When it comes to The Lion King remake, there were slight differences between the 2019 version and the original in terms of song lyrics and plot changes. But one big difference is not seeing our favorite characters in traditional 2D animation form, but in CGI. While there’s been a long-standing debate on whether or not the high-grossing animated movie is truly animated or live-action, director Barry Jenkins answers the question for his Mufasa prequel.
As The Lion King remake shows its classic characters not hand-drawn like in the Walt Disney Animation Studios Feature, people have naturally been calling the remake “live-action.” It’s easy to be confused by that classification considering the Disney movie isn’t boasting the kind of CGI you’d see in a Pixar movie, but it’s not traditionally 2D animated either. If you’d like some clarification for the upcoming Disney movie Mufasa, allow Barry Jenkins to settle the animation debate once and for all on our sister site Total Film:
Absolutely, yeah, it’s an animated film. I am communicating constantly with these animators who are trying to manipulate these somewhat photorealistic sort of models in a way that is expressive. And so because of that, I don’t think of it as live action. I do think of it as animation… It’s just a very different tool.
I couldn’t agree more with Barry Jenkins. It’s one thing if The Lion King remake and Mufasa used real animals and just animated their mouths, like in Babe or Strays. However, the new movies portraying the Lion’s Pride are using a new form of animation in CGI animals.
If you look back on the stunning CGI work that went into The Lion King remake, all of the animals of the African Savanna were created digitally from scratch. So much detail went into making our favorite Disney characters as real as possible animating the animals’ skeletons, muscles and fur. In fact, only one shot in the movie was live-action which displayed a photograph of an African sunset. However, live-action animals were used in the creation of anthropomorphic characters, like the precious lion cub Bahati as inspiration for Simba. By blending the real world with state-of-the-art technology, Disney created a new animated genre.
In the upcoming kids movie Mufasa, we learn about the origin story of Simba’s father back when he was a small orphan cub. He gets adopted by the family of Prince Taka, whom we know as Scar, with the formation of the kingdom that exists by the time Simba is born. Based on what was seen in the Disney prequel’s trailer, the animation looks just as stellar as in the 2019 Lion King movie. Just like in the Jon Favreau-directed film, I have a feeling the animation in Barry Jenkin’s Disney flick will be a true standout.
The debate has fortunately been settled by Barry Jenkins that Mufasa is indeed an animated movie. With the entire movie told in its CGI form, I can’t see it as anything but that. If you’re curious about the origins of the first Lion King in his animated glory, the 2024 movie release hits theaters on December 20th.