Disney’s latest live action recreation of an original animated movie was The Lion King. When I heard about this, I knew I would have to go to the theaters to relive the glory days of my childhood. The two hour long movie was released on July 19 and was directed by Jon Favreau. At this time, The Lion King is the highest grossing animated film of all time with a box office price of 1.564 billion dollars. 

The movie definitely exceeded my expectations, as Disney didn’t just follow the original animated movie word for word and scene by scene. They changed some parts, including Rafiki’s staff which is not shown in the movie at all. In the beginning, it is replaced with red roots to create a powder to smear on Simba’s head. However, they did keep many parts exactly the same so we would be able to reminisce in the memories of watching the original movie. The opening scene is one of these examples, when it starts with “naaaa” and it is shot while the sun rises over the pride lands. The other big difference I noticed was that Timon and Pumba started singing “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast after Simba decides to go with Nala back to his original home. There are many more differences, but I won’t name them all.

I have to give props to Disney, as their CGI and photorealism was fantastic and couldn’t have been any better. They outdid themselves this time and the movie did take me back to my childhood and let me enjoy the simpler times again. If you have not seen it because you thought it would be too similar to the original and boring, I would highly recommend going to watch it. I can’t wait for all the other live action remakes that Disney will release.