Roger Allers
86 connections found
Filmography
View:
Connections, in both directions
With an emphasis on character development over plot, the film isn't quite as accessible as some of Disney's more recent efforts; kids raised on plot and gag heavy productions such as Aladdin and The Lion King will likely express confusion at Bambi's relatively docile vibe.
A host of living animals were brought into the studio for this reason, leading some of the animators to complain that it was becoming a bit zoo-like, but the effect is breathtaking: the subtleties of movement and musculature are as close to perfection as imaginable (Disney wouldn't even attempt to create animals this realistic again until The Lion King , more than 50 years later), and the film vies only with Pinocchio as the most technically accomplished work of animation to come from the studio's Golden Age.
Fans of "The Lion King" will recognize similar elements in "Bambi."
In a plot twist unfamiliar to this era of family-values emphasis, the screenplay draws on the same tragic theme expressed in Disney’s 1942 feature “Bambi”: the death of a parent.
Its pitch was simple, and rather peculiar: " Bambi plus Hamlet", and here I was thinking that I was all sorts of clever for spotting a really insane number of parallels between that deer movie and The Lion King, before doing my research for this review.
The death of a parent as a plot device brings to mind Bambi, but mostly this is a film in keeping with the Disney renaissance of the 90s: slick and action-packed, with vain attempts to be seen as 'with it'.
The Princess and the Frog (2009)
Directed by Ron Clements
influenced by The Lion King (1994)
Characters
"Princess and the Frog" isn't the second coming of "Beauty and the Beast" or "The Lion King."
The Princess and the Frog could fit squarely in the resurgence of Disney that happened with The Little Mermaid , Beauty and the Beast , Aladdin , and The Lion King .
Lead females have included an Arab (Jasmine, Aladdin ), a lioness (Nala, The Lion King ), a Native American ( Pocahontas ), and a Chinese girl ( Mulan ).
The Princess and the Frog may not be in the same league as those gems, but it’s the first Disney film since The Lion King that feels like a real heir to this tradition.
Their heyday was undoubtedly 1991-1994, with the incredible combo of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King -- a streak that's unmatched, I dare say, even by Pixar.
Compare that to the marketing surrounding "Tangled" 16 years later as the first classic Disney film to use a fairy tale again, or "The Princess and the Frog" as the first classically-animated film in a similar amount of time and it's obvious what a big change the industry has gone through in a short time.
It also pays homage to William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”.
Taking the most recent crack at this Shakespearean black sheep, Julie Taymor, perhaps best known for directing "The Lion King" on Broadway, pulls out all the stops.
Screenwriter and director Taymor -- the Tony-winning, micro-managing visionary behind the extravagant Broadway adaptation of Disney's "The Lion King" -- gives 110-percent in bringing this ambitious, catastrophic drama to the screen.
Best known for her fantastic staging of Disney's The Lion King, Taymor has bitten the bullet.
Award-winning theatre director Taymor (The Lion King) adapts Shakespeare's first play, the gruesomely funny and violent Titus Andronicus, for the big screen with an ambitiously unusual production design that mixes the classical and the modern.
If that's not bizarre enough, the film was directed by Julie Taymor, who staged Disney's "The Lion King" on Broadway.
American director Julie Taymor won acclaim for her stage direction of "The Lion King" on Broadway and in London, but this is something else again.
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)
Directed by Eric Darnell
influenced by The Lion King (1994)
Plot Characters
If you smell a whiff of The Lion King in all of it, that's no accident.
However, in a cheeky spin on The Lion King, wannabe alpha big cat Makunga (Alec Baldwin) resents the new arrivals and engineers Alex’s banishment from the colourful waterhole community.
Alex finds his parents—the late Bernie Mac provides the voice of daddy Zuba, big mane on campus—and with obvious allusions to Scar in "The Lion King," Alec Baldwin lends his sterling basso distrusto voice to jealous Makunga, a petty and venal lion indeed, who exploits naive, showbizzy Alex for his own political gain.
Hey, it's still an improvement, clichés and all - and it must be noted, those parts of the sequel which don't steal from Madagascar are quite content to steal from a host of other, better movies, with The Lion King being a particularly obvious influence.
Zuba and his wife (Sherri Shepherd) are overjoyed to be reunited with Alex, and he with them—but, in a plot twist lifted straight out of The Lion King, Zuba also has a brother, Makunga (Alec Baldwin), who is itching to lead the lions in Zuba's place.
The storyline is derivative yet passablereally, it copies too much off of 1994's "The Lion King"but the crass gags and forgettable script keep it from being the charmer it should have been.
Mufasa: The Lion King (2024)
Directed by Barry Jenkins
influenced by The Lion King (1994)
Visuals Characters Themes
Mufasa: The Lion King opens in the only way possible, a heartfelt tribute to James Earl Jones, the original and iconic voice of the titular character from the 1994 original. As fantastic of a job as Aaron Pierre does as the king before he was king, Mufasa will always be synonymous with the rich tones of Earl Jones. But what a delightful tribute this 2024 instalment into the franchise is.
And with Jenkins at the helm, Mufasa: The Lion King is also a marked visual improvement from the 2019 Lion King's pallid, nearly shot-for-shot re-creation of the 1994 animation.
With this prequel to 2019's photoreal-ish re-do of 1994 Disney alpha-hit The Lion King, director Barry Jenkins (of Moonlight Oscar-win fame) has joined the ranks of cool indie auteurs going for a surprising splash in the studio guard-railed mainstream.
This is a prequel and a sequel — the split is about 85/15 — to 2019's "The Lion King," the live action-like photorealistic remake of 1994's "The Lion King."
Mufasa is known to be a wise and philosophical ruler from the 1994 animated film The Lion King; however, the screenplay of Mufasa: The Lion King has really few scenes that could convince us that his journey in this film moulded him into the Mufasa we know and love.
Couched in the context of a modern fable like The Lion King, that tale has the chance to reach virtually everyone, especially the children who need to hear it. And that’s a powerful thing that Mufasa doesn’t shy away from.
Williams and company are certainly gutsy, though: "The Wild" opens with a sequence designed to remind viewers of "The Lion King," and a sight-seeing trip in New York mid-way through the movie actually includes a recreation of Broadway's New Amsterdam Theatre, with its "Lion King" marquee.
…ith Shrek and Shark Tale having successfully set the model for crass kids' film product placement, it comes as little surprise that Disney's The Wild—about a few Central Park Zoo inhabitants who escape their confines and travel to the jungle to save a lion cub—features the synergistic sight of a Times Square marquee for The Lion King musical.
The word "generic" is too specific for Disney's latest slab of stillborn computer animation, which proves that intellectual property is as dead as the Dodo but theatrical distribution is alive and well; otherwise, such a charmless, insincere pastiche of Madagascar, The Lion King and Finding Nemo would have gone straight to video.
Lifting a concept isn't exactly foreign to the world of animation (what's The Lion King if not Bambi with manes?), but it isn't often a rip-off gets as blatant as The Wild, a flat-out regurgitation of Madagascar.
Still, once you get past the “Madagascar” similarities, it’s impossible to shake other ones, namely other Disney releases like “The Lion King” and “Finding Nemo.”
What’s more, the narrative and depiction of the African savannah seems deliberately structured to present youngsters with a live-action version of “The Lion King,” as if it were one long (89-minute) bonus feature showing the kind of real-life episodes that the popular animated film used for inspiration.
Samuel L. Jackson narrates this timeless tale of survival that's magically reminiscent of "The Lion King".
Even with the extra help the “true life adventure” gets in the story department (including from The Lion King producer Don Hahn, here an executive producer and narration editor), the wee ones at a recent screening were chatty and restless, signaling that African Cats will play best to middle schoolers and precocious elementary students.
What I always appreciated about “The Lion King 1 1/2” is that it seemed to be made more for the parents of the children that watched “The Lion King” 194 times a week than it was for those kids.
The Lion King 1½ isn't a sequel as much as it is a parallel look at the original, with beloved characters Timon and Pumbaa taking us on a guided tour of how the first film happened from their perspective.
The Jungle Book (2016)
Directed by Jon Favreau
influenced by The Lion King (1994)
Themes Visuals Characters
If parts of the film seem to have drawn on the likes of The Lion King, it’s little surprise that Disney has learned from itself over the years.
Other obvious inspirations include Rudyard Kipling's 1890s stories and, no less crucial, Disney's 1994 smash "The Lion King."
Several shots are designed after some of the most iconic images of the genre—Mufasa’s final scene in The Lion King, the chicken-sized Compy dinosaurs who get the best of Peter Stormare in The Lost World— all helping to combine familiar stories with new technologies, tapping into our nostalgia and repurposing it on a grander scale.
The character has received many comparisons to Scar from “The Lion King” and it’s not unwarranted, but Idris Elba has been on this unstoppable roll ever since last year’s “Beasts of No Nation.”
Almost all Disney animation before The Lion King has some kind of outside source, be it an oft-retold fairy tale or a specific book, and the reintroduction of some additional Kipling into this new Jungle Book makes sense in that context.
Elba’s ferocious, revenge-minded feline in particular is as sinister as Scar from The Lion King.
Sans scale, I'm left with no less handsome animation, irritating songs, trite pop-culture references, and some ripe symbolism--everybody got up in arms up over a cloud in the movie that dissipates into the word "sex" (yet another subliminal discovery made by people with apparently so little to do, they should be forced into public service), but the parade of hyenas goose-stepping in high Triumph of the Will style passed completely without controversy--to appreciate.
The 2020 version of “Mulan” should be commended for not doing an exact story replica of the original movie, which was the biggest criticism of Disney’s 2019 remake of “The Lion King” that basically did a more technologically updated animated copy of the 1994 classic “Lion King.”
There's a reason Disney has tapped James Earl Jones to reprise the role of Mufasa in its forthcoming "The Lion King" remake; who else could thrive in the shadow of that voice?
Clement sounds like Jeremy Irons, which is appropriate since Nigel is an anthropomorphic villain on par with Irons' Scar from The Lion King.
Not all of the 14 songs are as successful in capturing the spirit of the moment, and one song seems derivative of a big production number we heard in "The Lion King."
Rio's opening, an apparent homage to the beginning of The Lion King , does little beyond providing evidence that old-fashioned, 2-D hand-drawn animation can at times provide a more complete, compelling experience than new-fangled, 3-D computer-generated animation.
The grey, droopy-eyed cockatoo – who looks like Sidney Greenstreet and sounds like Scar from The Lion King – is in cahoots with exotic pet poachers and helps them take Blu, Jewel and the other birds to a poacher’s hut, before they’ll be shipped abroad.
Julie Taymor, famous as the director of " The Lion King " on Broadway, is a generously inventive choreographer, such as in a basic-training scene where all the drill sergeants look like G.I. Joe; a sequence where inductees in Jockey shorts carry the Statue of Liberty through a Vietnam field, and cross-cutting between dancing to Beatles clone bands at an American high school prom and in a Liverpool dive bar.
No surprise here, since Taymor has lavished her extravagant theatrical imagination on Broadway musicals (The Lion King), operas (The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera) and movies (a gory, oneiric Titus Shakespeare as a splatter film and the more pedestrian Frida).
Taymor (Frida, Titus, Broadway's The Lion King) and screenwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (Flushed Away, The Commitments) weave songs from the Beatles catalog into the plot's tie-dyed fabric, yielding the cheeriest head-trip of a movie musical since the band's own Yellow Submarine.
Director/conceptualist Julie Taymor brought Disney's "The Lion King" to Broadway and Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus" to the multiplex, but with her latest extravaganza, she merely brings the Beatles to grief.
The director won a Tony for her Broadway musical "The Lion King," and her films "Frida" and "Titus" are visual dazzlers.
Taymor (Broadway’s The Lion King, the films Titus and Frida) is an artist of audacious daring and remarkable self-confidence.
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012)
Directed by Eric Darnell
influenced by The Lion King (1994)
Plot
" Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa " amended this off-putting conclusion, but not enough to turn around a creaky enterprise, reminding most of all like a derivative rehash of 1994's "The Lion King."
More than anything, the film works as a conceptual prank, a parody of the supposedly universal cliches of "humanist" cinema; to ram this point home, Morris has Omar tell his little son a bedtime story based on Disney's The Lion King (1994).
Lane and Sabella, who played together as Nathan Detroit and Harry the Horse in the recent New York revival of Damon Runyon's "Guys and Dolls," form a completely hysterical team.
Enchanted references everything from Snow White to The Lion King with both gentle satire (like "Happy Working Song" where real-life rats and pigeons help a cartoon princess clean a New York apartment) and sly references (pay attention to little details and character names).
She emerges through a manhole cover in Times Square, but a more appropriate site would have been the basement of a theater playing "The Lion King."
The era of classics like Beauty And The Beast and The Lion King, produced during Disney's seemingly unstoppable 1990s reign as kings of the animation market, now seems a very long time ago.
However vacuous, Siegel's questions rupture a dam of nostalgia; Hahn, of course, has to have the last word, veiling a passive-aggressive plug for The Lion King in a toast to the animation giants of yesteryear.