The Lion King Trailer Review
Coming out next year, on July 19th, in the UK and the US is the photo realistic, CGI Disney film, The Lion King. The first sneak peak trailer was recently released for this film and I have few things I’d like to say about it!
The sun rises over the African plains, the gazelles look up, elephants walk across an expansive land with a gigantic ice topped mountain in the background and birds fly across a large body of water. These are the opening scenes we see in the trailer and they look as though they have been extracted from the original films trailer, just with photo realistic CGI rather than cartoon drawings.
Then we hear Mufasa, voiced by James Earl Jones, the voice of the original Mufasa brought back because he was so iconic, voicing the line “Everything the light touches, is our kingdom”. This is a line spoken in the original film, so if you didn’t pick up on the fact that the trailer so far, which is only about 21 seconds in by this point, has been copied from the original trailer, hopefully you will from this line.
Then we’ve got some shots of the animals all lined up, making lots of noise and seeming excited, expectant even, like they’re waiting for the arrival of Simba.
The next shot we get is of Simba, or more accurately, his front right paw as it steps into the much larger footprint of Mufasa’s, foreshadowing how Simba must live up to his father, the King. As we see this very symbolic moment, which has been copied from the original film, we again hear Mufasa speak, this time saying “But a King’s time as ruler rises and falls like the sun”. This also foreshadows how Mufasa’s time will soon be coming to an end. Mufasa continues to speak, saying “One day, the sun will set on my time here, and will rise with you as the new King.” While we hear this, the most important line of dialogue in the trailer, we see a clip of the scene that will bring ruin to the king, and will evoke very sad memories in all the people who ever saw the original film and loved it. The herd of Buffalo, stampeding.
When all hope is lost, what does Disney do? It plays the iconic, possibly the most iconic piece of film music, The Circle of Life and reveals the first glimpse of Pride Rock, followed very quickly by Rafiki and young, possibly hours old Simba who turns his head towards the light. Rafiki then breaks apart the roots to release the red powdery substance that he pushes across Simba’s forehead, before lifting him up high into the sky to be seen by all the cheering animals waiting below.
Next the title card of “THE LION KING” followed by the names of the actors who will be lending their voices to the film. Donald Glover will voice Simba, Seth Rogan will voice Pumbaa, Chiwetel Ejiofor will voice Scar, Billy Eichner will voice Timon, John Oliver will voice Zazu, Keegan-Michael Key will voice Kamari, Beyonce Knowles-Carter will voice Nala and James Earl Jones will voice Mufasa.
Names of those not mentioned in the trailer are John Kani who will voice Rafiki, Alfre Woodard who will voice Sarabi, JD McCrary who will voice young Simba. Shahadi Wright Joseph will voice Young Nala, Florence Kasumba who will voice Shenzi and Eric Andre who will voice Azizi.
The final scene in the trailer is of a dark and cloudy sky, a lion, I’m guessing Simba, roaring powerfully at the sky and Mufasa saying “Remember”.
The trailer was epic, it did what it was meant to do, and that is to intrigue the audience who don’t already know the story of The Lion King. For those who do know the story, it means watching the trailer you have the feelings of nostalgia and you can breathe a sigh of relief that they haven’t tainted your beloved film by getting rid of your favourite characters or bringing in new ones.
The film will be directed by Jon Favreau, the same person who directed the photo realistic CGI/live action The Jungle Book, along with Iron Man and many other films.
The score for the film is by Hans Zimmer with songs by Tim Rice and Elton John. All three worked on the music of the original film so we know we’re in good hands.
Overall, I am excited to go and see this film but I hope that in some way they made it different from the original. The original is a good film, that has been proved and I don’t want a CGI photo realistic copy. I want something newer, refreshing and relevant to today. Asking for something specific, I would be very happy to see a back story for Scar, like what came first, the scar or the name? What makes him hate Mufasa so much? I think there’s a lot they could do to make this a better film than the first, we will just have to wait until July 19th 2019!
Disney Inside 
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