My Lion King Forum

Inspired by that other topic. If one tune can't make it into the remake, which one and why? Not including the Morning Report.

Let's be honest here:

Whichever new song is shoving out an existing song.

Putting aside the reports that "Be Prepared" is being excluded from the remake, I would say you can't cut any of the songs because of plot and character development and we have a cast of well-known singers.

You can't cut "Circle of Life" from the film. You just can't. It feels easy to cut "I Just Can't Wait to be King" since it's easy to convey through dialogue that Simba thinks being king is all about having power. Also, I think it's hard to translate Simba's imagination with the animals and backgrounds drenched in shiny African colors into photorealism CGI. However, at the same time, JD McCrady (the voice of cub Simba) has an amazing singing voice and you want to see it put to good use. So, I say the song stays.

For "Be Prepared", again, it's easy to convey through dialogue that Scar wants to kill Mufasa and Simba in order to become king, but also, the song tells us that Scar is promising the hyenas endless food only if they help him. Plus, it's one of the best villain songs ever composed so you can't cut that song.

I feel you need "Hakuna Matata" because it helps to have an upbeat song to uplift the audience after Mufasa dies. Lastly, you also need "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" because you have Donald Glover and Beyonce in the cast and you want to hear them sing together. However, I have read criticism that Simba and Nala's love story subplot doesn't add much to the plot, but I wouldn't cut the song.

Given the cast we have for the remake, I decided to cut "Be Prepared" from my imagining of this movie. I'm sure Chiwetel Ejiofor can carry a tune, but I think they're going for a more serious tone with Scar's characterization (as well as the hyenas) and making him less of a...flamboyant villain. Not to say that you can't have the song be a part of the score, but I don't think it needs to be a proper musical number to be effective. Plus, the onscreen action can't really be toned down to look realistic without removing the punch of the song; the ground splitting open and rock formations rising into the sky, goose-stepping hyenas, that one hyena playing a ribcage like a marimba... "I Just Can't Wait to be King" has a trippy color scheme but the actual antics are generally simple enough be translated to "real life" pretty well in my opinion, plus you have to use J. D. McCreary's singing voice unless you want to cut this and write him a new song.

As for my thoughts on keeping the others, "Circle of Life" is an obvious keeper, "Hakuna Matata" is simple and popular enough to be a sing-along song for the audience as soon as they hear the first lyric (so it doesn't really matter that Seth Rogan apparently can't sing it all that well) and is kinda needed at that point in the story, and cutting "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" would be the dumbest possible choice if you have two of the most popular and critically successful music artists of the decade at your disposal.