Should The Lion King be remade as a "live action" (CG) film?

[Vidan]

I think the 2016 remake of The Jungle Book demonstrates that Disney is capable of producing a compelling movie with few, if any, real human actors, and computer graphics have advanced to the point where it would be possible to realize our favorite TLK characters in a convincing manner.

What do you think? Should Disney remake The Lion King using CG?

[Leorgathar]

Hmm with Disney being on the live action/CGI remakes trend, I bet they eventually will consider it. But I have very mixed feelings, mostly negative about it. I already wrote about this on my Tumblr page, so I'll just copy-paste it here:

First I'll say it’s not entirely a terrible idea, perhaps someone at Disney could figure out the right way to do it, or a way no one has thought of yet that would work, like they have proven in the past with other projects. But that said I still have at least 3 main concerns with this.

1. Everything about the original The Lion King is timeless. This isn’t the same as remaking The Jungle Book, where as loved as that movie is, the animation and pacing do feel quite dated, the same goes for all other technical aspects, like the sound mixing/editing, musical score, visual effects, etc. So for me it’s understandable they did that with TJB, but this isn’t the case with The Lion King, many decades can go by and the movie still won’t feel so dated, it’s a masterpiece from wherever you see it, and for me it’s in the pinnacle of hand-drawn animation. 
CGI/Live Action does NOT mean “improvement”. Sure, TJB feels improved, but that’s because of how dated the original feels, not because it’s hand-drawn.

2. There aren’t humans in The Lion King, so the entire characterization for the film would have to rely entirely on CGI animals. I loved The Jungle Book, they did an amazing job with their animals characters, but they don’t exactly look… very expressive to me. I mean, they do have animated facial features, but I still don’t think it’s enough to make an all-animal movie. I guess it works with TJB since the central character is an expressive human kid that the movie follows all the time and so he makes up for it, but if they want to make photorealistic CGI lions interacting with each other in the same style as TJB, I don’t think it would feel right to me. Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia looks fairly good, but could you watch an entire movie with lions like that? not even Aslan is ‘that’ expressive. They would have to be put a lot of work on all those different expressions, probably with Andy Serkis’ signature motion capture technology. But even if they nail the expressions right, it would still have to defy an uncanny valley, about what feels real and what not. In other words, make the animals too expressive and then the movie suddenly doesn’t feel Live-Action anymore, but just a simple CGI remake. I’m sure nobody wants that.

3. I honestly can’t imagine The Lion King without musical numbers, other Disney movies are based on already existing fairy tales, so even if their songs are memorable, it isn’t mandatory for a Live Action adaptation to include them, and if they do, like in TJB, it doesn’t really feel necessary (“I Want to be Like You” felt kind of awkward and out of place, IMO). But the musical aspect of TLK is so much an essential part of it, it’s part of what made it so successful, and even more with the Broadway musical. Strip it from its songs and it’s not TLK anymore.
But let’s say they go ahead and put the songs in it, remastered even. I’m sure they could remake Circle of Life fairly well for the intro (that just can’t be changed) but what about songs where characters sing, like “I Just Can’t Wait to be King”?, or “Be Prepared”? With what I said in point #2 about characters’ expressions, would photorealistic CGI lions singing look right? Again, this would only work if they manage to find that balance between expressiveness and animal realism.

Like I said in the beginning, it’s not a totally bad idea. I would love to get to see TLK from a new perspective and maybe it would provide with new canonical information to juice the fandom. It’s just that the original movie is way too perfect to remake, and I do have those concerns with the CGI/Live Action route.

[Kasei]

I don't know if it could live up, to be honest. There is such a big TLK fan base and so many people have memories of that movie from childhood. I think at the very least they should wait a long time before remaking it. Kind of like how they waited a long time between the original Jungle Book and the live action remake.

...though I guess to be fair there have been a bunch of Jungle Book remakes since it came out, but those were all based on the book, not the Disney movie. Which are two very different stories.


Still, all my uncertainties aside, I would probably go see a live action TLK. Though I think it would be weird since it would be all CG characters, most likely. Most of the Disney remakes thus far have at least once human character that can be portrayed by an actor, so it makes it less odd.

[Guntur]

I don't think it would live up the expectation for the fans, with this current trend like mention above? It's like you are watching Jurassic World, Genisys, and few others reboot that didn't live up to it's name. I don't see TLK but if someone did Beauty and the Beast (2017), and couple of old Disney classic like Jungle Book? I would be impressed by their effort.

[HasiraKali]

I'd honestly rather have a TLK story arc on Once Upon a Time instead. They could do it in the vein of the musical and not have to have animals.

I don't want them to remake TLK at all to be honest. A film version of the musical would me amazing though. :P

[LunarCat]

I'd honestly rather have a TLK story arc on Once Upon a Time instead. They could do it in the vein of the musical and not have to have animals.

This. I would be so excited to see OUAT lion king version! I wonder where they would pick the story up, what the twist would be and how it would connect to other characters!

I voted No. Harsh perhaps but I just don't think it would work. It's too recent, though they are doing Beauty and the Beast. And I second Leor's comment about the expressiveness of realistic CGI lions. Even with Andy Serkis' facial software, the lion face is simply not built similarly enough to a human's.

I also think the lack of a human character will make it difficult to suspend disbelief. I'm afraid all we'll see is a pride of lions, which may be difficult for audiences to emotionally connect with. When it's hand-drawn or stylized it's easier to suspend disbelief and put yourself in the story.

I think we'll be safe for a few more years since The Lion Guard is currently running. I'd be surprised if they decided to have two TLK properties run at the same time.

[nathalie]

No.
Leave it alone.

Leave every movie alone. No sequels, no prequels, no shows years laters, nothing.
(goes for every movie)

[Leorgathar]

I'd honestly rather have a TLK story arc on Once Upon a Time instead. They could do it in the vein of the musical and not have to have animals.

Now that would be pretty cool! And it would get me back into the series (I lost my interest midway through the Frozen arc )

I still don't like the idea for the remake, there's just too much against it. But let's assume that one day, maybe later this year, Disney suddenly announces that they will indeed make the movie.
After the fandom explodes with a big and loud "NOOOOO!!!!!" and before Disney reveals a trailer, we would have to be forced to speculate how they'll do it, maybe even accept it little by little.

Live-Action style won't work, that's easy to rule out, but they'll still want it to look "realistic". It would have to be a CGI cartoon remake (an idea that I totally disapprove, but it's much less ridiculous than making it Live-Action, really). Instead of using what's been learned with The Jungle Book, it would be much smarter to look in the direction of another recent animal Disney movie, Zootopia.
They surely made a lot of animal research for that movie, that including behaviour, hair motion, textures, etc. and they could certainly apply that knowledge and more on new CGI lion models.

An artist named Edgar Gomez made these pictures of Simba, Mufasa and Scar, with "realistic" textures and fur. Disney wouldn't make them look like this, since they'd want to redesign the models entirely to make them feel new, but I guess it's an idea of how they'd make them look "realistic" without getting too close to Live-Action. After all, they do need to be very expressive lions.
Simba
Mufasa
Scar

All of this considered, I still say the original TLK is irreplaceable. Any remake of it wouldn't work as well as it would with other Disney movies. But if despite that Disney still gives the surprise announcement, well... they better make it good at least. I would want it to look very beautiful, make the savannah scenery their focus for realism. Maybe that wouldn't turn out so bad after all, but still.... xP

[cleargreenwater]

No.
Leave it alone.

Leave every movie alone. No sequels, no prequels, no shows years laters, nothing.
(goes for every movie)

This. I was so relieved not to see TLK on that list. And I hope not ever on the 3D animation either, I really really find 3D animation displeasing.

...I reaaaaallly need to give Once Upon a Time another shot. I tried when it first came out, but I confess I thought the kid's acting in the first season was awful. It looks like everyone got a lot better as the show went on.

[nathalie]

Oh yeah, Henry is my least favorite character, haha.
Well, not as a character maybe, but I kept thinking: there must have been another boy who could have been a bit more real with acting?

Other then that, I do really like the show, and think it's amazing how they managed to blend all these fairytales together.

[Kasei]

I tried to watch once upon a time. Liked the first season, but by the time the fourth rolled around I had almost zero interest. Liked Rumple and Belle though.
When I need to watch a real-world-meets-fairytale show I just go pop in the Tenth Kingdom.

[cleargreenwater]

When I need to watch a real-world-meets-fairytale show I just go pop in the Tenth Kingdom.

...This is so not about TLK anymore but OMG, Tenth Kingdom! I love Tenth Kingdom I had it recorded on VHS, I should hunt it down on DVD.

Carry on.

[Aurelian]

I don't know what "Once Upon a Time" is.

I don't think I would be interested, if only because one of my biggest draw points to TLK is the perfect cast, and I doubt they could get everybody on board again(especially since both Madge Sinclair and Zoe Leader have since passed away). They couldn't even get Matthew Broderick/Cam Clarke or Moira Kelly for Lion Guard.

[nathalie]

We don't know why they couldn't get some of the old cast back. They have other things to do in life you know.

[Guntur]

^ I believe they would reject the contract too.

[Vidan]

I pretty much agree with Leorgathar's assessment that realistic computer-generated characters aren't as convincingly-expressive as traditionally-animated characters can be.

As for why, my guess would be that we might expect CG animal characters that cross the uncanny valley to express themselves in a way that is fitting for their species, while bestowing them with distinctly human expressions can feel awkward or unnatural, as it sometimes did in The Jungle Book. Whereas, traditionally animated characters aren't necessarily grounded in reality, so humanizing them isn't nearly as jarring.

I think part of what makes traditionally-animated characters work over 3D is that you can easily go off model or emphasize a feature to create a certain effect, for a few frames at least. I haven't really spent much time looking at a 3D animated film frame by frame, but I suspect it's not really a thing they do as often.

As a consequence, I feel a CG version of TLK wouldn't really improve on the original film, and so there's not really much incentive for Disney to do it other than create revenue (which is admittedly a strong incentive).

(I don't have anything to add to the "Once Upon A Time" discussion, as I haven't seen it.)

[Rachel-Lioness]

Honestly? This is something that I have to think about. I think the idea of it is pretty cool, but how well could they pull it off? I don't know if they should do it. I LOVED the animated film the way it was.