You know the main problem with the “live action” Lion King? Why it looks so lifeless?

The hyper realistic style is actually limiting the animators, rather than freeing them. The style makes it much harder to have memorable character designs and good expressions. Real lions don’t need to do things like emote in a way that humans can understand – but characters in a film do. The original movie was more cartoony not due to animation limitations of the time, but because that style genuinely serves the story better.

To show you what I mean, compare these two shots of Simba, from right after Scar says “run away and never return.”

Here is a clear reaction, with a strong beat for us to connect with before the character makes a decision. Even without any dialogue, even without any context, you can understand the emotion there just by the expression and the mannerisms. Is it realistic? No! He’s bright yellow and has eyebrows. But do we empathize with him? Yes!

Meanwhile, here is… a lion. Turning and running. No expression, no beats, no character moments, nothing. He actually can’t express himself because the animators are locked into the realistic style. If they tried to animate a strong expression as warranted for the scene, it would look terrible. Is it realistic? Hell yeah! Look at those textures! Look at that fur! But do we empathize with him? …nah. Not really.

To conclude: when you’re retelling Hamlet with a bunch of animated lions, cartoonish-ness is your friend, not your enemy.

You know the main problem with the “live action” Lion King? Why it looks so lifeless?

The hyper realistic style is actually limiting the animators, rather than freeing them. The style makes it much harder to have memorable character designs and good expressions. Real lions don’t need to do things like emote in a way that humans can understand – but characters in a film do. The original movie was more cartoony not due to animation limitations of the time, but because that style genuinely serves the story better.

To show you what I mean, compare these two shots of Simba, from right after Scar says “run away and never return.”

Here is a clear reaction, with a strong beat for us to connect with before the character makes a decision. Even without any dialogue, even without any context, you can understand the emotion there just by the expression and the mannerisms. Is it realistic? No! He’s bright yellow and has eyebrows. But do we empathize with him? Yes!

Meanwhile, here is… a lion. Turning and running. No expression, no beats, no character moments, nothing. He actually can’t express himself because the animators are locked into the realistic style. If they tried to animate a strong expression as warranted for the scene, it would look terrible. Is it realistic? Hell yeah! Look at those textures! Look at that fur! But do we empathize with him? …nah. Not really.

To conclude: when you’re retelling Hamlet with a bunch of animated lions, cartoonish-ness is your friend, not your enemy.

YES

Not just sometimes. MOST of the times. At least in the way it is being used today. Realism for Realism is empty. The effort is shifted towards the form and not the meaning conveyed by the production. The artistic value of that work is then heavily harmed because ART IS COMMUNICATION. And if you are focusing more on the shape of your channel than on your message, then you’re missing the point.

In the case of Lion King, seriously, the core of the production is not on the fact that the characters are animals. No. In fact, they are animals precisely to allow the message to be transmitted more efficiently to the target audience. It’s a stylistic choice. Real Lions don’t behave like Simba. There’s no kingdom to which they are kings. And even if there was one, it would certainly not include the other animals. The whole concept is a human construction. A construct that is explored by the movie to bring them closer to our world and allow them to perform a very human story. It’s a fable. By making the animals that realistic, they are completely missing the point of it. We can’t emphasize. We don’t have effective ways to communicate on a deeper level with most animals. We can’t read their emotions on their behavior/expressions. So all we have here is an extremely unrealistic speech attached to an emotionless face and to an unreadable body. In the end, we don’t see them either as animals or humans. We see animated animals being voiced by humans. We see the strings.