The Clubhouse Podcast

Home Show The Lion King 2019

October 27, 2019 Season 9, Episode 66

Rob, Don Ford, and General review Disney's 2019 live-action remake of The Lion King directed by John Favreau. Don, who saw the film in advance at a Dolby theater, found the CGI generally good but noted the film lacks the emotional impact of the original animated feature, particularly in scenes depicting Mufasa in the clouds and during the stampede. He praised Seth Rogen's performance as Pumba and the hyena voice actors Keegan-Michael Key and Eric Andre, but criticized the limited mouth movement of the lions during dialogue.

About this episode

Key takeaways

  • The film is 30 minutes longer than the original animated version and includes most of the original songs, though with different arrangements
  • Don's main criticism is the lack of mouth movement on lions during dialogue scenes, making it feel like ventriloquism
  • The emotional punch of the story doesn't translate as strongly in the live-action version compared to the original
  • Seth Rogen's performance as Pumba received the highest praise from Don among the voice cast
  • Limited scenes genuinely benefit from the Dolby theater format despite viewing in that premium setting

Q&A

Does the live-action version capture the same emotional impact as the original?

If you've never seen it before, yes. If you've seen the original, not as much—the emotional scenes lack the same punch.

Which voice performances stood out?

Seth Rogen as Pumba received the highest praise, followed by Keegan-Michael Key and Eric Andre as the hyenas. James Earl Jones also performed well as Mufasa.

Is the Dolby theater format worth it for this film?

Not really—only a couple of scenes like the storm and stampede benefit from the premium format, but it wasn't worth the extra cost for the two-hour runtime.

What was Don's main technical criticism?

The mouths of the lions barely moved when they talked, making it look like ventriloquism rather than natural dialogue.

Read Transcript

This is the first time I've ever done this before, so I'm going to show you how to do it. This is the first time I've ever done this before, so I'm going to show you how to do it. This is the first time I've ever done this before, so I'm going to show you how to do it.

This is the first time I've ever done this before, so I'm going to show you how to do it. If you're hearing the sound of my voice, it means the following conditions have been met. It means at least once in your life you've checked out the Clubhouse Podcast live every Sunday, 9th, 7 Easter, 4 Pacific on the Vocal Now Network, VOKAL.com, book market, download the Apples and all the great shows on the Vocal Now Network, of which we are one.

But it's also time for another HONG SHOW. Number 474 for those of you playing the home game. Welcome.

My name is Rob, I am the executive producer of the Clubhouse Podcast, and I do like to say, what sort of menu? But let's go around the dais. Sitting in the co-host chair is the lady of the house, and someone who probably has the same affinity for the original of this film as I do.

She is general, welcome friend. Hello everyone, thank you for joining us. Running out the dais is the official fact checker of sooner or gator productions, and a man whose shirt kind of is indicative to what we're about to talk about.

Reminds me a lot of it. You may know him as Igboonu, but his mom and name him Don Ford, I'm gonna call him Don Ford. Hey brother.

It is good, but it kind of reflects what we're going to talk about, because whenever we do one of these, it is to review something, and this is no exception, because it's time to talk about one of the most anticipated films of the year that Don has already seen. It's Disney's live action version directed by John Favreau of the Lion King. For some soul thing?

Yes sir. We got something at JTN, everybody at Legion for the invite. Thank you guys so much for letting us come out and see this film.

We love our vendors, they take care of us, and they let us see stuff in advance. It's the Lion King, do we really need to go into this? It's based on King Lear.

The original, that's true. Oh really? Okay.

It's based on the Shakespeare play of King Lear. Oh wow, I did not know that. Okay.

And it came out. I remember when I first saw the first trailer for this, it was on the Three Musketeers movie that Disney did in the 90s. And all it was, black screen, red writing, what you're about to see is the opening eight minutes from Disney's latest animated feature of the Lion King.

And it was the opening. Okay. And I remember it in just as soon as they lived Simba up in a Junk and I was like, I could just watch the rest of this.

Is that cool? Can we do that? Please?

So. I worked at the Disney store at the time. Oh geez.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen the opening song because it was on the laser disk followed by Tigger's or wonderful things. So let me run down the cast for you, the voice cast because this is a quote unquote live action version, which Disney's been doing for a while now. Chewitzel Edge of Foreplay's Scar, John Oliver plays Zazoo, James Earl Jones of course he plays Mufasa again because this is CNN.

Alfred Woodard plays Sarabi, Penny Johnson, Harold plays Seraphina, Keegan Michael, key plays Kamari, let's see Seth Rogan plays Pumba, Billy Eichner plays T-Mone, Amy Sederis plays Gini Fowl, Donald Glover plays Simba, Beyonce plays Nala, Phil Womar plays Impala, I didn't come on. A few heavy hitters. Yeah.

One or two known people. I still think they should have gotten the new day to play the Hyenas but that's a whole different issue. They really wanted to do it too.

That would have been awesome. Yeah. All right, Don, you saw this thing, I mean we've all seen it but you saw this version of it.

Yeah. If you don't know the story, welcome back to think. Welcome back from the cave.

Welcome back to say yeah. It's only been 25 years. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, so this film is 30 minutes longer than the cartoon, full blown two hours, full blown two hours. So you got to keep that in mind that it starts off the first couple of minutes is that showing the Africa, it's showing the nature ground, the pelicans, the birds flying, going to see the new cub born.

So a lot of that stuff was like, hey, I remember that as kids watching that from the cartoon. Right. So they had a lot of correctness of stuff from the cartoon.

Okay. I think about just everything from that cartoon was in there. You could probably say, all right.

But they did extend some stuff. They did add some stuff because it is long, you know, 30 minutes longer. Of course they had to.

But this basic story is still the same. Okay, the, if I have one beef of this film, my biggest draw was drawback of the whole thing is the mouthing of the lions, the mouthing of the lions. That's the big thing I got.

So if I'm hearing you correctly, you're talking about when the animals actually talked in the film, the way their mouths moved when they talked. If you could see the move at all, it looks like they were just, I mean, sometimes I think they could do a good job as being ventrulled ques. You know what I'm saying?

So the lion king done by Jeffie Dunham is what you're talking about, it's kind of like that. So it wasn't even like watching a dubbed over film. It was just never meant at all.

Okay. Yeah. With all the music still there.

Yeah. Most of the thing is like the circle life. I hate to say it's not all in John.

It's the song's in there, but it's not all, but that's what they were doing with their remakes. But they had the main, you'd say the main songs. Now, I don't remember the soundtrack from the original cartoon or animated feature.

The ones I remember were in there, like Scott meets up with the circle of life in this version is done by Stephen Lipson. Yeah. Farrell produced, and he also, Stephen Lipson also does, I just can't wait to be king, which is produced by Farrell.

Oh, yeah, of course, they had that one in there. It was good. Chiuatel, Edge of Four, performance be prepared.

Yep. You got the cast doing Haku no Matata, Billy Agnir and Seth Rogen doing the lion's sleeps tonight. Can you feel the love tonight, Beyonce, Donald Glover, Billy Agnir and Seth Rogen and then spirit Beyonce?

I think spirit's a new song. Yeah. If I'm not mistaken.

So it looks like it's all there. Yeah, most of the, if you like the songs, yeah, I think you'll be satisfied. They sound good.

It's just different. It's a different take than everything. But I'd say, hey, I want to go to school.

I want to Elton, but that's fine. You're not going to get everything you want. But my problem is going back to the mouthing is you see two lions talking and walking back and forth.

That's like when Scar and Mustafa would be talking in like they're about ready to go at it. But their mouths would barely move at all. That was the problem.

They did the big roar. You saw the mouth open. But the other animals, yeah, they did good when they talking.

But when you watch the animated feature, when the lion's talk, you actually see the tongue, the mouse moves and all that, which is a little easier to do. Yeah. But that's, that's my biggest drawback is the mouthing of those of the lions.

Let me ask you this. Part of my apprehension to see this film is number one, the attachment I have to the original. But number two, there's so much, all the fields are in, are in the original version.

Does this version pack the same emotional punch that it did originally? If you've never seen it before, yes. Okay.

If you've seen it before, I didn't have it. Really? Okay.

It was not as good. Yes, there's this thing with his dad in the gorge. And here's the thing, the big scene when he's looking up to the sky in the clouds in the beginning.

He would do it through when he's looking at the lake. Okay. So I don't see a lion's head, all I see is clouds.

I was trying to look and see, because that was the big thing, I'm sorry, Disney Studios has the one of the best CGI studios in the world. And they bought another one. Yeah, they could have done a better job of that or even the stars making it, it's just like I was expecting to see the big lion's head, it's a bunch of clouds with a bunch of thunder.

But in defense of that, what you're talking about is some of the hidden things that Disney artists have put into some of these films that weren't necessarily caught before it got wide release. And it's these little hidden things like the cloud is in the shape of, or there's hidden words or hidden images, some are true, some are not. And maybe they didn't do it because that's something that artist chose to do to put their mark on that film.

And it could have been taking away from the magic of the hidden Disney. But I see where Don's going to be, I do see where Don's going though, there are certain, like, especially with Mufasa in the clouds and everything, I get where he's going, but I also see why, because see, here's my thing. I guess it, I'm apprehensive to see this, but John Favreau always gets to pass with me.

He just does. He's the guy that basically made the MCU. And he is one of my favorite directors.

Chef was one of my favorite films of the year, a few years ago. He did a great job with the Jungle Book. I just, I just have such an emotional attachment to the animated feature.

I feel like this would let me down. And I, plus, again, the emotion of this story, I just don't know that I'm prepared for that in the theater. And I, I didn't feel it as much as I did on the car, too, and I feel you, and everybody's different.

Every made me look at it different. And I think your fears might be realized possibly, you know what I'm saying? I'm not going to speak for you.

I don't know, but I'm worried that you might have that fear come true a little bit. Were you able to watch this in any form of a premium format, or was it in the movie? We, okay, here's, we saw it in the Dolby theater.

Yeah. With the chairs in it. Oh, yeah.

Okay. Now, here's the issue. Would I recommend it for Dolby for this?

Well, that's, that's, we got to get to the final. I know. But we'll say that later.

But there's only a couple of scenes where I think that Dolby may have hands when you really think about it. Like the storm. The opening.

Or the, the, in the gorge with the, the herd, the, the, the, um, stampede, you could say, um, or the, or the, or the, the, uh, the cloud scenes with the, the storms and the thunder. But I'm not, it really wasn't, I didn't feel nothing at all. So I, you know, I, we'll sleep at that until we get to the very end.

Now, the thing I want to bring up, yes, please. Um, the ones I really liked though, um, Kagan, Michael K and K, K, K, K, and, yeah, Eric Andre playing the, um, high-ness, the two psychic high-ness. They were incredible.

I love their, their, I thought there were three of them. I know. But the Florence plays like the lead, but the two sidekicks.

Okay. Yeah. Florence still did good as the, what kind of the head of the, yeah, but the Kagan in the, in the, Eric, there's a two tweedle dumb and then Mr.

Harline trying to get together all the time. And I love Kagan, Michael K, I really do. And then also I also thought, uh, come on, show up.

Seth Rogen. Nice. Pumba.

I mean, come on. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You could done a better job than Rogen for that, for that role.

No one. And he, he, he gets my total shout out. The other two get like, you know, bronze and silver.

He gets the gold medal of all the voice actors in all this film. I think he's the most perfect, did perfect for it. All right.

Fair enough. Of course, James Earl Jones. I don't know.

I, if he did, did he recast those or they, to my knowledge, he re-did the dialogue. And most of it was the same. He could tell us a little bit more.

Well, these James Earl Jones. Yeah. Again, I, he's a guy I could just listen to read the phone book.

Yeah. Yeah. So.

Yeah. But still. It also reflects one of the shirts they're selling at Disney now that has scars, silhouette.

And it says, Simba, I am your uncle. I want that shirt. Yeah.

Uh, Oliver, you know, what do you expect on that? Two John Oliver's greatest. Yeah.

But, um, I've got to play Scar Dad. I think they're pretty good too. All right.

Yeah. Anything else where he gets his final analysis? No.

All right. Let's do the final analysis. The way we do the final analysis on this show, if you're joining us for the first time, we're not going to give you thumbs up, thumbs down, uh, lettering grades, numbers, hoops, anything like that.

I'm going to ask Don up the two questions. Question number one is, would he see this film again? If the answer's no, then we're done here.

But if the answer's yes, then the follow up question for Don will be how far is he willing to go to see it again? From the best of the best of the worst of the best, here's the range. Full price to the theater down to a twilight show, down to a matinee, down to early morning on a weekend, down to second run at the dollar theater, down to him actually leaving the house to rent it, down to streaming it down to cable, done for it.

Yes. Would you see this version of the Lion King again? Yeah, I would.

How far are you willing to go to do it? Here's the thing. CGI was good, because it's mostly all CGI, like some, um, still it was missing that something special.

I know they're PRing this like crazy, it's the Lion King, that a little disappointed. All right. So what you saying?

Um, Saturday afternoon at best, don't do not pay for the dole, but it wasn't worth it. You only got about two minutes of the dole being this out of it now, two hours. It's not worth the dole be hates it.

John Favreaux directs the new live action-ish version of Disney's The Lion King for this whole thing. Yes. We got the J.T.

Airbat Legion for the invite. Thank you guys so much. We're so thankful for our vendors.

They let us get to do stuff early so we can talk to you guys about it on time so that you can make the best possible decisions for your entertainment dollar. That being said, let's do the plugs. You can find Don's written review and so much more at our website, which is www.theclubhousepodcast.com.

Follow us on social media, Twitter is at ClubhouseShow, everything else is the Clubhouse podcast. All three words in that order, or you will wind up somewhere else. You can follow me on social media if you would like.

Everything is yes, that Rob Irvin that is spelled E-R-V-I-N. My co-host for this show is Alex Barnhill. You can follow him at the exploit, V-E-X-P-L-O-I-T.

They have to spell that every time. It's easier if you're going to spell his, because I don't even spell his anymore. I'm Jen Rome, home on Instagram so I'll spell it out J-E-N-R-O-H-M-H-O-M-E.

And on Twitter, I'm adding Bono! Try spell on it. Awesome, I T-E-I-T.

Awesome. That's funny. I like that.

So you can email me at Don, that's D-O-N, at theclubhousepodcast.com. Email Don for information on how we can come do a live show for you. We love doing live shows and hanging out with the Empire.

You can email me questions, comments, concerns, time to go pound sand. I am Rob at theclubhousepodcast.com. Thanks for waiting on Don, Alex is waiting on a couple more days on Sean.

Our normal show every Sunday night, 7 Eastern 4 Pacific is your one stop shop for all things pop culture on the vocal now network, V-O-K-A-L now, bookmarketing your browser, and download the app. Also, check out our partner show for all things professional wrestling, the cheap pop cast every Sunday goes live at 530 Eastern. So until next time, for Don, for General Man, the Empire, I'm Rob, clubhouse is closed.

Brittany Palmer, you can still put her voice in this, I'm just saying.

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