Mufasa/Simba vs. Narnia’s Aslan

Well the movie has been out for a while now and even though everyone seems to praise it’s photo realistic rendition of Mufasa and Simba, the most glaring criticisms are it’s “lifeless” look of the characters - no emotion, no feeling etc.

By comparison, several years ago (2005-2010) the Chronicles of Narnia high fantasy films debuted to the silver screen with their main character being the lion-deity Aslan. These films are probably the best comparison that we can make with another films’ photo realistic lion character being a main character. Despite being years older, the Narnia films have a more emotive looking lion while still looking realistic. Honestly, I don’t think the Lion King film looking lifeless was for lack of technology, but rather an artistic decision on part of the filmmakers. They were probably going for a photo realistic look which also meant a less emotive looking set of characters. Now whether that was a smart idea is a completely different debate but that’s what I’m thinking. And if we look at this film from that angle, then maybe we can be more forgiving of its “faults”.