Remaking of "The Lion King" stirs debate: What kind of movie is it? By Washington Post, adapted by Newsela staff on 11.30.18 Word Count 657 Level 1200L A young Simba in the new live-action version of "The Lion King," which will come out in 2019. Photo by: Disney Studio Even within Disney's recent lively remakes, "The Lion King" is stirring high emotion. Hollywood has been remaking classics with new digital bells and whistles for years now, giving the Grinch a CGI sheen and turning Mowgli's jungle into a pixelated forest. CGI stands for computer-generated imagery, and refers to the special visual effects that can be created using computer software. Just a quarter-century after "The Lion King" hummed its way into people's hearts, fresh footage of a return to Pride Rock is leaving some viewers a bit "shook." This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 1
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Disney released the first trailer for next year's "The Lion King" remake. The remake trades in the 1994 original's 2-D animation for CGI re-creation. After more than 224 million views within the first day, the debate was sparked: Just how is this a "live-action" film when everything on the screen looks like a painted pixel? Some viewers tweeted their confusion over the trailer. Perhaps some were expecting a so-called live-action remake of "The Lion King" to be more in the vein of the costuming in Julie Taymor's Broadway musical, which has been a smash hit. The musical featured human performers with elaborate costumes and puppets. Similarities To The Original Are Noted Also, the high degree of similarity prompted some users to post shot-by-shot comparisons of the original and the remake. When "Aquaman" director James Wan tweeted his appreciation of the trailer, his use of "live action" spurred further opinions about what to call Disney's latest re-creation. Amid it all, there seems to be a need to put a name to such pioneering hybrids in filmmaking. The talk will eventually pivot to awards. How will movie jurors classify "The Lion King," which is due out in July 2019? A related debate arose when "Avatar" was released. The Visual Effects Society honored James Cameron's 2009 epic for, among other trophies, "animated character in a live-action feature motion picture." As the Oscar-nominated writer-director Dean DeBlois, who also wrote "Mulan" and "How to Train Your Dragon" explained, "'Avatar' has bridged the gap so much between what live-action did and what animation traditionally did." He added, "There's nothing you can't do in terms of creating a performance." Ever since, so much of the conversation around the blurring of CGI "motion-capture" and animation has centered on the human performance. Some filmmakers draw a distinction between when an actor is delivering a performance that gets a CGI paint job and a person modeling for an animator. For example, actor Andy Serkis did motion-capture when he portrayed Caesar in the "Planet of the Apes" trilogy and Gollum in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Animals And Backgrounds Were Computerized Jon Favreau is the director of the "Lion King" remake, which stars Donald Glover, James Earl Jones and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. Favreau has been down this road before with his update of "The Jungle Book." In 2016, Favreau's remake of that Disney cartoon classic relied largely on CGI animation. The animals and landscapes were created on computers. The central figure of Neel Sethi as a live-action Mowgli gave viewers one tether to a real performance. This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 2
Now, however, some viewers seem unmoored by the lack of a human face when classifying Favreau's animal kingdom. Rob Legato, "The Lion King's" visual special effects supervisor, told the Hollywood Reporter that he didn't consider the "The Lion King" remake an "animated movie" because of how Favreau incorporates virtual reality tools into traditional live-action filmmaking. For example, Favreau explores cinematic angles from different characters' viewpoints. Legato also said that "Jungle Book" felt "like a traditionally shot live-action movie, though it was filmed entirely on a bluescreen stage." Meanwhile, the site Cartoon Brew doesn't agree, writing: "Don't Let Disney Gaslight You: 'The Lion King' Remake Is An Animated Film." Perhaps there will eventually be no need to judge the difference between films that rely on CGIpainted performance and animated films that use photorealistic effects. In the meantime however, the confusion remains. This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 3
Quiz 1 Hollywood cannot agree on how to classify "The Lion King." Which two details from the article BEST support the summary above? 1. Just a quarter-century after "The Lion King" hummed its way into people's hearts, fresh footage of a return to Pride Rock is leaving some viewers a bit "shook." 2. Perhaps some were expecting a so-called live-action remake of "The Lion King" to be more in the vein of the costuming in Julie Taymor's Broadway musical, which has been a smash hit. 3. When "Aquaman" director James Wan tweeted his appreciation of the trailer, his use of "live action" spurred further opinions about what to call Disney's latest re-creation. 4. Meanwhile, the site Cartoon Brew doesn't agree, writing: "Don't Let Disney Gaslight You: 'The Lion King' Remake Is An Animated Film." 1 and 2 2 and 3 3 and 4 1 and 4 2 How does the CENTRAL idea that CGI has blurred the line between live-action and animation develop in the article? through expert opinions from directors about the ease with which movies can be made using new technology through references to other movies that have relied on the technology to enhance filming and performances through contrasts between the visual appearance of new technology and traditional animation in cartoons through firsthand accounts of the actors who have performed using both traditional and new technoloy This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 4
3 Which statement BEST represents Rob Legato's approach to the classification of "The Lion King" in the article? Legato defends calling the movie live-action because Favreau enhanced traditional filmmaking with virtual reality. Legato believes the label of the movie is unimportant because it is spoiling the way people will think about "The Lion King." Legato argues that the movie feels live-action even thought it should be considered animated because of blue-screen technology. Legato says the movie will spark a new category for filmmaking at awards shows to highlight the use of photorealistic effects. 4 Why did the author use a comparison to "The Jungle Book" when analyzing reactions to "The Lion King"? to emphasize the necessity of using CGI technology when dealing with dangerous, wild animals in filming to demonstrate the credibility of Jon Favreau when he says that he is an expert in movies like "The Lion King" to illustrate that Disney has made many movies that were enhanced with CGI without people ever noticing to suggest that the lack of human actors is what has confused viewers about categorizing "The Lion King" This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 5