r/lionking

Okay so i have a friend and he is super afraid of the opening of the circle of life the NAHHHH part where the man is yelling whenever its mentioned he gets super aware and loud sounds scare him it lasts an hour or two its such a weird fear and we were wondering if anyone else had it

And/or make Swahili covers for them? This is because I listen to a LOT of Japanese music,

I was eleven back when they released the movie in 3D for only two weeks, and I was ecstatic since it was my first ever chance to see The Lion King in theaters. I remember even at the time, people were a little cynical about the gimmick, saying it "takes away" from the movie; but to me, it was just an extra feature.

By now, 3D home movies are dead, and you can't watch Lion King that way anymore unless you've held onto a working 3D TV. My partner's family actually still has one, so we got the opportunity to watch it recently! It was the only time I saw TLK 3D aside from my two theatrical experiences in 2011. Since the experience is kind of rare now, I figured I'd share some takeaways and ask what you all thought about it, if you had the chance:

I think the most interesting thing revisiting now, as an adult with some semblance of film literacy... I partially understand all the cynics from the time.

Framing shots and visual emphasis are an important part of the cinematic language, and vanilla Lion King uses that flawlessly. In 3D, however, when the gimmick is "look how the environment pops out at you!", that often puts emphasis on the frontmost objects whether they're the focus or not (and usually, they aren't).

Most of the 3D drew my attention to the plants, rocks, and other pieces in the "foreground cells", which are part of Disney's classic Multiplane Camera effect (painted foreground/middle ground elements that move independently of the background to simulate depth of space). A distracting thing for sure when you're not supposed to notice those extra layers; they should be subliminally communicating the depth. All that said, it DID make me notice and appreciate such things, for a movie I've already seen hundreds of times all across my life! It allowed my brain to take in some of the painted touches I've never fully processed before, and I think that's neat.

As for the 3D on the characters and focal points, it was surprisingly great! Contrary to what you might think, it does NOT make the characters look like cardboard cutouts. It's hard to describe if you haven't seen it, but the conversion artists actually went into each shot and raised/sunk the elements on each character's features. In Mufasa's first closeups in Circle of Life, I could notice how his snout subtly protrudes, his eye sockets are ever so slightly sunk, and his mane has all sorts of levels that make sense from the 2D picture. The technical process is complete wizardry to me.

I could notice that for Pumbaa, they really made his tusked snout protrude forward in his shots. I think that's a cute touch, to exaggerate a little more heavily on the comic character's funny looking feature.

Ed's big laugh at Banzai was a perfect shot for the gimmick.

Half the reason to rewatch Lion King in 3D is Circle of Life; I mean, it could already pass as an S+ tier 3D nature documentary short you pay extra to see at a museum, so of course some of the breathtaking moments fit this perfectly. Stomping elephant feet, massive landscapes, flying birds, especially THE bird. The shot of Zazu flying to Pride Rock is hands down the best 3D effect and the best implementation. That moment stuck in my memory as a kid, but it was even better than I remembered.

Let me know if you watched Lion King in 3D before, or if you still have access to do so, and if you have any sharp memories/takeaways from it!