Mufasa The Lion King – Too Much Broadway Singing!

The fastest way to tell if a movie has a soul is simple: does it make you feel something before it explains anything? We start with that question and head straight into The Lion King legacy, from Lebo M’s spine-tingling opening to Hans Zimmer’s Oscar-winning score and the Elton John and Tim Rice songs that still live rent-free in our heads. That 1994 animated film sets a brutally high bar, and we wrestle with what it means to follow James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, and a soundtrack that practically raised a generation.

Then we get honest about Mufasa as a Disney live-action animation prequel. The photoreal CGI is impressive, but realism comes with a cost: the lions can feel hard to read, hard to tell apart, and strangely muted in color and personality. We talk story choices like Taka becoming Scar, the continuity tension around whether they are blood brothers, and why the movie’s villain problem undercuts what could have been a tighter, more tragic rivalry.

Craig and Susie's kids jump in with the nostalgia test: why did they watch The Lion King on repeat and memorize every line? That leads into the big debate on music and tone. When “real-looking” lions start delivering Broadway-style numbers, does it pull you in or push you out? We compare the original’s use of songs as inner dialogue to Mufasa’s more literal approach, plus the pacing and dialogue choices that make it feel like the film is telling us what to feel instead of letting us feel it.

If you care about Disney remakes, the Lion King franchise, animated storytelling, film scoring, or why some movies age like fine wine, press play. Subscribe, share the episode with a Lion King superfan, and leave us a review with your Mufasa rating out of 10.

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Transcript

Reverb Cold Open And Lebo M

Craig 0:03

You're listening to Basket Traffic.

Shawn 0:08

Uh Craig, how are you? Uh I'm pr I'm pretty good. That's great. Susie, how are you?

Susie 0:14

Oh, I'm pretty good, I think.

Shawn 0:17

So before we start, um, can I just get uh can you just throw a bunch of reverb on my mic for a sec? Oh one, two, one, two. Do you know how to do that? One, two, check, check, check. One, two. Uh I'm working on it. Yeah, okay. See, I didn't think he knew. Yeah, no. Hey, oh, hey, hey. One, two, one, two. Hey. Oh, oh, here it's I think I just pulled something. Wow. Whoa. Awesome. Yeah, I just went there.

Susie 0:50

That that because you can.

Shawn 0:52

Oh, that was the uh, of course, the iconic and amazing Lebo M. He's really the godfather of what we're about to talk about, which is the Lion King franchise.

Craig 1:03

Yeah. Yeah.

Shawn 1:04

I mean that when you okay, so when you think of the Lion King and you think of what we're about to talk about Mufasa, you think of his voice, don't you? Right away. Isn't that what absolutely I was really lucky because I got to see him uh in October. He was in Vancouver with Han Zimmer, who actually, of course, did the iconic score to the Lion King, the original Lion King. And uh he brought Lebuham with him. And so they did a huge number uh Lion King medley, and uh it was unbelievable uh to see him live and and all these dancers came out. So it was kind of a combination of a tribute to the movie and also a tribute to, of course, the uh I think it's the the biggest selling Broadway play of all time, the Lion King. Is it really? It's made two billion dollars that musical so and it's it's the 30th anniversary, so it's right now it's on the road to right.

Susie 1:58

Oh, okay.

Craig 1:58

So it all began with uh 1994, I'm not mistaken. That's correct, yeah. Touches on a lot of really good storylines, and just the animation alone was so fabulous.

Shawn 2:10

It's aged like a fine wine movie. Yeah, the animation still pops and it's so beautifully put together. And uh so, first of all, I think that original '94, it was the biggest grossing movie of the year and was second behind Jurassic Park in '93. Now, both of those movies uh became some of the biggest movies of all time. So let's just go back quickly to to 1994 and just just let me read off the names here. Okay. James Earl Jones, yeah, Nathan Lane, Jeremy Irons, Matthew Broderick, Whoopi Goldberg, Robert Guillaume, member Benson. He was he was there. Yeah. Jonathan Taylor Thomas, currently residing in the Where Are They Now files, and uh and Ernie Sabello, of course, you know. And so you have Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, who would go on to do the producers later on, too, which is uh quite quite a good connection there. But that's the cast, that's the voice cast.

Craig 3:05

Yeah, amazing. How do you, you know, second that?

Why The 1994 Classic Endures

Shawn 3:08

How do you well that's the question? So now we lead into Mafasa. Yeah.

Craig 3:13

I was uh, you know, my in my 20s when I first saw this movie, but I felt like I was 10.

Shawn 3:19

Isn't that incredible?

Craig 3:20

Yeah, yeah.

Susie 3:21

It takes you to this child place of awe and wonder with the music, with the visuals, with with them, and and yeah, it was amazing.

Shawn 3:31

Well, that's what I want to talk about too, is that the Lion King had Elton John and and uh Tim Rice, you know, for the hand Zimmer putting the music together. That is a high bar. Yeah, that is an extremely high bar. And it also won it won the Oscar for Best Song. Yeah. Can You Feel the Love Tonight? And it won for Best Score, Hans Zimmer won for best score. Really? So that's the bar you're working against. And without jumping right ahead, I just want to say that did not exist for me at all in this Mufasa movie. The music is what made the Lion King for me. Absolutely. And I didn't feel a connection. Now I'm gonna start to sound like the old guy in the room. Wait a minute, I am the old guy in the room, not the oldest. But I didn't feel that connection. Uh I don't know what you guys know.

Susie 4:17

No, uh, I agree. I agree. And we sort of um visited a few of the movies along the way and then watched Mufasa, and um it was all just a bit lacking, it never hit even close to that bar of the original movie. And then which one the Beyoncé The Lion King remake?

Shawn 4:37

Oh, and that was 2019.

Susie 4:40

She just did, she made it worse. She really You know, it's funny.

Craig 4:45

Beyonce, I'm Careful, you're gonna offend the beehive. Well, exactly. That's why I'm hitting out of here.

Susie 4:56

But and her work and and her um and her legacy to the music and stuff.

Craig 5:01

That's why I'm worried about people descending on my house if I see anything.

Shawn 5:04

Right. And her daughter's in the new one. She did a voice in the new one, Mufasa.

Susie 5:08

So she's competing. Blue Ivy's yeah, competing against Northwest on the Kardashian.

Shawn 5:16

Oh, there's a reality show in the making here. It's just crazy. Yeah, it made billions of dollars that one, by the way, 2019. It's like I looked it up, it's like $1.9 billion it made or something. Wow.

Craig 5:29

Barry Jenkins, the director, he calls it himself a live action animation.

Shawn 5:36

And uh, let's look at his pedigree. Barry Jenkins did uh Moonlight, which won the Oscar for Best Picture. And he he did if Beale Street Could Talk. He he's done these these big movies, you know, then they're they're uh you know Oscar nominated movies. So to go to this is very different, I'm sure, for him.

Craig 5:53

I was listening to him on a podcast about him getting the call to do this, and the the script kind of came across his desk. And he didn't he didn't read it, he didn't look at it at all. And actually, as his wife, who's also in the industry, kind of encouraged him to do so. And then he started to read the script and he basically said I really was impressed or interested in the direction that he took this movie in. But of course, the story is Mufasa. This movie in many ways should equal the original, it just in weight alone of of of the character.

Susie 6:26

Well, it's the prequel. They're telling the s the life story of Mufasa, and it should it better be as good.

Shawn 6:35

And and of course, Scar and his original.

Susie 6:37

Yeah, yeah.

Craig 6:37

Which I was just oh wow, I have yeah, so we have so much to talk about on that one.

Shawn 6:42

Well, I'm just yeah, I go back to again though, like we said, the bar is so high, you have Jeremy Irons and you have James Earl Jones. I mean, and so now you have to follow that. The best part of Mufasa for me was the opening tribute to uh James Earl Jones right off the top.

Susie 6:59

I was like, oh God, yeah. Incredible. Well, and then the first voice, and you're like, oh, not James Earl Jones. Nope.

Craig 7:08

So this is an origin story, I guess. You know, we're gonna learn about kind of how Mufasa comes to what the pride rock and the pride lands and all that stuff, and get all this cool backstory. Yeah, and how he becomes king, and we find out the story with Scar and how Scar gets the Scar, and we found out find out that his original name was Taka. We also find out that Taka is not they're not blood lions. And which is weird because I always thought they were blood lions, because in the original Lion King, they make a comment about remember Mufasa got the brawn, but he got the brains. Scar got the brains. Scar got the brains, and that was the assumption that they were genetic, but then they this movie goes off to to tell a story that they're not even you know from the same mother.

Susie 7:55

To me, initially, because I didn't obviously didn't know any background on Mufasa, and I'm like, well, they're just redoing the whole first movie theme of how um Simba gets separated from his family, and then he gets picked up by somebody else, and he's living over there. And so the whole, like, it's like, oh, but they already did that, and now they're just doing a redo that that's what happened to Mufasa.

Craig 8:20

There's some key uh characters here. We got Rafiki, uh, who is a mandrill.

Susie 8:27

Not a baboon.

Craig 8:29

Oh, you guys looked up look that up.

Susie 8:31

It's uh Well, I did actually because he kept saying it.

The Bar Mufasa Cannot Clear

Craig 8:34

What actually I didn't find this movie at all funny. There was nothing really humorous about this movie. In fact, I felt this movie took itself too damn seriously. The only scene that I actually thought that was quite funny was when there was the mandrill, Rafiki, who is a younger one, and he's sitting and they're on this kind of expedition, right? You know, and they and he says, and they keep mistaking him, they keep calling him a monkey or whatever. Baboon. A baboon, right? That's right. And he says, I'm a mandrill, you know. And it was just it was just funny, and just the way, but you know that they were on their way to Malele, right? Yeah, they're they were trying to find so the storyline is that Mufasa's a young kid gets separated from his family, there's a flood. And and you know what? I'm sorry. With a geography degree, I I'm so bothered by so many elements. You know, like I'm sorry, okay? This is where my mind goes. There's this flood, and then Mufasa, young Mufasa.

Shawn 9:35

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know they're not real, right? Well, I know, but when you have praying Africa, well, I mean, listen, in Beauty and the Beast, it's snowing when they get together in the first scene, and it doesn't snow in that part of the world. I I can tell you that.

Craig 9:49

So Well, you know how nerdy I got? I actually wanted to know all the mountain ranges in the continent of Africa to see if I got Kilimanjaro.

Shawn 9:57

That's great. That's one.

Craig 9:58

And they they do a lot of scenes of backdrops with Kilimanjaro, but in this movie, they had a whole freaking Alps, Andes, whatever, and like Rockies environment where they were just trekking over this mountain. And I'm like, ah, there is not, I'm pretty sure there's not a single mountain range like that.

Shawn 10:15

But you know, in the the 2019 remake of The Lion King, John Favreau, who directed that, they built their own Lion King universe within like digitally. And then they then they went into it via VR. Yeah. They went into it and they added characters and they shot it all on VR. Like that's how you got to see the making of this thing. It's incredible. So they added mountains and they added, you want a rock? What kind of rock do you want there? Well, they put the rock all in. And how long do you want the grass to look? You know, like they it's incredible the programs they had to do this.

Craig 10:46

The other thing is this the graphics. I'll give kudos to the people who produce the graphics and all the people behind the scenes that that would do produce this movie. But uh, and and and the realism of these lions are pretty impressive. Although I found everything just felt washed out. Just a little soulless.

Shawn 11:09

A little soul. But I think that's the that's what happens with some of these re remakes. Yeah. With with, you know.

Craig 11:15

The voices weren't unique. Nothing against the voices.

Shawn 11:19

I couldn't keep track of the bloody lion. I mean, I didn't know who character was what, or exactly. Are we flashing back or forward? Or yeah, and I'm going, I need cute cards here, I need the Cole's notes on Mufasa. What's happening to my life? Right. No, no, no.

Susie 11:33

And then and the um the language was so fast, you couldn't hear it, and then music comes in and covers up like there was no, there was no pausing for humor.

Shawn 11:45

Well, there wasn't any humor, uh, very little, but well, the best scenes were with with uh Puma and you know Pumba.

Craig 11:50

I know Timon and Timon and that the writing of that made no sense to me. Timone and Pumba are key characters, and they are sidelined. Of course, they can't go back in time, but let's be a little bit more creative here.

Shawn 12:02

Like but they made jokes about that. They they the whole plot point with them was why aren't we in the movie? Yeah, and so I think there will be a movie with them. I think one of the lines they say is, uh, may I make a suggestion? Uh less childhood trauma and more mere cat.

Craig 12:20

Perfect.

Susie 12:21

Child that's perfect.

Craig 12:23

I don't know. There are just so many things like Rafiki, a young Rafiki who's quite the storyteller, but in the original Rafiki, how many words did he utter? Ten in the entire original movie? Like there just lack that lacked that continuity in the characters, too. And I know it's not the same voice, but although I I thought the the the voice for Rafiki, the new one, because of course, uh since then Robert Guillaume has passed, and his voice was just absolutely.

Susie 12:48

Yeah, the new Rafiki was better, like he was he was pretty good. Um, but Robert Guillaume held that space with his voice, like no one well so this is where we're at though nowadays.

Shawn 13:02

I don't think we'd be critiquing an animated film quite as much. Uh, I think you just kind of went along and enjoyed it.

Craig 13:09

Even Timon and Pumba in the remake of Lion King, uh they actually were better done than what was done in Mofasa.

Shawn 13:20

Yeah, and you know, I do think that Billy Eichner and um Seth Rogan did a great job with those characters when they came in in the 2019 version. I thought, you know what, they did an admirable job to replace Nathan Lane, and you know, that's big shoes to fill again. Uh and I thought they were they they did a great job. Yeah, exactly.

Susie 13:36

Pumba? Who was Pumba in the original?

Shawn 13:39

In the 1994. Yes. Ernie Sambal.

Susie 13:42

Oh, okay.

Shawn 13:42

Who's they're they're both Nathan Lane and Ernie Sambal are Broadway actors. Okay, of course, and they met and they actually I I believe the story is that Ernie said, Hey, come to the saddition and read to Nathan. And Nathan really wasn't, I don't think he was sold on it at the beginning, you know, an animated film. And but they both went in and read together, and it was like, Yeah, yeah. And I think they were the first two guys to get to record together. Uh, usually you're isolated in your own booth, and none of the act voice actors see each other at all. You just come in and you do your lines. But they actually recorded together next to each other, which was sort of the beginning of that, starting to do that.

Craig 14:22

When they decided how they were going to kind of animate the voices, what they did is uh I think they described it as doing the voices in a black room, and then you just without the visual, you just then are uh l forced to just kind of auditorily listen and then imagine what what's being conveyed by that voice, and then then they speak to the animators with respect to how they want those lions to look. I thought that was a pretty interesting creative solution. I don't know if it absolutely uh led to an a good end result always. Maybe the problem is it's very difficult to really animate in in a way that you have both realism but also animation. I I would imagine it's a very difficult thing to do. But let's just let's just finish the the storyline here. So following the flood, you've got Mufasa who then arrives to this new pride land, or I don't know what it's called, this new land, and he's an outsider immediately. The Obasi is the the king he comes across as a little bit lazy, you know. He certainly is not Mufasa. You could tell the writing was all about kind of you know setting up Mufasa, he's a unique, you know, lion of lions, right? Uh he then befriends Taka. And there's that song Brother, Brother, you know, that was probably one of the more catchy songs. Then you can see them growing up, and they spend they have a lot of experiences together. And then what happens?

Susie 15:56

Well, um Taka's mother takes Mufasa under her wing and teaches him how to hunt because uh Taka's or Mufasa's not allowed to spend time with the male lions because he's an outsider. So the mom takes him under her wing and teaches him. Meanwhile, Taka's watching from the sidelines wants to be taught and is you know not as capable, not as physically strong, not doesn't have the natural um instincts that Mufasa does. And so Taka's pissed off.

Craig 16:29

Yeah. Taka is resentful. He he can't live up to this Mufasa character, this person, this lion. And then you know that as someone who is into this Lion King world, that this is the the build-up to the tension between the brothers and which has its kind of climax at the end.

Shawn 16:52

Well, then a woman comes in between them.

Craig 16:54

Yeah, well, of course, that's don't they always? That's right. She's the Yoko Ono of the African Taca becomes deeply angry. He ends up aligning himself with the other white lions, but also the the old albino lions.

Shawn 17:10

I got halfway through it and I started doing my uh grocery list in my head. I just had no connection to this. I just I and listen, I was intrigued when they remade Aladdin. I thought, oh, I want to see what that looks like because that's one of my favorites, Aladdin. Yeah. And I thought, now, and it looked great and it was okay. I never saw the Little Mermaid remake. Uh, did I see Beauty and the Beast? I can't remember. So these things just they don't stick with me. I gotta be honest. Totally. I I I'm not I I want them to. I want to be excited about them.

Susie 17:43

Well, the musical aspect that surprises me that they don't stick with you because of your music, but for like the the good ones, but they're just rehashing stuff that was written in the 90s.

Shawn 17:54

Yeah, they're so all of that stuff was written in the 90s, and then it's not as good. It's not sound as good.

Craig 18:00

Well, I think this would be a perfect opportunity to bring two big fans, our guests, our kids, or two older kids. They grew up on it, and I'm excited because we watched this movie together as a family, and it was really interesting to see their perspective. Let's bring them in now.

Susie 18:18

Okay.

Craig 18:25

All right, so here we we just got uh Aiden and Cameron. Welcome, ladies.

Aidan 18:30

Yeah, this is a thanks for having me on. Yeah, thanks for having us.

Shawn 18:34

This is uh now whose room did this used to be?

Cameron 18:37

This was mine before it was relegated as the podcast.

Shawn 18:40

And did you ever imagine that this would be happening in your room now?

Cameron 18:44

Not to this extent. Yes. Originally it was, oh, would you mind if I turned it into an office? And I was like, of course, I'm not here. Do whatever you want.

Aidan 18:52

Yeah.

Cameron 18:53

And then I was then I came home, he's like, it's a podcast room now. Yes. Okay. We're thinking like one mic.

Susie 18:59

No.

Shawn 19:00

Yeah. Whatever. Well, that's what we thought too.

Aidan 19:02

Yeah.

Shawn 19:02

And then I came in and there was lighting and uh curtains.

Aidan 19:06

Don't forget the curtains.

Shawn 19:07

Oh, yeah, the curtains. The fake jungle and the jungle over here. He's putting in a water feature next week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is gonna be weird because that's gonna pick up on the sound, but that's okay.

Craig 19:16

It's a silent water feature.

Shawn 19:18

Yeah, it's a silent water feature. It's gonna be beautiful in here for our eyes. We can't wait. Well, thanks for letting us use your your room. I can't tell you the uh many, many hours of of laughter we've had in here. That's right.

Aidan 19:31

Yeah, we've heard some of it. Yeah, love.

Craig 19:34

Just quickly explain to us what your experience was, how old were you when you first saw the original Lion King, the animated version?

Aidan 19:44

I don't even know. I have no idea how old we were.

Shawn 19:48

It would have been on, was it DVD still?

Cameron 19:50

Yeah, so I couldn't tell you how old I was, but the context was we were in Whistler, and our place in Whistler didn't have any Wi-Fi. So we only had the select number of DVDs and the good old days and chess tapes.

Shawn 20:04

Yes, the good old days.

Susie 20:05

And no television channels.

Cameron 20:08

And no cable TV. Yes, no cable TV.

Shawn 20:10

This is in the cabin at Whistler.

Cameron 20:12

We had to negotiate between primarily myself and Aiden, and then later on with Bryn, what we were watching.

Shawn 20:19

Of course.

Cameron 20:20

And we didn't have the biggest selection. What was it? Um, Lion King, Toy Story, Toy Story, some Barbie movies, and the Titanic. And the Titanic. And the 12th.

Craig 20:29

Well, and the one movie that scared the hell out of you.

Cameron 20:32

Mars Attacks?

Craig 20:33

Mars Attack.

Shawn 20:33

I don't even know if you want to go over that. Tim Burton. Tim Burton. Let's keep let's dive into that one. Let's dive into that one.

Susie 20:40

No, we I haven't.

Shawn 20:42

I'm still terrified.

Susie 20:43

Too many sleepless nights when they watched it.

Shawn 20:46

What did the Martians freak you out? Oh boy.

Susie 20:48

Everything about it.

Shawn 20:50

Oh. Have you ever seen signs? What? No. Signs? No. No. Come on. No. But speaking of scary, scary Martians, you've never seen science? No. Let's traumatize you all over again tonight.

Cameron 21:02

Maybe not today. Okay.

Shawn 21:03

Anyways, back to back to the uh videos in the DVD. So Lion King probably won out Lion King won out.

Aidan 21:10

When it was when it was me and Cameron, Lion King won out, obviously. And it ended up being, well, I don't know about her, but my favorite movie of all time to watch. When Bryn finally came into the mix for some, she was like five years old and would press for the Titanic every single time, which is super weird.

Shawn 21:28

And she's in therapy now.

Aidan 21:30

She should be.

Cameron 21:31

Yeah, we mixed in Titanic eventually, but for the most part, I think I want to say like at least eight times out of ten, we ended up watching The Lion King to the point where both of us, I think, had the entire thing memorized. Oh, yeah, we were basically like speaking along the dialogue.

Shawn 21:48

Every line, every line, everyone.

Aidan 21:49

All the music, all the words, everything.

Craig 21:52

So why is that? That's that's the thing. That's the magic about this movie. Why was that?

Aidan 21:57

For me, a lot of it was the music thing.

Shawn 22:00

Like yeah that's what you connected with.

Aidan 22:02

I and so did I the drums, the music, the singing. It was insane and the scores behind all of this.

Shawn 22:11

And Leboam who sings the iconic African. Were you the same thing with The Little Mermaid? Or were you the same thing with Beauty and the Beast? Because those were all around the same time. Aladdin. So it's just specific to Lion King. It was just the Lion King. That's what I want to know.

Cameron 22:23

I liked other Disney movies. Like I liked most of the ones that you just mentioned, but I didn't go back to them over and over again. I enjoyed them.

Craig 22:32

So again, that's an interesting point. It just had something, right? Magical and powerful. To the point where you were talking about how they omitted or changed the song in the beyond, I don't know the Beyonce name of it. Was it Spirit or something like that? Yeah, Spirit.

Aidan 22:46

I think the name is Spirit. It is Spirit. It's the one word that she sings over and over and over again. It is Spirit.

Craig 22:51

So that's when Simba and Nala are returning. Is it Nala?

Aidan 22:57

It's just Simba. So Simba has this moment with Fafiki, and it's kind of it's it's his moment because if it was Nala, and like you wouldn't want that kind of influence over him. It's his deciding moment to run back. He doesn't even tell her, he just strips leaves. He's like, This is my thing.

Cameron 23:14

I gotta do this. Yeah, he has that realization that he needs to do this for him. It's not about Nala needs him. I mean, other it's about that they need him, but it's his choice, his decision.

Craig 23:24

So he starts returning from the jungle to the desert and to Pride Rock, and it's these African drums, and it had this powerful moment.

Aidan 23:34

It's this insane scene that like rewatching it now is really interesting to see the difference. So as a kid, the in like it was probably only five, six seconds of it, but it was this intense scene of drums and singing and like this pounding beat as he like returns galloped across this desert with the haze.

Craig 23:57

Galloping lions.

Aidan 23:58

And it was the galloping. Well, you see, he's galloping.

Craig 24:02

I don't know what lions do. They run real fast.

Cameron 24:06

For all that Aiden, the the music was so impactful for her. It was obviously impactful for me as well, but what always I remembered more was the visuals of that moment. They have this really cool, um, it's a I don't know what the technical term for it, but they have the background image of him running in the distance across the desert. Right.

Craig 24:23

It's layered.

Cameron 24:24

And it's overlaid with this close-up, um, almost uh translucent image of him running and his legs and just yeah, it's that over it's that overlaid image with the the shimmer of the heat of the desert combined with that music.

Craig 24:41

Yeah.

Aidan 24:41

And his paws were hitting the ground in time with the drums, right? Drums. And it was like it just pulled together to be this insane. I rec I used to get chills every day.

Shawn 24:53

They did little things like that in the remake. They did, they tried to include little iconic shots from the uh 1994 animated version, like when he puts his paw into his father's paw in the in the sand, yeah, and he sees how big the paw is and how little his is, and he's going to become it's all about succession, Lion King, right? It's all about the circle life succession. Are you guys did you guys see the musical? We did.

Aidan 25:16

Yes. We were taken to go watch it, but I was too young and I I barely remember it.

Shawn 25:20

Yeah. Yeah. I've seen it twice, and now of course it's the 30th anniversary, so it's coming to town again. It's uh it's made two billion, it's the highest grossing music of all time. It's made two billion dollars, and it won, I think it won six Tony Awards. So I mean it was a big deal. Wow, yeah.

Cameron 25:34

Yeah, I have some vague memories of when we went to go see it, and then um mainly just like very brief images here or there, but then I watched the Hollywood Bowl anniversary recently, too.

The Kids Explain Lion King Magic

Shawn 25:47

Sort of kindles uh a few memories for me watching it. So saying that, what did you think of uh of the music for this move? Faso. Now this is uh Lynn um uh Miranda.

Cameron 25:58

Oh, Lynn Manuel Miranda.

Shawn 25:59

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Craig 26:01

What do you what do you want to say to Aiden? Go ahead.

Aidan 26:03

Sorry, can I swear?

Craig 26:05

You can swear on this podcast?

Cameron 26:07

Okay, good. It's rated as explicit.

Aidan 26:09

Fuck yeah, good. It's Disney. You can fucking swear all you want. Because I have a few, I have a few choice words.

Shawn 26:15

Okay. Um Lynn, uh yeah, uh, so he go ahead. Are we talking about the original or the action remake? We'll talk about Mufasa and and and he does all the music now, doesn't he, Lynn? He did uh Encant and is it Encanto? Encanto and he did uh Moana. So this is their guy now, Disney's guy.

Aidan 26:35

Uh Lynn did the music for Lynn Manuel Miranda. I don't know him personally.

Shawn 26:39

He wrote the he wrote the yeah, Lynn. We'll just call him. Yeah. He's cool with it.

Aidan 26:43

Yeah, yeah. I know him. He did the music.

Shawn 26:46

Correct.

Aidan 26:47

And it sounds exactly like a theater kid would create. It was so utterly disappointing.

Shawn 26:55

I was disappointed too.

Aidan 26:56

It all they all sounded the same.

Shawn 26:58

And it's a high bar. We we were talking about it earlier. It's such a high bar to come in and do something like this, but it was disappointing. I feel like none of it stuck with me.

Cameron 27:06

I feel like for me, he has so many iconic songs recently that he has so such an amazing track record of writing. But with the Lion King, so much of the music that sticks with you is that is the music that's rated more in the African drums. It's deeper, it's yeah, and you that comes across in the Lion King. Whereas I felt like all the main music that they tried to like the songs they tried to portray that wasn't background music in Mufasa was like Aiden just said, it was theater kid music. Yeah, Broadway and it was theater stuff, and like none of the It didn't work, it didn't feel like it.

Aidan 27:43

No, yeah, especially this is when the swearing comes in. The I want to talk about specifically the song between Sarabi and Mufasa when I don't know if I'm jumping ahead here. When Sarabi when Sarabi is finally realizing that it's not actually Taka who's kind of I'm completely lost here.

Shawn 28:05

I don't know any of these characters.

Aidan 28:07

Sean started making a grocery list.

Shawn 28:08

I'm halfway through this movie. I'm like, I should read a book right now. Why am I watching this shit?

Aidan 28:12

Okay, basically the love triangle. Yeah. That's it. The love triangle, and then Sarabi goes, Oh my god, it's Mufasa. Yeah. That's the moment, and they have this love song. It sounded like two theater kids fucking in the hallways. That's it.

Shawn 28:26

Oh boy, if I had a nickel for every time I could do that.

Aidan 28:29

Yeah, exactly.

Cameron 28:30

Especially because it's a good visual. After we finished watching Mufasa, we went back and watched um Can You Feel the Love? Uh, that scene in the original Lion King.

Shawn 28:40

And 1994.

Cameron 28:41

Um yeah, the original. Okay. And our main takeaway from that was they don't really talk. It's a song that's that portrays their inner dialogue in this beautiful way. Yeah. But they're not lions singing to each other. They're having, it's all about the lion's body language and the scenery and how they move and look at each other with the overline um song with their inner dialogue.

Craig 29:05

I really thought that was so done, so creatively done. And then what we commented about Mufasa is that now you're watching real-looking lions singing Broadway.

Shawn 29:16

Mouting the words. That's why I said, should I be reading a book right now? Bettering my life.

Craig 29:23

And I'm just thinking, hey, Disney, who future you know, producers of whatever version they're gonna. Can you just think about how to get around that issue? Because it's not working.

Cameron 29:32

Especially, well, Aiden was the one who pointed out the the dandelion.

Aidan 29:36

Oh my god. When Mufasa was blowing a dead dandelion into the wind and his jowls were flapping, and it just looked so ridiculous.

Craig 29:46

Well, I I got annoyed. You know what I did? I wanted to know if dandelions actually grow in Africa. So I I looked that up. Because that's the problem with the movie.

Cameron 29:57

Not the massive snowy mountain range that's later on.

Craig 30:00

But but but why why blow on a dandelion and then they turn into butterflies? That's a big question.

Susie 30:05

Disconnect.

Shawn 30:06

Yeah, I I agree.

Craig 30:08

That's why I'm here. I asked the big questions. Yeah.

Susie 30:10

Dandelions.

Craig 30:11

Dandelions. So we talked about a few things uh about kind of this, the general issue around the color. Color, it seemed to lack a vibrancy, and as Sean said, it lacked a soul. You talked about pacing when we were watching this, and I thought that was a very good point. We felt that the dialogue was just way too much and way too basic.

Cameron 30:33

They spent the whole time trying to tell you how you should feel instead of making you feel it. And so that was the main difference. Whereas the Lion King, we went back and we watched, what was it, the first 10-15 minutes of the original of the original Lion King in the original animation. And I think there was maybe one conversation in 10 minutes, and yet we'd already understood so much about the setting, about like w the setup and how we should feel and the dynamics between different different characters. And yet we'd had maybe a I don't know, 50-word conversation between Mufasa and Scar.

Craig 31:10

Yeah. And aside from trying to always understand whose lion is who and connected to what, you know, uh once we try to get oh, I just stopped trying to actually understand that and just watched it. At least I wasn't making a grocery list. Like Sean over there.

Shawn 31:26

By the way, I gotta go shopping with you, so let's wrap this up.

Susie 31:29

I'm pretty sure I got some chores done at the end of that. But Potter.

Craig 31:33

Um what about your take on the idea? Because I thought you guys came up with a great idea. I think it was you guys, around this the storyline around the albinos. Did they they don't offer anything to this movie? Get rid of the albinos. They I know they have to have this kind of like nemesis antagonist element to it, but why are we not focusing on centrally mufasa and taka, mufasa and scar, and really develop that tension that becomes this malignancy between the two and where Scar, which we see in the original movie, is so deceitful. But you don't really see a deceitful taka, he comes across as a a bit of a dullard. I don't know, I'm being harsh, but what did you think about the kind of that storyline, that arc?

Cameron 32:27

Well, first of all, part of the storyline of the original, which I was hoping they'd carry more into it, was that Mufasa says, as long as I am king, Scar will always have a place here. And that is very unusual for lions. Usually it's one male lion who gets strong enough, defeats the previous leader of the pride, and then becomes the sole male with a bunch of females. And they they talked about that very briefly in The Lion King, the original. I mean, it was alluded to, but that was part of the reason why I was raised, everybody was like, just get rid of Scar. He's competition. Why is why are you letting him stay here? And then when it comes to the prequel, it it had nothing to do with that. They had a pride, the um Taka's pride had like five males in it. Yeah, and we were like, why is this? The tension's not there. Yeah, all lazy.

Shawn 33:22

Yeah, they were doing nothing.

Susie 33:24

All lazy, yeah, not like Armufasa.

Aidan 33:27

Yeah, I just felt like they created no proper villain. They didn't create a any sort of real tension. They brought I feel like they brought in these albino lions as like a scapegoat for evil without really getting into what that evil is, just evil for evil's sake, which I think is an absolute cop-out every single time, and not interesting. You go, okay, oh, they're they were outcast, they're different, and so they're hunting them.

Craig 33:55

This scenario where Mufasa and Simba on the original one were talking about the circle of life, and that there is a circle of life, and you got the impression that it was brutal. Animals like lions eat and there's prey. But in this one, Mufasa I mean, i it's like there's no hint of any kind of uh circle of life.

Aidan 34:19

I just re-watched the original again with my roommate the other day, and she was under the impression that it was all just like lovey w animals, because she watched Mufasa and also hated it, by the way. Hated is a strong word, but did not like it. We we re- re-watched the original and we watched the scene where Nala is hunting Timone and Pumba, and it's intense. She's hungry, she wants to eat, and they're terrified.

Craig 34:47

That's right. And you see Timon and Pumba.

Aidan 34:49

They're screaming, they're running for their lives. It's hilarious, and also you're like, are they going to die? Yeah. Yeah. There's none of that. Good intentionally good tension, yeah. Yeah. When you can bring comedy out of it. That's right.

Shawn 35:06

Do you think this would be a better movie without the music? Like if they just didn't go down that road.

Susie 35:12

Go down that road.

Shawn 35:12

Because it's it's it's not required to have music. It's not the original Lion King. So we're not, you know, so maybe they set themselves up.

Craig 35:20

I notice that they were like, the writers were thinking, okay, when do we add a song in? And it's every time when they're traveling from one place to the next. And it was like Viller.

Cameron 35:30

One more point to add to the the tension in the hunting aspect in Mufasa. The the time that we see them quote unquote hunting something is when they hunt Rafiki. They're not hunting him. They go up to him, saunter up to him, if you will, and they say, We're gonna eat you. And he's like, No, you're not. And he's like, We're lions, we're gonna eat you. Yeah, they're not hunting him, they're not being aggressive, they're literally walking up to him and having a conversation.

Craig 35:59

Yeah.

Cameron 35:59

I'm sorry. You don't do that with something you usually see as food.

Craig 36:03

I thought right there would have been a wicked idea because there's there's Rafiki walking like a boss, right? And then you have the lions who are not scary at all. So this is not working, but why not just pounce on Rafiki?

Shawn 36:16

Okay, wait a minute here. So wait a minute. You're mad because they weren't the right rocks or the right flowers, yeah. And you're mad over here because they didn't rip open an animal to keep them. Apparently, are we? This is Disney, guys. What are we uh what are we doing here?

Craig 36:31

I guess. Well, maybe that's a thing.

Broadway Lions And Missing Tension

Shawn 36:32

When it's when it is Scorsace didn't direct this film, okay? Was this a cash crab?

Craig 36:38

Yeah, yeah.

Shawn 36:39

Was it a cash crab? I I know it actually lost money originally when it when it opened. It it they spent $200 million just to make this at first, and then they spent another $150 million to market it. Oh my god. And so and it didn't even come out first. I think that was coming, I can't remember what it was competing against, but but on IMDB. It's just made money back now, I think.

Craig 37:01

And it only got 6.6 out of 10.

Shawn 37:03

Yeah.

Craig 37:04

So I think that's being a bit generous. I feel, I feel like it.

Shawn 37:07

It's a three or a four. Okay. But if this was the 90s or the early 2000s, this would have been a straight-to-vide. Don't you think? Oh, totally. Straight to video.

Craig 37:16

Yeah. The lions themselves were were really good in terms of.

Shawn 37:20

There's no question, the technology is unbelievable. I understand the excitement around it.

Craig 37:24

Exactly. And that's as far as I can take it.

Susie 37:26

Yeah, not enough different.

Shawn 37:28

But the story's not there. That's why I said it's soulless. You can have the technology, but you have to have the art behind it.

Aidan 37:34

The sad thing is that the story absolutely could have been there. Like, I feel like if you look past all of the excess stuff in the plot, the story between the two brothers is there. It just should have only been that.

Cameron 37:49

It's tricky because, like, the fact that Mufasa was adopted into Taka's family, that in itself would have been fine. Except if they wanted to keep it a bit more with the continuity of the original, because Scar at the beginning makes a point to say, um, Mufasa got the lion's share and I got the shallow end of the gene pool, which does imply that they are blood related. Yeah. That Mufasa got all the the strength and the brawn and what you typically think of when you think of a lion. Whereas Scar's skinny and not quite as strong. He's very intelligent. He got the brains.

Shawn 38:23

I was just going to add that that Disney World is building a Lion King experience. So this is a brand, obviously, it's a huge, I think it's one of the biggest entertainment properties ever, the Lion King. So so they're building a Lion King experience in Orlando where like it's acres and acres and acres of like African safari that they're building with with like actual animals and then some animatronic, of course, and and a water ride that you go down and you go down through the story, and there's like, you know, food and shows and like so there, there's a lot of money in the world.

Susie 38:59

It's its own little land inside of Disneyland. Yeah.

Shawn 39:04

Oh, yeah. Oh, Disney World. They're doing it there and they're doing one in Paris as well. So, anyways, this this keeps this is why we're getting Mufasas and stuff, because this is a brand they need to continue and push into the Zettgeist so everybody's you know up with this.

Aidan 39:18

And I think they set up perfectly to make a movie about Kiara next, which is Simba's daughter being. Is that Blue Ivy?

Shawn 39:27

Blue Ivy? I don't even know. Probably, yeah.

Susie 39:30

Probably. Then they had a baby boy. Kiara got a baby brother. A baby brother. Then they've got the sibling story ready for the next one, and then something traumatic is gonna happen, or my brother.

Aidan 39:42

They're setting they're setting this up to make a lot of money out of it.

Susie 39:45

Fassa 1.5.

Aidan 39:46

And without all of the like emotional learning and all of the intense aspects of the original.

Shawn 39:55

I'm just wondering though, like being, you know, older. Uh uh, um, are kids like that were I don't know, seven, eight, nine, ten, are these movies incredible to them? Like, is Mufasa a mind-blowing to these guys? Like, like, am I just gonna be so removed from this that I have I can't, I can't critique this movie. I just can't. Yeah. It's just like, but is is is a kid that's like even 11 or 12, or is this a is this a good movie to them?

Cameron 40:23

I think the closest we have to that right now is Brynn, their youngest sister, did like it. Specifically, she really liked the one song of um Brother Brother. Yeah, the brother. I forget what it's the rest of it's called. Brother, brother, brother, brother, brother, that one. And that's probably the catchiest song and the most memorable song of all of them.

Shawn 40:41

And that doesn't say much, but the interesting thing too is that nobody wanted to make uh The Lion King the original '94. In 1992, it was called King of the Jungle, and they'd pitched it, and Disney did not want to do it. They wanted people in their animated stuff. Oh. They didn't want all animals.

Craig 40:58

Right.

Shawn 40:59

So it was such a hard sell. Everybody that was working on The Lion King wanted to be working on Pocahontas because that was supposed to be the big, big movie that was gonna, you know, be the next one, The Little Mermaid or whatever you want to call it, the next big one. So they it was like the B team working on the Lion King, right? That's what they said. And so the Bee King, they said, Well, you know what? They all rallied together like they were the Riffraff and they said, We're gonna we're gonna underdogs the underdogs, we're gonna make a great movie.

Susie 41:26

God, Hanan Zimmer and uh Elton John are hardly the B team.

Shawn 41:29

Well, I don't think they included them. I'm talking about the animators, okay, like the people at Disney that were actually doing the animation, okay, which used to sit and actually draw. They went to like Kenya for two weeks, the animators, and went on a trip and watched animals.

Craig 41:42

Yeah.

Shawn 41:43

So, anyways, there's always been some resistance, funny enough, right? It with each with each um metamorphosis of the Lion King, right?

Craig 41:50

I'm gonna be like Obasi and probably now lie down.

Shawn 41:56

Right here on the table?

Craig 41:58

Yeah, if you don't mind. I mean, do lions do more lying down than actually anything else. Especially the males.

Aidan 42:04

Uh the males.

Craig 42:05

And that's why I got so bored actually watching them constantly move. It's just too much. Anyway, would you what would you give it out of 10?

Shawn 42:13

I you did not like this movie.

Aidan 42:16

I well, the my problem is that I'm so emotionally attached to the original. It was so good.

Shawn 42:21

Oh, I think we all are.

Aidan 42:22

And having and so just like, you know, with the lack of any sort of depth in the dialogue and the amount of how fast the movie was that you couldn't even keep up with what was going through.

Susie 42:32

We talked about that, the pacing of the dialogue. It was couldn't really understand it. Then they would bring in background or or background music or sounds that actually overpowered, you can't really hear, and then which lions said it, and you can't tell them visually apart very easily all the time.

Aidan 42:50

I just think you had an intensity problem. I think you there was really no emphasis on what you were supposed to be really paying attention to. Like who is the main villain here? So who's the big villain? We don't really know. Yeah. Who when is like the big moments other than like the songs that are?

Craig 43:04

Well, and and we never talked about the fact that Rafiki was also an outcast. And we learn how he gets his stick, which, okay, it's not something that was always on my forefront of my mind. But they try to make that symmetry where Mufasa and Rafiki have that sh that bond.

Cameron 43:20

I think the closest they got to um I don't know, intensity or subtle sh foreshadowing in this movie was Rafiki throughout when he was being initially outcast, and then throughout the journey, he kept on seeing saying um I I see myself in a in a vision. He said, He says, I see myself with my brother at the tree. And you as you assume, well, it's a another brother who's been outcast from the tree, and then he's made his way to this other new tree in Melele. And then it turns out that the brother is actually um Mufasa. Rafiki saw himself with Mufasa and their bond as a brother, and how that and their Bond built throughout the journey and then that it finished with them at the tree together. So I think that's the most subtle part about the whole movie.

Craig 44:08

So Mufasa's brother is actually a baboon. Oh, sorry. Mandrill. And not his actual brother. And again, I just I just think that's that's the message. Rafiki and Mufasa are the real brothers, and Scar is not. Add some kind of nuance to Scar, you know?

Aidan 44:27

Make him believe that he is worth being kept around after threatening Mufasa's life. That's the main thing that I did not get. Why, other than Mufasa just being this saint, which I don't know if is real.

Craig 44:40

A lot of uh claw paws on claw paws. Um scenes.

Susie 44:45

Yep. Three.

Craig 44:47

Is that your turn on?

Shawn 44:49

Your big turn on, right?

Susie 44:51

Yeah.

Shawn 44:51

And I'm just like paw on paw.

Craig 44:54

Pa on paw. That was three times in that movie, wasn't it? Or am I getting that wrong? Yeah, three times. Oh brother.

Shawn 44:59

Wow, you kidding.

Craig 45:00

Oh brother, brother, brother, brother.

Shawn 45:02

Jeez. Yeah.

Craig 45:03

Well, I I think we've uh I've we've hit all the points that we've got.

Shawn 45:06

I think we got a lot out of Mufasa. Thank God for these ladies. Yeah, no kidding. You're gonna write your thesis on this movie, ladies. Yeah, and I would.

Aidan 45:14

And I would. Yeah. Man.

Craig 45:16

And I don't think the listeners need to hear any more about us talking about Mufasa. Oh no.

Susie 45:21

Anyway, joining us.

Craig 45:22

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Susie 45:23

Yeah.

Craig 45:24

Very insightful.

Shawn 45:25

You guys were great. I mean, you saved the show. And now we know who to call for Titanic, too. So yeah.

Aidan 45:33

Happy to be here for our childhood. Most memorable movie. Most memorable movie of our childhood ever. I knew in my bedroom.

Susie 45:41

I knew that when you I would hear you guys talking and negotiating what it is that you guys were gonna watch, and I knew that when you said Lion King, you were not coming upstairs for 90 minutes. So I would have 90 minutes to do whatever I needed to do uninterrupted with, you know, kids downstairs glued to it, loving it, mouthing every word, singing every song.

Craig 46:05

Well, let's let's let's end with that. Oh, can't you feel the love tonight? Yes. Yes. What was your favorite? Do you have a favorite song from the original Lion King?

Cameron 46:13

Oh. That's a hard question. Yeah. They're also good.

Craig 46:17

They are. Uh the big pig pig. What is it? The big pig.

Aidan 46:21

Oh, big pig. That's always a good one.

Craig 46:23

Oh yeah.

Aidan 46:24

Are you looking for a hunk of fat and juicy meat? Eat my buddy over here because he has a treat. Are you aching for some bacon? He's a big pig. Yep, yep. You can be a big pig too.

Craig 46:56

And we maximized as many rides as possible. Of course she did. We were we were there the moment that it opened up and we left when it closed.

Susie 47:04

We came back for a break.

Shawn 47:05

Were you like at the Matterhorn going, uh, geez, this mountain is not correctly uh the geography of the uh it's just I was unaware. Why is there a snow-capped mountain in the middle of Southern California? I got a feeling Craig was probably doing that kind of stuff. Hey, move your basket.