Disney’s new realistic versions of beloved classics certainly push the technology envelope, but lose character and expression.
At the weekend, the first trailer for the forthcoming Lion King (July 2019) became Disney’s most-watched trailer ever, in just a few days. The box office performance is guaranteed to match. It can’t lose, because it isn’t starting from scratch. There’s no hard sell to persuade audiences that they should invest in new characters or songs they’ve never heard. Even the voice cast includes the original Mufasa, James Earl Jones, with the rest comprised of household names including Beyonce, each major box office draws in their own right. There are no risks here, it’s all reward.
This photorealistic reboot follows the 2017 remake of Beauty and the Beast, Disney’s second-highest grossest film worldwide, earning well over a billion dollars. But few things are successful without standing on the shoulders of giants. Just like Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King remake could not command such anticipation were it not for the existence of the original.
There’s an era of musical animation most people recognise. It’s known as the Disney Renaissance, a surge of 2D animated Disney blockbusters beginning with 1989’s The Little Mermaid and ending ten years later with Tarzan. In the middle of this era is The Lion King, an original musical very broadly based on Hamlet. The Lion King is an example of what’s called “traditional animation”, shorthand for 2D. It looks, in essence, like a cartoon.
The phrase “traditional animation” brings to mind artists hunched over celulloid, hand-painting individual frames, and indeed that’s how most of The Lion King was created.
