Disney is undoubtedly onto a winner with their remake of The Lion King, due out next year. The cast is killer – not only is James Earl Jones returning as Mufasa, but the other voice talents include Beyonce and Donald Glover as adult Nala and Simba. And the first teaser trailer, released on Friday, has already recorded the second highest number of views for a trailer in a single day ever, behind only the initial drop for Avengers: Infinity War.
And the animation looks stunning, with every hair on baby Simba’s head lovingly rendered, as we could see from the trailer’s extremely faithful recreation of a scene we all know every frame of.
But that’s what it is: animation. Animation designed to look photo-real, but it’s CGI.
And the internet’s all up in arms about whether referring to the next instalment in Disney’s live-action reboot series as “live action” is, well, dumb.
IT’S. NOT. A. LIVE. ACTION. LION. KING. IT’S. STILL. A. CARTOON.
— Daniel Spenser (@DanSpenser) November 23, 2018
https://www.twitter.com/libbycwatson/status/1065746120482193408
wow I just watched that new lion king trailer and I completely misunderstood what live action meant because I kept waiting for beyonce to appear in a lion costume
— anaïs e-m (@anaees) November 24, 2018
https://www.twitter.com/creepypuppet/status/1065739243408973824
(Yup, that’s Aquaman director James Wan.)
DISNEY EXEC: Pride Rock? We always hated how striking and iconic it looked. The sun hit it too beautifully. Is there any way we could make it look more like [points to turd mood board] a couple of turds piled together on an overcast day? pic.twitter.com/GaU3tkcq3J
— Neil Cicierega (@neilcic) November 23, 2018
You: "Can't wait to see the live action Lion King!"
Animators that spent 22 months working on it: pic.twitter.com/qC4rpGn0EP— Jeff May (@heytherejeffro) November 24, 2018
Stoooooop it with the whole “ACTUALLY the new Lion King is ANIMATED not Live Action”. Like, we get it. It’s just short hand. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
— Ellie Main (@Elliemainey) November 24, 2018
I work for the company (MPC) that's done all of the visual effects for #LionKing2019, which is basically 95% of it. We also made the Jungle Book remake. It's interesting seeing all of the responses to this film, as ones like yours are usually exactly how I would react. https://t.co/iCryOBokzS
— Conor Middleton (@ConorMiddleton) November 23, 2018
This is an argument that didn’t really come up around director Jon Favreau’s 2016 live-action Jungle Book remake. Because they had a non-CGI human in it, people didn’t really question it – and the gorgeous CGI was widely considered to be the best thing about it.
And nobody’s questioning the live-action-ness of Tim Burton’s Dumbo remake coming out next year just because they didn’t slap clown makeup on a real baby elephant. Because look, Colin Farrell’s there!
But unless there’s a major departure from the original in store, there will be no humans in The Lion King.
So which side are you on? Are you happy to just call it “the new Lion King”, and hold on to that “live-action” designation until they can train some for-real lions to act out the story of Hamlet and an IRL meerkat to do the hula?
For the record, the Wikipedia page currently calls it a “photorealistic computer-animated” film.
The real question will be: will a photorealistic 3D-animated lion voiced by Donald Glover be as weirdly sexy as a 2D-animated lion voiced by Matthew Broderick?
Look…
…probably.
Only time (specifically, July 2019) will tell.