when i was a young warthog (WHEN I WAS A YOUNG WART. HOG)

i love that scene with timon and pumba.
one of my favorite parts in “the lion king”.

i won’t lie to you,
but i had of ton of judgment and expectations reserved for this movie.
this is my childhood here.
a movie i’ve watched over and over.
i was getting mixed reviews about it so i knew i had to see it for myself.
the pretty vixen and i decided to go see it yesterday.
my thoughts…

I hated 90% of it

now visually,
it was breathtaking.
young simba,
and a young pumba,
were so cute.
they put their foot in the details of the animals.
it looked like real wildlife having these various moments.
that was the major issue i had with it.
it looked so real,
it lacked the emotions for certain scenes.

– when simba was crying for his father.
like,
he is sniffling,
but his facial expression looked un-phased.

– when nala and simba see each other after all of those years.
it was like two lions who woke up at noon in the zoo.
just frocklin’ in the sun.
like,
okay…

– the whole “can you feel the love tonight” scene.
b carried donald in that whole song.

were they singing to each other or in their heads?
i was confused.
in watching it,
i realized just how off strange that scene was too.

mufasa’s death made me bawl as a child.
they had to console me.
it was sooooooooo dry in this one.
in the cartoon,
you see the fear in mufasa’s eyes that he’s about to die.
there was no “brother! help me!
in this one,
it happened so fast,
i could barely feel anything.
it was a very lazy death for such an iconic scene.

Dare i font that laughed when they did that awful pan out of Simba screaming?

i won’t even get into the mess that was “i can’t wait to be king“…
i just won’t.

this may get me dragged,
but i’ll font it:

I thought Daniel Glover and Beyonce were awful

i love them both,
but you come to the foxhole for my honesty with things.
their voices sounded so disconnected from their characters.

b sounded like she was whispering and reading straight off the script
daniel sounded bored and coming down from a high

i did like they gave nala more scenes tho.
the other characters:

mufasa (played amazingly by james earl jones a second time)
scar
sarabi
timon and puma
young simba and nala
zazu
the hyenas

…were terrific to me.
those two were the weakest links in that movie.

all in all,
i give it a solid 2 foxtails outta 5.
something to watch at home if it came on tv.
the soundtrack is still poppin’ tho.
the original 1994 version will continue to be the reigning champ.
i’ll probably never watch this version again.
some things should be left alone.

low-key: i know one thing tho,
i’m in there for:

at the end of that trailer,
i said out loud:

“AIGHT ANGIE”

i’m ready for it.

10 thoughts on “when i was a young warthog (WHEN I WAS A YOUNG WART. HOG)

  1. So, the problem here is the two-fold one you have Disney and two you have Beyoncé. It seems like the major problem with this version of Lion King seems to be the creative direction Disney took in making the animals to life like so I’m not sure Beyoncé can take the fall for that one.

    I like Beyoncé’s music, but I feel her position amongst the icons is questionable at best. Beyoncé doesn’t really have that signature movie under her belt, and I believe that’s what she was aiming for. I think she thought lion king was going to ride the wave that black panther generated, and she would just attach her name and there you have it an iconic movie. Beyoncé really doesn’t have that signature song, performance, movie, etc. you look at other icons

    Diana Ross: Lady Sings the Blues, Mahogany, The Wiz
    Tina Turner: Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome, what’s love got to do with it (her own Biopic)
    Michael Jackson: The Wiz
    Prince: Purple Rain
    Whitney Houston: The Bodyguard, Waiting to exhale
    Janet Jackson: Poetic Justice
    Lauryn Hill: Sister Act 2

    Beyoncé got overshadowed in “Dream Girls” by Jennifer Hudson and while I liked “Fighting Temptations” it was a low rate “Sister Act 2”.

  2. B got panned for her voice work in the animated “Epic” film. I read somewhere that the directors and producers strained to get more feeling out of her voice. To D112’s comment …when doing animated films the actors are rarely recorded together.

    There is a reason Beyonce rarely does TV or radio interviews… Aunt Wendy will tell you.

  3. Beyonce has to stop going into film, it never works in her favor critcally. Always outshined and overshadowed. Financially her films do well though and she got paid for it. I also think Donald Glover cannot sing. Like at all. Someone mentioned that Beyonce and Donald recorded separately and you can hear it.

  4. “it looked like real wildlife having these various moments. that was the major issue i had with it.” i honestly don’t get what people were expecting when the saw “live action”. Like they literally told you is going to be national geographic like so how can people be disappointed about that ?

    The truth is people read live action be still expected it to be an animated movie and i can undertsand that, we all grew up with the lion king. We wanted it to be just like we remember. But for that the only option is to go watch the 1994 version.

    That movie was everthing they said it woulb be. What would’ve been the point of just doing the exact same movie 25 years later?

    I understand why you hated it, you shouldn’t have gone see it because you didn’t want to see what they presented you wanted your childhood movie again. And that’s ok.

    I personally loved it for the reason you hated it : it looked so REAL.

    We can agree on that part “the whole “can you feel the love tonight” scene. b carried donald in that whole song.” that’s because they didn’t recorded it together. Be sang it alone then donald sang over.

  5. When will people she is no actress at all. Stop trying to push that … It’s not gonna happen.

  6. My exact thoughts. There were key scenes and lines that were missing. For example, Scar calling for Sarabi. Visually it was great, the two young actors and veteran actors were great, but aside from that it wasn’t good.

  7. I told everyone that movie was going to be trash and I am glad you agree! Beyonce voice for Nala oh no indeed made save my coins. She don’t have the voice for movies in my honest opinion. She can’t act. She is the female Michael Jordan! When his ass went to baseball he was horrible and the same for her acting horrible!

  8. Dragged, over your opinion? I know you’re joking.😂

    Anywho. I told some workers that this movie would be be trash. Not because of the casting choice (which they just picked people they knew folks will support regardless.) It’s the artistic direction. The Lion King was a diaster the minute they decided to make it live action.

    Part of the charm of the original Lion King was its ability to make real life animals emote in exaggerated expressions that only animation could do effectively. While some of the animated film is serious, the majority is slapstick cartoon comedy.

    A coworker and I got into debate about it. He seemed to have thought it would be fine and his excuse was, “It worked for the Jungle Book”.

    With a comment like that I just facepalmed. It worked for the Jungle Book because there are human characters interacting with the animals and such we can relate to it better seeing an actual human speak amongst them.

    The Lion King is pretty much an all animal exclusive with human voices. When I first saw the live trailer I called it regurgitated 90s nonsense with no heart. It’s like watching an Animal Planet documentary without a narrator except it’s even more scripted and false.

    You can help but look at it and think back to a lion actually ripping a gazelle to pieces on TV. How quaint.

    Casting. What would make them think Beyonce would be a perfect fit for that role? You won’t say it but I will. She was terrible & she is not good at everything or free from critique. Her voice is far too husky for the role. However, Disney isn’t dumb so they know who to put on certain parts to draw people in for whatever purposes.

    I work amongst a large number of Marvel and Video game nerds so I’m well aware of the popularity of stuff like this.

    So now we have The Little Mermaid. I am praying that this one actually turns out well. Since it has human characters it would do better than The “Lion Fling”.. Honestly, I am sick of Disney with the same nonsense…and Walt Disney ole racist azz..lmao He may not be with us today but we won’t forget what Disney once stood for. 🤣 Fawk that mouse.

  9. I agree with some of your assessment. I think getting people like Alfre Woodard and James Earl Jones were fantastic choices. I dont think the lead roles needed to be household names though. The Lion King is iconic enough that just its legacy and nostalgia people have for the orginal would have brought people out to see the movie.

    1. ^i agree.

      i’m glad they gave sarabi more speaking roles for alfre.
      she is a fantastic actress.
      james earl jones is mufusa and will continue to be that.

      they dropped the ball with daniel and b.
      b should have just did the soundtrack.
      daniel…
      nope.

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