The Lion King (2019)
My first impression of the first minutes of this movie is “Wow.”, the animals and their habitats seems real. It was so mesmerizing, like watching Discovery Channel on a theatre while I used to watch it limited to TV screen. I and my friends sat beside a family of four, and both their two daughters were terrified by how realistic the jungle looks like.
I didn’t know that this remake would be primarily on the visual since I had not watched the trailer nor read the news about it long before I finally bought the ticket. So my expectation was it would be like Maleficent (2014) which gave some twists and and more depth into its characters. Undoubtedly other changes happened to other aspects such as audio, both its scoring and soundtracks. I wrote a quick review on my Instagram right after watched this movie where I used word “Upgrade”. Thinking about it right now, I won’t say it was necessarily an upgrade of 1994’s The Lion King. It’s more an updated version of its original film. Other update was the jokes on current issues such as Body Shaming, while the story hasn’t changed that much.
I won’t write the storyline here since it’s just the same as its original film: how bad greedy animals try to steal the throne from the good ones and how the later fight back. Here I explain more my personal experience regarding to this movie. For me, watching this movie is like meeting my old friends who have grown up and yet the time I talk to them, they haven’t changed that much. Which is neither good nor bad.
The two young girls were the only kids at the theatre. There were times when they got terrified and hide their face into their parents arms even though it was Pumba and Timon, a funny couple of meerkat and warthog. Other times, they were screaming and crying which made other audiences needed to remind their parents to calm their children. Including me and my friend who were watching it at night, thought it would be no kids at all.
It was terrifying for me too, or confusing for my brain. When I get used to watch animal on Discovery Channel where the lion ate the cattle, it was weird to watch them talking to each other. For sure real animals do socialize yet anything but that. It’s also funny since in Indonesia there was this TV program called “Spontan Uhuy” where they dubbed the animals with funny conversations.
Again, I hope it would be some changes in the story. Especially since growing up made me realize that life is not only about black and white were good ones was 100% good while their opponents was unquestionably evil. It doesn’t mean that I hated this remake. Quite contrary is true, I like it and watching it in the theater is more pleasant. It’s absolutely a must-watch for me.
It’s just that The Lion King from 1994 was so memorable, made me questioning about life (and wild life), about good and bad and why they behave like that. I watched it on the DVD years after their show times since I was still a baby the time they launched the first film. It was timeless. Yet this movie is far away from that. I don’t think I’m going to rewatch this movie in the future, I will go to the old version.
Tragatra 