it. However it's hard to shake that I am not at least part of the problem. I didn't bother to watch any of the live action remakes of the Disney properties, given that I am not slavishly devoted to their products. About the only time I am is if I want to garner some traction on a dating application, since a lot of women would happily give their lives over to the Mouse if it wanted to go to war with any nation. The Lion King is (and hopefully will remain as) the exception. My curiosity got the better of me, I just had to know what it was at the end. It didn't seem right to find some pirated copy, I had to be there in the theater and experience it as a proper moviegoer.
Already I can tell you that whatever you initially thought about the movie, you will come out unchanged. The lovers and the haters will hardly cross paths in their admiration. As a hater, I wanted to at least be open to the idea of being a lover. It seemed too easy to reiterate about the asinine decision to opt for such ultra-realistic animation. Aficionados of the medium have already decried how it insults the original, reinforcing the notion of traditional animation being nothing more than dumb cartoons. Most everyone else has focused on how it fails in conveying emotion and looks just the worst when there's a musical number. Even focusing on specific scenes like Mufasa's death and the daytime rendition of Can You Feel The Love Tonight looking wrong is redundant. My take needed to be fresh.
Alas, my take remains cold, though not with any particular bitterness. The music was a noticeable downgrade, most of the actors were either trying too little or trying too hard with Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen being the worst on the latter. The animation is by far the most galling factor of it all, the wasted rendering hours to get all the individual strands of hair to appear on screen only for it convey little more than what a blank wall could. Any fury I could muster quickly dissipated as I reminded myself of how little it would accomplish. Though perhaps that was because I could empathize with the film. Not with the characters or the story, but with its production. There's something in how serviceable the mediocrity in The Lion King is that makes it special.
The voice acting was adequate, in much the same way furniture is to an empty room. I think the only three that I felt were really trying were James Earl Jones, Chiwetel Ejiofor and John Oliver. Jones had the good fortune to get paid to do the same role again. Ejiofor provided a slightly different interpretation of the original that almost works, save for some awkward deliveries and lesser musical number. Though with the music, I could trick myself in enjoying it. It would require me to close my eyes from how laughable the visuals and the melodies don't sync up together but I could reasonably applaud the soundtrack for how passable it was. It's not to say that the visuals weren't still amazing to look at some of the time. If I concentrated hard enough on a few stills, I could see the better movie hiding underneath. It needed to be free to experiment more, to express itself more. It should have been unrealistically real, not realistically real.
What captivated me about The Lion King wasn't its impressive attention to detail or its inclusion of the Queen Bey or even the absolute letdown of not making Timon and Pumbaa explicitly gay as they so very well teased. It was seeing it as a tired being, knowing that it had too much on its plate and couldn't deliver on it, and still doing what it could to justify its existence. I didn't think I could come to understand a film through personifying it and projecting myself onto it, but Disney has managed to achieve this incredibly surreal experience within me. In a way it inspires me. I just need to continue on my path, and grow ever stronger in making my work. And that even if I make a mess that I try to polish that mess and sell it with as much confidence as I can muster.
The Lion King still is a shit movie though, don't bother with this remake. Fuck Disney.
