Is Animation Better Than Live-Action?

From animation to live-action .

The year was 1994, and I was twelve years old when I saw Disney's The Lion King, I loved the animated version it was original; it was cute and funny. The story was well written and had the right message. The voice actors that got chosen for the film were amazing and fit the characters like a glove.

But flash forward to 2019 Disney made a live-action version of The Lion King and I was in shock when I saw the trailer; I just shook my head, what were they thinking? The live-action film was almost identical to the animated version, with a few minor additions. Like the song: "I Can't Wait to Be King." In the Live version: Simba and Nala were running around in circles at the watering hole. In the animated version, Simba and Nala built a pyramid with the local animals. In the live version, Scar isn't friends with the hyenas at all, and he goes to talk to them and convince them to join him to kill Mufasa. While in the animation version, he is the head honcho of the hyenas. Banzai quotes, "Scar, you're one of us, I mean you're our pal."

I want to point out the scene with the hyenas. In the animated version, three hyenas were the comic relief they were Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed. I love those three, especially Shenzi, which was voiced by Whoopie Goldberg in the animated version. Shenzi was like a Diva with sass. And was the brains of the pack of the hyenas that acted more like a crazy best friend.

But in the live-action version, Florence Kasumba was cast as Shenzi's voice, and she sounds very scary, and the hyenas looked very realistic. Shenzi was more of an Alpha of the group that rules with an iron fist or in a hyena's case: iron teeth. All the Hyenas feared her. I think this decision got made because, in real life, the leader of the hyenas is always female, and they are aggressive. The males get bullied by one of four females.

I want to mention one thing I found extremely disgusting in the live-action; after Simba (as an adult) storms off after getting into an argument with Nala, he lays down in frustration and guilt of his father's death, and a piece of his fur that came from his mane blows off into the wind. It travels far and lands on a branch with leaves that gets eaten by a hungry giraffe. Next, we see the same piece of fur on a ball of dung that a dung-beetle is rolling, which could mean only one thing. It went through the digestive tract. An ant then carries it to the tree where Rafiki calls home. And if that wasn't gross enough, Rafiki smells it and knows its Simba. That was gross, and it should have stayed the same why at the animated version. I think the animation version is better because flower pollen and leaves debris with Simba's scent particles drifting through the air and go straight to Rafiki.

The film lacked a lot in Disney magic, emotion, and originality. It got a low rating on Fandango's Rotten Tomato. I think Disney was trying to pull another success as they did with the other live-action films. I'm talking about The Jungle Book (2016), Beauty and the Beast (2017), and Aladdin (2019). I hear they are trying to redeem themselves with Lady and the Tramp (2019) and Mulan (2020). Let's see what happens here; will the films be successful or a flop?