Strangely enough the animals don't look this good for the rest of the movie. It's as if they put all their effort into the opening sequence and then remembered they were supposed to have made a whole movie. Might explain why the plot sucks. Jeez get to the comedy meerkat already.
Circle Of Life from The Lion King
Performed by Carmen Twillie and Lebo M
Written by Elton John and Tim Rice
Performed by Carmen Twillie and Lebo M
Written by Elton John and Tim Rice
Hooray! Let's all bow to our new tyrant who will lead all his family to terrorize us and kill our children! Hooray! I sure hope no one else usurps his place as king, because that might somehow lead to a drought and a fire, because those are things that lions control, but don't worry, when the real king comes back magically there will be rain again. Hooray!
I think I've read somewhere that The Lion King was not considered the "prestige" production at Disney at the time. They had a habit planning movie releases so that they'd alternate between prestige projects and rushed / second-class ones at that time, and the animators viewed Pocahontas as the prestige one and The Lion King as the tacky cartoon-y one. However, to lure in the better animators, the Lion King team decided to create a chance to work on the credit sequence, which soon became a showcase for stuff that is really frickin hard to do in animation. Hence striped zebras (apparently stripes had been a big problem on the tiger in Alladin) and multi-layered flamingo migrations. Soon enough, they had some of the best animators in their ranks, because they got a chance to really show off.
ReplyDelete(Meanwhile, the "I just can't wait to be king" sequence was handed down to the team that worked in Disneyworld, under the watching eyes of theme park visitors. Hence the very cartoonish tone of that sequence - it was made by a completely different crew, with a very different remit and working environment.)
Huh, that's really interesting. I never liked the clownish look of I just Can't Wait To Be King. Seems to be a kind of staple of animation that the artists like to work with different techniques, but I always find it jarring and unpleasant when a style abruptly changes during different scenes in a cartoon. Interesting to know the why behind it in this case.
DeleteThen again, Disney and Pixar do sometimes create elaborate intros that outshine the movies that follow. The Lion King, Dinosaur, Up!, Wall-E, ... each begins with a prologue told largely through visual storytelling, and each prologue is beautiful and a bit superior to the rest of the movie.
ReplyDeleteSo true, especially Up. Films that set you up for a fall, although Wall-E grows on me the more I accept the actual plot. In a way these opening sequences might have been better off as shorts. Although the opening of Dinosaur was also the trailer, and I can just remember goofishly sniggering at it in the cinema with my BFF. Teenagers.
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