The whole ménagerie was great and looked authentic but what really killed the mood is the fact that lions had their mouth animated in a non naturalistic way. Not even mentioning their facial expressions which were non existent at all.
Reminded me of Nicole Kidman.
Have you seen Cats trailer?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq50F-IDXDc
Furry is the new black. 2019, there's gonna as many furry main characters as white males main characters. Or close.
It was deliberate to make it more like 'live action', to make it more animalistic, etc. They portrayed their behaviour and emotions through body language, just like real animals.
shareWe're humans, and we respond to human emotions and expression. Making it more "realistically animalistic" does absolutely NOTHING to enhance the film or its impact, quite the opposite. Maybe we should show this film to a bunch of lions - is that the real audience here?
Also, why make their non-facial movements unrealistic and highly animated (the jumping/spinning/dancing), but not their faces... where all the emotion is? It makes no sense whatsoever.
These are not real animals - they are animated characters with human emotions, and they should have the ability to emote in a human-like way... if you want to have the audience (humans) be able to feel the full impact. Like in, you know, the original legendary masterpiece.
If you think emotion can only be shown with facial expressions, I feel bad for you. You can't see my face, but if you could, you'd know I really do.
shareWay to totally strawman my post. I said that facial expression is a fundamental, important aspect in portraying emotion, especially if you want to maximize it in a visual medium - are you seriously denying that? If so, I feel bad for you, I really do.
"You can't see my face, but if you could, you'd know I really do."
Thanks for proving my point.
Body language is also visual. Works well in a visual medium.
shareDoesn't work nearly as well as facial expression in addition to body language.
share"Facial expression is a fundamental, important aspect in portraying emotion", whilst that's very true, if you're a human, it's not how they wanted it to be like this time round.
If they made every character use every human facial expression in a live action film I think it would look rather creepy. It's works in a cartoon (like the original) but not this.
The whole point of making it live action, making it look more real, etc, is to exclude the necessity for total facial expressions because obviously animals don't use or have as many facial expressions as we humans do.
Did you know that a huge percentage of communication is via body language? The idea behind all this is, again, to make it more animalistic. You must not be an animal lover, or maybe you are, but either way you don't seem to be in tune with understanding body language/communication from specie to specie. A dog or cat, for example, doesn't have to smile to convey they're happy to see you. Equally they don't have to frown or cry to convey they're upset or scared. That's how it works across the specie gap. Body language is universal and constant, whereas oral/verbal language is not.
If you can allow the fact they didn't emote human expressions to ruin the movie for you then maybe the movie isn't as magical to you as you thought.
However, I must say, if you have a problem with this then I'm surprised you haven't mentioned the fact that each and every specie in the film can all speak the same oral language 😆 Now THAT is far-fetched.
Bingo.
It goes without saying that this did not work for some viewers (the number of critics taking issue with the animals not showing emotion with their faces is... not small), however the film isn’t being called photorealistic for no good reason. I thought it payed off.
I knew going in that they chose to do that with the animals and honestly, it wasn't much of an issue except in Mufasa's death scene. Simba's voice sounded really upset and emotional but when they showed the close-ups of his face, his eyes were dead and not one tear. I mean, I get they wanted the animals to be more realistic and "live action" but for God's sake, if you're going to make them talk and sing, why not emote a little, too?
share