The Lion King and its Trashfire Remake | Big Joel 

First off, I know those are wildebeest lol. Sorry for the misspeak. Also, I’ve been seeing some comments about how predators are good for ecosystems, and honestly I’m not sure what to tell you. If every group in the film is essentially human, then imagine telling a member of that group, “no that I’m gonna eat you alive, but no, you don’t have a choice in that process.” It’s ridiculous to think of that as a win for the antelope. I’m not saying lions in real life or in this movie are evil, I mean they are carnivores after all. but they’re not helping the creatures they’re eating in this movie. Lions do not eat antelopes because of ethics. they do not care abt the environment or any other pseudo-ethical justification. If lions and antelope were people, lions might still need to eat antelope, but for Mufasa to tell his son all about the beneficence of that action for the antelope would be utter bullshit. Ascribing some moral code to the utterly amoral world of nature and predation is the very pitfall that the lion king fell into. And it's interesting to see that concept repeated so many times here. Okay have fun with the rest of your day! If you want to maybe give me money, here's my patreon lol www.patreon.com/bigjoel

"But we eat the gazelle?" "Yes but we also help the gazelle through trickle down economics"

“The lion king objectively slaps, it slaps my entire bod. If anything could convert me to the far right. It’s this” -Big Joel, 2019

Overexplaining is a problem of all Disney remakes. Beauty and the Beast had this bit where the narrator explicitly explains that the curse that changed the servants into furniture also wiped their family's memories of them. Or how in Alladin Jafar kept going on about some other fictional nations and his geopolitical ambitions. It's just the worst. These stories do not benefit from that kind of half-baked worldbuilding. All just to stop cinemasins from saying something dumb. The Lion King was never about the politics; the fairy-tale "just king" story was only there to facilitate Simba's story and growth to responsibility and face a troubled past. Focusing more and more on the politics and world-building in the remake highlights the WORST parts of the original. Absolutely idiotic.

Something that strikes me when watching this video is how flat the movie looks. I've heard people say that live action is a bad choice for The Lion King because it means the movie can't have all the vibrant colors of the cartoon. And I agree. But it's even worse than that. Not only are the colors in the live action movie less vibrant than the cartoon, they're less vibrant than REAL LIFE! Cutting from Joel's backyard, with it's vibrant greens and his bright skin and his dark hair, to the blandness of the movie makes me wonder why the movie is so washed out. Joel's backyard looks realistic, and it's still colorful, so why couldn't the movie be that vibrant? Edit: Changing Scar's motivation to trying to get with Sarabi is gay erasure.

I can't believe Mufasa is canceled now

The new aesthetic kinda completely ditches the concept of allegory. Photorealistic animals behaving in animal ways is not a good way to communicate allegory to an audience.

“But dad don’t we pay the workers minimum wage?” “Yes Simba, but trickle down economics”

I though the ‘Scar seeking a queen’ subplot was just to calm any rumors that he could be gay

I bet in the world of Zootopia, The Lion King is like one of those racist old cartoons that's honestly kind of horrifying to look at nowadays.

"Hyenas are just cute dogs who love to eat big dinner" - Big Joel 2019

When Mufasa first talks about the circle of life, he's teaching respect, not arrogance. Simba challenges that by arguing that respecting the gazelles is unnecessary because they hold no power over the lions, which is an arrogant argument. The whole point of pointing out that the gazelles become the grass is to teach that they do serve a purpose to the ecosystem as a whole, and should be respected by hunting only as much as you need, leaving them room to breed and thrive.. Later when Scar allows the hunting parties to kill as much as they like, he fails to follow this teaching, and nearly loses the gazelles entirely. This doesn't completely invalidate your point about the lions becoming grass as well, but it's at least something we can argue about. It's still logical. The new justification for the hyenas' evil however, is just objectively flawed logic

"Because a Disney's belly is never full. Now, other movies will eat AFTER endless cash grabs. And they don't leave much behind."

Mufasa over here trying to justify Anarcho-Monarchism

Aslan from Narnia had more facial expressions... And he was realistically animated back in the 2000's!

"Hyenas are just cute dogs that need to eat big dinner" is possibly one of the best things I've ever heard

"Hyenas are just cute dogs who like to eat big dinner." They're good dogs Brent.

I can’t wait until disney owns the rights basic human needs like water and food. All hail the mouse

03:04 "The Lion King objectively slaps my whole bod" Well, that's a way to say you like something

so I remember even at a young age thinking "What and the antelope just accept that? Like they are just cool with being eaten" And so I have to say I find this criticism on point there. That said I myself filled in the gaps by saying that Mufasa and Simba represent power with restraint, power with checks and balances, power that considers the subjugated, while scar and the hyneas represent power without restraint, the power that executes without thought or care. And the hyenas are banished because they can't accept restraint, they cant accept the social contract. So I think the reason why we accept the original lion king, it isn't asking the audience to decide if there should be power... that is taken as a premise, it is only asking the audience to compare power with restraint, and power without it.

Man, I hate how The Lion King (both versions) depict hyenas, a keystone species, a terrible reputation as either evil scavengers or animals that overhunt.

"Hyenas are less aesthetically pleasing than lions" Citation needed.

Joel in the wilderness

I don't know if I'm looking at the original with rose-tinted glasses, but i felt like every character was visually and vocally distinct. In the modern remake i couldn't tell any of the females lions apart and eventually i just referred to them as Beyoncé number 1 and Beyoncé number 2 arbitrarily as the visual style was the same and the voice acting wasn't distinct either.

Real animals are more expressive than the cgi in this movie

Another quote that I can’t even man: “It slaps... ... it slaps my entire bod.”

An ongoing problem with the Disney remakes? Strip away the magic and mystical, overexplain, and assign explanations to things that don't need them for stupid people. The hyenas deserved better. They talk about them in the remake like they're made-up creatures like orcs, not actual animals who play their own important part in the ecosystem.

Same problem with Beauty and the Beast: did I really need to know Gaston is a war hero, and that’s why the town loves him? No. Or that his wartime experience left him with PTSD? And that’s why he’s s violent maniac? No again. It’s a fairy tale; it’s not like audiences are looking for depth.

It could be interpreted that Scar wanting Sarabi is a reference to Hamlet since the evil uncle in there actually marries Hamlet's mother

Live-action Lion King would’ve been more tolerable if it was dubbed entirely with Big Joel mumbling animal noises

how to criticize the original lion king's ideology without seeming like it

"But don't we eat the antelope?" "Yes, son, but they are idiots and if we didn't eat them they would overpopulate, destroy the savanna and then starve en masse." True, but even weirder to put in the voice of an anthropomorphized creature.

18:20 I can’t tell which one is Mufasa or Simba and that’s indicative of why this remake fails

I didn't watch the remake. Probably never will. But this was what I expected. Just looking at the footage makes me kinda sad. It all feels like a soulless, empty cash grab.

I can absolutely recognize that the OG Lion King has some dangerous ideology running through it, but I think it’s important to consider what a child watching the movie will actually take away from it. When I watched as a child, I didn’t walk away thinking “subjugating others peoples is good and necessary” hell I basically forgot about Mufasa’s justification entirely. The message I took away (and I would imagine this is the same for most kids) was not to let your past control you and that part of growing up is taking on responsibility. If we look at aesthetics again, the original avoids the more dubious aspects of its ideology by never actually showing Mufasa or Simba kill and eat another animal. (except insects I guess) All of Simba’s interactions with other animals are playful and friendly. Conversely, Scar and the hyenas are shown to be predators constantly through the visual language of the film. Scars claws are ALWAYS OUT. The hyenas try to hunt and eat Simba and Nala. I think the core of my point is that a child is far more likely to remember the visual language of a film than the exposition. Since the visual language of the original is less problematic, it avoids the more troublesome aspects of its ideology. Side point: I guess another problem with the new movie is that it’s primarily being watching by 20-40 year olds who are nostalgic for the original, and are far more likely to pick up on the problematic subtext (although I guess it’s explicit text in the remake now).

Excellent points. I remember watching this in theater and remarking on how the photorealism of the 2019 film brought out the brutality of nature and diminished the anthropomorphic charm of the original 90s characters. I couldn't feel any empathy for these characters. When an animal was killed, it just felt like "Okay, this is how things happen in nature." Perhaps what's most interesting about this is the "Circle of Life" that is talked about in the original film is contradicted by the rational, emotional relationships formed in the animals-a bond which would not exist in this state in nature. In the real world, animals eat and get eaten. I remember internally treating this as a BBC documentary with a dub track, but even _this_ was broken and the "cinematographers" show that snappy zoom-in as Simba was screaming "Nooo!" It broke the immersion of the film (at least, whatever immersion could have been created from this thing).

this video is the exact lenght it took me to finish 3 cobs of corn. thank you for enhancing my corn on the cob experience. On a more serious note, this video is so well made and put together, I esp appreciate your breakdown of how the original TLK transports its message /makes it more acceptable/palpable to the point of not really being noticed outside of a certain framework. I also enjoy your tone of voice, it's very nice to listen to.

The remake doesn't have Mr. Bean so that makes it instantly worse.

I thought you were holding a stick of deodorant instead of a mic for longer than I'd like to admit.

"The lion king objectively slaps. It slaps my entire bod" hearing that in such a serious tone absolutely broke me lmao

The drought really works best as an expression of the old Arthurian/Fisher King myth of "the king's health is the land's health" - if the king is ill (or bad), the land will sicken. Or, similarly, the Chinese notion of the "mandate of heaven" - if a monarch loses it, it is expected that floods, plagues, droughts, etc. will express heaven's displeasure. (As Joel said, keep it mystical. :) )

Black Panther was a better "realistic" version of The Lion King, than the "realistic" version of The Lion King.

"Hyenas are just cute dogs, who love to eat big dinner" Subscribed. Even when I was a little kid I always felt bad that the hyenas were cast out to a land with nothing and would get attacked for daring to set foot into the grass and maybe get some noms. Literal underdogs.

16:20 Oh, they had to not-gay uncle Scar too? That's just adding insult.

This is a year old but I had a similar experience of having to confront some of the conservative ideals within Disney films when I watched the live action Aladdin. I’m like, Jasmine complaining about her life hits a little different when clearly at least a portion of Agraba’s population doesn’t even have access to food and shelter and seemingly lives in a police state.

"I'm not an alien." That sounds like something an alien would say.

Conclusion: grass is just dead lions, STEP ON THEM

This movie should be just a post on 9gag titled"Someone made a realistic version of The Lion King and it'll blow your mind"

"Long ago, the Circle of Life existed in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Hyena Nation attacked."

A+ film criticism, C- in taxonomy Joel see me after class

"If there was any film that could radicalize me to the far right, it would be this one." The GREATEST backhanded compliment of 2019.

The fact that the live action remake made a bazigillion dollars sometimes makes me really sad

When I was old enough to "get it" I associated the mysticism of the original Lion King squarely with the Shakespearean roots of the story. The ghost of Hamlet/Simba's dad, the cosmic implications of monarchic disorder (a HUGE theme in Shakespeare's plays, especially King Lear) as evidenced by all the prey animals leaving Pride Rock when Scar takes over, even the rain coming in when Simba restores order to wash everything clean. I haven't seen the remake but I assume that what's missing is the inherent allegorical fantasy of the story, something that's tough to capture in a realistic portrayal. The suspension of disbelief is just easier with animation, always.

I think it's similair to super hero movies. There's a desire for literalism in order to elevate the source material, but literalism only serves to highlight the absurdities that should've been left abstracted.

Lion fact 1: some lioness are born with manes Lion fact 2: a human baby's cry shares some acoustic similarities with a lion's roar.

Mufasa's speech is basically enlightened absolutism. We lions rule everything but we must respect everyone! Sure...

i’m a professional illustrator and almost without fail cringe at the disappointing ineptitude of youtubers trying to talk about art direction and aesthetic, form and content, but you did a great job, really refreshing

Fun fact: I'm pretty sure that my dislike of the Lion King came from me first seeing it back to back with Bambi, resulting in me imagining Mufasa giving the Circle of Life speech to Bambi about how it's okay he just ate Bambi's mum.

Biologically, hyenas aren't related to dogs, or cats, and exist as their own family the Hyaenidae.

I always found it quite odd that Mufasa said that he'd turn to grass but died in a place devoid of life with no chance of becoming grass

Lit Major Opinion Incoming: Pretty sure the whole “circle of life” thing draws from ideas like the Chain of Being and Rota Fortunae, religious philosophies that were common in Shakespeare’s time and would have influenced his writing of Hamlet. This might seem like a stretch at first, but we know that the Disney writers were inspired by Hamlet when making the Lion King, so it’s not implausible that they researched the play’s themes and contemporary inspirations.

The script rewrite also eliminated basically all the most iconic lines and humor. (E.g. "The king... has returned." Gone. Most of the villain song. Gone. "The monkey's his uncle?" Gone.) Also, the amazing reveal that it's Nala who was chasing Pumba is kind of ruined by the addition of the scene showing her leaving Pride Rock. Basically, the entire soul was sucked out of the script as well as the visuals. I don't understand why they did this.

"I'm not an alien though"... we're onto you 'Big Joel'.

"Rum, ruuh, rudda, rum, ruh, ruh" Hey my favorite line!

"This is a diagram of the food chain. Any questions?" "Where's pizza"

I'd say that the cartoon gives enough emphasis to the "circle of life" as a way to basically say, "dont be selfish". looking back at the shakespeare that inspired the original, it carries those same themes on the pitfalls of greed. the cartoon is able to overshadow imperialist overtones with messages of benevolence and good will to all, while the new one seems to not be able to do that. its too gritty to do that and not as lighthearted.

The 2019 Lion King does 1 thing right at least, Nala can't give those half-lidded bedroom eyes to Simba that made me question if I was a furry when I was a kid.

Scar trying to pressure Sarabi into being with him made me suuuuper uncomfortable.

It's actually pretty easy to justify it logically: "We have to eat meat or we'll starve."

Fun fact: Hyenas are closer related to weasels than dogs or cats. That's a point in the favour btw, I love the weasel family.

Big Joel slaps my entire bod.

"If any movie could radicalize me to the far right, it would be this one." Couldn't agree more.

Mufasa: "When we die, we turn into grass, and the antelopes eat the grass" Yes Mufasa, but when the antelopes eat your grass self, you do not feel pain. When you eat the antelopes, they do feel pain. And of course it's not like the lions can choose to not eat the antelopes or gazelles or zebras. They're carnivores. It's what they do. If anyone tries to feed a lion tofu they are pissing all over the natural order and that specific lion. So of course you gotta rationalize it as a philosopher lion man. But as humans we can totally poke holes in it. Mufasa isn't evil cuz he has this philosophy, it's just incomplete in a key respect. Perhaps it would've sat better with this type of analysis if he also has a bit where he's like "this is why I teach you to hunt as well as you should--to make sure that you do not inflict any unnecessary pain unto the antelopes that give themselves to you. They are our prey, but they are not our toys." And in fact, we humans recognize this too in hunting. We praise people for clean shots that kill animals instantly. We call things sloppy when we see animals agonizing, and we even have a clear concept of 'putting things out of their misery'. Even we as humans get that.

The hyenas are the proletariat and needed to overthrow the lions without Scar's leadership.

I find it hilarious how when Joel juxtaposed live-action Mufasa and Simba, I could barely tell the difference between them. I had to like lean in and look carefully. Whereas with the cartoon if you put Mufasa and adult Simba side-by-side it's pretty obvious who's who at first glance, without having to linger.

"You don't even have to hunt and eat me... That's fine. Don't worry about it." 😅😂🤣

12:14 This scene gets quite sinister when you realise the “food” they’re talking about is the same as the loyal subjects who celebrated Simba’s at the beginning

Why do Mufasa or Simba deserve to be king? Hum, I dunno, HAVE YOU SEEN THEIR GORGEOUS MANES?!

Big Joel's review of The Lion King: "If any movie could radicalize me to the far right, it would be this one" ...

He isn't "lying." He's "lion." You missed a good pun there, joelypolyoly... 😤😤😤💪🏻💪🏻✊🏻💯💯

Lion King: This is our problem free philosophy Big Joel: be prepared

I see so he was a lying king 🤔

Big Joel, you make it sound as if there is one message kids will get out of watching the lion king: "the current hierarchy is good and natural, and those that come to disturb it are villains." But watching this movie as a kid, that's not the part of the film I was focused on. The scenes that affected me the most included the one where Simba finally decides to face his past, and the scene where his father tells Simba he is going to die one day. The monkey's words stuck in my head: (talking about the past) "You can either run from it, or learn from it." As a kid's movie, I think the lion king functions more on an individual level and has lessons that apply in everyday life. While the political ideology you explain may be read from the story, I don't think it's the main message and it's not what I took away from the film. That being said, I don't think you're analysis is wrong; it just feels like you're leaving a lot out of the picture. Also I love your videos.

Carnivores *have* to eat meat to live though, and judging by how Scar's reign was portrayed, they don't overhunt, thus it's acceptable. It runs on stereotypes, definately. Hyenas aren't inherently evil, just like lions aren't inherently 'kingly', like Scar. They just happen to be in charge here.

8:58 um, well...actually hyenas are more closely related to cats than dogs, mm-hai - professor frink voice

It's funny how differently we perceive messages. To me, the Lion King has always felt like it meant to teach modesty and moderation. Yes, the lions rule de facto over the prideland, but it always felt accidental, not "systemic". It is not presented as something that can be changed unlike, you know, human society. The point Mufasa was teaching Simba was to not just kill other creatures just because pooower, even though, lions kinda have to actually eat other creatures. I thought as a child that all Mufasa did was instruct other lions and manage internal affairs. Like, the movie asks the question of, hey, you are stuck with a situation, do you give it your best, or do you let your shitty uncle do it for you and, as the movie portrais, make everything worse for everybody. I mean, yeah, I agree that the monarchy allegory is too on the nose to ignore and I'm probably wrong but either way, I can't bring myself to see it that way. Maybe it is *because* it is so on the nose that the whole monarchy itself feels like a symbol for something else.

Wow... Big Joel is out in nature in this video!

"It is usual to speak of the Fascist objective as the 'beehive state,' which does grave injustice to bees. A world of rabbits ruled by stoats would be nearer the mark. " -George Orwell

Fun fact: This was actually the movie I used in my college paper about conflict between art and morality. And I didn't even cover the predation thing. Don't some ecologists actually say that apex predators can be beneficial to an ecosystem i. e. reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone? I dunno, I guess if the prey animals are people, you can't exactly say the predators benefit them without kind of sounding like Thanos or something. In any case, it's cool to hear such a thorough analyticist such as yourself talk about this movie which has certainly given me a lot to chew on. It seems like actually, your interpretation was a bit the opposite of mine in ways. A lot of my college paper revolved around the original movie's hyenas basically being How Trump Sees Mexicans, but how really, the movie would probably lose something if they were any other way. The reboot seemed to kind of be aware of that at first, what with the changes to Scar's introductory monologue seemingly leaning into how unfair the monarchy is, but that seems forgotten by the time the hyenas show up. To me, it felt as if the filmmakers kind of saw the xenophobic/anti-immigration undertones of the original movie and tried to "fix" the hyenas by getting rid of their streetwise affect, removing the ambiguity of their status (the original movie seemed a bit fuzzy on whether the hyenas fell under Mufasa's authority), cutting out all the implications of their desperation such as begging Scar for scraps and "dangling at the bottom of the food chain", and instead making them a clearly independent society with clear character flaws which made them undesirable (namely, their unsustainable hunting habits). Basically, it seemed to me as if the reboot tried to take advantage of the fine line between anti-immigration allegory and anti-colonization allegory to try to play them as more like the carnivore equivalent of Nestlé or something, storming an area originally left to the harmonious control of its locals to milk it for all it's worth. And, as I predicted in my paper, this attempt to fix the hyenas fixed them in the veterinarian sense to me. These hyenas no longer held the same punch as the cartoon ones, and unlike the super quotable originals, these hyenas didn't make me laugh. And, of course, the movie didn't change that the story's narrative still seems to imply that hyenas should not be in the Pride Land period; by trying to make the hyenas less sympathetic by making their flaws seem like a personal choice, the movie just raises the question of why trying to convince them to change their habits wouldn't suffice in solving the problem they pose. So, the adaptation goes halfway in trying to solve the unfortunate implications of the original work, and ends up making the loss of all the charm attached to those unfortunate implications a senseless sacrifice. I guess, basically, I can't say I agree that the villains' portrayal in the original was fundamentally unsympathetic, but I can definitely agree that the reboot's attempt to make banning them seem more justified backfired utterly. Also, fun fact, hyenas, are actually feliformes, much like meerkats and lions. So, no doggos in this movie.

Big Joel: The animation in the Lion King allows us to contemplate the beauty of power. Also Big Joel: At the end of the day, hyenas are just cute dogs that want to eat big dinner

Shakespeare adaptation is based around monarchic worldview. Wow. I haven't been this surprised since finding that rain makes things wet.

Long story short, the original movie is Lion Hamlet and the use of cartoon animals offers it a reprieve from reality that lets us focus on THAT part of the plot rather than being close enough to real nature that we get sidetracked.

I feel like you're almost intentionally looking past the actual point of the circle of life speech of the original film. It's simply a statement about how abusing resources messes up the entire system, including the life of the abusers. It's an enviromental stance. It would have been more complete if they had added 'without lions, herbivores would flourish too much and fuck with the vegetation', but that goes too far for the demographic the film was made for.

*Lesson Of The Day:* Animation isn't a genre. It's a medium that is suitable for EVERYONE. _Whoever invented the phrase, "Animation is ONLY for kids", is definitely going to the ranch._

It's also kinda confusing how SImba getting the throne back defeats the hyenas. Presumably they were kept at bay during Mufasa's reign, and were allowed to hunt and overpopulate in Scar's reign. How does SImba becoming king undo the power and population boom? Were the lions always capable of defeating the hyenas and simply didn't because they were too loyal to whoever was the king to go against Scar's orders?

0:48 I heard it as "He's just lion" haha.

I love reading books where the characters are animals instead of people. As a result, I gave reading Redwall a try because it is one of the most well-known examples of anthropomorphic fiction. The problem I had with Redwall, though, was how clearly divided good vs. evil was along species lines; it just makes for an uncomfortable metaphor is you try to look further into the text. Also, what if I really like weasels and ferrets and I would like to see them be heroes sometimes?

Who put this halfling bard on my screen and why am I subscribed now?

i'm very upset at you over this, calling Hyenas dogs

I would also say the expressive nature of the original movie's aesthetic makes you focus more on the emotions of the individuals rather than the ethics of the big whole