by Panpardus » September 30th, 2020, 8:32 am
Saw the news and audibly said "Huh!?"
So, I guess there'll be more new [i]Lion King[/i] content in the foreseeable future after all. I figured it was inevitable, but still, good call on those who actually made that call. I'm actually quite excited by the prospect of them writing an original story this time around, and the change in director to Barry Jenkins -- he co-wrote and directed [i]Moonlight[/i], as well as an adaptation of James Baldwin's [i]If Beale Street Could Talk[/i], plus he has a whole slate of upcoming projects about African culture in his production pipeline -- has me even more intrigued.
I hope they take some of the criticisms from the first film and apply them here. If they're not going to make the faces more expressive, then at least have the sense to not do long close-ups on emotionally charged moments for emotions that the animals clearly can't pull off satisfactorily.
To clear up the prequel vs sequel talk as much as I can, the sources are saying it'll be a follow-up film similar to [i]The Godfather Part II[/i]. I haven't actually properly watched that movie, but from my understanding the movie jumps back and forth in time to tell two parallel stories with related themes; the main story focuses on the present day of the chronology and moves that story forward from the first film, while the other story focuses on the older generation of characters and the events that led them to what happens in [i]The Godfather[/i], so it's basically like getting a prequel and a sequel in the same movie. So we'll presumably be jumping back and forth between Simba's ongoing story and Mufasa's backstory. The Mufasa portion is probably pretty easy to figure out in terms of the things it'll cover (the animus with Scar and the love triangle between the brothers and Sarabi) but I can't think of what they'll actually do with Simba's story. Good thing it's not my job to write.
Ooh, this definitely means a whole new slate of music too; between the film score, the soundtrack, and the traditional whole extra album of music "inspired by the movie", we're hopefully in for a ton of great stuff there. Let's hope they get some Kenyan artists this time!