Hello all. You're probably wondering where I've been the past couple of months. Not deceased, thank goodness. That I can assure you. Aside from the fact I've been working myself to death and coming home tired every night from a new job? Well, actually that's about it. Don't worry, The Room reviews are still on the way. Part two is being edited and Part three has been started, but not finished. However, tonight (or today, by the time you're reading this) I just wanted to react to something that flew across social media this morning.
As you're probably already aware, the latest (and greatest) trailer for 2019's cinematic déjà vu The Lion King was released this morning. It showcases that same uncomfortably lifelike CGI from 2016's own déjà vu The Jungle Book wrapped around the motifs and iconic imagery from that one Disney VHS tape that everybody and their cousin has seen a billion times over; The Lion King, a movie so ingrained in our psyche that UK Region 2 Blu-ray imports are hard to come by. The trailer even included original score from Hans Zimmer to tickle your nostalgia with a feather and bring your shattered adult soul back to the years when you were a kid and raping your parents' VCR with that legendary VHS tape of the '94 version over and over again. So... why am I not really interested in it? Well, to be perfectly honest, there is no reason for this movie to exist.
Does that really need to be said though? I feel like everyone has entered kind of a cinematic haze where every time a remake comes out, they just dump the old one and forget about it, bury it in the past. Now, don't get me wrong. Remakes aren't necessarily a bad sign... such as the Al Pacino Scarface, which just wiped the original 30s version from existence, pretty much. Nobody I've met in my life refers to the 30s version when they say Scarface, it's always the Pacino version. The Fast and the Furious? I'll bet you didn't know the Vin Diesel, Paul Walker 2001 street-racing flick just borrowed it's title completely from 1955's The Fast and the Furious. Granted the '55 Fast has nothing to do with 2001's Fast and vice versa, but both films do center around street racing. James Cameron's True Lies? Yep. Not even kidding, and it's original version wasn't even America... or even that old. 1991's French film La Totale! was the focal point and story focus for 1994's action flick True Lies, basically the same movie, thus arguing that True Lies... as classic as it is... is a remake.
But then there are remakes that have literally no purpose for existing. Remakes where you wonder what the point even was or why money was even spent on it. 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still is a timeless science-fiction classic. Granted its special effects are pretty cheap by today's standards, but it stands tall as a centerpiece of sci-fi history. Keanu Reeves' 2009 remake? A complete sociopolitical farce with no ending and just a couple of "really cool scenes" used to sell a movie. 2011's Total Recall? There was no point in remaking Schwarzenegger's Total Recall. Absolutely none. Vince Vaughn's version of Psycho? A MOVIE THAT IS LITERALLY NOTHING MORE THAN A SHOT-FOR-SHOT, SIDE-BY-SIDE EXACT REMAKE OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK's MASTERPIECE? DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED. Seriously, it's well documented by film buffs everywhere that if you just put Hitchcock's Psycho and the 90s Psycho side-by-side and watch them... they're literally the same movie, shot-for-shot... just with different actors and the 90s version's in color. Fucking deplorable.
The Lion King, while not in the same vain as Psycho, is shaping up to be just another useless remake. Yet people are losing their minds over it like the first one doesn't even exist anymore. It's like this is the first time people are even discovering this movie, and what a coincidence too because the focal points behind what made the original so memorable are all back again. James Earl Jones, who voiced Mufasa in the 1994 Lion King is voicing Mufasa again in the 2019 Lion King. Hans Zimmer? With one of the only masterful scores he ever did being 1994's The Lion King? He's scoring 2019's The Lion King. You'd think being the musical composer of the 21st Century, Hans would trip us up with some new material. Nope... just revised and more elaborate takes on the original material. Even Sir Elton John , the music-making badass himself, the man behind all the classic songs from the original 1994 version? He's back supervising the songs for the 2019 remake. Well if they're going to go all the way, let's not stop there! I'm just glad they secured the master of sinister evil-doing, Jeremy Irons, to return as Scar--... wait, they didn't? Motherfu--. It's like... why? Why only get some of the people who made the '94 version so memorable? Oh, because you didn't want it to just seem like you were making the same movie over again? Well, welcome to the rodeo, Calamity Jane! Zazu's not Rowan Atkinson (dammit), Rafiki isn't Robert Guillaume (probably because he's dead), Timon isn't even Nathan Lane (shit), and Pumbaa is everybody's favorite Pineapple Express jackass Seth Rogen (fuck). If they have Pumbaa make an off-handed, under-the-table marijuana joke I'm going to slit my wrists. However, while they are pissing on the supporting cast by casting a bunch of nobodies (minus Rogen, of course), they have ramped up their main characters. Donald Glover is Simba in 2019, and Beyoncé is Nala. So... at least that's something. Boy, she's come a long way from being Steve Martin's uncomfortably young and ill-fitted love interest in The Pink Panther... also another useless remake, as a matter of fact, but that's not the point here.
It just proves that you can't remake something with such a name and fan base. It's like trying to remake Back to the Future or Raiders of the Lost Ark. You won't come within a thousand light years of topping the original material. The iconic nature of each scene and each character are just too well-ingrained in pop culture. Yet, all these Disney quasi-live-action/photo-realistic CGI remakes are just the beginning, too. Soon every Disney movie you ever watched as a kid will soon get a Jon Favreau $300 million makeover. A remake of Tarzan with Jason Momoa will come out and gross like $800 million worldwide off of nostalgia (and inflation) alone and Disney will just keep cranking these things out. Chris Hemsworth's Hercules will soon be announced, the remake of Mulan is already on the way (that one's not a joke), Aladdin is due out this May. I just... have no desire in seeing something I've seen already. A thousand times. Just because it looks prettier. Yes, I have no doubt it'll be a good movie, and yes it'll be awe-inspiring in its presentation, but you don't need to see it to already know that. However, I can't stop you from seeing it. It is going to be a cultural event whether I like it or not, so go see it and enjoy it and be happy. Just remember; the only reason it'll be a good movie is that it's just remaking a good movie.
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