Reports have begun coming in that James Earl Jones has sadly passed away at 93 years of age. It’d be an understatement to say I’m devastated at the news. James Earl Jones was my all-time favorite celebrity. I wanted to meet him more than anything.
Most people and news outlets point out that James Earl Jones voiced Darth Vader, and he did a phenomenal job, as he did with every role he played. However, the role James played that impacted me the most was Mufasa. Hearing James as Mufasa’s voice is what got me interested in voice acting. I never pursued it, but I always dreamed of taking over as the voice of Mufasa once James stepped down for good.
A legend in action
Even in live-action, James bodied every single role he played. King Joffe Joffer in Coming to America and Coming 2 America, Mr. Mertle in The Sandlot and The Sandlot 2, James commanded respect on screen. Even guest starring as himself was fun to see. Seeing Sheldon fanboy on The Big Bang Theory and James accepting it and having a night on the town with him made me dream of meeting James Earl Jones even more.
People always mentioned Morgan Freeman’s amazing voice and smooth narrating skills, but I would always state that James Earl Jones was #1. And that will forever be a fact for me, even after his death. There have been articles calling him a smooth baritone, but as a choir kid, James was a bass all day long. In my eyes, his voice is the most iconic, and I will always be one of his biggest fans.
Another one of my favorite things about James Earl Jones was his love for the projects and franchises he performed in. James would reprise many of his prior roles years after he initially played the role. Hearing James return to voice Mufasa in The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar in 2015 was breathtaking. It was like he didn’t take a day off from the role. I never got into Star Wars, so I can only speak to him coming back to play Mufasa, but I know Star Wars fans love his portrayal of Darth Vader.
Many people don’t know that James Earl Jones was also a big theater guy. In one of his shows, Fences, there’s a scene where he completely dominates the stage. And watching him perform in Of Mice and Men was spectacular, which is funny because I didn’t even get through the book in high school. I’m going to miss it all.
Fences – 1987
Seeing Mufasa die in The Lion King was the first time a film has moved me to tears. And that’s primarily due to James’s performance. How he and Simba interacted reminded me so much of my father and myself. But James’s passing in real life, I never imagined would hit this hard. I knew it was coming, but even as a celebrity, it hurts.
This post honors James Earl Jones and shares my love for him as an actor. James will go down in history as one of the best actors, period, and I’m proud to have grown up seeing him act in many of the shows and movies I watched. James, I hope you’re up there laughing and carrying on without a care. You will never be forgotten, and I want to say one last time—thank you, James.
D23 2024 was this past weekend, and Disney came in swinging. There were a lot of updates and announcements made, most notably on Friday evening, as several upcoming movies were either announced or an update was given in the form of a new trailer. I’ve had a chance to catch up on all the announcements and updates, and I’m here to give my thoughts on the majority that caught my eye.
Mufasa: The Lion King
An official trailer for Mufasa: The Lion King was released, giving a bigger glimpse into the movie’s actual storyline. This trailer succeeded in doing one thing for me: It provided me with the reason why I’m not excited one bit about this movie. A follow-up post is currently being written that expands on my thoughts on the current state of Mufasa: The Lion King.
Snow White
I’m so tired of live-action remakes. And yes, I understand it’s not fully live-action. It’s mostly CGI, but you get what I mean. Snow White, I don’t care to see this as I couldn’t care less for the animated movie it’s being adapted from. If a review does show up on this site for the movie, it likely won’t be as soon as it’s been released. The only thing I’m really curious about with this movie is how it will perform at the box office, as there’s already been some controversy. The dwarves are CGI and not being played by actual actors, the movie is described as “woke” due to its story direction, and people don’t care for the two lead actresses, Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, due to recent comments. So we’ll see how it turns out next year.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
I’m definitely ready for this one. I love the Fantastic Four. I watched the show from the 90s, read the original comics as a kid, and I honestly liked the first Fantastic Four film released in 2005. But that was handled by Fox, and I wasn’t a fan of how Fox handled their Marvel assets. Being rebooted in 2015 and having the latest movie be among some of the worst superhero movies released, this one has a lot riding on its shoulders. However, the MCU has an outstanding track record, and I’m incredibly excited to see how Marvel’s First Family enters the fray. Nothing can change my mind either. The MCU has done great with the X-Men so far, and I much prefer the MCU Spidey movies to the Raimi films and The Amazing Spider-Man films, so I’m almost sure this will be another hit.
Captain America: Brave New World
Another highly anticipated movie for myself. This is Anthony Mackie’s first big screen outing, and it’s a big one. The official introduction to adamantium, Giancarlo Esposito’s villain, and Red Hulk showing up have garnered a lot of interest in the movie. It’ll be the first Captain America movie without Chris Evans as Cap and without Sebastian Stan showing up as Bucky. This is definitely going to be an opening night movie, and I’ll be sure to have my review out as soon as possible once I’ve watched it.
Frozen III & IV
I wasn’t the biggest fan of Frozen when it was first released. Likely because it became Disney’s most successful animated film and kicked The Lion King out of its top spot. But I gave the movie a chance, and I did like it. I enjoyed Frozen II a bit more, but it’s been years since I’ve seen either film, so I’ll have to check them out again and write my review after a fresh viewing. From what I remember of the ending of Frozen II, I don’t see where they can go with Frozen III and even Frozen IV, but all this confirms is that Disney has found its latest cash cow in Frozen.
Zootopia 2
You all should know how excited I am for Zootopia 2. The first movie was stellar, in my eyes, a near-perfect movie. I can’t wait to revisit the world of Zootopia and catch up with Judy and Nick. Newcomers Ke Huy Quan and Ginnifer Goodwin will join the cast, and it sounds like they might be stirring up some trouble. If they can keep the same tone as the first film but not make it so predictable this time, they’ve got a sure hit on their hands with Zootopia 2. Another opening night movie added to the list.
The Incredibles 3
It took 14 years to get a sequel to the first film, and six years later, The Incredibles 3 is confirmed to be in development. No further details were given, but the logo was shown off and looks pretty nice. I’d like to see that the characters have grown some. Maybe Bob and Helen have gotten old enough for retirement, and Dash, Violet, and Jack-Jack must step up and save the day. I just don’t want to see this movie start right after The Incredibles 2.
Toy Story 5
Why is this being made? If Frozen is Disney’s cash cow then Toy Story is Disney’s cash bull because they refuse to let this series die. Toy Story 3 ended perfectly, and Toy Story 4, while unnecessary, just like Toy Story 5, wrapped up everyone’s story quite nicely again. The villains have been announced as the toys go up against electronics and a 50-toy army of malfunctioning Buzz Lightyear toys. I trust the writers and I’m sure this will be another phenomenal entry, but I hope this is it for Toy Story.
Moana 2
You all don’t know this, but I loved the first Moana. It was a great film, and Auli’I Cravalho did a magnificent job in her introductory role as Moana. The singing was everything, and the twist regarding Te Fiti was something I didn’t see coming at all. I’ve said this before at other films above, but I truly can’t wait to see the sequel in November. A review is certain, and this is another opening night movie.
Plenty of other films were announced or given updates, along with a slew of shows, but these are just the ones that caught my eye and will likely have a presence on the site – Snow White is doubtful. Disney has been going strong for years, and D23 2024 proves they have no plans to stop anytime soon. With properties under their belt, such as Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar, and the entire preceding history of the Disney library, there’s sure to be a lot more on the way. Let me know in the comments which movies you’re excited about and why. I’d love to hear it!
I’d be lion if I said this was a good movie (No regrets)
I’m sure most of you know, The Lion King was remade in “live-action” – photorealistic computer-animated for the technical ones – and came out this past weekend. I was ecstatic about it when I first heard the news, as I consider myself to be a Lion King fanatic. I’ve seen all three movies (1, 2, and 1 1/2), I’ve seen both TV shows (Timon and Pumbaa and The Lion Guard), I’ve read the books that were published after the original movie was released, I even own The Lion King in 3D book (yes, it actually exists), and I can do Mufasa’s voice! So to know that they were remaking my favorite movie of all time in live action was a dream come true. But as the movie was being developed and news was being released, I became less and less excited, I’ll elaborate on why through the review. Nevertheless, I decided to go into the movie with an open mind, it could essentially be on par with the original. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Let’s start with how beautiful the scenery is in the film. The Circle of Life scene was made almost shot-for-shot and it was breathtaking. This movie might be photorealistic computer-animated, but it doesn’t look like it – most of the time. With it being made this way presents the issue with the characters. The original movie was wonderful due to the amount of different reactions and expressions that were presented by each of the characters in the movie. Unfortunately, this freedom isn’t possible in live-action because animals don’t smile, smirk, or have looks of lust on their faces as Nala did in Can You Feel The Love Tonight? The way that the crew tries to remedy this issue is to try and do a close-up view of the character’s eyes to give the audience a sense of what the character is feeling. This doesn’t work as well as they tried to make it work, at times you’re just looking at the character’s eyes awkwardly.
I get that they’re going for a more realistic approach, but there are some things that I feel you can make happen. The reason why I said above that the Circle of Life scene was made almost shot for shot is because when Rafiki shows up and greets Mufasa, he does some weird thing where he rubs his hand on his face. There’s no reason why Mufasa and Rafiki can’t hug like they did in the original movie. Lions can hug and embrace in real life, so there’s no reason why it shouldn’t have happened in the movie. I guess that’s why they had the extended sequence where it showed a tuft of Simba’s mane being eaten by a giraffe only to be pooped out and rolled by a dung beetle, which ended up breaking apart the dung which caused the tuft of hair to fly away and land in Rafiki’s tree by a line of ants carrying leaves. One of the ants picks up the tuft, thinking it’s a kind of leaf I guess, and Rafiki picks up the tuft of hair and realizes that Simba is alive. Alright then…
I’ll never understand how he knows Simba is alive just by looking at a piece of tuft
The changes in some of the other scenes were definitely not appreciated. The scene where Mufasa’s ghost appears to Simba is a major letdown. It’s the equivalent of Fantastic Four and the Rise of the Silver Surfer’s scene that showed Galactus. When lightning strikes, you can see the outline of Mufasa’s face, but that’s it. You don’t see Mufasa’s spirit actually show up and it was incredibly disappointing, to say the least. Who’s to say that can’t happen when we have no proof of how a spirit appears unto an individual? They then go on to remove the whole sequence where Rafiki teaches him to let go of his past. That scene alone is an integral part of the original movie, it should’ve never been taken out. Some changes I can understand. I may have an issue with them, but those are understandable and you can see why as you watch the movie. Very upset with the way the hyenas were portrayed in this movie as well. I get that Disney doesn’t want them to be seen as mindless drones, but still at least come close to the film. There isn’t even a hyena like Ed in the movie, and that’s perhaps the most disappointing part.
The biggest change that I have an issue with, though, is the change to the songs. Now let’s get some things straight. Circle of Life – still slaps. I Just Can’t Wait to Be King – destroys but still pales in comparison to the original. Hakuna Matata was okay, but while Seth Rogen is an outstanding voice actor for Pumbaa, he can’t sing worth a lick and it really takes away from the song. Can You Feel The Love Tonight? No, I can’t. Why make this a duet? And what’s up with all the runs? Just sing the song. I loved the original song. I was going to dance to it at my wedding. But this one? Nope, doesn’t work for me at all. It’s not the worst song in the movie, but I was the least happy with this version because of how much I love the romantic song. Be Prepared, COMPLETE AND UTTER GARBAGE! This version is essentially cut in half from about 4 minutes to 2 minutes compared to the original. Not only that but the lyrics have been completely changed. Whereas the original had Scar singing the whole time and using his words to manipulate the hyenas into following his plans, this version has Scar talking in rhyme at the beginning then all of a sudden he starts singing and it’s basically all about how superior he is compared to Mufasa. While this change was explained, it was unneeded and absolutely the worst thing about the movie.
He may look angry, but he’s just channeling his inner Dr. Seuss
The voice work for the movie could’ve been much much better as well. I was so excited to hear that James Earl Jones was coming back to voice Mufasa, as he should. But they went the wrong way with the deliverance of his lines. The same can be said for almost all of the characters. So many of the original lines that were brought back for the movie fell flat on the deliverance, but I can’t blame the voice actors. The directors should have worked harder. There was hardly ever any emotion in the lines. I didn’t care for Chiwetel Ejiofor for Scar initially, but he had the most emotion out of any character in my opinion, although it’s mostly rage. I also didn’t care for John Oliver as Zazu – he sounded like a bumbling, nagging assistant so much of the time. Keegan Michael-Key was awesome though, a good laugh that was desperately needed throughout the film with most of his lines.
Alright, Beyhive, I know you all are going to come for me with this one, but I honestly never was happy at all with Beyoncé as Nala. Her voice never fit for me. And even when they released the first small clip of her speaking some of Nala’s lines, I was unimpressed for good reason. She had no emotion at times and it sounded as if she was just reading the lines. But as I watched the movie, I had a better opinion formed. She wasn’t amazing or anything, but she wasn’t as bad as I thought she could’ve been. She had the sass that was needed and I’m thankful for that. But some things were unnecessary. Like when she was rallying the lionesses. “Lions attack!” Girl, get on. Just attack the hyenas like y’all did in the first movie and win the day. That line was not needed at all and just extra. And stop with all the runs while you’re singing. I won’t say anything about Spirit, it fits the movie, but I haven’t listened to it completely, nor do I plan to. I don’t hate Beyoncé, but she’s not someone that I’ll fanboy over either.
The final battle was good. A little long, but it was good and ended on a solid note – with Scar getting what he deserved. Thank goodness they didn’t change that about the film. I did think that the platform that Scar and Simba were fighting on was a bit small and one of them should’ve slipped off during the duration of their scuffle, and it would’ve been nice to see Scar get flipped off Pride Rock instead of just falling off. I may be nitpicking, but I’m sorry this is my all-time favorite movie and it won’t change. The very last scene was once again almost a shot-for-shot remake of the end and I enjoyed that for sure, seeing Kiara be presented to the Pride Lands and the epic reprise of the Circle of Life.
These soulless expressions took away so much
I appreciate Disney’s effort, but I left the theater unimpressed as ever. The movie wasn’t the worst, but I didn’t enjoy it. It sucks too, I had such high hopes, but as more things were released about the film I had a feeling that it wouldn’t live up to the legacy. I am curious to know if they’re going to develop The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride in live-action or even bank off Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner’s amazing chemistry as Timon and Pumbaa and make The Lion King 1 1/2, but I’m hoping they don’t. What they should’ve remade along with this movie is this amazing variant of Circle of Life, though they most likely would’ve messed that one up as well or just had Beyoncé do a cover of it.
I’m not expecting a lot of people to agree with me, especially when it comes to “Queen Bey”, but this is my opinion, as controversial as it might be. I wanted to enjoy it, but I didn’t. The bar was just set too high and the movie didn’t reach the bar. I refuse to take my place in the Circle of Life, at least not in this version of it. Oh well, I still have the amazing original to watch and enjoy. Nothing could ever take its place. That I know for sure.
The Lion King (2019)
Translation from the source
Music
Voicework
Summary
From a business standpoint, it makes sense why they’d make a “live-action” adaptation of one of the greatest animated movies of all time. Unfortunately, the limitations are evident from the beginning and the story doesn’t translate quite as well into the real world. The only pride that should be associated with this movie is Pride Rock.
