The Lion King
Director: Roger Allers, Rob MinkoffA distillation of many previous Walt Disney animated hits, the 1994 blockbuster, The Lion King, caught the market at what was probably the height of the Baby Boomlet coming of movie-watching age, just as Disney, which had been revving up its animation department with a long-time-coming string of successes, reached its full potential. The film, about a lion cub who goes into exile when his uncle kills his father, was approached as if it were a David Lean epic. The amazing duplication of live action camera angles, facilitated by the assistance of what at the time were sophisticated computer programs, gives the movie a thrilling sense of immediacy and vitality. There is also a great deal of humor, painstakingly worked out to counter-balance the drama, and there is a romance, too. Additionally, the film spoke, with a sleight-of-hand, to the world's heritage that Africa represents, and so the chills it creates in the opening Circle of Life number isn't just for the make-believe helicopter shot or the spectacle of life on the savannah, it is for the humans that made it and are watching it, seeing their birthplace and the social order, not all that fantasized, that created their minds and their hearts.
The Lion King has been released as a two-platter Platinum Edition by Disney DVD (30387, $30). There are two versions of the film presented, but both run 88 minutes and both are in letterboxed format only, slightly windowboxed with an aspect ratio of about 1.66:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The difference between the two versions is a scene near the beginning that was staged as dialog in the original film, but uses a little ditty in the place of the dialog in what they are calling the 'Special Edition.' The song is cute, to a point, but the dialog sequence works better. The whole thing lasts less than a minute, anyway.
To a consumer sitting down and relaxing with the film, the colors look great. They are bright, crisp and evocative of the hues one associates with the wildlife of Africa. For nitpicking fans, however, the images may be a touch more frustrating. On the LD, the lions are slightly orange with teak manes, but when they pass into the shadows or are in darker situations, they turn more to yellow, with brown manes. On the DVD, they hold the orange/teak color in almost all lighting situations. Did a naïve digital programmer hit the wrong buttons while preserving the film? Or is this just one more instance where the Disney organization appears to timestamp their video transfers by altering innocuous colors for no other obvious reason? Throughout the show, there are small differences between the two presentations, some favoring the DVD and some favoring the LD. The DVD's colors are sometimes better detailed and the LD's are sometimes a little over-saturated, though on the whole, both are entirely workable, and there are also passages where you can't tell the two apart.
The standard 5.1-channel Dolby digital soundtrack on the DVD is weaker than the LD's 5.1 Dolby, but the DVD has what is identified as a 'New 5.1 Disney Enhanced Home Theater Mix,' with a meatier ambiance and more pronounced tones, and while it may not be the movie's original mix (it is based on the mix for the IMAX presentation), it works fabulously well, enhancing the mid-level sounds, making the separations more distinctive and planting you vividly in the center of the pride. There is also an alternate French audio track in 5.1 Dolby with French songs, and there are optional English subtitles, as well as a subtitling option that brings up just a 'sing along' guide during the songs. A commentary track originally recorded for the LD, featuring the film's directors, Bob Minkoff and Roger Allers, and the producer, Don Hahn, is presented over the standard version of the film. It is an informative, amusing and satisfying talk, particularly when combined with the DVD's other special features.
There is a 3-minute piece about the added musical number; a "Circle of Life" music video featuring Disney's in-house recording artists; a 4-minute making-of featurette about that video; three uninspired games, copying formats that have been better applied on other Disney DVD programs (the best is an animal sound identification game); and 6 minutes of storyboards for deleted sequences, with introductions. The DVD's menu, incidentally, is very confusing, with two levels of choices, vague identifiers and misleading preambles.
And the menu for the second platter is even worse. Normally, Disney supplies a coherent jacket insert menu guide, but the one for The Lion King is just as confusing as the menu itself, so much so that they've also provided a chart, with dots, telling you what is where, not that it makes any more sense. When you finally make your way through the nonsensical identifiers, the options are presented in a poorly conceived manner, with some options covering a few selections but not others, other options duplicating previous options and more selections half hidden on second pages. A jungle is easier to navigate.
There is an 11-minute overview of the story's themes and development; a 17-minute segment that mixes a good section on creating the film with a segment on the film's success; a 2-minute standard piece on the storyboards; a 2-minute piece on the production design themes; 11 minutes on designing the characters; 18 minutes on the animals depicted in the movie including a nice little segment on Disney's animal characters through the years; 4 minutes on the computer animation segments; a decent 16-minute cross-promotional piece on the development of the stage production; a 24-minute cross-promotional segment on the film's music; three older music videos; an elaborate game that effectively replicates a theme park ride; a 4-minute reel of the film dubbed into a variety of languages; a 3-minute segment about translating the film for different cultures; another 4-minute segment presenting another deleted scene (and song); 9 minutes of early storyboard animation and conceptual presentations; a pleasing 5-minute segment on the DVD's sound ("If you were listening to the original [5.1 Dolby] sound mix and you were listening to the music, you would perceive the music as if you were listening to the orchestra from outside, the orchestra fifteen feet away. The image that [the Home Theater Mix] went for was as if you were standing in the middle of the orchestra."); and moderate-sized still frame segments on the design concepts, character artwork, effects artwork and worldwide promotional designs.
