'Mufasa: The Lion King': Creative Death in the Circle of Life
What are we doing here.
It’s disheartening to see Disney, arguably the most powerful of all the major studios, play everything so pathetically safe. With all the resources at their disposal, this studio wouldn’t even think of backing an original blockbuster at this point. It’s that kind of thinking that pushes the studio to think that they need a prequel to The Lion King and that they should throw an auteur director and Tony-winning musician at the movie as if success is nothing more than pedigree plus money. This is how we get to Mufasa: The Lion King, a movie that exists because the previous Lion King adaptation made over a billion dollars, and it’s a good way to move theme park tickets to Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
On its surface, a Lion King prequel focused on Mufasa is already silly. Shakespeare didn’t feel compelled to tell audiences the story of Hamlet’s dad because, like that character, Mufasa is there to serve the plot, not be an interesting character who can support his own story. But prequels are “safe” ground (the audience already knows where you’re headed, so you can’t upset them), so it’s only a matter of getting to a preset destination. Sure, this drains a large part of the dramatic tension and seriously challenges the saying that “it’s about the journey, not the destination,” but hey, you won’t get angry letters from fans saying you took beloved characters in an unpopular direction.
But what makes Mufasa particularly stale is how writer Jeff Nathanson and director Barry Jenkins seem to recoil from even giving their title character a dramatic arc. The original Lion King may not be the richest dramatic text ever conceived, but Simba grows and changes throughout the story. He starts out thinking that being king is only the exercise of power; he wallows in the misplaced guilt of his father’s death, and when he returns home, he understands that leadership is a responsibility to others rather than a prize he’s destined to receive.
In this prequel story, we first have to go through a framing device where Rafiki (John Kani), Timon (Billy Eichner), and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) babysit Simba’s daughter Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter) by telling her about her grandfather. Then we get to the story of Mufasa (Aaron Pierre), who was separated from his parents by a flood and raised by a different pride of lions. Mufasa is always noble, kind, smart, and the best at everything. His only weakness is a slight fear of water, given the whole flood thing. This is not a compelling character. This is a hagiography for a cartoon lion.
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